"Rocket" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lights, and they danced in a shadow-land; somebody began to sing, and they all sang in chorus; then somebody began to fling about paper bags full of tiny white wafers, and the bags burst in the air like shells, and their contents fell like stars from a falling rocket, and everybody was covered as with flakes ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... vicious fury blew off in a cloud of dazzling sparks. The dry grass flamed in a circle about us; never before had we fought fire with wildly-waving ulsters, but they prove excellent weapons in engagements of this character, I assure you. Profiting by fatiguing experience, we poised the second rocket so deftly that it could not fail to rise. On it we hung our hopes, light enough burdens if they were all as faint as mine. With the spurt of a match we touched it, a stream of flaky gold rushed forth and then, as if waiting ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... intended but which failed owing to their not getting over quick enough. They had 150 men on the other side. These seven got over in a row boat, passed my sentry on the beach running, a few minutes after the firing began from the fortress the Alligator was at quarters with her ports lit up, and a rocket was thrown from the ship. All this showed that there was no hope of a surprise, the ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... north," said Dave. "If you run into anything and need help, send up rocket signals and we'll steam back ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock
... projection with a dark ground, and breaking a little white over it, as we see done with judgment and truth by Ruysdael. But to paint the actual play of hue on the reflective surface, or to give the forms and fury of water when it begins to show itself; to give the flashing and rocket-like velocity of a noble cataract, or the precision and grace of the sea wave, so exquisitely modelled, though so mockingly transient, so mountainous in its form, yet so cloudlike in its motion, with its variety and delicacy of ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... Here Father Kelly paused, his persuasive argument rolling back on himself; he didn't know what to do with the watch. It was too perilous to run the risk of new discords over it. The priest cast a distress rocket in a look at the Vicar-General; but the Vicar-General perfidiously smiled and ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... out of a hundred reached it in a few cases and when they arrived they sent up rocket signals to say that they were there! there! there! Two or three battalions literally disappeared into the blue. I thought that the Germans might have taken a considerable number of prisoners, but not so. Those isolated lots who went on to their objectives regardless of every other ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... legs on loose gravel, with great violence, was heard to proceed from the same direction as the former sounds; and before they had subsided, a large cucumber was seen to shoot up in the air with the velocity of a sky-rocket, whence it descended, tumbling over and over, until it ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... say, can you see by the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?— Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the clouds of the fight O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming! And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there; O! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free, and ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... Ground Forces, Navy, Air Forces; Airborne troops, Strategic Rocket Forces, and Military Space Forces are classified as independent combat arms, not subordinate to any of the three ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... already starting his run across the field. When he had some speed he kicked in the rocket booster and fought the little flyer skyward. When he had caught the air he banked southward and fed the motors all he had. He didn't look around for the others; he was ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... least a mile or more, and come up on the other side of the koodoo. I called Harry to my side, and explained to him what I thought would be our best course, when suddenly, without any delay, the koodoo saved us further trouble by suddenly starting off down the hill like a leaping rocket. I do not know what had frightened it, certainly we had not. Perhaps a hyaena or a leopard—a tiger as we call it there—had suddenly appeared; at any rate, off it went, running slightly towards us, and I never saw a buck go faster. ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard
... at the elevation of about 45 degrees above the horizon, a light proceeding from the south, of the breadth of three inches, which went off to the north, always spreading itself as it moved, and made itself heard by a whizzing light like that of the largest sky-rocket. I judged by the eye that this light could not be above our atmosphere, and the whizzing noise which I heard confirmed me in that notion. {38} When it came in like manner to be about 45 degrees to the north above the horizon, it stopped short, and ceased enlargeing itself: in that place it appeared ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... "it was so obvious I'm amazed that it didn't occur to me first thing." He settled himself down comfortably in the control cabin of the Interplanetary Rocket and grinned at the outline of Altair IV looming larger in the ...
— Letter of the Law • Alan Edward Nourse
... the cargo rocket Vulcan, newest and swiftest of Negu Mah's freighter fleet. Fully fueled and provisioned, storage space jammed with refrigerated foods that in space the cold of the encompassing void would keep perfectly for generations were it necessary, ...
— The Indulgence of Negu Mah • Robert Andrew Arthur
... next a sailor, bluff, sans peur. Trevithick, Newcomen, and Watt Are names will never be forgot; For their crude engines were the source Of man's control of Steam's wild force. Steam By eighteen-thirty man has tamed 1830 Steam to his use; and widely famed Was puffing 'Rocket' with the power Of doing thirty miles an hour. Steam prompts man to make machines And Factories rise with all that means; Divided more and more is labour Each man leans more on his neighbour. For twenty million pounds the nation Buys our slaves' emancipation. Reform Act In eighteen-three-two, ...
— A Humorous History of England • C. Harrison
... in the rocket. They're new." He fumbled in his coat pocket for his pipe and tobacco. "I never thought I'd run another nuclear-bomb test, as long ...
— The Answer • Henry Beam Piper
... a large well with a good body of water in it, evidently permanently supplied by the drainage of the mass of bare rocks in its vicinity. I was greatly pleased at Tommy's discovery, and after giving Reechy a thorough good drink, off he went like a rocket after the party. I wandered about, but found no other water-place; and then, thinking of the days that were long enough ago, I sat in the shade of an umbrageous acacia bush. Soon I heard the voices of the angels, native black and fallen angels, and their smokes came gradually nearer. I thought ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... necessity of knocking some over, when the rest soon jumped off. However, F—- and myself declared we would go right into the quadrangle of the Castle, so we went into the middle of the road and formed a line. Soon a rocket (the signal that the Queen was at Slough) was let off, and then some Life Guards came galloping along, and one of them ran almost over me, and actually trod on F—-'s toe, which put him into dreadful pain for ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... trial of a smoke rocket for testing drains, described by Mr. Cosmo Jones in the Journal of the Society of Arts, is deserving of interest. The one fixed upon is 10 in. long, 21/2 in. in diameter, and with the composition "charged rather hard," so as to burn ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various
... road were, as far as possible, procured in Germany; but the idea of building the engines and cars there had to be given up, and, six weeks before the opening of the road, Geo. Stephenson, of London, whose engine, Rocket, had won the first prize in the competitive trials at Rainhill in 1829, delivered an engine of ten horse power, which is still known in Nuernberg as ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... apartment beneath us: our landlord's family returning from a pilgrimage to a far-distant temple of the Goddess of Grace. (Although Madame Prune is a Shintoist, she reveres this deity, who, scandal says, watched over her youth.) A moment after, Mdlle. Oyouki bursts into our room like a rocket, bringing, on a charming little tray, sweetmeats which have been blessed and bought at the gates of the temple yonder, on purpose for us, and which we must positively eat at once, before the virtue is gone out of ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... millions of dollars corded up in bank—the men who have most to LOSE by any bobble in the credit of our currency. And every time the capitalist tries to hoist himself with his own petard, the administration smothers the blaze with a block of interest- bearing bonds. If he wants to make a sky-rocket of himself, let him kerosene his coat-tails and apply the match. If the gold reserve were really necessary to the credit of our currency, capitalists would no more make war upon it than they would bestride a buzz-saw making a million revolutions a minute. Instead of systematically draining ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... squad ship. Police ships, naturally, had their special drive, which could lift them off without rocket aid and gave them plenty of speed, but filled up the hull with so much machinery that it was only practical for such ships. Commercial craft were satisfied with low-power drives, which meant that spaceport facilities lifted them to space and pulled them down again. They carried rockets for ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... growth and decay applies itself to all organized things in this lower world? Death itself, in times of scourge, has periods when it advances, slackens, sinks back, and slumbers. Our globe is perhaps only a rocket a little more continuing than the rest. History, recording the causes of the rise and fall of all things here below, could enlighten man as to the moment when he might arrest the play of all his faculties; but neither the conquerors, nor the actors, nor the women, nor the writers in the great ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... and their cabal are as inconsistent on the other hand. They make epigrams, sing vaudevilles,[2] against the mistress, hand about libels against the Chancellor [Maupeou], and have no more effect than a sky-rocket; but in three months will die to go to Court, and to be invited to sup with Madame du Barri. The only real struggle is between the Chancellor [Maupeou] and the Duc d'Aiguillon. The first is false, bold, determined, and not subject to little qualms. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... ottoman near the door, he saw Kitty, our old tortoise-shell puss, lying on it, and (moved perhaps by the occurrence of the word cat in the last sentence of the lesson) he gave her such a whack with the flat side of Chick-seed that she bounced up into the air like a sky-rocket, Jem crying out as he did so, "I had my bat, and I hit him as he lay ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, O'er the rampart we watched, were so gallantly streaming, And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there, Oh! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... him away, then drew up the men in line and when, as preconcerted, I sent up a rocket and the men gave three cheers, all the blacks ran off, with the exception of one old man who lingered behind a tree. They hailed us afterwards from the wood at a little distance where they made fires, saying they were ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... their night's rest, and occasionally firing off their rifles to drive away the lions, which were heard prowling about, all of a sudden Omrah cried out, and pointed to the northward; our travellers turned and perceived a rocket ascending the firmament, and at last breaking out into a group of ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... fact, he brought tidings of a very deplorable event. While an artillery company had been preparing, in the arsenal of the town, numerous fireworks to celebrate his Majesty's fete, one of them, in preparing a rocket, accidentally set the fuse on fire, and becoming frightened threw it away from him. It fell on the powder which the shop contained, and eighteen cannoneers were killed by the explosion, ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... forgotten the possibility of Frederick being tried and executed—utterly forgotten that at her wish, if by Margaret's deed, he was summoned into this danger. Her mother was one of those who throw out terrible possibilities, miserable probabilities, unfortunate chances of all kinds, as a rocket throws out sparks; but if the sparks light on some combustible matter, they smoulder first, and burst out into a frightful flame at last. Margaret was glad when, her filial duties gently and carefully performed, she could go down into the ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... head as soon as he discovered my intention; but I gave him the rein, and he went off like a rocket. I turned towards Parkville, and after going half a mile, I reined up to ascertain whether I was pursued or not. I could hear nothing; so I turned into a by-road, leading to a grove. I had taken this step only to procure a ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... the last pinwheel had whizzed itself out in streams and stars of colored fire, until the last sky-rocket had gone hissing upward toward the clouds, and until the last glow of red fire had died away in ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's • Laura Lee Hope
... in the woods we could see that we were marching along a high ridge, and on either hand vaporous depths and distances expanded, the darkness broken sometimes by a far light or the momentary glow of a magnesium rocket sent up from the German lines. There is something fascinating if one is stationed on sentry-duty immediately after arrival, in watching the dawn slowly illumine one of these new landscapes, from a position taken ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... shoal of vessels, with full sails and twinkling lights, like a moving city on the deep, continued to tug and plunge along over the "banks" of the German ocean, to the satisfaction of the fishermen, and the surprise no doubt of the fish. About midnight the admiral again signalled, by rocket and flares, "Haul up," and immediately, with capstan, bar, and steam, the obedient crews began to coil in ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... for it, and over the swarming streets, and under the fruitful earth, until it shot across the river: bursting over the quiet surface like a bomb-shell, and gone again as if it had exploded in the rush of smoke and steam and glare. A little more, and again it roared across the river, a great rocket: spurning the watery turnings and doublings with ineffable contempt, and going straight to its end, as Father Time goes to his. To whom it is no matter what living waters run high or low, reflect the heavenly lights and darknesses, produce their little growth of weeds and flowers, turn here, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... miles, and she had an eye to the country and a word to say about all she saw. When we turned to come back, I felt Brimstone make his usual spurt forward, but I was not prepared for Treacle's sudden break away. He was off like a rocket. That small child's cap was flung across my eyes in a sudden gust. I had retrieved it in a second, but it was time lost, and, by Jove! she was out of sight round a bend. I followed after, might and main, but the racket of Brimstone's hoofs only sent Treacle flying faster. I caught sight of the small ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... had been directed by the president to act against Anatolikon and Missolonghi, which, it was hoped, would easily be compelled to surrender. After reconnoitring the approaches to Anatolikon, which General Church had resolved to attack first, Captain Hastings, with his usual activity, prepared rocket-frames, and brought all his boats into the lagoons. On the 15th, an attempt was made to set fire to the town by the discharge of a number of six and twelve-pound rockets; but, though many entered the place, no conflagration ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... and just before the dawn, a green rocket shot up from the far side of the valley of Bersund, at the head of the gorge, to show that the Goorkhas were in position. A red light from the infantry at left and right answered it, and the cavalry burnt a white flare. Afghans in winter ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... the colonel cheerfully; "we must make new ones," and he immediately dispatched two rocket parties—one to the right, the other to the left—in order to ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... the gleam of water on that rock. A snake! Now a sounding rush through the wood, and a passing shadow. An eagle! He brushes so close to the child, that he strikes at the bird with a stick, and then watches him as he shoots up like a rocket and, measuring the fields of air in ever-widening circles, hangs like a motionless speck upon the sky; though, measure his wings across, and you will find he is nearer fifteen feet ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... fort. They had lately committed numerous acts of outrage, and Colonel Kearny threatened that if they killed any more white men he would turn loose his dragoons upon them, and annihilate their whole nation. In the evening, to add effect to his speech, he ordered a howitzer to be fired and a rocket to be thrown up. Many of the Arapahoes fell prostrate on the ground, while others ran screaming with amazement and terror. On the following day they withdrew to their mountains, confounded with awe at the appearance of the dragoons, at their big gun which went ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... sighed poor Matty; "but Folly rushed straight into your home, blazing away like a rocket, then rushed out again, but not before she had set your ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... flowers; mint; spearmint; mouse-ear; mugwort; muscovy; nettle, red; oak of Jerusalem; organ; origanum [wild marjoram]; oseille; parietary; peas (chick); pellitory-of-the-wall; penny-royal; philipendula; pimpernel; pourpier; primrose, flowers; purslane; ribwort; rocket; rosemary, tops, flowers, & sprigs; rose; rue; sage, (red & wild), leaves & flowers; saxifrage; sanicle; scabious; scurvy grass; self-heal; shallots; sibboulets; skirrets; smallage; sorrel (wood); spike [spignel?]; spleenwort; spinach; St. John's wort; strawberry leaves; ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... and choked with falling ashes, pumice stones and cinders; countless columns of smoke rose up and blended together in a tumbled canopy that hid the heavens and glowed with a ruddy flush reflected from the fires below; here and there jets of lava sprung hundreds of feet into the air and burst into rocket-sprays that returned to earth in a crimson rain; and all the while the laboring mountain shook with Nature's great palsy and voiced its distress in moanings and the muffled booming of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... bullet. There is no Victorian writer before him to whom he even suggests a comparison, technically considered, except perhaps De Quincey; who also employed the long rich rolling sentence that, like a rocket, bursts into stars at the end. But De Quincey's sentences, as I have said, have always a dreamy and insecure sense about them, like the turret on toppling turret of some mad sultan's pagoda. Ruskin's sentence branches into brackets and relative clauses as a straight strong tree branches into ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... pipe was connected to the cylinder and directed over the parapet into No Man's Land, with the nozzle weighed down by a sandbag. The pioneers stood by the batteries of twenty cylinders each and let off the gas a fixed few minutes after a rocket signal, at which the infantry retired to leave the front line free for the pioneers, who not only ran the risk of gassing from defective appliances but were subjected to almost immediate violent bombardment from the opposing artillery. When surprise was complete artillery retaliation was ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden
... chap! Very true; but I'm thinking That you're just a little too "dear" for me—yet! Ah, yes! it's no use to stand smiling and winking; I like the bright ways of you, youngster,—you bet! You're white as the moon, and as spry as a rocket; No doubt all you say in self-praise is quite true, But you see, boy, I must keep an eye to my pocket! The Renters and Raters so put on the screw, That a "middle-class income" won't stand much more squeezing, And Forty or Fifty Pounds more ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 29, 1891 • Various
... his face to the sea, the boys looked off in that direction, and they were quick enough to see a rocket exploding in the air, scattering down a shower of tinted stars. This bright constellation faded away into the night, when suddenly up, up into the darkness, shot two vivid lines of fire, parting as they swept higher ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... said Hannah begun to wait, 'n' Hannah waited until if Hannah had waited any longer she 'd have gone off like a rocket, she was that mad again. Gran'ma Mullins said Hannah always got so red she got purple if she only was rememberin' it after. 'N' in the end she could n't stand it no longer 'n' she set off for the pond herself. She always said as she just ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... dainty animal. There is aconite, the deadly poison with which Dr. Lamson removed his troublesome relatives. There is baneberry, whose very name sufficiently describes its dangerous nature. There are horse-radish, and stinging rocket, and biting wall-pepper, and still smarter water-pepper, and worm-wood, and nightshade, and spurge, and hemlock, and half a dozen other equally unpleasant weeds. All of these have acquired their pungent and poisonous ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... stupid measures, thinks Tempelhof, and almost worse than none, especially this of sputtering with musketry;—and hoped always there would be no Attack, or none to speak of. Till, in fine, between 2 and 3 in the morning, his patrols gallop in, 'Austrians on march!' and Zastrow, throwing out a rocket or two, descries in momentary illumination that the Fact ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... tumult with some ringing assurance, but long before the leader of a financial movement has got word to his following, wide-spread over the country, it has taken alarm, the rout has begun, and the field is strewn with corpses. A great financial excitement, like a rocket, should soar triumphantly into the air, leaving behind it a comet-like trail of glory, climaxing in a shower of gold; diverted from its course, it runs a mad, brief, tragic career along the earth, spreading ruin ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... Horse. The accounts of the strength, speed, endurance, and agility of this little animal are almost incredible, [Footnote: In 1869 a Russian detachment of five hundred men, mounted on Kirghiz horses, with one gun and two rocket-stands, traversed in one month one thousand miles in the Orenburg Steppe, and only lost three horses; half of this march was in deep sand. In October, M. Nogak (a Russian officer) left his detachment en route, and rode one horse into Irgiz, 166-2/3 miles in 34 hours.] ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... consent to be done for, and would allow her to dominate all their thoughts and deeds. But the moment they revolted, or showed the weakest inclination to do things their own way, she blazed up and was off like a rocket. Her taste for governing was little short of a mania, and I could see, in my mind's eye, just how she had essayed to rule Daisy, and how in her failure she had written to me, ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... stipulations in her contract, to break off at the end of a hundred nights, and even bought out seven of that hundred—supposing that she could go on without your aid as well as with it. And you cannot but remember, how, like a rocket-stick she dropped, when your business connection with her ended, and how she 'fizzed out' the remainder of her concert nights in this part of the world, and soon afterwards retired to her domestic ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... by for an hour with no result, then sought his bunk once more, cursing all men. Confound the Infantry getting the jumps over a rocket or two! Confound them two times! Then a spark of inspiration glowed within him, glowed and flamed brightly. If his exalted poilus got the wind up over a handful of rockets, how much more also would ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... wanted to see not only Goldilocks but also the Three Bears and they took a remarkable journey through the air to do so. Tommy even rode on a Rocket and met the monstrous Blue Frog. When they arrived at Goldilocks' house they found that the Three Bears had been there before them and mussed everything up, much to Goldilocks' despair. "We must drive those ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... the bloody Iran-Iraq war was quick to follow after the commencement of daily Iraqi long-range rocket bombardments of Tehran that amounted to a reign of terror. Given that both sides were exhausted at that point, a show of force could have been convincing. Strong U.S. action in response to Iran's mining of neutral waters may also have had a sobering effect ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... two hundred armed men in the palace. We've got about forty minutes to get over there before the rocket ...
— Gambler's World • John Keith Laumer
... a misfit at home on Zan because he was not contented with the humdrum and monotonous life of a member of a space-pirate community. Piracy was a matter of dangerous take-offs in cranky rocket-ships, to be followed by weeks or months of tedious and uncomfortable boredom in highly unhealthy re-breathed air. No voyage ever contained more than ten seconds of satisfactory action—and all space-fighting took place just out of the atmosphere ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... near us; Asiatic shells I can hear exploding over at V. Beach; star shells are going up from our lines, and the French, but theirs are superior to ours. Ours are merely rockets, theirs have parachutes which open when the rocket reaches its highest point, and they remain practically ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... A rocket! They were looking for us then! The pinnace must have been picked up! A cheer—what a cheer!—came brokenly from our lips; and we lashed furiously at the oars, steering to where a glare in the mist had come with the ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... put in higher claims, Than the owners of St. James? You are not so great a grievance, As the hirelings of St. Stephen's. You are of a lower class Than my friend Sir Robert Brass. None of these have mercy found: I have laugh'd, and lash'd them round. Have you seen a rocket fly? You would swear it pierced the sky: It but reach'd the middle air, Bursting into pieces there; Thousand sparkles falling down Light on many a coxcomb's crown. See what mirth the sport creates! Singes hair, but breaks no pates. Thus, should ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... Shell-Hole Nights' Entertainment. The phantom city over there is London, New York, Paris, according to his fancy. He's going out to dinner with his girl. All those flares are arc-lamps along boulevards; that last white rocket that went flaming across the sky, was the faery taxi which is to speed him on his happy errand. It isn't so, one ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... this the hideous Yukon flats were reached, a vast desert of swamp and sand dunes, through which the great river diffuses itself, like a sky-rocket, into hundreds of lesser streams, lakes, and aqueous blind alleys, which severely taxed the skill and patience of our skipper. Here the outlook was even more depressing than on the dreary Lena. Before reaching ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... "A rocket mortar of light weight," explained Kennedy, then dropped into French as he explained to Armand the manipulation ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... my aching head on my pillow I murmured: "Had I been an American citizen, much as I believe in sound currency and an honest dollar, one more rocket, a few more fog-horns, and I should have cast my vote for ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... as it was called, didn't advertise what sort of thing it was developing—but everybody knew that Lyman Dane was an expert on reactive propulsion of rocket motors. He could tell you—and frequently would without being asked—exactly what mass ratio, nozzle diameter and propulsive velocity would be needed for the first trip to the Moon. He knew how many hours a round trip would take, both ...
— This is Klon Calling • Walt Sheldon
... night in the little cemetery there by the dugout. We stood or sat about for a while! no one had much to say. The grey mist thickened and enveloped us. And we became as very shadows ourselves. Somewhere in the mist up the hill, near where the rocket's red glare flushed on the dim horizon, a man began whistling the intermezzo from "Thais." It fitted the unreality of the scene, and soon two of us were whistling together. He heard me and paused. Then we walked toward one another whistling and met. It was the Gilded Youth ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... rocket from a headland beyond the village leapt up and burst hot gold against the glare, and the sound of the third and fourth ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... Falaba, the commander of the German submarine had the intention of allowing passengers and crew ample opportunity to save themselves. It was not until the Captain disregarded the order to lay to and took to flight, sending up rocket signals for help, that the German commander ordered the crew and passengers by signals and megaphone to leave the ship within ten minutes. As a matter of fact, he allowed them twenty-three minutes, and ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... favourite tree), was another similar nest, containing four eggs, slightly glossy, with a salmon-pink tinge throughout, and numerous well-marked brownish-red specks and spots, most numerous towards the large end, looking vastly like Brobdingnagian specimens of the Rocket-bird's eggs. The variation in this bird's eggs is remarkable; out of more than one hundred eggs nearly one third have been pure white, and between the dead glossless purely white egg and a somewhat glossy, warm pinky grounded ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... nations, kings, politicians, or wars, but of events and things witnessed or called into existence in every-day life. In The Engineer for September 17, 1880, we did our best to place a true statement of the facts concerning the Rocket before our readers. In many respects this was the most remarkable steam engine ever built, and about it there ought to be no difficulty, one would imagine, in arriving at the truth. It was for a considerable period the cynosure of all eyes. Engineers all over the world were interested in its performance. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... Settle and his 'fireworks'. Otway, in The Poet's Complaint (4to, 1680), speaks of Rebellion cockering the silly rabble with 'November squibs and burning pasteboard Popes', canto xi. Duke, in the Epilogue to the same author's The Atheist (1683), says that the poet never 'made one rocket on Queen Bess's night'. In Scott's Dryden, Vol. VI (1808) is given a cut representing the tom-fool procession of 1679, in which an effigy of the murdered Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey had a chief place. There were 'ingenious fireworks' and a bonfire. A scurrilous broadside of the day, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... colonel said. He was beyond the range of the young man's vision screen. "I've got him. He's still within range, but accelerating fast. We can intercept if we get up a rocket ...
— Double Take • Richard Wilson
... stage ran drew by the rim of the farm; and later David saw the rigid three-seated surrey, the leather mail bags strapped in the rear, trotted by under the swinging whip of his brother. He heard the faint sharp bark of Rocket, Allen's ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... fortunes and strike an effective blow without the aid of his second-in-command, Sir Evelyn Wood, whom he had sent to hurry up reinforcements. The scaling of the mountain at night was a fine performance. The neglect to take the rocket apparatus or mountain guns, or to fortify the position in any way, or even to acquaint the members of the force with the nature of the position which they had taken up in the dark, and the failure to use the bayonets, were the principal causes of disaster. The Boers attacked ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... a sky-rocket. Said he had a right to know, under the circumstances. I admitted it, but said I could tell him nothing—yet. He went away frantic, and I ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... vivid star expands down yonder in the uncertain direction that we are taking—a rocket. Widely it lights a part of the sky with its milky nimbus, blots out the stars, and ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... I do, darling. It seems but yesterday; and I have a flower now which you gathered for me there. It grew at a very giddy height upon the wall, full of cracks and places where the evening-star came through; but up you went, like a rocket or a race-horse; and what a fright I was in, until you came down safe! I think that must have made up my mind to ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... famous. Well, to fall in with your wishes, we will come ashore this evening, and if the Captain Delgado chances to sight the Queen's ship Crocodile before he sails, perhaps he will be so good as to signal to us with a rocket." ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... a foxy fellow!" exclaimed even Norem, the Actor, when he ran across him on the street. "Here you go along quietly and say nothing, and all of a sudden you set off a rocket right under our ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... drunk, and showed his Loyalty to the Tune of a hundred Rockets. The Mob drank the King's Health, on their Marrow-bones, in Mother Day's Double. They whip'd us half a dozen Hogsheads. Poor Tom Tyler had like to have been demolished with the End of a Sky-Rocket, that fell upon the Bridge of his Nose as he was drinking the King's Health, and spoiled his Tip. The Mob were very loyal 'till about Midnight, when they grew a little mutinous for more Liquor. They had like to have dumfounded the Justice; but his Clerk came in to his Assistance, and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... made. Secret anti-American meetings were held at places called clubs, where it was agreed to attack simultaneously the Americans inside and outside the capital. General Pio del Pilar slept in the city every night, ready to give the rocket-signal for revolt. Natives between 18 and 40 years of age were being recruited for military service, according to a Malolos Government decree dated September 21, 1898. In every smithy and factory bowie-knives were being forged with all speed, and 10,000 ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... to carve the darkness like a knife wielded swiftly by some invisible giant hand. At times, catching the face of some lofty wooded cliff, it soared up like a rocket and left a trailing line which faded wholly as if the night had been triumphant there and had won back a portion of its ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... elephantine massiveness and repose. And a Gothic column can be slender, because its strength is energy; and is expressed in its line, which shoots upwards like the life of a tree, like the jet of a fountain or even like the rush of a rocket. But a slender thing beneath, obviously oppressed by a bloated thing above, suggests weakness by one of those miraculous mistakes that are as precisely wrong as masterpieces are precisely right. And to all this is added the ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... of garnered fruit, As full of sunshine to our aged eyes As when it nursed the blossoms of our spring. Such is true Love, which steals into the heart With feet as silent as the lightsome dawn That kisses smooth the rough brows of the dark, And hath its will through blissful gentleness, Not like a rocket, which, with passionate glare, Whirs suddenly up, then bursts, and leaves the night Painfully quivering on the dazed eyes; A love that gives and takes, that seeth faults, Not with flaw-seeking eyes like needle points, But loving-kindly ever looks them down With the o'ercoming faith that still ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... complete his speech, a sound, as of an avalanche and earthquake, all in one, was heard—a shock, as of contending thunderbolts, shook the train, and the last thing I saw was the head and body of Mr Jeeks propelled, with the force and velocity of a rocket, against the expansive countenance of Mr Shookers. My own forehead was dashed against the opposite side, and I was insensible. There had been a collision between two trains. I recollect ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... and tricing up the main-tack, we now shot rocket after rocket with a sharp report high into the darkness, and, the roar of our guns booming above the loud storm, must have reached the shore. For upwards of an hour we lay to, dreading to put the cutter about, lest, in doing so, she should strike; for the reef of rocks I have mentioned ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... turrets and towers! Flames, on the windy headland flare! Utter your jubilee, steeple and spire! Clash, ye bells, in the merry March air! Flash, ye cities, in rivers of fire! Rush to the roof, sudden rocket, and higher Melt into stars for the land's desire! Roll and rejoice, jubilant voice, Roll as a ground-swell dash'd on the strand, Roar as the sea when he welcomes the land, And welcome her, welcome the land's desire, The sea-kings' daughter as happy as fair, Blissful bride of a blissful heir, ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... saying anent that—zeal catches fire at a slight spark as fast as a brunstane match," observed the secretary. "I hae kend a minister wad be fair gude-day and fair gude-e'en wi' ilka man in the parochine, and hing just as quiet as a rocket on a stick, till ye mentioned the word abjuration-oath, or patronage, or siclike, and then, whiz, he was off, and up in the air an hundred miles beyond common manners, common sense, and ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... were rockets and bombs and pin-wheels; and the boys had tiny red and blue lights which they held until their fingers were burned, just as boys do in America; and there was a general hush of wonder as a particularly brilliant rocket swished into the dark sky; and when it burst into a rain of serpents, the crowd breathed out its delight in a long-drawn "Ah-h-h-h!" just as the crowd does everywhere. We might easily have imagined ourselves at a Fourth of July celebration in Vermont, ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... columns in sight than they were driven back by a brisk fire of shot and shell. Then followed a furious artillery duel. In vain the British pounded away with field pieces, rocket guns, and mortars; they were forced back by the cannon of ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... and the Rocket Climbers, two well-known varieties of the Firewort family, make a beautiful show this month; the latter especially, which rapidly attains a great height. The Firewort family are all night bloomers, and related to the Patriotica Americana. Great care must be taken in their raising ...
— Cupid's Almanac and Guide to Hearticulture for This Year and Next • John Cecil Clay
... wide open, went out like a rocket, and bowled a man half over in his blind haste to ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... black ditch, loathing the storm; A rocket fizzed and burned with blanching flare, And lit the face of what had been a form Floundering in mirk. He stood before me there; I say that he was Christ; stiff in the glare, And leaning forward from his burdening task, Both arms supporting it; ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... were put out, no rocket rose in the air, no cannon boomed from the portholes; but deep below there was a surging and a murmuring. The mermaid sat still, cradled by the waves, so that she could look in at the cabin window. But now the ship began to make ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... till I reached the summit of that long, long hill that leads straight down to my home. Excitement lent a new impulse to my energy, and my heart thumped hard as I recognized familiar cottages still standing. This raised my hopes and sent me rocket-like down that steep incline. ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... A rocket streamed upwards into the sky, and another and another, then one caught the rigging, and, deflected, whizzed down again within a few feet of my head, and dropped on deck, spluttering in a silly, futile way. I threw the ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... put out in great numbers, and myriad overloaded crafts full of poorer sightseers enter the lagoon by all the small canals. Having seen Venetian pyrotechny, one realizes that all fireworks should be ignited over water. It is the only way. A rocket can climb as fiercely and dazzlingly into any sky, no doubt, but over land the falling stars and sparks have but one existence; over water, like the swan "on St. Mary's lake," they have two. The displays last for nearly an hour, and consist almost ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... and I fixed the missile so that it would go just above the heads of the crowd of yelling blacks. Then I touched a match to the fuse, and away sailed the rocket ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... broken wing," Jack remarked, quietly; "and flutter along the ground in a way that couldn't help but make one try to catch her; but if you chased after her, it would be to see the old bird take wing pretty soon, and go off like a rocket." ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... Syringa sidling, Stormalong fighting to break his bridling, Thunderbolt dancing with raw nerves quick, Trying a savage at Bitter Dick. The Ranger (winner three years before), Now old, but ready for one try more; Hadrian; Thankful; the stable-cronies, Peterkinooks and Dear Adonis; The flashing Rocket, with taking action; Exception, backed by the Tencombe faction; Old Sir Francis and young King Tony, Culverin striding from ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... below, only waiting for the signal to move up to destroy the rest of the bridge and carry succour to the city; but the incompetent and cowardly Jacobzoon rowed hastily away after the explosion, and the rocket that should have summoned the Zeelanders was never sent up. Parma moved about among his troops, restoring order and confidence, and as the night went on and no assault took place he set his men to work to collect drifting timbers ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... the world contains foolish people. In the small hours of Sunday morning, when the camp was astir in the darkness, a rifle-shot rang out quite close to me. I could hear the bullet going up like a rocket until the sound was lost. It was the usual thing—some idiot charging his magazine, and forgetting to close the cut-off—with the result that when he snapped his trigger the gun went off. Any good result of our discomfortable regulation ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... roar as several of the raiders turned their guns on the incautious Hun. Immediately his voice was stilled, and the flittering light dropping earthward, after the manner of a falling rocket-stick, told what had ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... are altogether inscrutable, and soar as far above and beyond the works and the comprehensions of man as the sun, flaming in majesty, is above the tiny boy's evening rocket. It is the controller of Nature alone that can bring light out of darkness, and order out of confusion. Who is he that causeth the mole, from his secret path of darkness, to throw up the gem, the gold, and the precious ore? The same that from the mouths ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... the disks. We checked a hundred sighting reports, frequently crossing the trail of Project "Saucer" teams and F.B.I. agents. Old records gave fantastic leads. So did Air Force plans for exploring space. Rocket experts, astronomers, Air Force officials and pilot gave us clues pointing to a startling solution. Many intelligent persons—including scientists—believe that the saucers contain spies from ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe |
