"Wick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pointing out to the Bootlair Sahib that the daylight was yet strong and lusty enough to shame and smother any lamp, complied with deliberation and care, polishing the chimney, trimming the wick, pouring in oil and generally making a satisfactory and commendable job ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... asleep, when he heard footsteps on deck; and in the dim light from the lamp he observed the missing sailor coming down the steps, followed closely by Hornblower. When they were fairly within they shut the door, and the seaman turned up the wick of the ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... See also Knight on the Apple-Tree, in 'Transact. of Hort. Soc.' volume 6 page 229.), which is the glory of the orchards near New York; and so it is with several varieties which we have imported from the Continent. On the other hand, our Court of Wick succeeds well under the severe climate of Canada. The Caville rouge de Micoud occasionally bears two crops during the same year. The Burr Knot is covered with small excrescences, which emit roots so readily that a branch with blossom-buds may be stuck ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... room where so much of Judge Whipple's life had been spent. How little it was! And how completely they filled it,—these five people and the big Rothfield covered with the black cloth. Virginia pressed her father's arm as they leaned against it, and brushed her eyes. The Doctor turned the wick of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... gentleness and tenderness. "He will not cry, nor lift up his voice, nor cause it to be heard in the street. A bruised reed will he not break, and a dimly burning wick will he not quench: he will bring forth justice in truth" (Isa. ...
— The Spirit and the Word - A Treatise on the Holy Spirit in the Light of a Rational - Interpretation of the Word of Truth • Zachary Taylor Sweeney
... the reach a ferry-boat lifted its infinitesimal wail, and then the silence of the night river came down once more, profound and inscrutable A corner of the wick above my head sputtered ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... peculiar suspicion; before even admitting him to the house, she questioned him closely as to his business, his present place of abode, and so on, and Warburton was all but turning away in impatience, when at last she drew aside, and cautiously invited him to enter. Further acquaintance with Mrs. Wick led him to understand that the cold, misgiving in her eye, the sour rigidity of her lips, and her generally repellant manner, were characteristics which meant nothing in particular—save as they resulted from a more or less hard life amid London's crowd; at present, the woman annoyed ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... the wick of a candle standing on the table by his side. From his manner I did not think him quite sober, but he appeared to pull himself together by-and-by, ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... suspended within the chimney, hung a three-footed pot, in which potatoes were boiling away merrily for supper. By the side of the wide chimney, or more properly lum, hung an iron lamp, of an old classical form common to the country, from the beak of which projected, almost horizontally, the lighted wick—the pith of a rush. The light perched upon it was small but clear, and by it David had been reading. Margaret sat right under it, upon a creepie, or small three-legged wooden stool. Sitting thus, with the light ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... whispered the Master; and stepping backward, he turned yet lower than it was the wick of his shaded lamp. "Good! Excellent! Five's a very good number. I should have been sorry to see a big litter, for dear old Tara. And, anyhow, that last one, the grey, is about equal to any two I ever saw; an immense whelp; dog for sure, and a ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... story is told of how the Aleuts arranged to have the uprising simultaneous and certain. A bunch of sticks was carried to the chief of every tribe. {90} These were burned one a day, like the skin wick in the seal oil of the Aleut's stone lamp. When the last stick had burned, the Aleuts ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... Within were two beds, placed face to face; on one I recognized my own pillows which I had brought with me, so that must be my sleeping place. Beside the window was a writing-table on which was burning a single candle, its wick so badly trimmed as to prove that he who should have trimmed it had been so deeply engaged in work that he had not remarked whether ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... extemporized a light with some fat and a wick of rag, and Chalmers came in to discuss my visit and to ask me a question concerning a matter which had roused the latent curiosity of the whole family. I had told him, he said, that I knew no one hereabouts, but "his woman" told him ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... wildly on the floor. It had burnt almost to the wood and now the remnant of the wick stood in a little sprawling pool of grease white at ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... still in the council tent, but alone and poring over a rude map. A burning wick in a basin of tallow scarcely dispelled the darkness, but Henry could see that the commander's face was knit and anxious. He turned expectantly to ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... printed on it, in consequence of the dimness of the light which the landlord had left him—a common tallow candle, furnished with a pair of heavy old-fashioned steel snuffers. Up to this time, his mind had been too much occupied to think of the light. He had left the wick of the candle unsnuffed, till it had risen higher than the flame, and had burnt into an odd pent-house shape at the top, from which morsels of the charred cotton fell off, from time to time, in little flakes. He took up the snuffers now, and trimmed the wick. ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... higher class, an admirable private institution has for some years been in operation at Normansfield, near Hampton Wick, under the care of Dr. and Mrs. Down, who were formerly at Earlswood. There ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... from the town was a farm then known as Wick's farm, situated in a beautiful wooded country. The daughter of Mr. Wick, named Tempe (probably short for Temperance), was the owner of a very fine horse, and on this beautiful animal it was her delight to ride over the roads and through the woods of the surrounding ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... exactly in the same state as when the two men left the room. A candle, with a charred smoking wick, cast its flickering light upon the same scene of disorder, revealing to view the rigid features of the three victims. Without losing a moment, Lecoq began to pick up and study the various objects scattered over the floor. ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... spoiled, Lady Delacour, you had better send for a locksmith," replied his lordship, who was still employed about the wick of the Argand: "I am no locksmith—I do not pretend to understand ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... fragments of brick and stone; the door, made of woven rushes, is open, and a red light streams from it, which throws its rays on the tall grass that covers the ground. Three men are assembled in this hovel, around a clay-lamp, with a wick of ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... cities, and even in large villages, are furnished with gas; where gas is not used, sperm-oil, kerosene or coal-oil, and candles are employed. Gas is the cheapest, (or ought to be;) and if properly used, is as good as any. Good sperm-oil burned in an Argand lamp—that is, a lamp with a circular wick, like the astral lamp and others—is perhaps the best; but it is expensive and attended with many inconveniences. Good kerosene oil gives a light which leaves little to be desired. Candles are used only on rare occasions, though many families prefer to manufacture into candles the waste ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... hare-warren, and which were presented as nuisances by the grand jury in 1662. The complaint was that by turning the water of the "New River" into them the said Oliver had made the road from Hampton Wick boggy and unsafe. Another misdemeanor of the deceased was at the same time and in like manner denounced. This was the stopping up of the pathway through the warren. The palings were abated, and the path is open to all nineteenth-century comers, as it ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... They there collect or cleave unto the torch, Forthwith they readily flash aflame, because The tow and torches, also, in themselves Have many seeds of latent fire. Indeed, And seest thou not, when near the nightly lamps Thou bringest a flaxen wick, extinguished A moment since, it catches fire before 'Thas touched the flame, and in same wise a torch? And many another object flashes aflame When at a distance, touched by heat alone, Before 'tis steeped in veritable fire. This, then, we must suppose to come to pass In that ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... them upo' the wick o' 't!" exclaimed Curly, when she told him the next day, seeking ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... the principle of the tinder-box has been revived in a device in which sparks are produced by rubbing the mineral cerite (a hydrous silicate of cerium and allied metals) against steel. These sparks ignite a gas-jet or a wick soaked in a highly inflammable liquid such as gasolene or alcohol. This device is a tinder-box of ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... this dolorous ditty As we part at the foot of the stairs; We cannot but think it's a pity, But what matter? there's nobody cares. Our candle burns low in its socket, There is nothing left but the wick; And these Notes, that went up like a rocket, Come down ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray
... question so elaborately lengthy. People do not talk like that. As a contrast, let us notice for a moment the poignant truthfulness of speech in Mr. Rudyard Kipling's story, "Only a Subaltern." A fever-stricken private says to Bobby Wick, "Beg y' pardon, sir, disturbin' of you now, but would you min' 'oldin' my 'and, sir"?—and later, when the private becomes convalescent and Bobby in his turn is stricken down, the private suddenly stares in horror at his bed, and ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... darkness, could find nothing but broken bottles. At last I came upon the candle, which had rolled under the curve of a cask, but, try as I would with my tinderbox, I could not light it. The reason was that the wick had been wet in a puddle of wine, so suspecting that this might be the case, I cut the end off with my sword. Then I found that it lighted easily enough. But what to do I could not imagine. The scoundrels upstairs were shouting themselves hoarse, several hundred ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... renewed its violence, and forced its way through every crevice. The carpet of his little room occasionally rose from the floor, swelled up by the insidious entrance of the searching blast; the solitary candle, which from neglect had not only elongated its wick to an unusual extent, but had formed a sort of mushroom top, was every moment in danger of extinction, while the chintz curtains of the window waved solemnly to and fro. But the deep reverie of Edward Forster was suddenly disturbed by the report of ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Lucile, "is a flat, native seal-oil lamp. We can burn our seal-oil in it. I have a handful of moss in my pocket to string along the side for wick. It'll make it more cheery and it'll seem warmer. The other," she went on, "is a frozen whitefish; found it on one of the caches. Guess the natives won't miss it if they ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... on all sides before the glare, and his aunt stooped down and groped for the cigar case with the precious candle. Then they discovered that the candle had not been blown out at all; it had been crushed out. The wick was pressed down into the wax, which was flattened as if by some ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... home that evening, he went with her into her cabin. In silence he built up the fire, fussed for a time with the lamp-wick, lighted a cigarette, took a turn across the cabin, inspected thoughtfully the back of one hand, and then lifted his gaze to Imogene. She had been waiting, with a vague alarm. And this his stern visage and burning ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... the alarm; she, Bertha, was swept away in that tumult which came raging through the darkness.—He stood transfixed, but only for an instant, rather by the stroke of helplessness than by fear; and then, blindly, without plan or foresight, darted down the covered way. The tiny flame of a pith wick, floating in a saucer of oil, showed Heywood's gatekeeper sitting at his post, like a gnome in the gallery of a mine. Rudolph tore away the bar, heard the heavy gate slam shut, and found himself ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... Peter came in and sat with him in the dark, going over now and then to cover him, or to give him a drink, or to pick up the cage of mice which Jimmy insisted on having beside him and which constantly slipped off on to the floor. After a time Peter lighted the night-light, a bit of wick on a cork floating in a saucer of lard oil, and set it on the bedside table. Then round it he arranged Jimmy's treasures, the deer antlers, the cage of mice, the box, the wooden sentry. The boy fell asleep. Peter sat in ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... alive," the stranger cried impatiently, turning sharply round upon the farmer, who was trimming an incorrigible wick with a pair of blunted snuffers. "Remember, I've got to go back to Malsham; I haven't all the night ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... possibly a cat. The only light is that procured from what is called a slush lamp, made by keeping an old bowl or pannikin replenished by refuse fat or dripping in which is inserted a thick cotton wick. He cooks for himself, washes his own clothes, cuts up his firewood, and fetches water for daily use. Such luxuries as eggs, butter, or milk are unknown. Perhaps once a month he may have occasion to visit ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... Dr. Baleinier, "set light to the cotton; place the lighted part on the skin of his reverence, by means of the tripod which contains the wick; cover the tripod with the broad part of the tube, and then blow through the other end to keep up the fire. It is ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... unpolluted shroud. Next within their chill embrace The dead man's Awful Candle place; Of murderer's fat must that candle be —You may scoop it beneath the roadside tree—, Of wax, and of Lapland sisame. Its wick must be twisted of hair of the dead, By the crow and her brood on the wild waste shed. Wherever that terrible light shall burn Vainly the sleeper may toss and turn; His leaden lids shall he ne'er unclose So long as that magical taper glows. Life and treasures shall ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... for the eyes, stood on the table with its polished brass foot and its raveled green cloth shade. The oil in the tank gurgled dutifully. Black fragments gathered on the wick, which looked like a stake over which a ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... to confront her caused him to hesitate: should he go in? What else could he do? where had he to go? So, with a sort of desperation, he pushed open the door and found himself within the sitting-room. It was empty; the fire had burnt low, the wick of the unsnuffed candle had grown long; evidently Eve had not returned; and with an undefined mixture of regret and relief Adam sat down, leaned his arms on the table and laid ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... should not be easily seen by anyone entering. Presently there was the click of a latch, then the door opened and shut, and cigar-smoke invaded the room. An instant later a hand went up to the suspended oil- lamp and twisted the wick into brighter flame. As it did so, there was a slight noise, then the click of a lock. Turning sharply, the man under the lamp saw at the door the man who had been sitting in the corner. The man had a key in his hand. Exit now could only be had through the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... becomes darker by overheating, and when heated to dryness, gives off a grayish steam, smelling of tallow. There is no 'sputtering' when it is being heated, but it boils easily. If a pledget of cotton or a wick saturated with oleomargarine be set on fire and allowed to burn a few moments before being extinguished, it will give out fumes which are very characteristic, smelling strongly of tallow, while ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... saucer and rising over it, thus indicating the course of the air from sea to land. On reversing the experiment, by filling the saucer with cold water (to represent the island at night) and the dish with warm water, the land breeze will be shown by holding the smoking wick over the edge of the saucer; the smoke will then be wafted to the ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne
... Annie says, when the blaze is blue, An' the lamp wick sputters, an' the wind goes woo-oo! An' you hear the crickets quit, an' the moon is gray, An' the lightnin'-bugs in dew is all squenched away,— You better mind yer parents, an' yer teachers fond an' dear, An' churish them 'at loves you, an' dry the orphant's tear, An' he'p the pore an' needy ones ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... suppuration. The surgeon should smell the speculum in suspicious cases. He should never accept the patient's statement as regards the absence of discharge, but should satisfy himself by inspection and by the introduction of a cotton-wool wick. ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... he lit the lamp on his study table; the wick sputtered, and the light in his head jigged horribly with the jigging of the flame. It was as if he was being stabbed ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... hall you will find a door opening into a garden planted with trees loaded with fine fruit. Walk directly across the garden to a terrace, where you will see a niche before you, and in the niche a lighted lamp. Take it down and put it out. Throw away the wick and pour out the liquor, which is not oil and will not hurt your clothes; then put the lamp into your waistband and bring it to me." The magician then took a ring from his finger and put it on Aladdin's, saying, "This ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... up the grooves with corn bread blackened with soot that we can make by holding the wick of this smoky ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... had received. Red-haired Gitta was sewing another patch of cloth upon her rough husband's already well-mended jerkin by the dim light of a small lamp, into which she had put some fat and a bit of rag for a wick. It was difficult to thread the needle. Had it not been for the yellow blaze of the pitchpans fastened to the wall with iron clamps, which had already been burning an hour, she ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Languis ng niog) are shipped from the Philippines, but in the Colony itself it is an important article of consumption. Every dwelling, rich or poor, consumes a certain amount of this oil nightly for lighting. For this purpose it is poured into a glass half full of water, on which it floats, and a wick, made of pith, called tinsin, introduced by the Chinese, is suspended in the centre of the oil by a strip of tin. As the oil is consumed, the wick is lowered by slightly bending the tin downwards. There are few dwelling-houses, or huts, ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... By Jove, one has to open the thing, don't you know. Ah, there we are! That's better," he said, after he had succeeded in finally lighting the wick. He held the lantern up close to her face and they looked at each other for a moment. "Anne, I do love you!" he exclaimed. Then he kissed her. "That's the first time I've had a chance to kiss you ...
— The Flyers • George Barr McCutcheon
... inches square, admitted a very scanty portion of that which we most needed, namely, fresh air and daylight. A deal table occupied a very considerable extent of this small apartment, and on it stood a brass candle-stick, with a dip candle, and a wick like a fullblown carnation. The table-cloth was spread, and the stains of port wine and gravy too visibly indicated, like the midshipman's dirty shirt, the near approach of Sunday. The black servant was preparing ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... a golden lamp for the Temple of Minerva at Athens, with a wick composed of asbestos, which burned day and night for a year without trimming or replenishing with oil. If this was true, the font of the lamp must have been large enough to have contained a year's supply of oil; for, though some ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... candle in a candlestick, Made up of tallow and a little wick; And as the candle when it is not lighted, So is he who is in his sins benighted. Nor can a man his soul with grace inspire, More than can candles set themselves on fire. Candles receive their light from what they are not; Men grace from Him for whom at first they care not. We ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... rested on his shoulder, and his had half-passed, roughly, about her, when the sharp crackle of a match startled him to himself. Winapie, alien to the scene, was lighting the slow wick of the slush lamp. She appeared to start out against a background of utter black, and the flame, flaring suddenly up, lighted her bronze beauty to ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... up with anxiety, and found that his oil was congealed, and his lights almost extinguished; and when, after many hours' exertion, he had succeeded in replenishing his reservoirs with winter oil at the wick-end, and with difficulty had made them burn, he looked out, and found that the other lights in the neighborhood, which were usually visible to him, had gone out, and he heard afterward that the Pamet River and Billingsgate ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... there can be a light without a wick?" asked a member of Parliament, when William Murdock, toward the close of the eighteenth century, said that coal gas would give a good light, and could be conveyed into buildings in pipes. "Do you intend taking ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... ignited the paper Joe, by pressing the lower edges of his palms against the blazing wick of the candle, extinguished it. This had the same effect as though he had "pinched" out the flame with finger and thumb, as many country persons put out, or "snuff," candles to-day—for candles are still ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... a box, half packed, with various articles of clothing lying by it. On the dressing-table was a whole medley of little feminine knick-knacks, with a candlestick in the midst, the dead wick still smoking in the socket, and accounting for the disappearance of the light a few minutes before. The fire had gone out, but on a chair by it was laid a little black lace evening-gown, evidently put out to be worn; while over the fender a dainty pair of silk stockings had been hung, ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... has the master now? What shall we see in this miserable cabin—with the exception of the Tic-balan, [7] or Assuan? [8] We shall find nothing else." During the Indian's reflections the fire burnt up. I lit, without saying a word, a cotton wick, plastered over with elemi gum, that I always carried with me in my travels, and I began exploring. I went all through the inside of the habitation without finding anything, not even the Tic-balan, or Assuan, as my lieutenant ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... fires, though not for the Sabbath lamps. Why are wicks made of the above materials prohibited? Because they give but a flickering light. The oily substances mentioned are forbidden because they do not adhere to the wick. ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... the door, that door which he had so beautifully painted, and led Tiki-pu in. And outside the little candle-end sat and guttered by itself, till the wick fell overboard, and the flame kicked itself out, leaving the studio in darkness and solitude to wait for ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman
... Bobby Wick pass an examination at Sandhurst. He was a gentleman before he was gazetted, so, when the Empress announced that 'Gentleman-Cadet Robert Hanna Wick' was posted as Second Lieutenant to the Tyneside Tail Twisters at Krab Bokhar, he became an officer and a gentleman, ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... his candle, picked the wick, and sat it up on his pile of books that it might give a better light, and then turned again smilingly towards Bee, offered her a chair and stood as ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... a lamp to buy, for Lowwood was an open-light pit, and was soon busy on the instructions of his father learning the art of "putting in a wick" to the exact thickness, testing his tea flask, and doing all the little things that count in preparing for the first descent into a coal mine. He was very much excited over it all, and babbled all the evening, asking questions regarding the work he would be called upon to do, and generally ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... para los faroles: A large wax candle, with more than one wick, or a union of three or four candles, which ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... of His severity, nor daunted by His royalty. No doubt they haunted the temple precincts as beggars, with perhaps as little sense of its sacredness as the money-changers; but their misery kindled a flicker of confidence and desire, to which He who tends the dimmest wick till it breaks into clear flame could not but respond. Though in His house He casts out the traders, He will heal the cripples and the blind, who know their need, and faintly trust His heart and power. Such a trait could not be wanting in this ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... later flame in heaven shall hold. Ay, lanthorn on the North Church tower, When that thy church hath had her hour, Still from the top of Reverence high Shalt thou illume Fame's ampler sky; For, statured large o'er town and tree, Time's tallest Figure stands by thee, And, dim as now thy wick may shine The Future lights his ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... There was a heavy sadness about his features which rarely came, and always startled her when it did come with a fear that they had so set in gloom that they would never change. He raised his hand to the wick screw of the lamp, waiting for her to pass through the room before turning off the flame which bathed him in its rays, giving him the effect of a Rodinesque incarnation ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... consequently cannot open it in the evening. But I have prepared some lamps for my chapel. I think you would laugh to see them. They are four in number. Two of them are merely small tumblers hung up by wires and cords. By means of another wire a wick is suspended in each tumbler and the tumbler filled with oil. The other two are on the same principle, but the tumblers are hung in a kind of glass globe which is suspended by brass chains. These look considerably more ornamental than the first two. ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... This finely pulverized surface largely prevents the moisture below from evaporating, and at the same time keeps the surface in such condition that it readily absorbs the dew and the showers. Water moves in the soil as it does in a lamp wick, by capillary attraction; the more deeply and densely the soil is saturated with moisture, the more easily the water moves upward, just as oil "climbs up" a wet wick faster than it does a dry one. One can illustrate the effect of this fine soil "mulch" in preventing evaporation by placing ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... inflammable refuse as we can find, and make our soul's light into a tallow candle, and thenceforward take our guttering, sputtering, ill-smelling illumination about with us, holding it out in fetid fingers—encumbered with its lurid warmth of fungous wick, and drip of stalactitic grease—that we may see, when another man would have seen, or dreamed he saw, the flight of a divine Virgin—only the lamplight upon the hair of a costermonger's ass;—that, having to paint the good Samaritan, we may see ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... paid for grades of mineral oil reputed to be safer or to give a "brighter" or "clearer" light; but as the quantity of light depends mainly upon the care and attention bestowed on the burner and glass fittings of the lamp, and partly upon the employment of a suitable wick, while the safety of each lamp depends at least as much upon the design of that lamp, and the accuracy with which the wick fits the burner tube, as upon the temperature at which the oil "flashes," the extra expense involved in burning fancy-priced ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... of two ordinary thermometers. One has its bulb exposed so as to register the temperature of the air. The bulb of the other is covered with muslin; this latter material being kept wet through its connection with a cotton wick dipping into a vessel of water. The water ascends from this vessel by capillary attraction, spreads over the muslin, and evaporates quickly or slowly, according to the dryness or moistness of the atmosphere. ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... down at eight o'clock to look after the boilers and pumps and to make, with entirely inadequate means, those brass screws for the dynamo-engine. The engine-room was in darkness save for the hand-lamp that hung over the vice-bench. The fat cotton-wick smoked and crackled, the light draught swirling it towards my head at times, singeing my hair and making my eyes water. Behind me the silent, heated engines stood up, stark and ominous like some emblem of my destiny watching me. The white faces ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... very flame of love A kind of wick, or snuff, that will abate it; And nothing is at a like goodness still; For goodness, growing to a pleurisy, Dies in ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... glass of the dull lamp, whose wick, burnt up and swollen like a drunkard's nose, came flying off in little carbuncles at the candle's touch, and scattering hot sparks about, rendered it matter of some difficulty to kindle the lazy taper; when a noise, as of a man snoring deeply some steps higher up, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... and seated himself on the stove-couch, occupied by Madame Wang, and, directing a servant to light the candles, he started copying in an ostentatious and dashing manner. Now he called Ts'ai Hsia to pour a cup of tea for him. Now he asked Yu Ch'uan to take the scissors and cut the snuff of the wick. "Chin Ch'uan!" he next cried, "you're in the way of the rays of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... passed, during which, one elbow on the table, the shaded side of his face supported in the palm of his hand, he read, scarce moving except to snuff the wick or to lay on a fresh fagot. At the end of this time other laws than those which the writer was tracing began to assert their supremacy over David—the laws of strength and health, warmth and weariness. Sleep was descending ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... frontier country. She had none of the deep-breasted vitality of those of her sex who have fought with grim nature and won. His experience told him that a very little longer in the storm would have snuffed out the wick of her life. ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... risen for him at the first sound of his name. Eric was far away to the south and east, in the Wick, fighting with men who would not bow to him, and all went well. The ships would go up to the ancient ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... business he was not bred to, but had assumed on his arrival in New England, and on finding his dying trade would not maintain his family, being in little request. Accordingly, I was employed in cutting wick for the candles, filling the dipping mold and the molds for cast candles, attending the shop, ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... canopies, scattering flowers, burning incense, and lighting lamps, so as to make the night as bright as the day. This they did day after day without ceasing. It happened that a rat, carrying in its mouth the wick of a lamp, set one of the streamers or canopies on fire, which caught the vihara, and the seven stories were all consumed. The kings, with their officers and people, were all very sad and distressed, supposing that ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... friends was the great lamp, which was lighted at sunset, and burnt all night, to guide the ships into the harbor. To Dan it was only a lamp; but to the boy it seemed a living thing, and he loved and tended it faithfully. Every day he helped Dan clear the big wick, polish the brass work, and wash the glass lantern which protected the flame. Every evening he went up to see it lighted, and always fell asleep, thinking, "No matter how dark or wild the night, my good Shine will save the ships that ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... Buck wondered whether Bud could possibly have returned and crawled in there unheard. Then, as the wick flared up, he not only realized that this couldn't have happened, but recognized lying on the youngster's rolled-up blankets the stout figure and round, unshaven ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... a glow of light held at arm's length by the recreant follower of Destiny illuminating a tableau which shall end the ignominious chronicle—a maid with unkissed, curling, contemptuous lips slowly lifting the lamp chimney and allowing the wick to ignite; then waving a scornful and abjuring hand toward the staircase—the unhappy Tansey, erstwhile champion in the prophetic lists of fortune, ingloriously ascending to his just and certain doom, ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... long silence ensued. He examined the flame of the candle with a stupid air, and from around the wick he took some of the burning wax, which he rolled between his fingers. The old woman waited for him. She even ventured to uplift her ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... the king o' a' the core, To guard or draw, or wick a bore, Or up the rink like Jehu roar In time o' need; But now he lags on death's ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... "There's Mr. Wick at Number Nine, But he's intent on pelf, And though he's pious, will not love His neighbour as himself. At Number Seven there was a sale— The goods had quite a run! And here I've got my single lot ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 402, Supplementary Number (1829) • Various
... of passing time descended and was lifted. Then the walls of the house were opened and in a low arched chamber the rabbis sat about a black table. It was night and a single smoking lamp was lighted, a mere wick projecting out of a three-cornered vessel of copper which was full of oil and was hung from the vault with blackened wires. Seven rabbis sat at the board, and at the head sat Lazarus. Their crooked hands and claw-like nails moved ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... after green cocoanuts, the juice of which he drank, for in all the isle there was no water. The days were long to him, and the nights terrifying. He made a lamp of cocoa-shell, and drew the oil of the ripe nuts, and made a wick of fibre; and when evening came he closed up his hut, and lit his lamp, and lay and trembled till morning. Many a time he thought in his heart he would have been better in the bottom of the sea, his bones rolling there with ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of Kennedy," retorted Horn. "Any man who can write as Poe does should be forgiven, no matter what he does—if he be honest. There's nothing so rare as genius in this world, and even if his flame does burn from a vile-smelling wick it's a flame, remember!—and one that will yet light the ages. If I know anything of the literature of our time Poe will live when these rhymers like Mr. Martin Farquhar Tupper, whom everybody is talking about, will be forgotten. ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... from the flint and steel, No lucifers were known, Snuffers with tallow candles came To prune the wick o'ergrown. ...
— Old Times at Otterbourne • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the others. Inside, so as to retain the heat and carry off the water which dripped from the melting dome of snow, there was an interior tent of seal skin. In a great pan of soapstone was a line of moss, which absorbed the walrus fat, and served as a wick for the lamp. This emitted a line of thin, reddish blue flame. Over the light, and supported by a framework, was a large soapstone pot in which bits of walrus meat were simmering. By the side of the pot a large piece of ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... father's foot with soup and finally fell asleep. His parents followed his example, so Maciek was left to himself again. The big-bellied bottle started pursuing him immediately. It availed nothing that he busied himself with the fire and the wick of the flickering lamp. The snoring around him disposed him to sleep and the smell of vodka that had been introduced into the room filled him with longing. In vain he tried to keep off the thoughts that circled ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... cylinder. In getting up his new chimney, Mr. Bayle has utilized these principles as follows: Round-burner lamps have, as well known, two currents of air—an internal current which traverses the small tube that carries the wick, and an external one which passes under the chimney-holder externally to the wick. In giving the upper part of the chimney, properly so called, the form of a truncated cone whose smaller base is turned toward the internal ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... shall succeed well, experience has shown that the nature of the fuse employed has much to do with it. Plaited or woven wick is not adapted, and will fail absolutely with dry coals, unless it is made very free burning. In this case not less than three-quarters of an inch in length is necessary, and the weight of such is very appreciable. I always use Oxford cotton, and thoroughly soak it ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... hermetically sealed, so to speak, for the snow crept in wherever there was an aperture. The trousers were of double thickness, as they were exposed to the greatest wear. Attached by large buttons, toggles or lampwick braces, they reached as high as the lower part of the chest. Below, they had lamp-wick lashings which were securely bound round the uppers of boots or finnesko. In walking, the trousers would often work off the leather boots, especially if they were cut to a tailor's length, and snow would then pour up the leg and down into the boots ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... come to visit my mother. On opposite sides of the kitchen stove, which stood in the center of the small house, my mother and her guest were seated in straight-backed chairs. I played with a train of empty spools hitched together on a string. It was night, and the wick burned feebly. Suddenly I heard some one turn our door-knob ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... if he could find something that would hold the grease and yet not take fire itself. Going along the beach he found a long, flat stone with a hollow in one surface, and in this the oil remained very well, and with a lighted moss wick he found it much pleasanter to get about his house at night. The bearskin he hung up for a curtain to his door to keep out the ...
— A Treasury of Eskimo Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss
... with her for the purpose, and proceeded to strike a match to light the lantern. The first one flickered and went out. The second did the same. Brossard was calling angrily for Jules now, and she struck another match in nervous haste, this time touching the wick with it before the wind could interfere. Then she drew her dress over the lantern to hide ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the chancel rail, touching with a lighted taper the wick of each holy candle until the altar sparkled with a score of tiny flames. She thought of his altar—his secret altar, and its tiny ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... white—in short, a whole series of petrels, some whitish with wings trimmed in brown, others blue and exclusive to these Antarctic seas, the former "so oily," I told Conseil, "that inhabitants of the Faroe Islands simply fit the bird with a wick, ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... glance in the direction of the loungers before the tavern. He was aware that a larger audience was assembling. A slight smile relaxed the firm set of his lips. The remaining candle sputtered feebly. The judge walked to the post and cleared the wick from tallow with his thumb-nail. There was no haste in any of his movements; his was the deliberation of conscious efficiency. Resuming his former station back of the line he had drawn in the dusty road he permitted his eye ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... dropped asleep, but was awakened again by a kind of heavy plunge upon the other bed, which caused it to rock and creak, when I observed that the light had been extinguished, probably blown out, if I might judge from a rather disagreeable smell of burnt wick which remained in the room, and which kept me awake till I heard my companion breathing hard, when, turning on the other side, I was again once more speedily ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... I could learn from my uncle and old Colin concerning Carver, further than this, was that he was a native of the north of Scotland, and that he and his family were passengers on the Danish ship, which was to have put in at the haven of Wick, in Caithness. Careless where he settled down, however, when cast upon the shores of Pomona, he had taken root here, like a weed in a flower garden. He seemed to have had a store of money in the big chest which he claimed from among the wreckage, and circumstances enabled him to purchase the ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... efficient burner for heating the ignition tube, Frank started with an ordinary wick-type kerosene lamp with a small metal tank. Wishing to use gasoline in the lamp, he found it necessary to fabricate a number of burner units before he found a type that gave him a clean blue flame. He then found the flame to be very sensitive to drafts and ...
— The 1893 Duryea Automobile In the Museum of History and Technology • Don H. Berkebile
... declared Suzette, with conviction, as she unlatched her kitchen door. "When the wick burns like that—ah, ca!" And with a cheery bonsoir she closed the ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... man watch the younger one that the former burned his fingers twice in attempting to light the lantern. Yet at last the lantern was lighted, the wick turned up not too high, and then ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... to behold) has tinged their relation; and on his an admiring and affectionate dependence. Each prizes in the other what he himself lacks; and the husband's genius loses none of its brightness to the wife, because it is herself who trims the wick and adjusts the reflectors which ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... only reply she received. And nothing stirred after that. She perhaps dozed off. The cold in the studio grew keener, and the wick of the lamp began to carbonise and burn red, while Claude, still bending over his sketch, did not seem conscious of ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... have likewise so simplified the continuous system of drawing the wick along as to prevent any loss of cotton. In the next place, the structure of the moulds, properly so called, is new. Instead of being cast, as is usually the case, they are rolled and drawn out, thus giving them smooth surfaces ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... of their roots as shot out horizontally. We even know the nature of the rock upon which they rested. As shown by fragments still locked up among the interstices of their petrified roots, it was an Old Red flagstone similar to that of Caithness in the neighborhood of Wick and Thurso, and containing the same fossil remains. In the water-rolled pebbles of the Conglomerate of Helmsdale and Port Gower,—pebbles encrusted by Oolitic corals, and enclosed in a calcareous paste, containing ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... suit me uncommon to come acrost one,' murmured Chippy. 'Four-an'-six a wick wor' very useful, I can tell yer, at our 'ouse. Theer's some kids, an' they eat such a lot, ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... to me: "Misfortune makes us superstitious; if the fourth taper should go out like the rest, nothing can prevent my looking upon it as a sinister omen." The fourth taper went out. It was remarked to the Queen that the four tapers had probably been run in the same mould, and that a defect in the wick had naturally occurred at the same point in each, since the candles had all gone out in the order in ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... lamp!" he lamented; and making his way through the twilight of the room, he took off the prism-hung shade of the tall astral lamp on the center-table, and fumbled for a match to light the charred and sticky wick; there were very few occasions in this plain household when it was worth while to light the best lamp! This was one of them, for in those days the office dignified the man to a degree that is hardly understood now. But Henry Roberts's concern was not entirely ...
— The Voice • Margaret Deland
... match flashed into light, and Melchior dropped it; they heard him scratching at his box, and directly after he struck about half a dozen together, and separated them, so that they burned brightly, holding them high up above his head before taking one to light the wick of ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... spilt oil, as the lamp said to the wick," sang out Tom. "I move we go on until we strike a ranch, ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... went plop into the pools, and made a flattish, spattery sound on the rock. I don't know why I thought of the "Air Religieux" just then, but I suppose it was because of the rain. I could see the straight yellow candle-flames all blue around the wick, and Father's head tucked down looking at the 'cello, and his hands, nice and strong, playing it; then I got a little mixed and heard him calling "Christi-ine," fainter and fainter. I think I must have been almost asleep, because I know the real rain surprised ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... to the Sirens' Isle—a night that was warm, gentle, and caressing. In the cottage two candles were lit, and the wick was burning in the glass before the Madonna. Outside the cottage door, on the flat bit of ground that faced the wide sea, Salvatore and his daughter, Maurice and Gaspare, were seated round the table finishing ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... away," cried Babbalanja, "puff; puff, so we are born, and so die. Puff, puff, my volcanos: the great sun itself will yet go out in a snuff, and all Mardi smoke out its last wick." ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... The candle gives such a strange light with that long wick, and, somehow, your face does not look like you. Please, put the candle out, and come to bed. I am so frightened, and it seems as if I should be safer if you were ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... and the houses are dark. Almost more deplorable is a candlestick of the same height as the andon, with a spike at the top which fits into a hole at the bottom of a "farthing candle" of vegetable wax, with a thick wick made of rolled paper, which requires constant snuffing, and, after giving for a short time a dim and jerky light, expires with a bad smell. Lamps, burning mineral oils, native and imported, are being manufactured on a large scale, but, apart from the peril connected ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... and sat with the Chief, and took his orders. Ah me! shall I soon forget that damp winter morning, when we all had such hope at the office. One or two of the army fellows looked in at the window as they ran by, and we knew that they felt well; and though I would not ask Old Wick, as we had nick-named the Chief, what was in the wind, I knew the time had come, and that the lion meant to break the net this time. I made an excuse to go home earlier than usual; rode down to the ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale |
