"Firefly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with her flushing face, And the fuschia with her form of grace, The balsam bright, and the lupin's crest, That weaves a roof for the firefly's nest; The myrtle clusters, and dahlia tall, The jessamine fairest among them all; And the tremulous lips of the lily's bell, Join in the music ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins
... after-glow has faded from the elms, And in the denser darkness of the boughs From time to time the firefly's tiny lamp Sparkles. How often in still summer dusks He paused to note that transient phantom spark Flash on the air—a light that ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... which port they sailed the 20th day of May, 1815, and arrived in the Bay of Gibraltar in twenty-five days, after having previously communicated with Cadiz and Tangier. In the passage, the Spitfire, Torch, Firefly and Ontario, separated different times from the squadron in gales, but all joined again at Gibraltar, with the exception of the Firefly, which sprung her masts, and put back to New York to refit. Having learned at ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... curve of the Belleport shore. They had evolved a code whereby, with much labor it must be admitted, they were able to spell out messages that flickered their way through the night with the beauty of a firefly's revel; but when Jack had taken up work with the coast guard, this old-time substitute for speech had been abandoned, giving place to the briefer method of three nightly flashes. Neither toil nor ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... part of whom had only just returned to a proper sense of discipline, Gordon proceeded to attack Kahpoo, on the Grand Canal south of Soochow, where the rebels held two strongly-built stone forts. The force had beep strengthened by the addition of another steamer, the "Firefly," a sister vessel to the "Hyson." Major Gordon arrived before Kahpoo on July 27; and the garrison, evidently taken by surprise, made scarcely the least resistance. The capture of Kahpoo placed Gordon's force between Soochow and Wokong, the next object of attack. ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... eerie is the lonely wood, But lo! the faeries light their firefly lamps, Elusive foxfire flames from marish damps; Hastes to the morris-dance an elfin brood; A far bell chimes, the cricket cheerly shrills, The droning beetle sounds his hoarse bassoon And hylas trill; eftsoon the rising moon The ambient ...
— The Path of Dreams - Poems • Leigh Gordon Giltner
... ceased save the booming of the frogs, which but emphasises the loneliness of it all. A distant whistle of a locomotive dispels the idea that all the world is wilderness. The firefly lamps glow along the margin of the rushes. The frogs are now in full chorus, the great bulls beating their tom-toms and the small fry filling in the chinks with shriller cries. How remote the scene ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... full as effective as the iron one in the Government dockyards. The duck used oars before we did; and rudders were known by every fish with a tail, countless ages before human pilots handled tillers; the floats on the fishermen's nets were pre-figured in the bladders on the sea weed; the glowworm and firefly held up their light-houses before pharas or beacon-tower guided the wanderer among men; and, as long before Phipps brought over the diving bell to this country as the creation, spiders were making and using airpumps to descend into the deep. Our bones were moved by ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... firefly, larger than the common fly, (which it resembles), with the phosphoric matter in the abdomen, regularly and quickly intermitting its light, as if by respiration; by holding one of them in my hand I could see ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... crops—produced in a solitary observer a quiet that was not untouched by awe. Where nature was suggestive of the long repose of ages, the brief passions of a single generation became as the flicker of a candle or the glow of a firefly ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... the cow-bells melt and mingle In a softened, silver jingle, And the old hen calls the chickens in to bed; When the marshy meadows glimmer With a misty, purple shimmer, And the twilight flush is changing into shade; When the firefly lamps are burning And the dusk to dark is turning,— Then the bullfrogs chant their ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the lamps," said Martin, and put it out. He sat on his bunk and the gleam of his cigarette came and went. It was like a big firefly in the half dark cabin. "To-morrow," he said to himself, with a tingle running through ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... France played recklessly enough that evening. Algiers was en fete, and Cigarette was sparkling over the whole of the town like a humming-bird or a firefly—here and there, and everywhere, in a thousand places at once, as it seemed; staying long with none, making music and mirth with all. Waltzing like a thing possessed, pelting her lovers with a tempest storm of ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... economic importance to us at present but its peculiar habit of producing light makes it a very striking form and one which deserves study. The firefly is a beetle, and begins to make its appearance the latter part of June when the darkest nights may be one solid glow of fire. They live largely in damp places and bottoms at night are specked with their tiny flashes of light. The larval or grub stage is passed on ...
— An Elementary Study of Insects • Leonard Haseman
... Valley ever paid any attention to Freddie Firefly in the daytime. But on warm, and especially on dark summer nights he always appeared at his best. Then he went gaily flitting through the meadows. And sometimes he even danced right in Farmer Green's dooryard, together with a hundred or two of his ...
— The Tale of Freddie Firefly • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Miss Fennimore, faith must still have been much stronger than reason if she could detect the model parsoness in yonder firefly. ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a big circle, his horse walking, Sanderson could see the dying embers of the camp fire glowing like a big firefly in the distance. A line of trees fringing the banks of the river near the camp made a dark background for the tiny, leaping sparks that were shot up out of the fire, and the branches waving in the hazy light from countless coldly glittering ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the forest, and wait for the coming train. The evening fell while we looked; the train was late; and at last when it came I could only know it in the distance by the red spark of its locomotive gleaming like a firefly. ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... the stars—wondrous night of wakefulness and hopeful music, throughout which I lay entranced at the foot of a wooded hill and was never for a moment uncompanioned by nightingale, cicala and firefly—I began to suffer from footsoreness, a bodily affliction against which romance, that certain salve for the maladies of the soul, is no remedy, or very little. Crossing the hills, over burning roads, through thorny brakes ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... glow-worm beside the path. You may get a very faint real illumination from him, lighting perhaps the space of your fingernail as he crawls along. He, too, merely serves to make the darkness visible. The firefly of the tropics is more spectacular. He blazes forth like a meteor, setting all the thicket aglow for a moment. The lights of our fireflies are more like a frosting of the darkness, as when the moon shines in winter and the light glints from ice crystals ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... can see a fire on the hearth. We may feel around for the invisible poker, and when we find it, we may put it in the fire. When it becomes hot enough, it will glow red and become visible. We can make a match head glow by rubbing it on a wet finger. We can even see a firefly, if one comes around. But only those things which are glowing of themselves, like flames, and red-hot pokers, and fireflies, ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... up town. Faring back, then, I come to the dock-head at sunset, and it is my hour. Darkness is rushing down upon the shipping as I watch. In the distance hill piled on hill, blue dome upon blue dome, spangled with myriad firefly lights, backed by the smoky red of winter sunset; and here the shipping, ghostly now in the darkness, exquisitely beautiful in the silence. From out at sea comes a faint "ah-oo-oo-oo"—one more toiler coming in to rest. ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... The firefly came in the twilight dim My red, red rose to woo— Till quenched was the flame of love in him, And the light of his lantern too, As my rose wept with dew-drops three And hid in the leaves ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... a matter of fact; but I have a small pension, and I earn a little by writing titbits of scientific gossip for 'The Firefly.' Herr von Eulenberg helps. He translates interesting paragraphs from the foreign technical papers, and I jot them down, and by that means I pick up sufficient to buy an extra hat or wrap, and go to a theater or a concert. But I have to be careful, ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... carelessly, 'I have always heard that the more horses you have the less work you get out of them. Where do you want to go, Cousin James? Can't you take Firefly in ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre
... there was a faint light like the brightening of a firefly, or like the blowing of a tiny spark from a stick of burning wood. Jonathan uttered ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... Dolphin, Wizard, Escape, and Dragon-all vessels with rising floors and round bilges, and the coefficient of performance was found to be 1430. The fourth set of experiments was made in 1834, upon the vessels Magnet, Dart, Eclipse, Flamer, Firefly, Ferret, and Monarch, when the coefficient of performance was found to be 1580. The fifth set of experiments was made upon the Red Rover, City of Canterbury, Herne, Queen, and Prince of Wales, and in the case of those vessels the coefficient rose to 2550. The velocity ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... of in front in their more natural place; and these eyes, when the insect is touched, shoot forth two strong streams of greenish light, something like that produced by an electric dynamo, while, at the same time, the entire body of the "firefly," or beetle, becomes as incandescent as ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... and the answering thrill of it shot up through my arm, as our hands touched. My heart beat wildly, and the queer thought came that, if we were in the dark, it would send out pulsing lights from my body like the internal lamp of a firefly. ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... bird, a songster gay, Would soothe their souls, with multifarious song, Singing his farewell-hymns to dying Day, As fade his smiles the darkening glades along; And when the frowns of night more thickly throng, The amorous firefly led them at that hour, O'er wooded hills, and marshes deep and long, To their sweet rest, which sank, with grateful power, Along their wearied nerves, in their wild, ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... not yet found a means whereby he can make a heat without increasing the temperature, as nature does it in the glow worm, or in the firefly. A certain electric energy will produce both light and heat, but it is found that much more of this energy is used in the ...
— Electricity for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... am more interested in them than in anything else, not excepting the telephone—which makes Aladdin's lamp look like a firefly in ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... fond eyes Rejoice to look upon thy face When like a dream before them rise Thy matchless form and wondrous grace— How deeply, thirstily they drink Thy dew-bright eyes, whose flashing glance Doth like a luring firefly dance (Along an island's shadowy brink Where rippling waters, restless waters, Sing their low, unchanging song Upon the pebbles all night long). Thou art a flower whose smile hath made A sunbeam pierce the ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... the day, and planning what course they would best take on the morrow, when one of them, looking in the direction of the big gate, saw a light shining apparently on one of its posts. He called the attention of the rest to it. They wondered what it could mean. It could not be a firefly. It was not the light of a lantern in the hands of some one walking; the light was too steady. The Judge said to George: "My son, run down the lane, and see what that light means." George needed no urging, but at once went with swift pace to the gate. There he beheld ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... of themselves. Ah! you may think you know a man for years, and you don't: you don't know more than an inch or two of him. Why, of course, Tom Redworth would be uxorious—the very man! And tell us what has become of the Firefly now? One never sees ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... gents want to lynch me," he said leisurely, "I'll be found at the Sailor's Rest for the next week. Then I'm going as skipper of The Firefly steamer, Port o' London, to Algiers. You can send the sheriff along whenever you choose. But I mean to have my picnic first, and to-morrow I'm going to Inspector Date with my yarn. Then I guess that almighty aristocrat wilt find ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... signal came: a firefly's flash five times together and three times repeated from the darkened ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... out on the path leading to the cove. It was pitch-black; the riding light of the Pied Witch was still there, looking no bigger than a firefly. Then from in front I heard sobbing—a man's sobs; no sound is quite so dreadful. Zachary Pearse got up out of the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... season the Firefly, and many misinterpreted her illy suppressed excitement and the scrutiny of those lambent eyes sending out their flame signals in search of answering lights. Even her secretary did not know that the dark ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... whole acres of "calf heaven" and his little tail wiggling in speechless bliss, he draws his evening meal from nature's commissariat. The snail lolls in his shell and thinks himself a king in the grandest palace in the world. And how brilliant is the horizon of the firefly when he winks his ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... had been darting about the room like a very much enlarged firefly, Jimmy did not know. It seemed to him like hours, for it had woven itself into an incoherent waking dream of his; and for a moment, as the mists of sleep passed away from his brain, he fancied that he ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... Briefly, "The Firefly of France" is in the manner of the romance—in the manner of Dumas, of Walter Scott. It is a story of love, mystery, danger, and daring. It opens in the gorgeous St. Ives Hotel in New York and ends behind the Allied lines in France. The story gets ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... woods and by the river, one of which she remembers long afterwards, when, making her note to the "Skylark," she recalls how she and Shelley, wandering through the lanes whose myrtle hedges were the bowers of the firefly, heard the carolling of the skylark which inspired one of the most beautiful of his poems. Precious memories which helped her through many after years devoid of the sympathy she yearned for. At the Baths they ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... to them "how Jack sighed and squeezed her hand; how Tom went down on his knees; how Dick swore and Sam vowed; and how—she was still Miss Martineau." And thus would she narrate and they listen until the sun went down, and the firefly danced, while the frogs lifted up their voices ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... I—think I should have a better chance of doing something if I were to obtain the command of the Firefly schooner; the lieutenant commanding ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... quickened his pace, for it was growing late, and the shadows creeping from tree to tree. At length he saw a light in the distance. It was a very little light, not much larger than a star, and at first Ned thought it might be a giant firefly. However, he kept on and after a while it turned out to be a little candle in the window of a poor woodcutter's hut. Knocking on the door, it was presently opened by a strange looking man. He had long hairy ears like a donkey ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory
... southern lights, aurora australis. lightning; chain lightning, fork lightning, sheet lightning, summer lightning; ball lightning, kugelblitz [German]; [chemical substances giving off light without burning] phosphorus, yellow phosphorus; scintillator, phosphor; firefly luminescence. ignis fatuus[Lat]; Jack o'lantern, Friar's lantern; will-o'-the-wisp, firedrake[obs3], Fata Morgana[Lat]; Saint Elmo's fire. [luminous insects] glowworm, firefly, June bug, lightning bug. [luminous fish] anglerfish. [Artificial ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... back field near a timber-yard where the Circus itself had been, and where there was yet a sort of monkish tonsure on the grass, indicating the spot where the young lady had gone round upon her pet steed Firefly in her daring flight. Turning into the town again, I came among the shops, and they were emphatically out of the season. The chemist had no boxes of ginger-beer powders, no beautifying sea-side soaps and washes, no attractive scents; nothing ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... indeed throughout the rural portions of the country, there is a curious little insect called a cocuyo, answering in its general characteristics and nature to our firefly, though it is quadruple its size, and far the most brilliant insect of its kind known to naturalists. They float in phosphorescent clouds over the vegetation, emitting a lurid halo, like fairy torch-bearers to elfin crews. One at first sight is apt to compare them to a shower ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... effect follows; but sliding one finger along the wax till you touch the blade, the ball flies to the shot immediately. If you present the point in the dark you will see, sometimes at a foot distance and more, a light gather upon it, like that of a firefly or glow-worm; the less sharp the point, the nearer you must bring it to observe the light; and at whatever distance you see the light you may draw off the electrical fire and destroy the repellency. If a cork ball so suspended be repelled by the tube, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... Indies, being sorely pestered with mosquitoes, kept their light burning in hopes of scaring them off, but finding this did not answer, one suggested they should extinguish the light and thus puzzle their tormentors to find them, which was done. Presently the other, observing the light of a firefly in the room, called to his bedfellow, "Arrah, Mike, sure your plan's no good, for, bedad, here's one of them looking for us ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... after the first three days, and those I saw took no notice of me. About the sixth night a ship went by scarcely half a mile away from me, with all its lights ablaze and its ports open, looking like a big firefly. There was music aboard. I stood up and shouted and screamed at it. The second day I broached one of the AEpyornis eggs, scraped the shell away at the end bit by bit, and tried it, and I was glad to find it was ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... Edwards, they are building their fire already; it glimmers for a moment, and dies again like the light of a firefly. ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... that? A firefly? No, a light. The other man had discovered a hut, and had procured a lighted palm tassel dipped in oil. Poor as it was the light served to show the way until the ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... conceived that the captain of the 'Firefly' might be obliged to take this course to get rid of the negroes already on board, who were of course consuming his provisions, besides being an extremely disagreeable cargo, many of them being diseased and covered with sores, owing ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... steadily at each other for a moment, and then walked on in silence. Little sparks of blue light pulsed and throbbed and floated before their faces, and the moon itself, like a greater firefly, came and went in the interstices of the thin-leaved trees. The Pope, who shuffled in his ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... and moved so evenly with the boat as to enfold her in a calm. Looking up for the stars, one saw only the giant chimneys towering straight into the darkness and sending their smoke as straight and as far again beyond, spangled with two firefly swarms of sparks that fell at last in a ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... everything was green, gaunt, weedy, straggling, under grown or over grown, mildewy, damp, redolent of all sorts of slabby, clammy, creeping, and uncomfortable life. There was nothing bright in the whole scene but a firefly—one solitary firefly—showing against the dark bushes like the last little speck of the departed Glory of the house; and even it went flitting up and down at sudden angles, and leaving a place with a jerk, and describing an irregular circle, and returning to ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... impression may be it cannot be lasting. You can never recapture the thrills of this summer by sitting in Row A, Seat No. 1 at any 1937 reprise. There can never be anything of the sort. The revue, like the firefly, is for a night only. We take it in with the daily papers ... and the next season, already old-fashioned, it goes forth to show Grinnell and Davenport how Mlle. Manhattan ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... lantern, its wavering light hovering about his feet. As he passed in his long brown cloak, the swaying light encircled his white beard and hair with a fluffy halo. He moved slowly, the spark he carried no larger than a firefly. The sacristan had ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... to be seen why they did not invite us," said one old Firefly. "They did not need us because the moon ...
— Sandman's Goodnight Stories • Abbie Phillips Walker
... his comb, The mouse at her dray, The grub in his tomb, While winter away; But the firefly and hedge-shrew and lobworm, I pray, 5 How fare they? Ha, ha, thanks for your counsel, my Zanze! "Feast upon lampreys, quaff Breganze"— The summer of life so easy to spend, And care for tomorrow so soon put ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... of the owl comes over the hill, At twelve o'clock when the night is still, And pale on the pools, where the creek-frogs croon, Glimmering gray is the light o' the moon; And under the willows, where waters lie, The torch of the firefly wanders by; They say that the miller walks here, walks here, All covered with chaff, with his crooked staff, And his horrible hobble and hideous laugh; The old lame miller hung many a year: When the hoot of the owl comes over the hill, He walks ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... not let him go," said the dark man, and an evil smile flickered from one face to another as a firefly flutters from tree to tree in the night—as though the spirit of evil had touched ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... shalt not then, O Karna, utter such speeches. When Partha will, with hundreds of arrows, quell thy pride, then wilt thou behold the difference between thyself and Dhananjaya. Those two best of persons are celebrated among the gods, the Asuras and human beings. Thou that art a firefly, do not, from folly, think disrespectfully of those two resplendent luminaries. Like the Sun and moon, Keshava and Arjuna are celebrated for their resplendence. Thou, however, art like a fire-fly among men. O learned one, O son of a Suta, do not think disrespectfully of Acyuta and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... found some half-dozen of the peculiarly brilliant Jamaican fireflies cruising about. The Guardsman refused at first to believe that any insect could produce so bright a light, and bemoaned the loss of his mental faculties, until I caught a firefly and showed him its two lamps ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... dangerous species, and without any precaution whatever. The wonder is that no more accidents occur than do actually happen. A lamentable instance of this heedlessness occurred to my knowledge in the case of Captain Joel Rice of the schooner Firefly, which sailed from Richmond, Virginia, to Madeira, with a cargo of corn, in the year 1825. The captain had gone many voyages without serious accident, although he was in the habit of paying no attention whatever to his stowage, more than to secure it in the ordinary manner. He ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... was stirring like an ant-hill, with firefly lanterns flitting up and down, and a cheery glow about the open door. The horses of the company, scrubbed unreasonably clean, snorted and stamped in little bridled clumps about the courtyard, and the stable-boys, not scrubbed at all, clanked at the ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... knows?—perhaps of obstinacy. It was her physical exuberance, her downy glow, that made David think her good looking; her serene, brunette richness, with its high lights of coral and scarlet, that made her radiate an aura of warmth, startling in that woodland clearing, as the luster of a firefly in a garden's ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... position of leader by the veteran A.C. Gregory, and on the 14th of August he left Brisbane in the Firefly, having on board a party of volunteer assistants who had been stirred by the widespread sympathy with the missing men to take an active part in the relief expedition. Unfortunately, those under Landsborough ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... surrounded by dense gloom. The Red Bone men opposite must rely on their ears alone hereafter, for they could not see through this darkness. McKay was visible enough to his own party, but not to the enemy. The blond man in the hammock watched the somber figure of his comrade, followed the flight of a big firefly whose light floated near, thought of the two bushmen out in the dark, and looked again at the ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... make the most of his time, for it would take him so long to get back to Nassau street, you know. He had not paddled his scow more than half an hour over the dark but moon-streaked waters of the lake, when he met with the maiden who, all night long, by her firefly lamp, doth paddle her light canoe. This estimable female steered her bark alongside the scow, and to the startled Mr. P. she said: "Have ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... of these contemporaries made a farewell round of calls before going up to New York or Philadelphia or Pittsburgh to go into business, but mostly they just stayed round in this languid paradise of dreamy skies and firefly evenings and noisy nigger street fairs—and especially of gracious, soft-voiced girls, who were brought up on ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... that the light of the firefly (in any family possessing the luminous power) was a safeguard against the attacks of other insects, rapacious and nocturnal in their habits. This was Kirby and Spence's notion, but it might just as well be Pliny's for all the attention it would receive from modern ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... as on the staff of "The Firefly"—such was the name of the newspaper whose editor sometimes paid him—a weekly of great pretense, which took upon itself the mystery of things, as if it were God's spy. It was popular in a way, chiefly in fashionable circles. As regarded the opinions it promulgated, I never heard ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... cold of the chamber of death. My heart sank lower and lower. I began to lose sight of the lean, long-coated figure, and at length could no more hear his swishing stride through the heather. But then I heard instead the slow-flapping wings of the raven; and, at intervals, now a firefly, now a gleaming butterfly ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... watch, always in the one quarter, where the slight noise indicated the presence of the creeping beast, Max saw something that riveted his attention immediately. At first he thought it was a glowworm, or possibly a firefly that had not yet arisen from the lush grass in which it lay concealed ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... can't afford to lose them hosses, Phil," continued old Matt, as he hobbled to a seat. "And if we can, them Injuns shan't hev 'em. I ain't a-goin' to hev old Firefly rid by them critters, and starved, and abused—I ain't a-goin' to do it! Them hosses must be got back. You're gittin' old enough to do sunthin' with Injuns now, Phil, and you must git them hosses ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... and ran; and all was black and empty before him. On and on he ran, never daring to look back; and at last he saw a lantern, so far away that it looked like the gleam of a firefly; and he made for it. It proved to be only the lantern of an itinerant soba-seller, [2] who had set down his stand by the road-side; but any light and any human companionship was good after that experience; and he flung himself down at the feet ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... Worker The City of Philosophers The Demon Pope The Cupbearer The Wisdom of the Indians The Dumb Oracle Duke Virgil The Claw Alexander the Ratcatcher The Rewards of Industry Madam Lucifer The Talismans The Elixir of Life The Poet of Panopolis The Purple Head The Firefly Pan's Wand A Page from the Book of Folly The Bell of Saint Euschemon Bishop Addo and Bishop Gaddo The Philosopher and the Butterflies Truth and Her Companions The Three Palaces New Readings in ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... wolf, my weanlings! their milky mothers spare! Harm not the little lad that hath so many in his care! What, Firefly, is thy sleep so deep? It ill befits a hound, Tending a boyish master's flock, to slumber over-sound. And, wethers, of this tender grass take, nothing coy, your fill: So, when it comes, the after-math shall find you feeding still. ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... lines of illuminated cups, each a crimson, or white, or emerald star. Moreover, at the steps of the terrace below, there was a great bustle of boats; and each boat had its pink paper lantern glowing like a huge firefly in the darkness; and there was a confusion of chaffering and calling with brightly dressed figures descending by the light of torches, and disappearing into the unknown. Then these boats began to ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... calling her, and Hermes was in danger. Up the long avenue she ran toward the house, and, seizing the tiny lamp at the doorway, sped up the slope toward the inclosure where the two animals grazed, the flame making a trail of light like that of a firefly moving swiftly in the darkness. The bray rang out again, but there was no second sound of bleating. Inside the pasture gate she found the donkey anxiously sniffing at something that lay in the grass. Down on her knees went Daphne, for there lay Hermes stretched out on his side, with traces ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood
... nuthin' out there, 'less it's a firefly," he insisted, in a tone of contempt. "You're plum crazy, Murphy; the night's got on yer nerves. What is it ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... common; many are in dungeons, But none like mine, so near their father's palace; But then my heart is sometimes high, and hope 100 Will stream along those moted rays of light Peopled with dusty atoms, which afford Our only day; for, save the gaoler's torch, And a strange firefly, which was quickly caught Last night in yon enormous spider's net, I ne'er saw aught here like a ray. Alas! I know if mind may bear us up, or no, For I have such, and shown it before men; It sinks in ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... I'd like to come. I will—if I can." This last was added with a little sigh. "Did you bring Firefly East with you, this year, Jane?" she inquired with ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... bit of animated flame made a tiny meteor streak against the blackness of the foliage—where a firefly quested for its mate, switching on its marvelous little searchlight. Beyond, on the smooth, broad roadways, four-eyed chariots of power shot silently through the avenues of trees—the autos, like living dragons, half ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... snoring like a tempest up in the watch-tower, and the old Witch was talking in her sleep in seven languages. While he stood looking around him in bewilderment, a Firefly alighted on his arm. Flashing its little lantern in the Prince's face, it cried, "This way! My friend, the Fly, sent me to guide you to a place of safety. Follow me and trust ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... into a path leading to the stone terrace. She could see the lanterns flashing like firefly sparks; she could hear the clear voice of Sir Everard Kingsland commanding. All at once the lights were still, there was a deep exclamation in the baronet's voice, a wild chorus of feminine screams, ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... to make small. In five days it was finished; then, after lighting a fire, I stretched myself out in my dry bed of moss and leaves with a feeling that was almost triumphant. Let the rain now fall in torrents, putting out the firefly's lamp; let the wind and thunder roar their loudest, and the lightnings smite the earth with intolerable light, frightening the poor monkeys in their wet, leafy habitations, little would I heed it all on my dry bed, under my dry, palm-leaf thatch, with glorious fire to keep me company ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... left the house she sat on his knee by the window looking out beyond the firefly twinkle of Oltrarno, to the silence and solid dark of the solemn company of hills beyond. They had not lighted the lamps because of the mosquitoes, and they had talked till her head ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... fists, the poppies like dolls' crepe sunbonnets, the roses large enough for nightingales' nests, lost their colour, and seemed to go out in the dark, like brilliant bubbles that break into nothingness. Here and there yellow light flashed near the ground, far from the walkers, as if a faint firefly were astray in a tangle of flowers. Chinese gardeners, deft and mysterious as brownies, were working at night to change the arrangement of flower-beds so that the dwellers in the hotel should have a ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... sustained, vibrating, vigorous bass voices. It was the antiphony of the youthful promenaders to the drinkers, the diastole of the heart above the stomach, the elisire d'amore in rivalry with beer. Amid this scene I recognized my waiter, illuminated fitfully like some extraordinary firefly as he sprang into sight beneath the successive lanterns, and pouring out beer to right and left. To my indignant appeal he turned, lifting his head, and stood in that attitude, finishing a musical phrase which he was contributing to the chorus. Then he told me that my bath was being made ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... long way off, her lantern bobbing along like a firefly, and walked faster. Impatience brought a cold sweat out upon his forehead and then he needs must call her name before she ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... Saw the firefly, Wah-wah-taysee, Flitting through the dusk of evening, With the twinkle of its candle Lighting up the brakes and bushes; And he sang the song of children, Sang the ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... dreadful lightnings held her with ghastly fascination. Suddenly all the guns ceased. Faintly in the distance she heard a tumult of human voices in the high notes of a savage cheer; the rattling din of rifles; the purring of automatics; and then, except for the firefly flashes of scattered shots around Engadir, silence and darkness. But she knew that chaos would soon be loosed again—chaos and murder, which were the product of her own chicanery. The Grays would find themselves in the trap of Partow's and ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... lace-work of mist lay over the salt meadows; the fairy trilling of the little owl had ceased. Marsh-fowl were sleepily astir; the last firefly floated low into the shrouded bushes and its lamp glimmered ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... There was no great interest in straining one's eyes after them, so I found out the Phillipses, and having told Dawson, who was escorting Clara, that Hanmer was looking for him to make out the list of "the eleven," I was very sorry indeed when the sound of a gun announced that the Hon. H. Chouser's Firefly had won the cup, and that the other two yachts might be expected in the course of half-an-hour. Nobody waited for them, of course. The herring boats, after a considerable deal of what I concluded from the emphasis to be swearing in Welch, in which, however, Captain Phillips, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... busily out of the bayou past misty reed-girt islands into the indolent waters of the great lake, dragging after her the fleet of forty odd canoes. A cigar under the awning of the tiny poop suggested a great firefly in the blue shadows, where lounged zu Pfeiffer with his favourite brandy and ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... forward, when in a moment there burst, apparently from the base of the rock, about eight feet from the ground and a hundred yards from me, a strange, lurid glare, flickering and oscillating, gradually dying away and then reappearing again. No, no; I've seen many a glow-worm and firefly—nothing of that sort. There it was, burning away, and I suppose I gazed at it, trembling in every limb, for fully ten minutes. Then I took a step forward, when instantly it vanished, vanished like a candle blown ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... shadows beyond the river deepened. A firefly or so flickered brightly above the fields of clover. In the soft clear twilight, fragrant with the smell of clover and water lily and rimmed now by the rising moon, Philip found his resolution of the afternoon difficult to utter. The pool at his feet ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... But 't was somehow so: he did discover Beauty in her, of the holding kind. Some men love the light, an' some the shade. Round that little Indian girl there played Soft an' shadowy tremblings, like the dark Under trees; yet now an' then a spark, Quick 's a firefly, flashing from her eyes, Made you think of summer-midnight skies. She was faithful, too, like midnight stars. As for Blackmouth, if you'd seen the scars Made by wounds he suffered for her sake, You'd have called ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... eyes that cannot rest; And there's a little flame that dances (A firefly in a grassy nest) In the green circle ...
— Silhouettes • Arthur Symons |
