"Tinder" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... only replied by taking possession of the single chair which stood by the bedside; he then very quietly and coolly took a tinder-box from his pocket, struck a light in the most deliberate manner, and lit the small lamp which had remained unreplenished from the preceding evening. Dumiger had then an opportunity ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... bodies of stubborn squires or yeomen in each county, who fully understood their own power, and stoutly forbade the passing of any measure which imposed a share of the public burdens upon themselves. The impossibility of carrying out reforms tinder existing conditions had been demonstrated by the failures of 1843. In order to overcome the obstruction as well of the Magnates as of the county assemblies, it was necessary that an appeal should be made to the country ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... inner bark is formed a kind of cloth; the wood, which is soft, smooth, and of a yellowish colour, serves for the building of boats and houses; the leaves are used for wrapping up food; some parts of the flowers are good tinder; and the juice, when boiled with cocoa-nut oil, is employed for making bird-lime, and as a cement for mending earthenware vessels. So you may guess how useful it is to the people of Jamaica, and yet it is not a native of the West Indies, but was first brought there by English ...
— The World's Fair • Anonymous
... water. Here "green grow the rushes," especially the big-headed Kasb (Arundo donax); the yellow-tipped Namas or flags (Scirpus holoschnus) form a dense thicket; the Ushr, with its cork-like bark which makes the best tinder, is a tree, not a shrub; and there are large natural plantations of the saffron-flowered, tobacco-like Verbascum, the Arab's Uzn el-Humr ("Donkey's Ear"). Add scattered clusters of date-trees, domineering over clumps of fan-palm; and, lastly, marvellous to relate, a few hundred feet of greensward, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... heat so close in; but the thought of all The woods and town on fire by me, and all The town turned out to fight for me—that held me. I trusted the brook barrier, but feared The road would fail; and on that side the fire Died not without a noise of crackling wood— Of something more than tinder-grass and weed— That brought me to my feet to hold it back By leaning back myself, as if the reins Were round my neck and I was at the plough. I won! But I'm sure no one ever spread Another color over a tenth the space That I spread coal-black over in the time It took me. Neighbors coming ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost
... together in the same gang. Cox constantly entreated him to run away with him from that settlement, which he refused to do for a length of time. Cox having procured fishhooks, a knife, and some burnt rag for tinder, he at last agreed to go with him, to which he was powerfully induced by the apprehension of corporal punishment, for the loss of a shirt that had been stolen from him. For the first and second day they strayed through the ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... clearly, and so I knew that there was nothing for it but to gallop hard and try my luck elsewhere. I rode round the English picket, and then, as I heard nothing more of them, I concluded rightly that I had at last come through their defences. For five miles I rode south, striking a tinder from time to time to look at my pocket compass. And then in an instant—I feel the pang once more as my memory brings back the moment—my horse, without a sob or stagger, fell stone ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... anyhow," said Sandy, "and we'll have to drop in a minute, whether we shoot or not. This old tree seems to be as dry as tinder!" ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... Burr after Ellis finished a passionate account of the last year. Unintentionally, he touched flame to tinder. ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... substance used as tinder, derived from Polyporus fomentarius, a fungus belonging to the group Basidiomycetes and somewhat resembling a mushroom in manner of growth. It grows upon old trees, especially the oak, ash, fir and cherry. The fungus is ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... his sister, and destroyed by a cannon placed six paces off, but only loaded with powder, in order to prolong the agony; now, a Christian accused of having tried to blow up Janina by introducing mice with tinder fastened to their tails into the powder magazine, who was shut up in the cage of Ali's favourite tiger and ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... best fuel is afforded by a green little bush about the size of common heath, which has the useful property of burning while fresh and green. It was very surprising to see the Gauchos, in the midst of rain and everything soaking wet, with nothing more than a tinder-box and a piece of rag, immediately make a fire. They sought beneath the tufts of grass and bushes for a few dry twigs, and these they rubbed into fibres; then surrounding them with coarser twigs, something ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... married respectably, and in one of her last illnesses was attended professionally by Dr. Ewing of Aberdeen, who, having been always an enthusiastic admirer of Lord Byron, was no less surprised than delighted to find that the person tinder his care had for so many years been an attendant on his favourite poet. With avidity, as may be supposed, he noted down from the lips of his patient all the particulars she could remember of his ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... first is Concerning tinder-boxes. You must know, No family is here, without its box. Now, sir, it being so portable a thing, Put case, that you or I were ill affected Unto the state, sir; with it in our pockets, Might not I go into the Arsenal, Or you, come out ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... the tent of the priest—a tent so small as to contain only one apartment—all seemed dark. Laxabon slept so soundly as not to awake till Toussaint had found the tinder-box, and was striking ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... caressed her with gentle hand, looking away the while at the spark of light that came and went, came and went, as if through blowing leaves. So it flashed and fell, flashed and fell, like a slow, slow pulse, and died out, as a spark in tinder dies, leaving the far ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... candle and a tinder-box in his pocket. When the flame burned up, we saw an arched stone roof above our heads, and broad deal shelves all round us covered with dusty dishes. It was ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in, and every effort was made to secure whatever could be saved from the wreck. Bales of cloth, cases of wine, a few boxes of cheese, some hams, the carcass of a milch cow that had been washed on shore, buckets, tubs, butts, a seaman's chest, (containing a tinder-box, and needles and thread,) with a number of elegant mahogany turned bed-posts, and part of an investment for the India market, were got on shore. The rain poured down in torrents—all hands were busily at ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... being reddish brown. Sections of the plant show that the tubes are very long, the different years' growth not being marked off so distinctly as in P. applanatus and leucophaeus. The plant grows on birch, beech, maple, etc. The inner portion was once used as tinder. ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... and in visiting the Stone-pits. The rain had washed away all possibility of distinguishing foot-marks, but a close investigation of the spot had disclosed, in the direction opposite to the village, a tinder-box, with a flint and steel, half sunk in the mud. It was not Silas's tinder-box, for the only one he had ever had was still standing on his shelf; and the inference generally accepted was, that the tinder-box in the ditch was somehow connected with ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... was struck by the lightning, which split a piece off it from top to bottom, but fortunately did not disable it; but a sad mishap befell one of our men while sitting at mess at the time, for he was struck dead, his shirt being burnt in places like tinder, and his mess-tin being likewise turned black, while the top of a bayonet that was standing close to the unfortunate man was melted like lead. The blow had shaken our little bark so terribly that the captain ordered the pumps to be tried; fortunately ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... looking back to see the result of his infernal deed. Secretly, when no one knew it, he had kindled a fire at the rear of the wooden building, which being old and dry caught readily, and burned like tinder. ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... the cool judgment of Bob Quirk, violence would have resulted. The primitive mind is slow to resent an affront, and while the chief deputy had couched his last remarks in well-chosen language, his intimation that I was a fugitive from justice, and an outlaw in resisting arrest, was tinder to stubble. Knowing the metal of my outfit, I curbed the tempest within me, and relying on a brother whom I would gladly follow to death if need be, I waved hands off to my boys. "Now, men," said Bob to the deputies, "the easiest way out of this matter is the best. ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... Tiller (of boat) direktilo. Tilt klini—igi, duonlevi. Tilt (an awning) kovrilego. Timber ligno, lignajxo. Time tempo. Timely gxustatempa. Timepiece horlogxo. Timid timema. Timidity timeco. Timorous timema. Tin stani. Tin stano. Tinder fajrfungo. Tinfoil hidrargajxo. Tinge koloretigi. Tingle vibreti, soneti. Tinkle tinti. Tint koloretigi. Tiny malgrandeta. Tip pinto. Tip (gratuity) trinkmono. Tippet manteleto. Tipple ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... other islands to pursue the same nefarious system. Captain Bertram went on shore to make further inquiries. He found that all the inhabitants had professed Christianity, and that, though not so advanced as the natives of Raratonga, who have been so much longer tinder instruction, they were making fair progress in Christian, as well as in secular, knowledge and civilisation. As no time was to be lost, the Ajax again sailed in pursuit of the slaver. She first stood across to Samoa, in the direction ...
— Ben Hadden - or, Do Right Whatever Comes Of It • W.H.G. Kingston
... that the little, low, yellow bush was "Mexican saddle blanket" or "Tinder bush," this last because it burns like tinder in the fall ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... on its hinges, as they opened it. The coffins were borne in, and the whole party entered; the priest mumbling a short Latin prayer. In a short time, the priest alone returned; and looking cautiously around, and seeing no one, struck a light from a tinder box, and lighted his cigar. The other two men brought back the coffins, evidently relieved of their weight; and the priest—the boy—with the man who had last joined them, and who had also lit his cigar—entered ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... on deck again twilight had fallen, but far back on the horizon was a tiny blur—the Silver Star. As Jack gazed back at her, she vanished below the horizon as suddenly as an extinguished spark in a piece of tinder. ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... to smoke a pipe with ol' Jeff," Solomon answered. "They ain't no nonsense 'bout him. I learnt him how to talk Injun an' read rapids an' build a fire with tinder an' elbow grease. He knows me plenty. He staked his life on me a dozen times in ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... the flames soon were eating at the stable. And once caught, it burned like tinder. The horses screamed as the fire licked at them, and all was confusion. To make matters ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... meanwhile had discovered the remains of a dilapidated library in an old disused huntsman's hut, had ferretted out of it a few Latin books, and had amused herself with them,—at least so far as she was able, for many of the leaves had been torn out and used as tinder. ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... fire, it afterwards appears, did actually burst forth, with explosions more or less Vesuvian, in the inner man of Herr Diogenes; as indeed how could it fail? A nature, which, in his own figurative style, we might say, had now not a little carbonized tinder, of Irritability; with so much nitre of latent Passion, and sulphurous Humor enough; the whole lying in such hot neighborhood, close by "a reverberating furnace of Fantasy:" have we not here the components of driest Gunpowder, ready, on occasion of the smallest spark, to blaze ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... river. Dressing again, he would continue his journey, and perhaps repeat the proceeding several times during the day. When overtaken by night, he would seek a place in some grove, and, lighting a fire with his tinder-box and steel, tie up his horse, and, throwing himself on the ground, sleep as peacefully as on a bed of down. Sometimes night would come on before he had crossed the prairie or made his way to the timber point ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... to the fireplace where he knew the tinder-box to be kept, and then groped for and found the heap of pine knots. A moment more and the fat wood was burning brightly, casting its red light throughout the hut, and choking back ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... small pieces, placed the whole in the grate where dead cinders still remained, and with a vesta set a light to them. For a few moments they blazed fiercely up the chimney, then died out, leaving only black tinder. ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... to sever a limb, while recovery from its stab is almost hopeless. Attached to the girdle also are a powder-flask, a small metallic box containing fat to anoint the rifle-balls, a purse of skin for carrying flints, tinder, and steel, and not unfrequently a hatchet, or knife in a sheath. The sabre is silver-hilted, without a guard; and its scabbard, richly embroidered, is composed of several pieces of morocco of different colors. The pistols also are ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... Icelandic, from elldr, fire: hence we have "At sla elld ur tinnu," to strike fire from flint; which approaches very near to a tinder-box. Ling, Icel., the heath or heather plant: ljung I take to be the same word. Gat, Icel. for way or opening; hence strand-gata, the opening of the strand or creek. Tjarn, tiorn, Icel., well exemplified in ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... Collecting, therefore, all the dry sticks and furze I could find, I placed them upon the fireplace, adding certain chips and a billet which I found in the cart, it having apparently been the habit of Slingsby to carry with him a small store of fuel. Having then struck a spark in a tinder-box and lighted a match, I set fire to the combustible heap, and was not slow in raising a cheerful blaze; I then drew my cart near the fire, and, seating myself on one of the shafts, hung over the warmth with feelings of intense pleasure and satisfaction. Having ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... the men on the box to watch for a sharp bend in the road just before crossing a bourne, and we, too, began to watch soon after leaving Westminster. After what seemed to be a long time, George asked me to make a flare in my tinder box, while he caught a glimpse of the face of his watch. This I did under the rug, and, much to our disgust, we found that we had been less than twenty minutes on the road, ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... distance. Adam was valiant, and did so well at Poictiers that he was knighted—a hearty, homely country gentleman, who lived humbly to the end. But young Lucifer, his representative in the twentieth remove, has a tinder-like conceit because old Sir Adam was so brave and humble. Sir Adam's sword is hung up at home, and Lucifer has a box at the opera. On a thin finger he has a ring, cut with a match fizzling, the crest of the Lucifers. But if he should be at a Poictiers, he would run away. ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... week might pass without the shelter of so much as a hut, it was necessary to take tents and bearskin beds for the Chamberlain, his Cossack guard, valet-de-chambre, cook and other servants, one set of fine blankets and linen, cooking utensils, axes, arms, tinder-boxes, provisions for the entire trip, besides a great quantity ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... in this paragraph, which asks more than a marginal note to disentangle. Briefly, the process of acquirement is confounded with the order of the truths when acquired. A tinder spark gives light to an Argand's lamp: is ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... girl went to the canoe and opened a bundle wrapped in deerskin which formed part of its lading. She drew therefrom a fire-bag, richly ornamented with beads, such as Indian chiefs and braves are wont to carry under their belts. It contained the pipe, tinder-box, flint, steel, and tobacco which are usually supplied by the ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... hearth. He replied that he would rather not do this, that he was afraid of the darkness, and that the fire was always extinguished in the evening. I bade him light a candle with the flint, when he told me that we had neither matches nor tinder nor sulphur. I persisted, and determined that a light should be got by one means or another, for I knew that, if I should go to sleep under so dire an omen, I must needs perish. So I ordered him to get a light as best he could. He went away and raked up ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... pertinent to the issue of the late trial, I think it necessary to adduce them here, to convince the world of the wretched state this Town had been in; the reason they had to apprehend, while such blood-thirsty inmates were quarter'd among them ; and the necessity they were tinder, constantly to be on their guard, while there were even such exultations at the barbarous "action" of ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... ancient cave homelike and familiar. There was less litter within than she had found without and what there was was mostly an accumulation of dust. Beside the doorway was the niche in which wood and tinder were kept, but there remained nothing now other than mere dust. She had however saved a little pile of twigs from the debris on the porch. In a short time she had made a light by firing a bundle of twigs and lighting others from this fire she explored some of the inner rooms. Nor here did she ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... monsieur; I asked for a bell, which was given me, then I saved some oil from my breakfasts and dinners, till I had a bottle full; I made wicks by unraveling one of my handkerchiefs; I picked up a pebble when I was walking in the yard; I made some tinder with burned linen; I stole some matches when I dined at the governor's: then I struck a light with a knife, which I possess; and with the aid of which I made the hole through which ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... neither man nor deevil. He got his tinder-box, an' lit a can'le, an' made three steps o' 't ower to Janet's door. It was on the hasp, an' he pushed it open, an' keeked bauldly in. It was a big room, as big as the minister's ain, an' plenished wi' grand, auld, solid gear, ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... It might have been as appropriately named tobacco-box or smoking-bag, however, seeing that such things had more to do with it, if possible, than fire. Having struck a spark, which he took captive by means of a piece of tinder, he placed in the centre of a very dry handful of soft grass, and whirled it rapidly round his head, thereby producing a current of air, which blew the spark into a flame; which when applied, lighted the grass and twigs; and so, in a few minutes, a blazing fire roared up among the trees—spouted ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... are other ways, William, although, in most of them, tinder is necessary. The savages can produce fire by rubbing a soft piece of wood against a hard one. But we have gunpowder; and we have two ways of igniting gunpowder - one is by a flint and steel, and the other is by collecting the sun's ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... land where so little genius flows, and care, business, and fashionable frivolity are equally dull, unspeakable is the relief of some flashes of vivacity, some sparkles of wit. Of course it is hard enough for those, most natively disposed that way, to strike fire. I would willingly be the tinder to promote ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... easily, and sublimes as a white vapor. It may be prepared by precipitating and drying. When heated, it takes fire previous to melting, glows like tinder, and is converted into antimonious acid, which is now infusible. When heated upon charcoal in the flame of reduction, it is reduced to the metallic state, and partly volatilized. A white vapor sublimates upon the charcoal, while the external flame exhibits a greenish-blue color. ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous
... little girl is the subject. Of course that was ever so long ago, when there were no lucifer matches, and steel and tinder were used to light fires; when soda and saleratus had never been heard of, but people made their pearl ash by soaking burnt crackers in water; when the dressmaker and the tailor and the shoemaker went from house to house twice a year to ...
— Little Prudy • Sophie May
... other priest, "that at twenty you must indeed have been excitable, a veritable tinder-box, to have retained so much energy! Come, monsieur, try to calm yourself and have patience: you yourself admit it can only be a few ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... and swift, as it could not help being with such a mass of combustibles,—loose straw from the mattress, dry old furniture, and old warped floors which had been parching and shrinking for a score or two of years. The whole house was, in the common language of the newspaper reports, "a perfect tinder-box," and would probably be a heap of ashes in half an hour. And there was this unfortunate deserted sick man lying between life and death, beyond all help unless some unexpected assistance should come ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... companion, Terry ran among the trees and began gathering wood with which to start a blaze. Both boys were such experts at this that only a brief time was necessary. Fred laid the buffalo steak on the leaves and took part, striking the flame with his own flint and tinder. There was no water within reach and this was quite a deprivation, but the boys were hungry enough to wait for that. From his scant store of mixed salt and sugar, Fred drew forth enough to season the enormous slice and ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... through the long coarse grass, which had sprung up under the fierce heat of summer, and was already as parched and dry as tinder. They had intended to seize the cat before Monty had become aware of their presence; and they were somewhat disconcerted when Monty, with the cat clasped tightly in his arms, came running towards them. "There's Injuns ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... dragged on with its one little glimmer of light and its big black clouds of disappointment, and it was Christmas-time when the spark came to the waiting tinder. What a bloody bill could the holidays and holy days of the world tot up! On the Sunday night before Christmas a British subject named Tom Jackson Edgar was shot dead in his own house by a Boer policeman. Edgar, who was a man of singularly fine physique and both able and accustomed ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... trouble him. Cutting off a foot of a pole used with the net, he split it in two pieces. One of these halves he split again and from these smaller pieces he formed the bow and drill of an Eskimo bow-drill. With a tough creeping willow runner for a string to his bow, with dry moss for tinder, he soon had, first a smoke, then a blaze. Not long after this, he was turning a carefully picked and cleaned ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... never a word. First of all he drew a great circle with strange figures, marking it with his finger upon the ground. Then out from under his red gown he brought a tinder-box and steel, and a little silver casket covered all over with strange figures of serpents and dragons and what not. He brought some sticks of spice-wood from his pouch, and then he struck a light and made a fire. Out of the box he took ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... deeper over the room. There was only a flicker on the brass andirons, a blur of pale blossoms where the potted azalea stood. The rain drummed steadily, and as steadily came the gentle modulations of Kirk's voice, as the tale of "The Tinder-Box" progressed. ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... geese went walking backwards and forwards, or paddled in the water. "It is quite delightful here," said he, "but I am so tired that I cannot keep my eyes open; I will sleep a little. If only a gust of wind does not come and blow my legs off my body, for they are as rotten as tinder." ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... Toxicological Powers of Coculus Indicus in Stupifying Fish. On the Combustion of Park-palings and loose Gate-posts. On the tendency of Out-of-door Spray-piles to Spontaneous Evaporation, during dark nights. On the Comparative Inflammatory properties of Lucifer Matches, Phosphorus Bottles, Tinder-boxes, and Congreves, as well as Incandescens Short Pipes, applied to Hay in particular and Ricks in general. On the value of Cheap Literature, and Intrinsic Worth (by weight) of the various Publications of the Society for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... well say, 'O, William Connor dear!' 'Twas what she said day by day, an' the heart uv me loike Phararyoh's. Thrue it is, Coolin, that the hand uv mortial man has an ugly way uv squazin' a woman's heart dry whin, at last, to his coaxin' she lays it tinder an' onsuspectin' on the inside grip ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... tinder; something caught on fire in Pierre, but still he would say nothing. He was beginning to feel a cruel pleasure in his victory, but it was not without a ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... was to rub oneself with a little tansy that grew on the hillside. Father was full of wisdom. He taught the boys about stones, about flint, how that the white stone was harder than the grey; but when he had found a flint, he must also make tinder. Then he could strike fire with it. He taught them about the moon, how when you can grip in the hollow side with your left hand it is waxing, and grip in with the right, it's on the wane; remember that, boys! Now and again, Isak would go too far, and ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... as most, had come to think that the man was innately a libertine, awaiting but the right one to strike the hidden flint and set the tinder aglow—the tinder that would burn, and consume, and destroy. He had known of men like that—of men who went the even pathway of their lives until there crossed it another who tore them from it; and that one they followed, leaving soul and morals and decency and cleanliness ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... the broken lid of a box that split up like tinder, and Peggy brought me an old newspaper, and then I stood by while Mr. Hamilton skilfully ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... he calmly lighted his pipe by means of a German tinder-box, and replied, 'This is my carriage. When things are flat, I take a ride sometimes, and enjoy myself. I am the inventor ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... got to stop this clatter somehow. The stones are hot now. The whole thing'll burn up like tinder if we can't ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... that borders on the thrilling. In the days whereof we write the buildings were not the substantial creations of brick and stone to be seen to-day, and those of the scattered "camps" and stations in that arid, sun-scorched land of Arizona were tinder boxes of the flimsiest and ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... crowd, we came unseen to a little side entrance that led to a stair, up which we passed. The stair ended in a passage; we turned down it till we found a door on the left hand. Charmion entered silently, and I followed her into a dark chamber. Being in, she barred the door and, kindling tinder to a flame, lit a hanging lamp. As the light grew strong I gazed around. The chamber was not large, and had but one casement, closely shuttered. For the rest, it was simply furnished, having white walls, some chests ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... exacting attitude that the hunters were not likely to brook; nor would they have submitted to it for a moment but for the peculiar position in which their chief was placed. For his sake they held in as well as they could; but the tinder was apparent, and would not bear many ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... pouch flint and steel and tinder and gave them to the old man's trembling fingers as Giles o' the Bow came running with the stalwart ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... a tinder-box which he found on the mantel, he lighted a candle, and dressed himself in his old clothes, with a melancholy satisfaction. They exhaled the strong and aromatic odor of the plants and herbs of the surroundings through which Croustillac had so long walked ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... sobbed the blind woman, 'I would rather die—die by some Swedish bullet! Why should I wish to live? When your father comes home he beats me if he finds the room cold, and do what I will I can't make the fire burn in the stove. The tinder will not light, though I have often struck the flint and steel together till I made my poor hands quite sore. No one lives in the house but ourselves, so I cannot get my lamp lighted, and if I take it across the street to a neighbour's, ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... by that box for tinder, Glowing forth in fits from the dark, And fading again, as the linten cinder Kindles to red at the flinty spark, Or ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... light a fire in a stove, using not more than two matches, or light a gas range, top burner, oven and boiler, without having the gas blow or smoke. Lay and light a fire in the open, using no artificial tinder, such as paper or excelsior, and ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... her, Jack!" cried one; "she'll be overboard double quick if she fouls agin them blessed bulwarks. It's as rotten as tinder." ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... dawned when the tinder was lighted in the Balkans and Austro-Hungary seized a bit which brought her a step nearer to the world's highway; she seized one bit and poised herself for another. Then came that curious chorus of challenges, those leaping suspicions, raking ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... at the same time she captured the captaincy of the boat crew, on which I pulled stroke, and I'm still hitting the water when she gives the word, though it now looks as if we are both adrift on the high and uncharted seas—or sitting on the lid of a tinder-box, juggling lighted torches. ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the fire in Moscow burnt itself out, employed himself in endeavouring to buy some warm garments. Money was plentiful, for there had been no means of spending it since they entered Russia, and he was fortunate in being able to buy some very warm tinder-garments that had been looted by the plunderers on the night of their first arrival before Moscow. He also purchased a peasant's sheep-skin caftan with a hood, and sewed this into his military ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... feeling no better or more satisfactory in our mind, and no reason to, for night was now closing in, and we were going through our performances by the slight illumination of the stars, without any positive certainty as to where the Captain kept his tinder box and candle, that we might furnish some sort of light upon the lugubrious state ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... mess chest was open and pans shone in mingled fire and sunset gleams, but the mysteries of the distance, over which twilight veils were thickening, gave no sign of him. Daddy John built up the desert fire as a beacon—a pile of sage that burned like tinder. It shot high, tossed exultant flames toward the dimmed stars and sent long jets of light into the encircling darkness. Its wavering radiance, red and dancing, touched the scattered objects of the camp, revealing and then losing them as new flame ran along the leaves or charred ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... when I was away on my last long patrol," reflected Wayland. The slash of brushwood and wasted tops lay higher than his horse's head. "A fine fire-trap for the fall drought," thought Wayland angrily. "One spark in that tinder pile in a high wind; and there would be no forests left on ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... your Lady-ship for the great care, Nurse sayes, you have of me; but faith, Madam, I Was ne're made to be Steel to a Tinder-Box; she's Meer Touch-wood; no, I'm not for Marrying great Grannums: But if your Lady-ship knows any Young Dame, that wants a strong back to do her drudgery, Though it be in ...
— The Fatal Jealousie (1673) • Henry Nevil Payne
... pleasant as a bird on the wing, an' the sun wint down, an' the moon shone sweet an' soft instead, an' they two never knew a ha'porth about it, but kept talkin' an' whisperin', an' whisperin' an' talkin'; for it's wondherful how often a tinder-hearted girl will bear to hear a purty boy tellin' her the same story constant over an' over; ontil at last, sure enough, they heerd the ould man himself comin' up the boreen, singin' the 'Colleen Rue'—a ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... heap of black tinder where some papers had been burnt weeks or perhaps months ago. There were cigar-ends lying about, showing that whoever had been there ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... to cook it? was the question. Kallolo declared there would be no danger in lighting a fire in the fork of the tree, provided we did not allow it to burn longer than was necessary, and kept a watch to prevent its extending up the bark on either side. Uncle Paul always carried a small tinder-box and matches, so that we could at once obtain a light. We accordingly collected a supply of dry branches, of which there was an abundance attached to the various parts of the trees. Kallolo again set off, taking my wand and noose; and by the time the fire had been lighted and ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... It is impossible for me to go," I said passionately, as I began to pace the room, and sheets torn up and tied together with counterpane and blankets, to make out the rope down which I was to slide to liberty, fell away as if they were so much tinder; while the other plan I had of unscrewing the lock of the door, and taking it off with my pocket-knife, so as to steal down the stairs, tumbled to nothing, as soon as I thought that ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... She half rose. His words were as match to tinder. "I have an engagement for the rest of my life with shame and disgrace and disappointment. You have helped to bring them on me and you tell me to hurry—to /hurry!/ Her right hand flew out with tragic eloquence. "That I receive you in my house is ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... remember buying a bottle of "Pennsylvania oil" at the grocer's for eight skilling, as a doubtful domestic experiment. Steel pens had not crowded out the old-fashioned goose-quill, and pen-knives meant just what their name implies. Matches were yet of the future. We carried tinder-boxes to strike fire with. People shook their heads at the telegraph. The day of the stage-coach was not yet past. Steamboat and railroad had not come within forty miles of the town, and only one steam factory—a cotton ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... the power of a burning-glass, and know how easily dry grass or tinder, or a piece of paper, may be set on fire by a good glass when the sun is bright; but they would find it very difficult to place a glass over a little cannon so that it would infallibly be discharged at any set hour. ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... gone, and now the first days of September had arrived. The heat still continued very great, and a parching east wind had been blowing for many weeks, which had dried up the woodwork of the houses till it was like tinder. Sometimes the Master Builder, coming home from his work of repairing or altering some house either ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... spoke his companion re-entered the apartment, with Connor's Sunday coat in his hand, from the pocket of which he drew a steel and tinder-box. ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... unwillingly to consent to our precious charge going to meet her sister at Brentford, and that she was but newly come home. Presently she entered, but scarcely had I accosted her before a blaze broke out close to us. The flame caught the dry old curtains, they flamed up like tinder, and as I leaped up on a table to tear them down, it gave way with me, I got a blow on the head, and knew no more. It seems that my uncle, as soon as the fire was out, finding that my arm was broken, set out to send the groom for the doctor—he being used to range the park ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... soaked in a solution of nitre and then thoroughly dried. This string, when once lighted, burns very slowly and a piece one inch long is sufficient for the purpose. Some performers prefer a small piece of punk, as it requires no preparation. Still others use tinder made by burning linen rags, as our forefathers used to do. This will not flame, but merely smoulders until the breath blows it into a glow. The tinder is made by charring linen rags, that is, burning them to a ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... communication, Caleb feebly stretched his wan hand, held the letter which had "come too late" over the flame of the candle. As the blazing paper dropped on the carpetless floor, Mr. Jones prudently set thereon the broad sole of his top-boot, and the maidservant brushed the tinder into ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... all great works of Nature, measure time by the lapse of ages, and that a thousand years will often pass between the convulsions of the internal fires which find an outlet through the earth's craters. The smoke and heat of the mountain, however, reminded me of my tinder-box, and I gathered some flints, of which there were a number lying round, before returning to my dwelling in the native town. I had kept my ability to make fire, so far, secret, but if my life ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... towards the great granary, or storehouse, in which was kept all the ripe maize of the tribe, together with much starch-root (koonti katki) and a large quantity of yams. The granary was built of pitch-pine posts and poles, heavily thatched with palm-leaves, that the summer suns had dried to a tinder. ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... inflammable, and when propelled in a hollow cone against lighted spirit of wine on tow at the other end by a sudden jerk, its flash serves to imitate lightning for stage purposes. It was formerly used as tinder for lighting fires ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... est aquam hostis venere," etc. "Tut, tut, it's not allowed. But here are some of the enemy in a barn? What about that?" "Ob fas est hostem incendio," etc. "Yes; he says we may. Quick, Ambrose, up with the straw and the tinder box." Warfare was no child's play about the time when Tilly sacked Magdeburg, and Cromwell turned his hand from the mash tub to the sword. It might not be much better now in a long campaign, when men were hardened and embittered. ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... am here!' but he couldn't. At the horror of this chase, more ghastly in his imagination than if he could have seen it, the perspiration broke out on his forehead, while his throat was as dry as tinder. A last supreme scream ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... stone dead. I'm too tinder-hearted to be burying anything but a dead bate, Dannie. That's a thousand years old, but laugh, like I knew you would, old Ramphirinkus! No, thank you, ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... honest creature in her little attentions. I told her I would certainly take a nap in the morning, as I had slept so little for the last three nights, and was besides so fatigued. "Musha to be sure, and why not, agra! afther the hard bout you had in that blessed Island! betoken that you're tinder and too soft rared to bear it like them that the work hardens; sleep!—to be sure you'll sleep your fill—you want it, in coorse; and now go to bed, and you'll appear quite another man in the mornin', ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... maturely considered the nature of their undertaking, they provided themselves with a musket and powder-horn, containing twelve charges of powder, with as many balls, an axe, a small kettle, a bag with about twenty pounds of flower, a knife, a tinder-box and tinder, a bladder filled with tobacco, and every man ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... literature. But he was distinctively a preacher, and his serene and sweet genius never unbent into a frolicsome mood. As early as 1820 a volume of Robert Burns's poems fell into Whittier's hands like a spark into tinder, and the flame that has so long illuminated and cheered began to blaze. It was, however, a softened ray, not yet the tongue of lyric fire which it afterwards became. But none of the poets smiled as they sang. The Muse of New England was staid and stately—or was she, after all, not ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... accordingly; wherefore the serpent, Adam knew, was subtil, therefore Satan useth him, thereby to catch this goodly creature. Hereby the devil least appeared; and least appearing, the temptation soonest took the tinder.[7] ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... in the story,—the spark on the tinder. We have heard nothing of prophets during Solomon's reign; but now this man from Shiloh, the ancient seat of the Tabernacle, meets the ambitious young officer in some solitary spot, with the message which answered to his ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... which his feet were continually settling, and which he judged to be loose sand. When he had gone far enough from the entrance to be free from the current of air which entered the cavern by it, he laid down the deer's flesh which he had brought upon his back, took out his flint and tinder-box, and struck fire. Having properly disposed of the wood he had brought, and kindled a flame, he raised himself to an upright posture to survey the cavern. Who shall describe the terror which filled the soul of Cayenguirago, stout and fearless as he was, when ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... hour of twilight; the evening was warm and balmy; the whitethorn tinder which he sat, and the profusion of wild flowers that spangled the bosom of the green glen, breathed their fragrance around him, and steeped, the emotions and remembrances which crowded thickly on ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... not as the farm by moonlight. The plain was a weary flat of loose red sand, sparsely covered by dry karoo bushes, that cracked beneath the tread like tinder, and showed the red earth everywhere. Here and there a milk-bush lifted its pale-coloured rods, and in every direction the ants and beetles ran about in the blazing sand. The red walls of the farmhouse, the zinc roofs of the outbuildings, ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... Ram was supposed to be sitting tinder a punkah in the next room, with a locked door between him and his master. He was staying late, by special request and as a special favor, to copy certain very important but not too secret documents in time for the courier next day. There were just as many insects to annoy ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... as I searched for tinder box and sulphur match to relight my segar. "We must get you into Parliament, Mr. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... name," his neighbor responded. "It's like tinder. A cigarette stub'll start a blaze forty men couldn't put out. It's me that knows it. I've got four limits on the North Arm, and there's fire on two sides of me. You bet ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the food in a restaurant. "The food is tinder the special supervision of a doctor." He copies out the chemical composition of the mineral water; the students believe him—and all ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
... only chance; but that would be in the very face of the fire, and, unless he had started long before the flames broke out, it was evident that his retreat in that direction would be cut off. As already stated, the weeds were as dry as tinder; and the flames, impelled by gusts of wind, at intervals shot out their red tongues, licking up the withered stalks, coiling like serpents around them, ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... was still a virgin spinster; but it had never yielded in this way at the first assault. She had intended to bring together a middle-aged studious clergyman, and a discreet matron who might possibly be induced to marry again; and in doing she had thrown fire among tinder. Well, it was all as it should be, but she did feel perhaps a little put out by the precipitancy of her own success; and perhaps a little vexed at the readiness of ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... a tiny stream of wood meal, ground off by friction, poured through the slot at the side of the hearth, and accumulated in a little pile, that all at once began to smoke. In two seconds more it was a glowing coal of fire. Then Yim dropped his spindle, covered the coal with a bit of tinder previously made ready, and blew it into a flame, which he deftly transferred to the wick ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... been found in the morning, was dried in the sun during the day, which was very fine; a steel, gunflints, and tinder made also a part of the same parcel. After a good deal of difficulty we set fire to some fragments of dry linen. We made a large opening in the side of an empty cask, and placed at the bottom of it several wet things, ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... of it that went in further, but was so low that it required me to creep upon my hands and knees to go into it, and whither it went I knew not; so, having no candle, I gave it over for that time, but resolved to go again the next day provided with candles and a tinder-box, which I had made of the lock of one of the muskets, with some wildfire in ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... curious tradition in the north of England, which is practically done away with in these days of lucifer matches. In the old days of tinder boxes, if any one failed to get a light, it was of no use his going round to the neighbours to get one, for even his dearest friends would refuse him, it being considered most unlucky to allow ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... and fortify the obstinacy of her into whose hands they fell; but Lady Ashton's passions were too deep-rooted to require this fresh food. She burnt the papers as regularly as she perused them; and as they consumed into vapour and tinder, regarded them with a smile upon her compressed lips, and an exultation in her steady eye, which showed her confidence that the hopes of the writers should ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... a kick, pointed to something on the floor. Amazed and wrathful, Mrs. Cross saw a long roller-towel, half a yard of it burnt to tinder; nor could any satisfactory explanation of the accident be drawn from Martha, who laughed, sobbed, and sniggered by turns as ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... of pine had been spread over the timber, and the branches in turn covered with a thick layer of straw to prevent the earth from filtering between the logs. This material was as dry as tinder, ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... insidious designs, since I shared the danger, whatever it might be, the merchants were a little pacified; but what was my terror and remorse the next day, when one of them came to inform me that plague-boils had broken out tinder the arms of all the slaves who had worn this pestilential apparel! On looking carefully into the chest, we found the word Smyrna written, and half effaced, upon the lid. Now, the plague had for some time raged at Smyrna; and, as the merchants suspected, these clothes had certainly belonged to persons ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... Oregon. At the age of fifteen she could have been a passenger on the first passenger railroad train that was ever run; until she was five years old, there was no such thing as an iron plow in all the world, and until she was grown up, the people were dependent on tinder boxes and sun glasses to light their fires. She had reached the age of twenty-three years when steam communication between Europe and America was established, and when the first telegram ever sent passed between Baltimore and Washington she ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... a natural transition. How to get a blaze just when you want it puzzles the will sometimes hugely. Every traveller should provide himself with a good handy steel, proper flint, and unfailing tinder, because lucifers are liable to many accidents. Pliny recommended the wood of mulberry, bay-laurel, and ivy, as good material to be rubbed together in order to procure a fire; but Pliny is behind the times, and must not be trusted to make rules for General McLellan's boys. Of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... said he was sure the coffee-pot was heavy and he could not hold so many plates, and he would with pleasure help him with our breakfast. But Tom, who joined them, said Marcus Aurelius must not set fire to tinder, and that he was the only one of the party who could be considered suitable to be morning waiter, being my cousin and a married man. We were so entertained beyond the open door, and were quite surprised at Gaston's silence, until we saw his face reflected in the looking ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... what, instinct, guided my eyes to the side table where I had left my manuscript. It was gone. At that instant: the wind from the wide open window and door blew the lamp flame and stirred the curtains, and a great sheet of whole black tinder drifted across the carpet up to ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... get the direction of the wind. Then circling the lick and getting between it and the creek-bank, he flung down the bundle of torches and motioned Enoch back into the deeper shadow. With his own flint and steel, and using a bit of tinder from the leather pouch he carried, he lit one of the resinous torches. This he stood upright some little distance away, yet not too near the piece of ground where the creatures of the forest were accustomed ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... and in a quarter of an hour the bluejackets and marines were seen issuing from the houses and coming down to the shore. The place was by this time a sheet of fire, the lightly built huts, dried in the heat of the sun, catching like tinder, and blazing up in a fierce flame, that in a few minutes left no ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... carried in abundance, together with a lantern, axe, bill-hook, tinder-box, matches, candles, oil, tea, coffee, sugar, biscuits, wine, brandy, sauces, etc., a few hams, some tins of preserved meats and soups, and a few bottles of curacea, a glass of which, in the early dawn, after a cup of hot coffee ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... me.'—So, linking his arm in mine, he drew me (for it was pitch dark, and how he found his way I know not) aside from the road, unto a small forsaken and ruinated hut that stood on the common.—'Stand where you be a moment,' quoth he; and striking the tinder, he lit a rush candle. 'Now, know you me?' saith he. 'Not a whit better than afore,' quoth I.—He blew out the candle.—'You have forgot my face,' he saith. 'Mind you a year gone, ministering unto a dying woman (as was thought), in this place, ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... the work of another minute to light a lucifer-match, and set fire to the long strips of tinder rag that hung downwards ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... this dark-eyed ne'er-do-well, notorious all down Cheapside for his relentless dalliance with the fair, placed in intimate proximity with one of England's most glorious specimens of ripening womanhood. It was, Sheepmeadow writes, like the meeting of flint and tinder—these two so widely different in the essentials and yet so akin in their physical beauty. As was inevitable, from the first they loved—he with the flaming passion of a hell-rake, she with the sweet, appealing ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... seen; and at fourteen miles on a bearing of 18 degrees came to, and crossed at an angle, the bed of a small dry lake (with lots of fine grass) or watercourse half a mile wide. When rain has fallen on this country it is difficult to say; most of the herbs and grass and shrubs as dry as tinder and will ignite at once—but is much more open and fit for pasture. At sixteen miles on same bearing crossed the bed of salt lake, now dry and of no great extent, running north and south in an extensive flat; spelled and had a pot ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... near thwarting Dan's carefully laid schemes. She had counted upon Jesse to do her bidding and had, she declared, arranged that Nancy should help her put together the silken patches of the quilt upon which she was perennially engaged. Her foster-daughter's glance of displeasure at this was tinder to the old lady's temper, and Dan entered ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... by night, for lack of room indoors, and also to guard the fodder—an arrangement which suited me admirably, since it left me my own master for six or seven hours of the twenty-four. My bedroom furniture consisted of a truss of hay, a lantern, a tinder-box, and a rusty fowling piece. For my toilet I went to the bucket in ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... When does one and the same mirror seem now to withdraw the image into its depths, now to extrude it forth to view? Why do concave mirrors when held at right angles to the rays of the sun kindle tinder set opposite them? What is the cause of the prismatic colours of the rainbow, or of the appearance in heaven of two rival images of the sun, with sundry other phenomena treated in a monumental volume by Archimedes of Syracuse, a man who showed extraordinary and unique subtlety in all branches of ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... before, upon a quarter of such provocation, he would have flashed into fight; but cold, hunger and friendlessness had damped the tinder in him. He made to go on and get away from it ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... necessity; probably because these rooms in the cliff, which have been termed outlooks, were not in any sense watch towers, but rather places of abode during the harvest season, where the workers in the field lived when not actually employed in labor, and where the fields tinder cultivation could always be kept in view—an arrangement quite as necessary and quite as extensively practiced ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff |
