"Spark" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... step in conjugal life will, according to the circumstances accompanying it, give birth to captivating sympathies or invincible repulsion. But to give birth to these sympathies, to strike the spark that is to set light to this explosion of infinite gratitude and joyful love—what art, what tact, what delicacy, and at the same time what presence of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... covered in the husk Burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat. Then first came love upon it, the new spring Of mind—yea, poets in their hearts discerned, Pondering, this bond between created things And uncreated. Comes this spark from earth Piercing and all-pervading, or from heaven? Then seeds were sown, and mighty powers arose— Nature below, and power and will above. Who knows the secret? Who proclaimed it here? Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang? The gods themselves ...
— The Christian Foundation, February, 1880
... in her round snowy throat, and see the shadow of her long lashes; and again some electric current flashed from her feverishly bright eyes, burning its way to the secret chambers of his selfish heart, melting the dross that ambition and greed had slowly cemented, and dropping one deathless spark into a deep adytum, of the existence of which he had never even dreamed. Unconsciously he leaned toward her, but she pressed back against the iron bars, and drew her dress aside as if shunning a leper. There was no petulance in the motion, but its significance ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... made them rulers of the world in many a by-gone age. They all have shown a human turn, from Nero down to you, But now my life-long dream of a super fiend at last seems coming true. I've watched you since the faintest spark blazed in your mother's womb, I've watched your hypocritic grief, beside your father's tomb; I know the tainted blood that flows thru your each and every vein That shows up in your withered arm, ...
— Rhymes of a Roughneck • Pat O'Cotter
... you once loved your son,' said he; 'loved him better than anything in this world; if one spark of affection for him remains, hear him now, and forgive him, if he pass the bounds—bounds he never passed before of filial duty. Mother, in compliance with your wishes my father left Ireland—left his home, his duties, his friends, his natural ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... powers we possess, to impress upon the mind the great importance of a good education; and not only to impress it upon the mind, but to assist the mind to act, that it may obtain it. But our principal aim is to fan into life the almost dying spark of virtue, and kindle anew the moral feelings, that they may glow with fresh ardor, and shine forth again in the beauty of innocence. Our object is not to store the memory with facts, but to elevate the soul; not to think for the children, but to teach them ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... inexpressible feeling which ennobles the soul and gives to it its highest sublimity, and which elevates even the senses into soul, while at the same time it is a melancholy elegy on its inherent and imparted frailty; it is at once the apotheosis and the obsequies of love. It appears here a heavenly spark, that, as it descends to the earth, is converted into the lightning flash, which almost in the same moment sets on fire and consumes the mortal being on whom it lights. All that is most intoxicating in the odour of a southern spring,—all ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... often been said, "How great a matter a little fire kindleth." The spark which kindled a blaze among Dick's evil passions, was the spark which lit the tobacco pipe at school. Bad habits are easily acquired, but they are hard to get rid of. See what smoking had done for Dick. It led him to drink, and the two habits have ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... out in a lawyer's office, with all the legal want of punctuation and unintelligible phraseology. It had been copied verbatim by the old Squire, and was no doubt a properly binding and effective will. Never before had he dwelt over it so tediously. He had feared lest a finger-mark, a blot, or a spark might betray his acquaintance with the deed. But now he was about to give it up and let all the world know that it had been in his hands. He felt, therefore, that he was entitled to read it, and that there was no longer ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... individuals and by societies. He charged Fox with being the only person who saw no danger in the writings and doctrines so widely promulgated; proclaimed him a friend, if not an advocate, of Paine and his doctrines; and asserted that such conduct could not be reconciled with any spark of patriotism. Fox indignantly rejoined, and disclaimed all sympathy with Paine. At the same time, he avowed that he saw no danger in his writings and doctrines, or of any other writer of his class, because the good sense and constitutional spirit of the people at large were a sure ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Further, there is a disarrangement of the particles of the two bodies in the neighbourhood of their point of collision; amounting in some cases to a visible condensation. Yet more, this condensation is accompanied by the disengagement of heat. In some cases a spark—that is, light—results, from the incandescence of a portion struck off; and sometimes this incandescence is ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... around as if to find a weapon wherewith to strike his subordinate down, while in his eye shone a dull spark. He did not look at Ralph, but controlled himself by ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... with a green spark; something seemed to leap out and then retreat, but not before Mary had caught a glimpse of it, as one might catch a glimpse of a thing darting forth and then scuttling back into hiding under ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... to desert his master, but the anxiety in the doctor's face warned him that the request ought to be obeyed. If the spark of vitality still flickering in Medenham's body was to be preserved not a moment should be lost in preparing ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... a woman has made a slave of us. I suppose you think I should have too much pride to care any more for her. The truth is that for years to come I shall tremble all through whenever she is near me. Such love as I have felt for Eve won't be trampled out like a spark. It's the best and the worst part of my life. No woman can ever be ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... night after night for a week, and heard the child crying for her, and could not go to him— and even when he did not cry she fancied she heard him still. I think as the milk slowly and painfully left her, her last spark of affection for her husband dried ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... said the hare, "take care, and do not open the canister where there is a fire in the room, or a candle, because a spark may blow you up just ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... with this courteous and comprehensive observation, he piled log upon log till the fire was half up the chimney. Then he got all the chairs and made a semi-circle, and spread out the various garments to the genial heat; and so close that, had a spark flown, they would have been warmed with a vengeance, and the superiority of the male intellect demonstrated. This done, he retired, with a guilty air; for he did not want to be caught meddling in such frivolities by ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... time the Duke of Somerset was committed to the Tower. So, now the Duke of Somerset was down, and the Duke of York was up. By the end of the year, however, the King recovered his memory and some spark of sense; upon which the Queen used her power—which recovered with him—to get the Protector disgraced, and her favourite released. So now the Duke of York was down, and the Duke of Somerset ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... inculcated the natural equality of mankind, and the tyranny of artificial distinctions; and the poorer classes, still smarting under the exactions of the late reign, were by the impositions of the new tax wound up to a pitch of madness. Thus the materials had been prepared; it required but a spark to set the whole country in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... which the colonel had brought in with him; and then she sat resting against her aunt, closed her eyes, and half dozed in the rattle of the train, not moving in the pause at the stations, but quite conscious that Colonel Mohun said, 'Not a spark of feeling for anybody, not even for that man! As hard as ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... stars,—that again exalts us beyond ourselves, and reconciles the true student unto all things,—even to the hardest of them all,—the conviction how feebly our performance can ever imitate the grandeur of our ambition! As you see the spark fly upward,—sometimes not falling to earth till it be dark and quenched,—thus soars, whither it recks not, so that the direction be above, the luminous spirit of him who aspires to Truth; nor will it back to the vile and heavy clay from ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Anne, and she made use of an epithet which neither a queen nor a woman could ever pardon. The word was duly reported at St. James's. Anne heard it with the deepest indignation, and so gross an outrage extinguished any latent spark of tenderness left in her heart. The downfall of the Duchess and the Whigs ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... the river, and I am honored in receiving you as my guest. As guest and neighbor, I appeal to you on our behalf: be assured that we wish nothing but your very greatest good and happiness." The spark in her eyes died down, and they beamed kindly on the courtier Elector. "You see before you three old bachelors, quite unversed in the ways of women. If anything that has been said offends you, pray overlook our default, for I assure you, on behalf of my colleagues and ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... a more peaceable possession for Austria than Hungary; with this difference only, that, in the latter, political considerations, in the former, religious dissensions, fomented disorders. In Bohemia, a century before the days of Luther, the first spark of the religious war had been kindled; a century after Luther, the first flames of the thirty years' war burst out in Bohemia. The sect which owed its rise to John Huss, still existed in that country; — it agreed with the Romish Church in ceremonies and doctrines, with the single exception of ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... give the source of his information, and to save me I could find but seven presidents, including Washington, who were Episcopalians, and now Col. Patrick Ford, of the Irish World calls my attention to Jared Spark's statement that the Father of his country "withdrew himself from the communion service." Jefferson, whom Rector Reed claims as an Episcopalian, was, as every school-boy knows, an avowed free-thinker. The ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... general. He saw a spark of fire shoot from the blue eye, and the nostrils expand. Then the mask became as impenetrable as ever. He let the reins fall on the neck of Little Sorrel, and watched his men as they swept into the open, passed the warehouse, and followed the enemy ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... a carriage to me so very different from what he had lately worn, and so nearly resembling his behaviour the first week of our marriage, that, had I now had any spark of love remaining, he might, possibly, have rekindled my fondness for him. But, though hatred may succeed to contempt, and may perhaps get the better of it, love, I believe, cannot. The truth is, the passion of love is too restless to remain contented without the gratification which ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... conversational talent. She was a Schuyler, and belonged to the Dutch aristocracy in Albany. She died suddenly, after a short illness. I was with her in the last hours and held her hand until the gradually fading spark of life went out. Her son is Captain A.S. ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... this half extinguished spark, did but increase the flame, by kindling in the young man's soul a ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... star—or may it be That moon we saw so near last night— Which comes athwart my destiny For ever with misleading light. If for a moment pure and wise And calm I feel there quick doth fall A spark from some disturbing eyes, That thro' my heart, soul, being flies, And makes a wildfire of it all. I've seen—oh, Cleon, that this earth Should e'er have given such beauty birth!— That man—but, hold—hear all that past Since ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... I remembered that I had married this woman by force, and that she had once wished of her own accord to marry Starling. And now she walked with him; she wore a gown he must have brought; she had forgiven him. A hot spark ran from my heart to my brain. I turned and started toward ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... fundamentals: continued reduction of the growth in Federal spending; preserving the individual and business tax reductions that will stimulate saving and investment; removing unnecessary Federal regulations to spark productivity; and maintaining a healthy dollar and a stable monetary policy, the latter a responsibility of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... weight and proportion of each constituent; but they never could put them together again, or, by any similar compound produce the primordial egg or organic germ, from which a living being would arise. A connecting link—a vital spark, or animating soul—is always wanting to complete the existence of the Prometheus of the laboratory. Mark, too, the "if," and the "might," in this most lame and impotent hypothesis:—"If, therefore, ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous
... orange and red swam before Ham's eyes. Deep in his being something snapped, and, as a fuse spark reaches and ignites its charge, so something fired the eruption that broke volcanically in ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... other side, and again draw down the nightcap; but soon the idea would cross his mind that possibly the coals might not have become cold in the little fire-pot beneath—the fire might not be totally out—that a spark might be kindled, fly forth, and do mischief; and he would get out of his bed and creep down the ladder, for it could not be called the stairs; and when, on reaching the fire-pot, he perceived that not a spark was visible, and he might retire to rest in peace, he would stop half way up, being seized ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... I thought you did, by your taking fire so quickly. I am glad to hear you say you did not. How soon a little spark kindles into a flame; especially when it meets with such ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... impalpable doubts and fears and scruples, of a dread that she could not make articulate even to herself. Having finished, she would lean out into the night. The Colonel, his black figure cloaked against the dew, would be pacing up and down the lawn, with his good-night cigar, whose fiery spark she could just discern; and, beyond, her ghostly dove-house; and, beyond, the river—flowing. Then she would clasp herself close—afraid to stretch out her arms, lest ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... become a mere compound of credulity and prejudices - aye, prejudices too, which degrade man from rational being to beast, which completely stifle the power of judgment between true and false, which seem, in fact, carefully fostered for the purpose of extinguishing the last spark of reason! (29) Piety, great God! and religion are become a tissue of ridiculous mysteries; men, who flatly despise reason, who reject and turn away from understanding as naturally corrupt, these, I say, these of all men, are thought, 0 lie most ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... Young maidens lightly run upon the way. From the spark's contact, And the spiced wine, They give forth aspirations of a ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... end of pains with his book, and done it gallantly well, too, making the thing hum: and I could not conceive why he should have been at that trouble—unless it were for the same reason that I built the palace, because some spark bites a man, and he would be like—but that is ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... which would ram destruction upon his foes, when, wonder of wonders, not a man would obey his order. Angered beyond measure by such an unwonted experience, he seized with his own hand the electric apparatus arranged to give the fatal spark, but with such violence and indiscretion that, instead of sending the current on its appointed mission, it turned from its course and ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... during a thunder-storm, he watched the result with great anxiety; after an interval of painful suspense, he saw the filaments of the string exhibit by their motion signs of electrical action; he drew in the kite, and, presenting his knuckles to the key, received a strong spark, which of course decided the success of the experiment. Repeated sparks were drawn from the key, a phial was charged, a shock given, and the identity of lightning with the electric fluid demonstrated beyond ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... constitution, inherited from some remote progenitor, of the whole group of allied beings to which the plant belongs. We are thus driven to conclude that in most {292} cases the conditions of life play a subordinate part in causing any particular modification; like that which a spark plays, when a mass of combustibles bursts into flame—the nature of the flame depending on the combustible matter, and not ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... nations in which Protestantism, though not finally successful, yet maintained a long struggle, and left permanent traces, has generally been considerable. But when we come to the Catholic Land, to the part of Europe in which the first spark of reformation was trodden out as soon as it appeared, and from which proceeded the impulse which drove Protestantism back, we find, at best, a very slow progress, and on the whole a retrogression. Compare Denmark and Portugal. When Luther began to preach, the superiority ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... inseparable from it; of immensity—of our love. That love seems to me, like it, infinite—eternal. I feel as if my heart overflowed to embrace the world, even as the ocean, with its bright waves of love. It is in me and around me; it is the only great and immortal feeling which I possess. Its spark lights and warms me in the winter of my sorrows, in the midnight of my doubts. Then I love so blindly! I believe so ardently! You smile at my fantasy, friend and companion of my soul. You wonder at this dark language; blame me not. My spirit, like the denizen of another world, cannot ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... decisive superiority over their Turkish foes. Such a weapon was in their hands; such a discovery had been made in the critical moment of their fate. The chemists of China or Europe had found, by casual or elaborate experiments, that a mixture of saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal, produces, with a spark of fire, a tremendous explosion. It was soon observed, that if the expansive force were compressed in a strong tube, a ball of stone or iron might be expelled with irresistible and destructive velocity. The precise aera of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... trees, leaves, berries, &c. threw Voltaire into transports of joy. He declared the event to be the most wonderful and important that ages had recorded in the annals of science, as it demonstrated the fact of man living after the fashion of beasts, without the least spark of civilization, and without speech; thereby forming a species of a nature having more in common with monkeys than with men, and presenting the regular degree, or intermediate class, between the homo civilis and the homo sylvestris. The circumstance, however, which afterwards ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... blest or bruised as it may be, the little plant never fails to keep at one thing. That is, to get a firmer and firmer hold. From that it never lets go. Break its leaves and its stem, crush it as you will, stop its upward growth even, but as long as there is a spark of life in it there will be more roots made. It aims from the first moment of its life to get ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper
... I was somewhat unmanageable when I first went there; but a few months of his discipline tamed me. Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me. I was broken in body, soul and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed; my intellect languished; the disposition to read departed; the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... neighbouring houses and trees. The rice plantation caught fire, and soon I saw the fire extending on either side down the banks of the river. It seemed as if a hundred torches had been applied to the jungle at the same moment, but it was not so. The spark which Ali had kindled was the origin of the whole. Fearful was the rapidity with which the flames had spread among the dry brushwood. For months probably not a drop of rain had fallen there. Now the fire worked its way amid the leaves and dry grass, now the flames mounted the trees, ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... hoofs in a village street, A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet; That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light The fate of a nation was riding that night, And the spark struck out by that steed in his flight Kindled the land ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... with a marked ability for organization; the Russian Jews were quick-tempered, emotional, theorizing, haters of formalities, with a decided bent toward individualism. An enormous amount of explosives had been accumulating between the two sections, which if lit by a spark might have disrupted the edifice of American Israel, still in the ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... asks, a spark of hopefulness for an instant lighting up her saddened eyes; Ludwig, at the same time, putting ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... "You haven't a spark of moral courage, Bluebell," said Bertie, impatiently. "You are as prim and unlike yourself as possible, just because you are wondering what that man on the box will think. Or, perhaps, you are afraid of that thin, sour ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... into his head. If it could be shown that he never mentioned Christmas, we should have proof presumptive that he consciously avoided doing so. But if the fact is that he did mention it now and again, but in grudging fashion, without one spark of illumination—he, the arch-illuminator of all things—then we have proof positive that he ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... man was silent. Down deep in his heart there had been a spark of rejoicing at the probability that Ralph would stay with him now indefinitely. He had pushed it as far out of sight as possible, because it was a selfish rejoicing, and he felt that it was not right since it came as a result of ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... a boat with three young women, one of them of considerable personal attractions, that is to say from a Cruikshankian point of view, and evidently a likeness. On the shore stands another young woman and her child, whom the young spark has evidently left behind him. In the stern of the boat is a hamper of wine and a goblet fashioned out of a skull; a noseless man rows the boat, while three sailors in an adjoining vessel make ribald observations in reference to the young man's female companions. By the star on his coat, ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... portrait of her brave and beautiful lover—the miniature he had given her on his departure. He turned from the perusal of the letter with a deadly chill at his heart: he crushed it in his hand, and threw it on the blazing logs upon the hearth, holding it down with the tongs until every fiery spark had disappeared, then watched the blackened flakes as they flew one by one up the chimney; and when the last had disappeared he dashed the tears from his eyes, and, to the great surprise and consternation of Dulac, ordered him to pack up and prepare ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... seemed to meet with general approval, and there were many confirmatory nods and responses. They were eager to find some one to blame, and upon whom they could vent their vexation; and this aristocratic young lawyer, whose words had cut like knives, was like a spark in powder. Many could go away and half persuade themselves that if it had not been for him they might have done something handsome, and even the best-disposed present were indignant. It seemed that the party ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... of our beds, as they were warmed by a steam-apparatus of his own contrivance. He always keeps a Leyden jar, about the size of a boiler, ready charged, wherewith he kills geese, turkeys, and even lamb; which, he affirms, is a much less shocking method of neutralizing the vital spark than the vulgar butchery of twisting and sticking. He has lost three of his fingers, through incautiously handling a self-acting rat-trap of his own construction; and had his left eye blown out, while investigating the exact interval ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829 • Various
... attainments, we may apply his great words: "A superior and commanding human intellect, a truly great man, when Heaven vouchsafes so rare a gift, is not a temporary flame, burning brightly for a while, and then giving place to returning darkness. It is rather a spark of fervent heat, as well as radiant light, with power to enkindle the common mass of human mind; so that, when it glimmers in its own decay, and finally goes out in death, no night follows, but it leaves the world all light, ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... black hair fell over the back of her chair and lay on the floor, her tirewoman passing the brush over it, lock by lock, she was at her greatest beauty. Either she had been angered or pleased, for her cheek wore a bloom even deeper and richer than usual, and there was a spark like a diamond under the fringe of ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... bookseller in Paul's Churchyard, had little concern with them, he was the son of an inn-keeper—Simon Taverner, of the Emperor's Head, Garlick Hill—who had been recently mined by their exactions, his licence taken from him, and his house closed: enough to provoke a less mettlesome spark than Dick, who had vowed to revenge the parental injuries on the first opportunity. The occasion now seemed to present itself, and it was not to be lost. Chancing to be playing at bowls in the alley behind the Three Cranes with some of his comrades ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... Democrats for military office. It seemed to the distressed President as though every Democratic civilian became an applicant for some commission. Particularly embarrassing was the passion for office that seized upon members of Congress. Even Douglas felt the spark of military genius kindling within him. His friends, too, were convinced that he possessed qualities