"Firebrand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the family under a white blanket, and then touched the head of each person with a lead sinker, while his companion spirit waved a bundle of rice and a firebrand over them, "To take away the sickness which they had sent." Six other spirits came long enough to drink, then Bisangolan occupied the attention of all for a time. He is an old man, a giant who lives near the river, ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... myself a thousand fools, for being afraid to see the devil one moment, who had now lived almost twenty years in the most retired solitude. And therefore resuming all the courage I had, I took a flaming firebrand, and in I rushed again. I had not proceeded above three steps, when I was more affrighted than before; for then I heard a very loud sigh, like that of a human creature in the greatest agony, succeeded with a broken noise, resembling ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... nowhere," Capper went on. "She never tried to account for him. He was her husband's son. She made him hers. But he's been a tiger's cub all his life, a hurricane, a firebrand. He and Bertie are usually at daggers drawn and Lucas spends his time keeping the peace; which is about as wearing an occupation for a sick man as I can imagine. I want to put a stop to it, Lady Carfax. I speak as one family friend ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... march till tattoo sounded. Each had its trained pet animals, and the soldiers exhausted their skill and patience in teaching these varied tricks. One regiment had a pair of bull-terrier dogs that played a game which never failed to amuse. At a signal one of the dogs would seize a firebrand by the unburnt end and start off on a run through the camp; the other would follow at speed, trying to trip up the first, to collar him or push him over, and so force him to drop the brand. The second ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... off and lick its wounds. A womanly woman that lives a lovely appealing life right in a man's own home has a perfect right to gain his love, especially if she is beautifully unconscious of her appeal. Besides, why should a man want to take an independent, explosive, impudent firebrand with all sorts of dreadful plots in her mind to his heart? He ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... bandy-legged fellow, with a neck like a bull, a face like a—firebrand, and a most portentous squint of the left eye, began, after various contortions by way of courtesy to the justice, to tell his story, eking it out by sundry sly nods and knowing winks, which appeared to bespeak an ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... out as easily," shouted Monsieur de Bourmont. "Madness, madness! Mere midsummer foolery. Go and hide yourself, firebrand!" ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... thereabout seemed burning with gold. Other lights, with a song of rapture, then descended like a crown of lilies, on the top, of the letter; and then, from the body of it, rose thousands of sparks, as from a shaken firebrand, and, gradually expanding into the form of an eagle, the lights which had descended like lilies distributed themselves over the whole bird, encrusting it with rubies flashing ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... new ponnie plaid," said the larger Highlander, "wi' a hole burnt in't ane might put a kail-pat through? Saw ever onybody a decent gentleman fight wi' a firebrand before?" ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... it, but, in my opinion, he is better under lock and key, for everybody's good, at present. He'd be a firebrand in the town if he got away. Meantime, let us go to our room. It is about the time when everybody is taking a siesta, and for two hours, thank Heaven! we're certain ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... is a man of sense; he will laugh at the joke to-morrow, and accept his defeat gracefully. What a firebrand your cousin is! Did you notice his eyes flash? I thought he meant to make mincemeat of me! It is a pity you are always against him; he will take quite ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... In vain the massy bars, cemented with their cankerous rust, opposed my entrance—in vain the heated suffocating damps enveloped me—in vain the hungry flames flashed their vengeance round me! What could oppose a man struggling to know his fate? I forced the doors, a firebrand was my guide, and among many evidences of blood and guilt, I found—these! [Produces a knife ...
— Speed the Plough - A Comedy, In Five Acts; As Performed At The Theatre Royal, Covent Garden • Thomas Morton
... in the middle, sir, is Firebrand, priest of the Sun; he on the right represents Law, and he on ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... undoubtedly have sent him to the scaffold or to the stake; nor is it improbable that both Carlyle and Newman, though in all other opinions they differed widely, would have agreed that a revolutionary firebrand and a pestilent infidel deserved some such fate. The poet might console himself with the reflection that they must have abhorred each other's principles quite as much as they ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... the lumberman. The jacks take a hand. Hippy uses a firebrand as a weapon. Overlanders badly punished. Shots from the forest shatter Peg's wooden leg. Henry paws his way into the fight. The ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... was seen to arise within a shed y^t was joynd to y^e end of y^e storehouse, which was watled up with bowes, in y^e withered leaves wherof y^e fire was kindled, which some, ru[n]ing to quench, found a longe firebrand of an ell longe, lying under y^e wale on y^e inside, which could not possibly come their by cassualtie, but must be laid ther by some hand, in y^e judgmente of all that saw it. But God kept them from this deanger, ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... the people said he was a martyr and died gloriously patient. This caused the bishop shortly after to make a sermon in the cathedral church, and therein he affirmed, that the said Marsh was a heretic, burnt as such, and was a firebrand in hell.—Mr. ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... about the American Revolution. The terms of peace made between England and the Colonies granted amnesty to Paine and his colleagues in rebellion, but his acts could not be forgotten, even though they were nominally forgiven. This new firebrand of a book was really too much, and the author got a left-handed compliment from the Premier on his ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... be safe from arrest. The people who come as guests to Bon Repos are, so I am informed, in nearly every instance foreigners, and, as a natural consequence, they are all set down by the servants' gossip as red-hot republicans, thirsting for the blood of kings and aristocrats, and willing to put a firebrand under every throne in Europe. In fact, there cannot be a popular outbreak against bad government in any part of Europe without M. Platzoff and his friends being credited with having at least a ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... a pine stick of candlewood to fall down, a stone, a firebrand; and these things he saw not what way they came, till they fell ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... yellowing title-deeds, and a list of the "muniments" of the castle, made by William Prynne, who was sent there as a prisoner by Cromwell in 1650, after having suffered branding and the loss of his ears at Royalist hands for his "seditious teachings," and who, firebrand and fanatic as he was, beguiled his imprisonment ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... that there exists no adequate biography of Karl Marx, and here is also an intimation that simply as a man, and not merely as a great firebrand of socialism, Marx is well worth studying. And so it has occurred to me to give in these pages one episode of his career that seems to me quite curious, together with some significant touches concerning the man as apart ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... the least possible evil amidst the contrariety of interests and passions in which he and all public men are placed. This, however, is but a poor apology for one who lent his powerful talents to wage wars that involved the happiness of millions, who became a willing firebrand among nations, and who, as a tool or a principal, was foremost in every work of contemporary mischief. The love of office, and a passion for public speaking, were, doubtless, the predominant feelings ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... when some of the Suffragettes say in their pamphlets and speeches, "Woman, leaping to life at the trumpet call of Ibsen and Shaw, drops her tawdry luxuries and demands to grasp the sceptre of empire and the firebrand of speculative thought"—in order to understand such a sentence I say it over again in the amended form: "Mrs. Buttons, leaping to life at the trumpet call of Ibsen and Shaw, drops her tawdry luxuries and demands to grasp ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... Socialists who urged you to go out on strike, Jonathan. You had never heard of Socialism then, except once you read something in the papers about some Socialists who were shot down by the Czar's Cossacks in the streets of Warsaw. You got an idea then that a Socialist was a desperado with a firebrand in one hand and a bomb in the other, madly seeking to burn palaces and destroy the lives of rich men and rulers. No, it was not due to Socialist agitation that you ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... There always exists water in connexion with light and earth; but owing to some defect of the eye of the perceiving person, and to the mysterious influence of merit and demerit, the light and the earth are not apprehended, while the water is apprehended.—In the case again of the firebrand swung round rapidly, its appearance as a fiery wheel explains itself through the circumstance that moving very rapidly it is in conjunction with all points of the circle described without our being able to ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... the immorality of a land-stealing, piratical policy. Against war, against capital punishment, against flogging, demanding national education instead of big guns, public libraries instead of warships—no wonder I was denounced as an agitator, a firebrand, and that all orthodox society turned up at ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... considered by Talleyrand as an inferior intriguer, employed in a country ruled by an inferior policy, neither feared nor esteemed by our Government. His secretary, Desaugiers the elder, is our real and confidential firebrand in the North, commissioned to keep burning those materials of combustion which Grouvelle and others of our incendiaries have lighted and illuminated in Holstein, Denmark, Sweden, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... again. After that nobody may enter a yam-field or a cemetery or touch sea-water for three days. On the third day a man stationed on a mound chants an invocation or incantation in a loud voice. Next all the men go down to the shore, each of them with a firebrand in his hand, and separating into two parties engage in a sham fight. Afterwards they bathe and repairing to the charnel-house deposit coco-nut leaves beside the skulls of their ancestors. They are then free to partake ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... a firebrand!" whispered Irais. I got up and went in. They were sitting on the sofa, Minora with clasped hands, gazing admiringly into Miss Jones's face, which wore a very different expression from the one of sour and unwilling propriety I have been ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... of the following year, the results of which were disastrous in a high degree to Montenegro. Even the famous Mirko, the father of Prince Nicolas, after sixty battles, could do no more, and the Convention of Scutari (1862) brought the war to a close. It was settled that Mirko, as the firebrand, must leave the country, and various other clauses appear in the Convention, few of which seem to have been strictly adhered to. It needed another war ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... yet, in all this tumult, he does not love combustion, but will be the first man that shall go and quench it. He is never a good christian till a hissing pot of ale has slacked him, like water cast on a firebrand, and for that time he is tame and dispossessed. His cunning is not small in architecture, for he builds strange fabricks in paste, towers and castles, which are offered to the assault of valiant teeth, and like Darius' palace in one banquet demolished. He is a pittiless murderer of innocents, ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... the world long enough. We policed the seas for pirates and slavers. Now we police the land for Dervishes and brigands and every sort of danger to civilisation. There is never a mad priest or a witch doctor, or a firebrand of any sort on this planet, who does not report his appearance by sniping the nearest British officer. One tires of it at last. If a Kurd breaks loose in Asia Minor, the world wants to know why Great Britain does not keep him in order. If there ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... a martyr.' The early part of the eighteenth century abounds in indications that amid a great deal of superficial talk about the excellence of toleration the older spirit of persecution was quite alive, ready, if circumstances favoured it, to burst forth again, not perhaps with firebrand and sword, but with the no less familiar weapons of confiscations and imprisonment. Toleration was not only very imperfectly understood, even by those who most lauded it, but it was often loudly vaunted by men whose lives and opinions were very ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... family to starvation to get this accursed drink; when a man has sunk to such a level, is woman to stand still and entreat? Is this all woman is to do? No! She is to have the power added that will drag the firebrand out of his hand, and when sense and reason return, when the fire is extinguished, then, I say, let us have the power of love to interfere. I think keeping a man out of sin is better than trying to drag him ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... United States Senate, with such a record for resistance to Governor Tompkins, and active complicity with the Federalists who had aided his election to the Assembly, that the mere mention of his name to the Bucktails was like a firebrand thrown onto the roof of a thatched cottage. German himself doubted the wisdom of his selection. He was an old-time fighter, preferring debate on the floor to the wielding of a gavel while other men disputed; but the Governor, with sublime faith in German's fidelity and courage, and a sublimer ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... Sawed-Off, and Pretty, as right-end, center, and left-end, responded at just the right moment, and how Pretty dodged and ran with the alertness he had learned in many a championship tennis tournament; and how Reddy, as left half-back, flew across the field like a firebrand, or hurled himself into the line with a fury that seemed to have no regard for the bones or flesh of himself or the ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... he slipped the weapon back into his blouse. He was beginning to like this little firebrand. In truth, Grim had rather fairly described him as a gamecock. His stature, the bristly red hair that flamed above a freckled face, the lightest of blue eyes that snapped with excitement, the peculiar ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner
... ridges, being by planks, on which several of the labourers were standing as we passed, one of whom turning to look at us, slipped off, and instantly sunk amidst the rotten slime up to his waist. The neighbourhood of these rice swamps is generally extremely unhealthy. At length we got on board the Firebrand, drenched to the skin, to a late dinner, after which it was determined by Captain Transom—of which intention, by the by, with all his familiarity, I had not the smallest previous notice—that I should cross the island to Jacmel, in order to communicate with the merchant—ships ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... flying,—headlong into the New Era. With clangour and terror: from above, Broglie the war-god impends, preternatural, with his redhot cannon-balls; and from below, a preternatural Brigand-world menaces with dirk and firebrand: madness rules ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... as I have been able to judge, truthful testimony. Whenever the veracity of a witness is doubted he may be obliged to take a kind of oath which consists in the burning of beeswax. A little beeswax is melted by holding a firebrand over it. While this is being done, the person whose veracity it is desired to test, utters a wish that in case of falsehood his body may be melted like the wax. In the case of suspects, ordeals are employed. They ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... of this was that Adam, though detecting Jerrem's influence in all this opposition, was unable to speak of it to Eve. It was the single point relating to the whole matter on which the two kept silent, each regarding the very mention of Jerrem's name as a firebrand which might perchance destroy the wonderful harmony which for the last week or so had reigned between them, and which to both was so sweet that neither had the courage to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... being now one of the King's Serjeants, and rode in the cavalcade with Maynard, to whom people wish the same fortune. There was also this night in King-street, [a woman] had her eye put out by a boy's flinging a firebrand into the coach. Now, after all this, I can say that, besides the pleasure of the sight of these glorious things, I may now shut my eyes against any other objects, nor for the future trouble myself to see things of state and show, as ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... and brought the Canadian winter, with its fierce light and cold, glaring snowfields, and piercing blasts that scorch the cheek like a firebrand. The men were frost-bitten as they dug away the dry, powdery drifts that the wind had piled against the rampart. The sentries were relieved every hour; yet feet and fingers were continually frozen. The clothing of the troops was ill-suited ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... palaces contemptible by lifting up their legs against them,' 'a most black-mouthed calumniator,' 'infamous in Bedford for a pestilent schismatic,' and with a heart full of venom he called upon his majesty not to let such a firebrand, impudent, malicious schismatic to enjoy toleration, or go unpunished, lest he should subvert all government. Bunyan had then suffered nearly twelve years' incarceration in a miserable jail, and was more zealous and intrepid than ever: ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... of men and women on so many sheets of paper, not only more amusing than Ralph or Miss Reid, but more like flesh and blood, and more alive now than they. Is not Amelia preparing her husband's little supper? Is not Miss Snapp chastely preventing the crime of Mr. Firebrand? Is not Parson Adams in the midst of his family, and Mr. Wild taking his last bowl of punch with the Newgate Ordinary? Is not every one of them a real substantial HAVE-been personage now—more real than Reid or Ralph? For our parts, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... returned to find it at its height, and was received by his wife with passionate tears, and by his relations with sharp recriminations. His brother, especially, took it upon himself to upbraid him, in the name of all his family, for bringing into their home-circle such a firebrand of discord. Charges and counter charges followed in rapid succession, and hasty words soon led to blows. From blows the appeal to the knife was swiftly made, and when Madame Ossoli, attracted by the unusual clamor, entered upon the scene of action, she found that blood had been already drawn, ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... the hissing of the hand grenades flung bursting into the jungles of the laurel. Instead, all the clifty defiles of the ranges were filled with the roar of flames and the crackling of burning timbers as town after town was given to the firebrand, and the homeless, helpless Cherokees frantically fleeing to the densest coverts of the wilderness,—that powerful truculent tribe!—sought for shelter like those "feeble folk the conies" in ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... instruction; at the same time, they will perceive that the first law of nature—self-preservation—compelled them to make common education penal, as soon as fanatical abolitionists inundated the country with firebrand pamphlets. No American can deny, that when an oppressed people feel their chains galling to them, they have a right to follow the example of the colonists, and strike for freedom. This right doubtless belongs ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... that she will have to be expelled. Such a girl as that is a firebrand in a school, and however rich she may be, and however well-born, the sooner she leaves us ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... it proceed from?—not from the burnt cottage—he had smelled that smell before—indeed this was by no means the first accident of the kind which had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young firebrand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether lip. He knew not what ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... free to shoot, and hurling the firebrand at the wildcat, he caught up his rifle and blazed away in short order. The wildcat had turned to retreat, but the guide was too quick for it, and down went the beast with a shot through its head. It gave a shudder or two, and then stretched ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield
... it is, you know, Mordan: you're a regular firebrand, you know; by Jove, you are; an out-and-out Socialistic Radical: that's what you are. By gad, sir, I don't mince my words. I consider that—er—opinions like yours are a danger to the country; I do, indeed; a danger ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... streets looking for work, the wind whistling through his threadbare coat. No one who knows him dare employ him, for he is a regular firebrand of discontent. He is impervious to reason, and the only thing that can impress him is the toe of a ...
— A Message to Garcia - Being a Preachment • Elbert Hubbard
... vanished, and John Louder, seizing a firebrand, searched the ground for the print of a cloven foot. He found it and, snatching up his rifle, ran home as rapidly as he could. It was late that night when he reached his house and, rapping on the ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... about, why we may pretermit the question, as the old professor used to say at the Hall; and as to Summertrees, I will say nothing, knowing him to be an old fox. But I say that this fellow the laird is a firebrand in the country; that he is stirring up all the honest fellows who should be drinking their brandy quietly, by telling them stories about their ancestors and the Forty-five; and that he is trying to turn all waters into his own mill-dam, and ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... a good deal sacrificed, and rather represented in the light of a firebrand of a fellow whom my cloud of lawyers had restrained with difficulty from extremes. But I let it pass, and made but the one suggestion, that I should be described as ready to deliver my own evidence and adduce that of others before any commission of inquiry ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... spoke, sat down: and anon, in the midst of the princes, Rose the heroic Atreides, the wide-sway'd lord, Agamemnon: Troubled in visage he rose, for the heart with the blackness of anger Swell'd in the breast of the King, and his eyes had the blaze of the firebrand. First to the Seer did he turn, and austere was the scowl when he nam'd him: "Prophet of evils! to me never word of thy mouth has been grateful; Gladness it sheds ever more on thy spirit to prophesy mischief. Never had good its announcement from thee, its accomplishment ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... the family friends will say of it," he replied, "but I call it pretty warm stuff. If the list includes many prudes they will hardly thank the girl for sending such a firebrand ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... With a firebrand in one hand and a revolver in the other, the big, burly man crept forward; his mates alert to fire over him at any object he might discover. His search was haphazard, and his feet were naturally uncertain among the debris which had ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... where those movements? where That colour? what of her, of her is left, Who, breathing Love's own air, Me of myself bereft! Poor Lyce! spared to raven's length of days; That youth may see, with laughter and disgust, A firebrand, once ablaze, Now smouldering ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... was the bear! He smelled the cooking meat and evidently was in an ugly mood. Scarcely thinking what he did, the boy, snatching a brand from the fire, threw it full in the face of the brute and sprang for his rifle. The firebrand only seemed to infuriate the animal and he ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... fondness than policy in this measure, and it cost her dear. Richard, that royal firebrand, had now returned to England: by the intrigues and representations of Earl Randal, his attention was turned to Bretagne. He expressed extreme indignation that Constance should have proclaimed her son Duke of ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... stampeded; if wagons, they break down; if shanks, they stiffen; if feet, they chafe. No such trouble befalls Birch; leak, however, it will, as ours did this morning. We gently beguiled it into the position taken tearfully by unwhipped little boys, when they are about to receive birch. Then, with a firebrand, the pitch of the seams was easily persuaded to melt and spread a little over the leaky spot, and Birch was sound as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... it your own way," said her husband impatiently. "Of course, I do not wish that Laura should become the theme of scandal. But as for this young firebrand of a Haldane, there must be a decided change in him. I cannot bother with ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... respects her like an institution! I hope Emma may hold out, but she has a firebrand in her counsels. I am glad ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... determined not to hear. From London and Paris came proposals for conference, for arbitration, with welcome for any suggestion from the other side which might lead to a peaceful solution of the disputed demands, already recognised by Europe as a firebrand wantonly flung into the midst of dangerous and inflammable material. Over that burning firebrand, preventing and warding off all the eager hands that were stretched to put it out, stood the figure of the nation at whose bidding ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... me go!" shrieked Codfish, and then in commingled rage and fear he suddenly caught up a long firebrand from the bonfire and whirled ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... our captain Christ is with us, and that we shall fight with the strength of him who hath vanquished him already. And let us fence with faith, and comfort us with hope, and smite the devil in the face with the firebrand of charity. For surely, if we be of the tender loving mind that our Master was, and do not hate them that kill us but pity them and pray for them, with sorrow for the peril that they work unto themselves, then that fire of charity ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... the gritty and taciturn Swede who was janitor for the block of red-brick flats. Ben used to follow him around pathetically, engaging him in the talk of the day. Ben knew no men except the surly Gus, Minnie's husband. Gus, the firebrand, thought Ben hardly worthy of his contempt. If Ben thought, sometimes, of the respect with which he had always been greeted when he clumped down the main street of Commercial, Ill.—if he thought of how the farmers for miles ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... transient unrest; whereas the towers on the Continent with their meurtrieres and frowning machicolations, bristling on every hill, frequent as church spires, now gutted and ruinous, proclaim a protracted reign of oppression and then a sudden upheaval in resentment and a firebrand applied to them all. The old English mansion has its cellars, but never an oubliette, its porch-door always open to welcome a neighbour and to relieve the indigent. It was not insulated by a dyke, and its ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... where she got that!' he muttered. 'Noblesse oblige! And well applied too!' Again, 'Lord, what beasts we men are!' he thought. 'Insult? I suppose I did insult her; but I had to do that or kiss her. And she earned it, the little firebrand!' Then standing and looking along the High—he had reached the College gates—'D—n Dunborough! She is too good for him! For a very little—it would be mean, it would be low, it would be cursed low—but for two pence I would speak to her mother and cheat him. She is too good to be ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... his club, but that moment two sprang up in its place; moreover, a huge crab came out of the swamp and began to pinch his heels. Still he did not lose heart, but, calling his friend Iolaus, he bade him take a firebrand and burn the necks as fast as he cut off the heads; and thus at last they killed the creature, and Hercules dipped his arrows in its poisonous blood, so that their least wound became fatal. Eurystheus said that it had not been a fair victory, since Hercules had been helped, and Juno put ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... society, appeared as early as 1721. Voltaire's sarcasms and witty sneers got him into trouble with the French Government as early as 1715. He was imprisoned in the Bastille, but released and at last driven from his country, a firebrand cast loose upon Europe to spread the doctrine of man's equality, to cry out everywhere for justice against oppression, and to mock with almost satanic ingenuity against the religion in whose name Europe ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... wait in the lodge, but at the end of a moment he returned for me; we crossed the court, and entered a chamber. There was only a single candle burning. The notary was seated at the chimney-corner, where smoked the remains of a firebrand. What a hovel! I have never seen M. Ferrand. Isn't he horrid? Here is another one who might in vain have offered me the throne of Araby to prove ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... Twiller. He would imagine himself seated at the theatre (with all the members of Our Club in the parquette), watching Mademoiselle Olympe as usual, when suddenly that young lady would launch herself desperately from the trapeze, and come flying through the air like a firebrand hurled at his private box. Then the unfortunate man would wake up with cold drops standing ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... our shipbuilding," said the professor. No one took up this firebrand, and the professor added: "Your name is ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... Tim would be all right in a day or so. If this firebrand scout convinced himself that he had been tricked, and ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... caused by the report of a speech of his which I read in the Times. It was on the Eight Hours' Bill. Papa was most unflattering. He said that he was an oily spouter, an ignorant agitator, an irresponsible firebrand, and a good deal more to the same effect. I remember very well how papa fidgeted with the paper, declaring that it read even worse than it had sounded, and goodness knew that it had sounded bad enough. He was so very emphatic that when he had ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... one!" cried Gotzkowsky; "you mean, with impious hand, to cast a firebrand into the holy temple of labor. Erostratos only destroyed the temple of an imaginary deity; but you, sir, are worse—you wish ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... when we play to-night, Darnley," answered Mr. Riddle, crossly. "And as for the seat in the coach, you are welcome to it. That firebrand of a lad ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... turn myself to seek for my wife. I had heard her shrieks; and the shivering of despair came over me, when I thought it might have been her death groans which had struck my ears. I threw myself into the midst of the carnage, and, armed with a firebrand, snatched from my burning nuptial chamber, I made my way through the combatants, more like a maniac at the height of his frenzy, than a bridegroom on his wedding-night. Getting into the skirts of the village again, I thought I heard the shrieks of my beloved. I ran towards ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... native affairs have been marked by the robust common sense and moderation so characteristic of Mr. Booker Washington. He realizes the great debt which the Natives owe to the men who brought civilization to South Africa. He is no agitator or firebrand, no stirrer-up of bad feeling between black and white. He accepts the position which the Natives occupy to-day in the body politic as the natural result of their lack of education and civilization. He is devoted to his own people, and notes with ever-increasing regret the lack of understanding ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... Had a firebrand been wanted to stir up strife, none better could have been found than Don Bernardino de Cardenas, who was just then appointed to the bishopric ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... alone and get out o' here," said Strong. His voice was like a firebrand to Douglas. He turned upon him, ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... and kept Possession of it for 13 Years; in the first Place she poyson'd her Son's Uncle Childebert, together with his Wife; afterwards she stirred up the Hunns against his Sons, and raised a Civil War in the Republick. And lastly, She was the Firebrand of all those Commotions which wasted and burnt all Francogallia, during many Years, as Aimoinus tells us, [lib. 3. cap. 36. & ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman
... Cappen, regretfully but firmly. "'Twould be ill for my health. No, I will but trouble you for a firebrand and then the princess ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson
... him long after they parted, and for one winter and one summer were their wanderings to the west. Of the Firebrand river deep between rock walls he had heard, and of the ocean far beyond, and of Mexico to the south. To reach the river they crossed dry leagues of desert and lived as other wild things lived. But the river was not a thing ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... transported to the borders of the Rhine at the end of the eleventh century, when in the ears listening for the signals of the Messiah, the Hep! Hep! Hep! of the Crusaders came like the bay of blood-hounds; and in the presence of those devilish missionaries with sword and firebrand the crouching figure of the reviled Jew turned round erect, heroic, flashing with sublime constancy in the face of torture and death—what would the dingy shops and unbeautiful faces signify to the thrill of contemplative emotion? ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... tears fill my breast And speck the fair dyed pillows round the king With barren showers and salter than the sea, Such dreams divide me dreaming; for long since I dreamed that out of this my womb had sprung Fire and a firebrand; this was ere my son, Meleager, a goodly flower in fields of fight, Felt the light touch him coming forth, and waited Childlike; but yet he was not; and in time I bare him, and my heart was great; for yet So royally was never strong man born, Nor queen so nobly bore as noble a thing As ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... began regaling us with personal experiences, in which it was evident that he would prove the hero. Fortunately, however, we were spared listening to his self-laudation. Dorg Seay and Tim Stanley, bunkies, engaged in a friendly scuffle, each trying to make the other get a firebrand for his pipe. In the tussle which followed, we were all compelled to give way or get trampled underfoot. When both had exhausted themselves in vain, we resumed our places around the fire. Parent, who was disgusted over the interruption, on resuming his seat refused to continue ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... though he had often taken his terrapins to the kitchen, stared in concern at the door where it was reported Meshach Milburn had gone in, and would hardly have been surprised if that intruder had now appeared at one of the three deep windows over the door with a firebrand ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... me next term for governor; he's a firebrand; wants niggers to vote and all that—pardon me a moment, there's a darky I know—" and he hurried to the black bishop, who had just descended from the "Jim-Crow" car, and clasped his hand cordially. They talked in whispers. "Search diligently," said the ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... moments Dallas could not drag his eyes from the horrible features of their enemy, about which the dog was sniffing in a puzzled way. But at last he turned to where Tregelly was waving the great firebrand, which shed ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... decide the destinies of empires, to revel in comparative luxury, to enjoy a certain social distinction, to exchange their native bogs for the British metropolis, and to draw a salary beyond their wildest dreams. These questionable gentlemen, with the horse's tongue and cow's tail cutters, the firebrand priests and landlord-shooters, the moonlight marauders who shoot old women and children in the legs, burn the haystacks of their neighbours, refuse coffins and decent burial for the dead, apply the fiendish tortures of boycotting to innocent women and children, refusing them ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... there was no mistaking the significance of those words and that look; and his wrath redoubled. Anger in him, when once roused, was terrible; he had small need of words to vent it. His eye withered, his gesture appalled. Conscious but of one burning firebrand in brain and heart—of a sense that youth, joy, and hope were for ever gone, that the world could never be the same again—Arabella left the house, her character lost, her talents useless, her very means of existence stopped. ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... no conscience," she finished for him. "I hadn't in this instance. There was too much at stake with a firebrand like Evan to deal with. Don't be too good-natured, David—to-night, I mean. You know that is your failing when you have a man down. But to-night you must make the man pay the price. That's all, I think. I'm going back to Evan now to see if I can't make him talk ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... were in part paid off, the treasury was recruited, a navy created, and a force made ready for action in the north. Neither religiously nor politically indeed had Elizabeth any sympathy with the Scotch Lords. Knox was to her simply a firebrand of rebellion; her political instinct shrank from the Scotch Calvinism with its protest against the whole English system of government, whether in Church or State; and as a Queen she hated revolt. But the danger ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... effect, that, "when the old one is gone, he is a fool that looks for a better." Which rudeness of his, the guests resenting, unanimously voted his expulsion; & the malcontent was thrust out neck & heels into the cellar, as the properest place for such a boutefeu & firebrand as he had shewn himself ...
— A Masque of Days - From the Last Essays of Elia: Newly Dressed & Decorated • Walter Crane
... the Spanish and other foreign proper names I have in no case translated, because such translations result in needless confusion. To translate "Rio del Tizon" as Firebrand River is making another name of it. Few would recognise the Colorado River under the title of Red River, as used, for example, in Pattie's narrative. While Colorado means red, it is quite another matter as a NAME. Nor do I approve of hyphenating ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... of pneumonia or delirium tremens. It knows nothing of what we call natural death. To the savage all death means murder, for like other men he judges of the unknown by the known. In the Indian's experience normal death was by tomahawk or firebrand; abnormal death (such as we call natural) must come either from poison or from witchcraft. So when the honest chronicler Hubbard tells us that Philip suspected the Plymouth people of poisoning his brother, we can easily believe him. It was long, however, before he was ready ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... shoulders moving convulsively, and for the moment I was angry, for I thought that she was laughing at Ernest. And then I discovered that it was not laughter, but hysteria. She was appalled by what she had done in bringing this firebrand before ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... who thought it best to escape. Luckily for him the door of my room was open. He made such a noise in running downstairs that the waiter came out and caught hold of him, thinking he had stolen something; but Clairmont, who was pursuing him with his firebrand, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... wonted resolution, so much so that she dared not talk aloud, and only inquired of Macko in a whisper about those wonderful things which dazzled her eyes. But when the old knight assured her that there was as much difference between Sieradz and Krakow as there is between a firebrand and the sun, she would not believe her own ears, because it appeared to her an impossibility that another city could be found in the world which could be ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... railroad brought Rosalind Benham—and also results in a clash between Corrigan and "Firebrand" that ends when ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... in 1805 on Mrs. Godwin's initiative. At first, owing to the undesirability of connecting the name of a political and moral firebrand like Godwin with books for children, it was arranged that the business, which was in Hanway Street, Oxford Street, should bear the name of the manager, Thomas Hodgkins, while the books contributed by Godwin were to be signed Edward Baldwin. In 1806, however, Mrs. Godwin opened a shop ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... of the two oarsmen was no other than the future firebrand peacemaker, Miching Mallecho, our fierce little Tartarin de Berlin. One wondered how he, who would not be ruled, would come in turn to rule? That question is a burning one; and may yet set the world in flames to ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... Turtle. "Warriors, when men are injured, they always take revenge. I cook this for the warpath. I cook sweet corn and a buffalo paunch. You will go after Corn Crusher for me," saying this to his servants. "Call to Comb, Awl, Pestle, Firebrand, and Buffalo ...
— Myths and Legends of the Great Plains • Unknown
... Nezauoo, the place where against they rode at ancre, saw the ship as she passed by that place, and sent a man in the night following alongst the coast after her, who came against the ship where she rode, and with a firebrand in the top of a tree made signes, which was perceiued by them in the shippe, whereupon they hoisted out their skiffe, and sent her ashore to learne what was meant by the fire: which returned a letter from Wincoll, wherein he wrote that they were with such goods ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... now in force are not definite—the final dispositions will be taken in two or three years.[36] And perhaps then some part of the counsel of Radi['c] may be adopted—Radi['c], whose critics are never weary of denouncing him for being a demagogue, a firebrand and various other things, but who by that time may very likely be a Cabinet Minister. He advises that there should be a compromise, that the ownership of land in Yugoslavia should not be strictly individualist nor strictly communist, ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... wind caught the fire and scattered the embers in all directions. Another and another followed, each more violent than the preceding one, then came a terrific blast that whirled the blanket I had been lying on away into the night: the last firebrand was snatched up as though by an unseen hand, and borne high over the dune, and before I had time to realize what was happening I was fighting for my life in the howling darkness of a terrific sandstorm. The wind was demoniacal; it apparently blew from all quarters at once, in ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... the wake of a firebrand, confusion rose behind him; a din of exclamations loosed on the air and the clangor of weapons caught down from the wall. Through it, the Etheling's voice sounded strongly. "To the palisade, all of you! They may not wait till morning. To the forest side; and keep them from ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... and crying, into his own chariot. Monime, Berenice, and their father were to go in the other cars. The fire was gaining on the roof, smoke was pouring down into the court-yard, and now and then a gleam came from a firebrand. The horses were growing restive ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... of the party; they were disputing whether they should proceed further, spend the remainder of the night in the village alehouse, or return to Paris. Their leader ordered spirits to be distributed to his associates, and exhorted them in a loud voice to proceed in their glorious work. Tossing his firebrand over his head, he declared that he would never return to Paris till he had razed to the ground the Chateau de Fleury. At these words, Victoire, forgetful of all personal danger, ran out into the midst of the mob, pressed her way up to the leader of these ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... heard a great crash, so that he thought both heaven and earth shook. Then he looked into the west "airt," and he thought he saw thereabouts a ring of fiery hue, and within the ring a man on a gray horse. He passed quickly by him, and rode hard. He had a flaming firebrand in his hand, and he rode so close to him that he could see him plainly. He was as black as pitch, and he sung this song with a ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... soundings on the twenty-second day of October. About eight o'clock at night his own ship, the Association, struck upon the rocks of Scilly, and perished with every person on board. This was likewise the fate of the Eagle and the Romney: the Firebrand was dashed in pieces on the rocks; but the captain and four-and-twenty men saved themselves in the boat: the Phoenix was driven on shore: the Royal Anne was saved by the presence of mind and uncommon dexterity of sir George Byng and his officers: the St. George, commanded ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Bruce. He signed a declaration of belief in James's narrative; public apologies in the pulpit he would not make. He was banished to Inverness, and was often annoyed and 'put at,' James reckoning him a firebrand. ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... factions before the walls, convinced Don Fadrique that there was no collusion between the monarchs: on returning to his frontier post, therefore, he sent Boabdil a reinforcement of Christian foot-soldiers and arquebusiers, under Fernan Alvarez de Sotomayor, alcayde of Colomera. This was as a firebrand thrown in to light up anew the flames of war in the city, which remained raging between the Moorish inhabitants for the space of ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... out long against the strength of the hyena; but it was just at that moment that Swartboy came up with his firebrand, and beat off the ravisher with a ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... Grimhild goes and takes a great brand, where the house had burnt, and goes to Gernot her brother, and thrusts the burning brand in his mouth, and will know whether he is dead or living. But Gernot was clearly dead. And now she goes to Gislher and thrusts the firebrand in his mouth. He was not dead before, but Gislher died of that. Now King Thidrec of Bern saw what Grimhild is doing, and speaks to King Attila. 'See how that devil Grimhild, thy wife, is killing her brothers, the good ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... had passed all that was changed. Times of war and trouble were not yet over for England. Once again heathen hordes fell upon our shores. The Danes, fierce and lawless, carrying sword and firebrand wherever they passed, leaving death and ruin in their track, surged over the land. The monasteries were ruined, the scholars were scattered. A life of peaceful study was no longer possible, the learning of two hundred years was swept away, the ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... firebrand and charged at them, beating right and left, and they backed away in front of him, protesting from under forearms raised to protect their faces. He refused to hear a word from them, and drove, them back against ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... tooke a great barre, which accustomed to bar the stable doore, and never ceased beating me till she was so weary that the bar fell out of her hands, whereupon she (complaining of the soone faintnesse of her armes) ran to her fire and brought a firebrand and thrust it under my taile, burning me continually, till such time as (having but one remedy) I arayed her face and eies with my durty dunge, whereby (what with the stinke thereof, and what with the filthinesse that fell in her eies) she was welnigh blinded: so ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... for he knew that his firebrand had been very successfully introduced into the chief houses of the place. But no one as yet referred openly to the great news of Suzanne and du Bousquier. Provincials possess in the highest degree the art of distilling gossip; the right moment for ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... to try to rouse men to the recognition of the facts of their spiritual condition, and all our efforts are too often—as I, for my part, sometimes half despairingly feel when I stand in the pulpit—like a firebrand dropped into a pond, which hisses for a moment and then is extinguished. Men and women sit in pews listening contentedly and quietly, who, if they saw themselves, I do not say even as God sees them, but as others see them, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... said Hilyard; "when the bombard explodes, the match has become useless; when the flame smites the welkin, the firebrand is consumed!" ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... he'll not return back so pleas'd as he seems to be now, I warrant you—I have taken care he shall meet with a d——d cold reception there; he will have to make his appearance before Lord Frostyface, Lord Scarecrow, Lord Sneerwell, Lord Firebrand, Lord Mawmouth, Lord Waggonjaws, Lord Gripe, Lord Brass, Lord Surly and Lord Tribulation, as hard-fac'd fellows as himself; and the beauty of it is, not one of them loves him a whit more ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... Lloyd George who stepped from unofficial to official stewardship of England: a Lloyd George with the firebrand out of his being, purged of bitter revolt, chastened and mellowed by the years of war ordeal. Out of contact with mighty sacrifice has come a kinship with the spirit. He is to-day like a man transformed. "England hath need ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... squad approached Broadway from a side-street, hastening to headquarters, the Hibernian firebrand and his supposed ally stood on the curbstone, A moment later Merwyn struck his companion such a powerful blow on the temple that he fell in the street, almost in front of the officers of the law. ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... they failed in extinguishing the fire pretty quickly, what our chances of life were worth, and I think the bravest drew his breath heavily at the thought of our danger. Fortunately, they succeeded in extinguishing the firebrand before any mischief was done; but I do not think the crew of the "Medora" slept very comfortably that night. It was said that the Russians had employed an incendiary; but it would have been strange if in that densely crowded harbour some accidents ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... whose name you asked is the Abbe Gudin, a Jesuit, obstinate enough—perhaps I ought to say devoted enough,—to remain in France in spite of the decree of 1793, which banished his order. He is the firebrand of the war in these regions and a propagandist of the religious association called the Sacre-Coeur. Trained to use religion as an instrument, he persuades his followers that if they are killed they will be brought to life again, and he knows how ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... the Cardinal, "But you yourself—why have you made a name which is like a firebrand to start a conflagration of discord in Europe?—why do you use your gifts of language and expression to awaken a national danger which even the strongest Government may find itself unable to stand against? I do not blame you ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... Mr. Gladstone, though warmly reprobating the prime minister's recommendation of a divine so sure to raise the hurricane, took no leading part in the strife that followed. 'Never in my opinion,' he said to his father (Feb. 2, 1848), 'was a firebrand more wantonly and gratuitously cast.' It was an indication the more of a determination to substitute a sort of general religion for the doctrines of the church. The next really marking incident after the secession ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... granted that some people enjoy this prerogative in a very limited degree. Every thing now appears to them wrong; and not able to distinguish the possible from the monstrous, they fear where no fear should find a place, running from the light of reason as if it were a firebrand; yet the limits of the possible have never been defined to stop the sturdy ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... John P. Hale threw a firebrand resolution into the Senate, calling for additional laws to compel this city to prevent riots. This also gave rise to ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton
... evident that they were a beaten people, there would not have been a tithe of the brutality and suffering which marked the final phases of the struggle. The story of the Predikant was strange. Himself a firebrand of the most dangerous nature, he had preached an anti-British jehad with all the force of his ecclesiastical rhetoric. Yet his three sons were of other clay. One, a staunch trooper of Thorneycroft's, had died a soldier's ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... had been growing redder, and he choked in sheer poverty of speech. Moreover, Tom had come between; had taken Ardea in his arms protectingly and was fronting the firebrand ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... see the devil was not fit to live twenty years in an island all alone; and that I might well think there was nothing in this cave that was more frightful than myself. Upon this, plucking up my courage, I took up a firebrand, and in I rushed again, with the stick flaming in my hand: I had not gone three steps in, but I was almost as much frightened as I was before; for I heard a very loud sigh, like that of a man in some ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... indulgence and debauchery, it rends the nerves, destroys the strength, weakens the intellect, and undermines life. But fear not thou to use its virtues in the time of need, for the wise man warms him by the same firebrand with which the madman burneth the tent." [Some preparation of ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... feeling she had not been quite fair to her opponent, to go off without allowing him to defend himself, he purposely discussed the language question a little more openly than was at all his wont with such prickly subjects, speaking a few quiet truths in a way that even a firebrand like van Hert could not possibly resent. When they joined Diana she was sitting on a table, swinging her feet, and ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... continued for a sufficient length of time, the impression made by it will not immediately vanish with the impulse which caused it, but will remain for a time proportioned to the strength of the impulse. This, with respect to sight, is proved by whirling a firebrand in a circular manner, by which the impression of a circle is caused, instead of a moving point: and, with respect to hearing, it may be observed, that when children run with a stick quickly along railing, or when a drum is beaten quickly, the idea of a continued ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... was the compact signed—an unequal compact. Madam League was on horseback, armed in proof, said a contemporary; the King was on foot, and dressed in a shirt of penitence. The alliance was not an auspicious one. Not peace, but a firebrand—'facem, non pacem'—had the King held forth to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... gently with thee than with others of his children, grudge not at it; refuse not the waters that go softly, lest he bring upon thee the waters of the rivers, strong and many, even these two smoking firebrand, the devil and guilt of sin (Isa 8:6,7). He saith to Peter, "Follow me." And what thunder did Zaccheus hear or see? Zaccheus, "Come down," said Christ; "and he came down," says Luke, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Frithiof cast a firebrand up on to the roof, so that the hall was all ablaze, and ...
— The Story Of Frithiof The Bold - 1875 • Anonymous
... had imposed a rigid discipline on Jack MacRae. The Air Service had bestowed upon him a less rigorous discipline, but a far more exacting self-control. He was not precisely aware of it, but those four years had saved him from being a firebrand of sorts in his present situation, because there resided in him a fiery temper and a capacity for passionate extremes, and those years in the King's uniform, whatever else they may have done for him, had placed upon his headlong impulses manifold checks, taught him the vital necessity of ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Minister of the Interior, the President of the Board of National Defences, Miss Lorne, that enthusiastic old patriot, that rabid old spitfire whose one dream is the wresting back of Alsace-Lorraine, the driving of the hated Germans into the sea? Do you mean that ripping old firebrand?" ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... war-hardened campaigner, trained in the ruthless school of African hostilities; who had seen every shape of mental and physical suffering, when men were left to perish of gun-wounds, as the rush of the charge swept on; when writhing horses died by the score of famine and of thirst; when the firebrand was hurled among sleeping encampments, and defenseless women were torn from their rest by the unsparing hands of pitiless soldiers. But the torture which shook for a second the steel-knit frame of this Arab passed all that he had dreamed as possible; it was mute, and ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... but she never wavered. Down the street came the spoilers, relentless, ruthless, and remorseless, sparing nothing. They came like priests of the nether world, anointing each house with oil from the petrol flasks and with a firebrand dedicating it to the flames. Every one, panic-stricken, fled before them. Every one but this old lady, who stood there bidding defiance to all the Kaiser's horses ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... hoped to find the fierce expiation she sought for in exposure to the thousands she had disappointed and deceived, in offering herself to be trampled to death and torn to pieces. She might have suggested to him some feminine firebrand of Paris revolutions, erect on a barricade, or even the sacrificial figure of Hypatia, whirled through the furious mob of Alexandria. She was arrested an instant by the arrival of Mrs. Burrage and her son, who had quitted the stage on observing the withdrawal of the Farrinders, and who ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James |