which would make him an intrepid leader and a tactician of no mean order. The entire Illinois delegation united to urge his ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... moreover, who had set no very high ideals before his eyes, was not, as we have seen, destitute of the quality of sympathy, nor could he entirely obliterate from his memory a time when he himself had been fired by a spark of ambition, and had recognised a longing to accomplish something great. True, the spark had been but a feeble one at best, and the unceasing demands upon his powers to supply the bare necessaries of life, occasioned by an early and imprudent marriage, had ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... enough, and came down, and down, and down, nearer and nearer to the powder! The young officer never moved a muscle, but stood looking steadily at the general, and the general at him. At last, the red spark got close to the metal of the shell; and then I shut my eyes, and prayed God to receive ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... rascal Simon Hartley; and she laughed to think how he had shaken and cowered before the empty weapon. Now she was in the vault of the ruined mill, with a thousand horrors of darkness pressing on her, and only the tiny spark of light in her lantern to keep off the black and shapeless monsters. Now she thought of the kind farmer, with a throb of pity, as she recalled the hopeless sadness of his face the night before. Just the very night before, only a few hours; ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... window, and looked out, first above and next below. Above, the moon was hanging over the gardened hollow before the Museum with the airy lightness of an American moon. Below was Burnamy behind the tubbed evergreens, sitting tilted in his chair against the house wall, with the spark of his cigar fainting and flashing like an American firefly. Agatha went down to the door, after a little delay, and seemed surprised to find him there; at least she said, "Oh!" in a tone ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... sleep, "Magnetise the water by seven vibrations of the harp." If she drank water magnetised in this manner, she was constrained involuntarily to pour forth her soul in song. The eyes of many men threw her into the state of somnambulism. She said that in those eyes there was a spiritual spark, which was the mirror of the soul. If a magnetised rod were laid on her right eye, every object on which ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... each other—on the brink Of sleep some day, when the cool evening airs Blow bubbles round the pool where wood-birds drink; Or in the common Inn of wayfarers: Both weary, both beside the wide fireplace Drowsing, till at some sudden spark up-blown Shall each awake to find there face to face You and I very tired and alone; And lo! your welcome from my eyes shall gaze And in your eyes there shall I ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... skills and knowledge and, at times, our substance, to help others rise from misery, however far the scene of suffering may be from our shores. For wherever in the world a people knows desperate want, there must appear at least the spark of hope, the hope of progress—or there will surely rise at last the flames ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... literary pioneer, and an ardent book-collector who twice was generous enough to found libraries with the books which had been the solace and happiness of his working life. A mere episode of this life was the fanning of the spark of Imperialism into flame in England thirty years ago. There are those who will think the eloquence with which he led the New Zealand democracy, the results he indirectly obtained for it, and the stand which at the extreme end of his career ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... they had turned, thrusting up a knee in the last struggle. Some lay face downward as the slaughtered fall. Many had died with hands open, suddenly. Others sat huddled, the closed hand with its thumb turned under and covered by the fingers, betokening a gradual passing of the vital spark, and a slow submission to the conqueror. It was all a hideous and cruel dream. Surely it could be nothing more. It could not be reality. The birds gurgled and twittered. The squirrels barked and played. The sky was innocent. It must ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... was far better than tossing sleepless through the long hours to the dawn. It was nearly time for "taps"—lights out—when a yell went up from the parade and all Sandy started to its feet. All on a sudden the spark at the lookout bluff began violently to dance, and a dozen men tore out of garrison, eager to hear the news. They were met halfway by a sprinting corporal, whom they halted with eager demand for his news. "Two blazes!" he panted, "two! I must get in to the major ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... Edmund, "and the law of gravitation will pay it as much attention as if it were a Jupiter. It may wander in space for untold ages, and sometime it may even fall within the sphere of the earth's attraction, and then Jack's wish will have been fulfilled; but it will be but a flying spark, flashing momentarily in the heavens as it shoots ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... think of oneself as a person of some importance, whose vital spark, even in these days when life is so cheap, ought to be guarded with solicitude. Indeed, to adapt CLOUGH'S phrase, one wants other people—and especially those whose prosperity is dependent upon us—officiously ...
— Punch, July 18, 1917 • Various
... lightning have had their victims. It is said that only two or three years ago one branch towards the East was still living, but when I saw it, the trunk was bare and bark-less, full of little worm-holes, and quite without a spark of vitality. The last remaining fragment has since fallen, and now the site of the tree is only marked by the row of young cypresses which have been planted in a circle round the base of the Oak of Mamre. But who shall prophesy that, ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... twirled the stick rapidly between the palms of his hands, so fast and so long that presently the dust ground from the softer stick, falling to one side in a little pile, began to smoke, and at last a faint spark was seen at the top of the pile, which began to glow, and, spreading, became constantly larger. He, or his companion, for often two men twirled the stick, one relieving the other, caught this spark in a bit of tinder—perhaps some dry punk or a little fine grass—and by blowing coaxed it ...
— Blackfeet Indian Stories • George Bird Grinnell
... had nerve to solder the wire again. Cogs told me that they had just fitted up the Naguadavick stations with Bain's chemical revolving disk. This disk is charged with a salt of potash, which, when the electric spark passes through it, is changed to Prussian blue. Your despatch is noiselessly written in dark blue dots and lines. Just as the disk started on that fatal despatch, and Cogs bent over it to read, his spirit-lamp blew up,—as the dear things will. They were ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... spark," said the Prince, "for the sake of a lady's eyes, desires to do your Augsburg deed over again with Duke Casimir's nephew. So we must give him a man with quarterings on his shield to go along ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... those words lit a spark of the fire of manhood in him at last. He turned on her like a ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... by her own wish and choice resigned all claim on our respect or forbearance, we shall have our revenge. We are slow to change the traditions of our forefathers, but no doubt we shall soon manage to quench the last spark of knightly reverence left in us for the female sex, as this is evidently the point the women desire to bring us to. We shall meet them on that low platform of the "equality" they seek for, and we ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... go into ecstasies over the sense of a corporeal 312:15 Jehovah, though with scarcely a spark of love in their hearts; yet God is love, and without Love, God, immortality cannot appear. Mortals try 312:18 to believe without understanding Truth; yet God is Truth. Mortals claim that death is inevitable; but man's eternal Principle is ever-present ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... was as a thunderbolt falling in the midst of them, and the poor woman perceived this instinctively. Her son's impatience had been the spark which set the smouldering fire in her alight, but even he was astounded by the quick and sudden blaze which lit up the dull wonder in his sisters' faces. And then he no longer thought of going to Oxford. He wanted to remain to see if he could do anything,—perhaps ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... unhappy encounter with Berkley, outraged pride had aided to buoy her above the grief over the deep wound he had dealt her. She never doubted that his insolence and deliberate brutality had killed in her the last lingering spark of compassion for the memory of the man who had held her in his arms that ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... eye, quick-glancing o'er the park Attracts each light gay meteor of a spark, Agrees as ill with Rufa studying Locke, As Sappho's diamonds with her dirty smock; Or Sappho at her toilet's greasy task, With Sappho fragrant at an evening masque: So morning insects that in muck begun, Shine, buzz, and fly-blow in ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... spark of love reviv'd That had perplex'd him long ago, When busy folks and fools contriv'd ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... and whose sole aim in destroying Napoleon's power was to rivet the chains of slavery upon the inhabitants of the whole civilized world, and who have since sworn upon the altar of the Holy Alliance to maintain an indissoluble union, for the purpose of extinguishing every spark of freedom, wherever it may arise. Napoleon was the enemy, the successful enemy of these tyrants; and under his sway, despotic as it might apparently be, and governed by the excellent code of laws that ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... religious, Parr?" she asked the little man who sat huddled in a faded ulster, sucking at a cold pipe. What she meant was, "Do you believe, poor traveler, that you have a soul—some spark that these black savages share with you perhaps, but that those chattering ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... The spark of patriotism which was in each man when he enlisted was dead. We detested the army, we hated the routine, we were sickened and dulled and ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... if things were going to be on a grander scale all round. Here was a young foreman or manager in charge of the carting work; a lordly young spark he was, and grumbled at not getting horses enough, for all that there were not so many ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... Professor you were always writing about. If you say you love him, I know I shall do something desperate;" and he looked as if he would keep his word, as he clenched his hands with a wrathful spark in his eyes. ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... Michael tried to give Nadia some hope of which he did not feel a spark himself, for he well knew that the unfortunate fellow would not ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... lane, which was composed of dwellings of the lowest order, tenanted by the most abject profligates, was dark as midnight; for the tall dingy buildings absolutely intercepted every ray of light that proceeded from the murky sky, and there was not a spark in any of the sordid casements, nor any votive lamp in that foul alley. The only glimpse of casual illumination, and that too barely serving to render the darkness and the filth perceptible, was the faint streak ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... But it seemed to her an impertinence for ordinary insignificant beings to importune this remote and absolute God, so forbidding in His monotonous mystery. She had all the arrogance of intellect despite her remorseless limitations. Had she been granted the gift of creation,—in other words, a spark from the great creative force commanding the Universe,—she felt that she should have no hesitation in begging for further favours; a certain sense of kinship, of being in higher favour than the great congested mass, would have given her assurance and ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... mano is the ignis fatuus that leads on three fourths of the Italians; it is the bright spark that wakes them up to exertion. No matter what the fixed price for doing any thing may be, there must always be a something undefined ahead of it, to crown the work when accomplished. It makes labor a lottery; it makes even ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... was only in the room below, and in a moment was at the bedside, doing all that could be done to fan into a flame that little spark ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... watching the never-ending warfare of the kites that the city boys flew, he demanded a kite of his own with Pir Khan to fly it, because he had a fear of dealing with anything larger than himself, and when Holden called him a 'spark,' he rose to his feet and answered slowly in defence of his new-found individuality, 'Hum'park nahin hai. Hum admi hai [I am no spark, ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... lighthouse spark Some sailor, rowing in the dark, Had importuned to see! It might have been the waning lamp That lit the drummer from the camp To ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... Even that spark of divine intelligence which comes into the animal soul, as Aristotle says, from beyond the gates, comes and is called down by the exigencies of physical life. An animal endowed with locomotion cannot merely feast sensuously on things as they appear, but must react ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... cost. Binks, though rheumatic and a trifle bent, still retained some of the strength that had made him a byword as an athlete in his young days. With a touch of angry red in his brown, wrinkled cheek, and a spark of wrath in his deep-set eyes, he seized the boy neatly by the back of the collar and the band of his Norfolk tweed jacket. It was useless for Alick to splutter and howl and threaten. Old Binks swung him, as though he were a kitten, over the edge of the pier, while ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... fury boiled up in him; but he remembered in time what these volcanic outbursts had cost him in the past. So he did not rush to the chart house. Cunningham would lash him with ridicule or be forced to shoot him. But his rage carried him as far as the wireless room. He could hear the smack of the spark, but that was all. He tried the door—locked. He tried the shutters—latched. Cunningham's man was either calling or answering somebody. Ten minutes inside that room and there would be another ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath |
