"On fire" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him closer to the embankment. My broncho was blowing, almost wind-spent, but still I dug the spurs into him, and was only a few lengths behind the buffalo, when the wily beast turned. With head down, eyes on fire and nostrils blood-red, he bore straight upon me. My broncho reared, then sprang aside. Leaning over to take sure aim, I fired, but a side jerk unbalanced me. I lost my stirrup and sprawled in the dust. When I got to my feet, the buffalo lay dead and ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... dales of Tyne, And part of Bambrough shire: And three good towers on Reidswire fells, He left them all on fire. ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... patron towards particular officers,—those especially of whom he observed the earl to entertain a jealousy,—it is certain that warlike ardor made no part of his natural composition. Essex on the contrary was all on fire for military glory; and at this time he was urging the queen with unceasing importunities to make a fresh attack upon her capital enemy in the heart of his European dominions. In this favorite object, after encountering ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... deep breath. He'd do his best. If the line held, the ball ought to go over. He was cool enough now, and although his shoulder seemed on fire, the smile about his mouth deepened and grew confident. ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... across it, others were put above it with handspikes. The boughs and brush-wood were placed under and above it, till a huge heap eight feet high was formed. A number of these heaps were made, and when the day's work was done they were set on fire. It was a curious sight at night to see them all blazing together, lighting up the dark forest, and the faces of the men, and the huts, and those around them. On the first night several new settlers came rushing over to Michael's clearing to learn what was the matter, ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... laughter, and drew closer and closer to me. Finally, she stopped, and turning she looked straight into my eyes. I felt then that moment was a solemn one. I thought a hidden precipice was concealed at my feet, my heart throbbed as if it would burst, and my head seemed to be on fire. ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... known to come at the head of these rascals, and beat her lover until he was sore from head to foot, and then force him to pay for the trouble she was at. Once, attended with a crew of ragamuffins, she broke into his house, turned all things topsy-turvy, and then set it on fire. At the same time she told so many lies among his servants, that it set them all by the ears, and his poor Steward was knocked on the head;[63] for which I think, and so doth all the Country, that she ought to be answerable. To ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... diligent man in the short time that he had been on the island. Trouble and hardship had made a man of him. "I must carefully think over the whole matter of getting fire," he said. He had failed twice and was now resolved to succeed. "If the lightning would only strike a tree," he thought, "and set it on fire." ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe - for American Boys and Girls • Samuel. B. Allison
... and other combustible matter about them. The effects of this mode of cure are not stated, but the most singular part of it was that by which it was reported to have been discovered. An angel (says the legend), descended into Yorkshire, and there set a large tree on fire; the strange appearance of which or else the savour of the smoke, incited the cattle around (some of which were infected) to draw near the miracle, when they all either received an immediate cure or an absolute prevention of the disorder. It is not affirmed that ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... antic toys so funnily bestuck, Light as the singing bird that wings the air— (The door! the door! he'll tumble down the stair!) Thou darling of thy sire! (Why Jane, he'll set his pinafore on fire) Thou imp of mirth and joy, In Love's dear chain so strong and bright a link, Thou idol of thy parents—(drat the boy! There ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... reached the middle of the forest the father told the children to collect wood to make a fire to keep them warm; and Hansel and Grethel gathered brushwood enough for a little mountain; and it was set on fire, and when the flame was burning quite ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... now become in the utmost degree animated and horrible. On the left the suburb, after a fierce contest, had been set on fire, and a wide and dreadful conflagration did not prevent the burning ruins from being still disputed. On the centre, the French troops, though pressed by immense odds, kept up so close and constant a fire, that the ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... Laura, I cannot do it! My love for you is like a deadly poison that sets my blood on fire. It must be requited, or I shall die a maniac. Oh, have ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... James, 'is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison'; 'it setteth on fire the course of nature, and it is set on fire of hell' (James 2). The tongue, how much mischief will it stir up in a very little time! How many blows and wounds doth it cause! How many times doth it, as James saith, curse man! How oft is the tongue made the conveyer of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... mines on fire, mad bulls in the full rush, and crackers exploding in a barrel, rushed wildly through the heads of our philosophers, and when, finally, the rocket-riding doctor was discharged on a hayrick, the only person who retained sufficient presence of mind to go and pick ...
— Funny Big Socks - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... cheer they arose and continued their journey. Softly the evening came. The sun from the western horizon Like a magician extended his golden wand o'er the landscape; Twinkling vapors arose; and sky and water and forest Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together. Hanging between two skies, a cloud with edges of silver, Floated the boat, with its dripping oars, on the motionless water. Filled was Evangeline's heart with inexpressible sweetness. Touched by the magic spell, the sacred fountain ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... the French Army!" cried I, in a mad state of exhilaration, "I am on fire! how are you? You have set me on fire! Do you hear, my hero of Austerlitz? Let us have a third bottle of Champagne ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... it should be used in the form of powder or in small pieces. This is placed in a shallow iron pan set on a couple of boards in a tub partly filled with water. The sulphur is moistened with alcohol before it is set on fire. ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... through they heard in the streets the unceasing clamor: "A Roman pope, a Roman pope!" Toward the morning the tumult became more fierce and dense. Strange men had burst into the belfry of St. Peter's; the clanging bells tolled as if all Rome was on fire. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... hand, troubled himself not a jot about possible consequences. With the nonchalance of a true sportsman, he lit his pipe and, lest he should set anything on fire, he made up his mind not to sleep a wink till he had smoked his pipe ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... nor a spiteful, nor a malignant, nor a vindictive man: his vices arose from utter indifference to all men, and all things—except as conducive to his own ends. He would not have injured a worm if it did him no good; but he would have set any house on fire if he had no other means of roasting his own eggs. Yet still, if any feeling of personal rancour could harbour in his breast, it was, first, towards Evelyn Cameron, and, secondly, towards Ernest Maltravers. For the first time in his life, he did long for revenge,—revenge ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to describe the emotions with which he was filled as the performance met his entire expectation, and his audience listened to every note. 'One moment I was as cold as ice, and the next I seemed on fire, and more than once I feared I should have ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... in meeting death: to Lieutenant Fressagues, pilot, and sous-lieutenant Bouvard, observer, who once fought seven Germans and managed to bring one down; to Lieutenant Floret and Lieutenant Homo, who, placed in similar circumstances, set two machines on fire; to Lieutenant Viguier who, on April 18, had the pluck to come down to twenty-five meters above the enemy's lines and calmly make his observations; and to so many others who did their duty with the same daring, intelligence, ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... portrait at the abbey, in my aunt's apartments, and she recognized me—nothing was more simple. The princess had scarcely looked at me for a second, but that look made me feel the most violent, the most profound emotion; I felt my cheeks on fire; I cast down my eyes, and remained some minutes without daring to raise them again toward the princess. When I ventured to lift them, she was talking in a low tone with the Archduchess Sophia, who appeared to listen with the most affectionate interest. ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... voices. Some of them were looking on with a grin, others with an expression of fierce curiosity. It was at once understood that I was making a stand against the captain and chief mate; and a single glance at them assured me that by one word I could set the whole of them on fire to do my bidding, ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... restlessness increased, but he clung to his resolve to lie still. By evening he was burning with thirst, and when morning came after a feverish night, with his head on fire and his mouth crusted dry, he concluded rightly that one or both of his wounds had ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... de church she come on fire, An' burn almos' down to de groun', So w'at you t'ink our man can do Wit' all ...
— The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond
... room and wash the floor and windows. ferst i went out and picked up my snapcrackers. they were all rite but all the canon crackers but 2 had went of. Mother she asked me how they got afire and i said i was fooling with them and they got on fire and i had to plug them out of the window. then she said that was what fritened Miss Hartnett so and i said was she fritened and she said she was so fritened that she fell over backwards and i said is that so. mother dont know i did it on purpose whitch is prety good luck ...
— 'Sequil' - Or Things Whitch Aint Finished in the First • Henry A. Shute
... activity was added: "When the masons were repairing his home, in 1839, he, at fifty, and then quite stout, went up their steep, narrow ladder to the topmost scaffold on the gable end and walked the ridge of the house when the chimney was on fire." The Chalet brought to the author's mind "Wyandotte," or "The Hutted Knoll," a tale of border-life during the colonial period. A family of that time forces from the wilderness an affluent frontier home and settlement for its successors. In ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... the Chateau de St. Cloud, set on fire by the bombs of Mont-Valerien, in the night of October 13, 1870, and now the most melancholy of ruins. Sufficient, however, remains to indicate the noble character of a building partly due to Jules Hardouin and Mansart. The chateau is more reddened than ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... some forty miles northeast of Brookfield. The Indians surrounded the garrison, and for two days exerted all their ingenuity in attempting to destroy the building. They wrapped around their arrows hemp dipped in oil, and, setting them on fire, shot them upon the dry and inflammable roof. Several times the building was in flames, but the inmates succeeded in arresting the conflagration. It was now the evening of the 4th of August. The garrison, utterly exhausted by two days and two nights ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... resorted to as a counterirritant. In cupping, shave the loins, smear them with lard, then take a narrow-mouthed glass, expand the air within by smearing its interior with a few drops of alcohol, setting it on fire and instantly pressing the mouth of the vessel to the oiled portion of the skin. As the air within the vessel cools it contracts, tending to form a partial vacuum, and the skin, charged with blood, is strongly drawn up within it. Several ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... to edge, presenting a view of the upper surface of the immense mass of broken marble with which the kiln was heaped. All these innumerable blocks and fragments of marble were red-hot and vividly on fire, sending up great spouts of blue flame, which quivered aloft and danced madly, as within a magic circle, and sank and rose again, with continual and multitudinous activity. As the lonely man bent forward over this terrible body of fire, the blasting heat smote up against ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... 1897, the steamer Catalonia at ten o'clock at night was found to be on fire. One of my friends has told me that he paced the deck and considered himself lost because the flames were burning fiercely. Finally the fire was under control and the people sang, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow." Telling me of the lessons that he learned on this awful journey, ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own. Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... cruel. If you knew how my heart throbbed, and how every nerve thrilled through me while you spoke, you would spare me. You can pity a dolt of a servant for breaking a dish; but you have no compassion for me when my head is split in two and all on fire with ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... commenting on Ps. 79:17, "Things set on fire and dug down," says that "every sin is due either to fear inducing false humility, or to love enkindling us to undue ardor." For it is written (1 John 2:16) that "all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, or [Vulg.: 'and'] the concupiscence of ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... the locks of hay protruding from its windows and the crevices between the logs of which it was built. Here, also, they soon succeeded in extinguishing the fire in the same manner. They were not, however, allowed a moment's respite from either their labors or alarms. The fences were by this time on fire in numerous places; and the chips and wood in the door-yard were seen to be igniting from the sparks and cinders which, every instant, fell thicker and hotter around their seemingly devoted domicil. The fences, after a few vain attempts to save them, were given up a prey ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... fortifications, himself attacked the galleons, which, after a gallant resistance, were, at length, abandoned by the Spaniards, though the least of them was bigger than the biggest of Blake's ships. The forts and smaller vessels being now shattered and forsaken, the whole fleet was set on fire, the galleons by Blake, and the smaller vessels by Stayner, the English vessels being too much shattered in the fight to bring them away. Thus was the whole Plata fleet destroyed, "and the Spaniards," according to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... quarrel, it's said that the O'Donnells, or Donnells, and they had been at it,—and a blackguard set the same O'Donnells were, at all times—in fair and market, dance, wake, and berrin, setting the country on fire. Whenever they met, it was heads cracked and bones broken; till by degrees the O'Donnells fell away, one after another, from fighting, accidents, and hanging; so that at last there was hardly the name of one of them in the neighborhood. The O'Hallaghans, after this, had the ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... as if the heather were fairly on fire at last, so I set off early next morning to trek back. About midday I met Utterson, a very badly scared little man, who had come to look for me. It seemed that his policemen had bolted in the night and gone to join the rising, leaving him with two white sergeants, barely fifty ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... lion had utterly disabled in his after-quarters. Thus ended this protracted and all but unsuccessful hunt; for when I at length managed to shoot him, the dogs were quite tired of it, and, the reeds being green, I could not have set them on fire to force him out. ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... latter year she was in charge of a hospital at Rome. After the suppression of the Revolution she escaped with her husband from Italy, and took ship for America. The voyage proved most disastrous: small-pox broke out on the vessel, and their infant child d., the ship was wrecked on Fire Island, near New York, and she and her husband were lost. Destitute of personal attractions, she was possessed of a singular power of conciliating sympathy. She was the intimate friend of Emerson, Hawthorn, ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... here? Place on fire? Looks like devil t'pay! Let me in. Shawl right, offisher. Got a right t' come in, I have! I got something here. 'Svaluable, too! Don't want that all burned—spoil shings have ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... Militia appear to follow naturally after remarks on fire-arms. According to the most reliable information which I have been able to obtain, every able-bodied male between 18 and 40 years of age is liable to militia service. Those who do not serve are subject to a fine, varying in different States, from 3s. upwards; which ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... Set the clouds on fire with redness, Burned the broad sky, like a prairie, Left upon the level water One long track and trail of splendor, Down whose stream, as down a river, Westward, westward Hiawatha Sailed into the fiery sunset, Sailed into the purple vapors, Sailed ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... who sits with her starved desire, And drinks to sorrow in cups of tears; She reads by the light of her soul on fire The secrets of love through lonely years: But out of all she has felt or heard Or read by the glow of her soul's white flame, If she dare but utter aloud one word - How the world cries ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... enemy, Bobadilla came against the ship, all his men rowing as hard as they could; and Esteybar attacked it at the stern. The Spaniards then were going to board the ship with a rush, when a ball fired from the vessel of Esteybar set on fire the Santa Barbara [i.e., powder-magazine] of the Dutch ship, thus blowing it into pieces. Only twenty-four of its crew survived, and these were drawn out of the sea and made prisoners. Esteybar continued his voyage to Simuay, the bar of which was fortified with heavy ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... his tents between The lines for to retire; But King William threw his bomb balls in, And set them all on fire.'— ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... on shore, after rescuing all but one of the survivors, set fire to the vessel, which was driven out to sea before a gale which had sprung up. Every twelvemonth, according to the same tradition, the spectacle of a ship on fire is visible to the inhabitants ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... cried, "we are in great danger, the trade-room is on fire! Atkins, for God's sake try to keep us head to wind. Mr. Carr, you and some of the hands see to the boats. There are over fifty cases of powder in the for'ard end of the trade-room, and we can't shift them; but only the after part is burning so far. Steward, see to ...
— Tessa - 1901 • Louis Becke
... either be mad, or of a frightfully jealous disposition, to conjure up harm out of such an incident: and one who would do so might well, when his brain was on fire, conjure up this imaginary conversation. Still, he might have heard some man talking to her. From what Sir John had said, she did leave the house and go into the garden about that hour, ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... the Bayonet. The infantry soldier is armed with a bayonet. He relies mainly on fire action to disable the enemy, but he should know that it is often necessary for him to cross bayonets with the enemy. Therefore he must be instructed in the use of the rifle and the bayonet in hand-to-hand encounters. The present European War is demonstrating the importance of this ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey
... she, who set on fire his infant heart, And all his dreams, and all his wanderings shared And bless'd, the Muse, and her celestial art, Still claim the enthusiast's fond and first regard. From Nature's beauties, variously compared And variously combined, he learns to frame Those forms ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... have heard all. My beloved one! my own! you are sacrificed to the vilest wretch that walks the earth, and I have lost you! How is it that I live after hearing it? How is it that I can think, and write, with my brain on fire, and my heart broken! Oh, my angel, there is a purpose that supports me—pure, beautiful, worthy of us both. I live, Geoffrey—I live to dedicate myself to the adored idea of You. My hero! my first, last, love! I will ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... than if he had really done nothing at all, nor did I suspect it in the least. If I had an ounce of blood in me that did not fly up into my face, neck, and breasts, it must be from some interruption in the vessels. I was all on fire with the sight, and began to wonder what it was that was ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... broken up. They have pledged themselves hand in hand to work together for this object,—Russia, broken and humiliated, but with an immense army still available, whose only chance of holding her place among the nations is another and a successful war; Austria, on fire for the seaboard—Austria, to whom war would give the desire of her existence; Germany, with Bismarck's last but secret words written in letters of fire on the walls of her palaces, in the hearts of her rulers, in the brain of her great Emperor. Colonies! Expansion! ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... for your uncle," he continued, without heeding her interruption. "She speaks of Parliament, of great causes, of ambition, until his eyes are on fire. She describes new pleasures to you, and you sit at her feet, a mute worshipper! I can't think why she ever came here. She's absolutely the wrong sort of woman for a quiet country place like this. I wish I'd never let ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the great tug-of-war should come, they would be equal, and more than equal, to the occasion. Indeed, now that the forward movement of the troops had commenced, the camp was animated by a wave of patriotic fervour. The men were literally on fire with enthusiasm. They longed to press on and come to some distinct turning-point in ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... good Cure blessed and lighted the great bonfire before the church; and immediately, at this signal, an answering fire sprang up on a hill at the other side of the village. Then fire on fire glittered and multiplied, till all the village was in a glow. This was a custom set in memory of the old days when fires flashed intelligence, after a fixed code, across the great rivers and lakes, and from hill ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... him to leave so excellent a wife for so filthy and vile a woman, she took some straw and set it on fire in the middle of the room; but on seeing that it would as soon kill her husband as awaken him, she plucked him by ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... with a peculiar hesitation, as though her joy had brought her from far away. Heavily, softly, she weighs on the arms of her partners, and the warmth rises from her bare bosom and dispels the cold of the terrible winter. It is as though she were on fire! Who could fail to ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... medical man, viz., that three thousand children were annually burned to death under circumstances showing too clearly that they had been left by their mothers with the means and the temptations to set themselves on fire in her absence. But more shocking, because more lingering, are the deaths by artificial appliances of wet, cold, hunger, bad diet, and disturbed sleep, to the frail constitutions of children. By that machinery it is, and not by poison, that the majority qualify themselves for claiming ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... a match by rubbing it upon a smooth stone which was lying upon the ground near by. He then cautiously approached the end of the train and set it on fire. ...
— Stuyvesant - A Franconia Story • Jacob Abbott
... been done, a hole was cut for the smoke, directly through the side of the house. The danger of setting the building on fire was great; but we strove to guard against it so much as possible by plastering a layer of mud over the wood, and by keeping careful watch when we had a roaring fire. Oftentimes were we forced to stop in the task ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis
... fuel, wounding thorns; Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke; The ashes, shames and scorns; The fuel Justice layeth on, And Mercy blows the coals, The metal in this furnace wrought Are men's defiled souls: For which, as now on fire I am To work them to their good, So will I melt into a bath, To wash them in my blood." With this He vanished out of sight And swiftly shrunk away, And straight I called unto mind That it ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... adolescence and the mold of Indiana. The hero of his earliest novel, Harkless in The Gentleman from Indiana, drifts through that narrative with a melancholy stride because he has been seven long years out of college and has not yet set the prairie on fire. But Mr. Tarkington, at the time of writing distant from Princeton by about the same number of years and also not yet famous, could not put up with failure in a hero. So Harkless appears as a mine of latent splendors. ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... of a lad in forecasting his career comes from the fact that they do not know him. The verdict about Philip would probably have been that he was a very nice sort of a boy, but that he would never "set the North River on fire." There was a headstrong, selfish, pushing sort of boy, one of Philip's older schoolmates, who had become one of the foremost merchants and operators in New York, and was already talked of for mayor. This success was the sort that fulfilled the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... (Earl John's Lady) saw as she was in bed with her Lord in London, her daughter my Lady Hatton, who was then in Northamptonshire, at Horton Kirby; the candle was burning in her chamber. Since, viz. anno 1675, this Lady Hatton was blown up with gunpowder set on fire by lightning, in the castle at Guernsey, where ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... deep down in the very grain of it. This opacity, when I stared hard at it, appeared to slowly rotate this way and that, until it was a thick white cloud swirling in heavy wreaths. So real and solid was it, and so reasonable was I, that I remember turning, with the idea that the curtains were on fire. But everything was deadly still in the room—no sound save the ticking of the clock, no movement save the slow gyration of that strange woolly cloud deep in the heart of ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... securing buildings from fire. This plan consisted in thin sheets of iron and of copper being laid between floor and ceiling to prevent the ascent of heated air from the lower to the upper rooms. The lower part of this house was repeatedly set on fire in the presence, among others, of the King and Queen, the members of Parliament, the Lord Mayor, and the Aldermen. The House of Commons granted Hartley L2,500 in aid of the expenses incurred, and the Corporation erected in the ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... But how do you mean?" he broke in anxiously. "That was a special night. We were all on fire. One cannot always live at that high pressure. If we could we ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... upon the assailants trunks of trees bristling with spearheads and spikes of iron, blazing darts and falariques—great blocks of wood with projecting spikes, and covered thickly with a mass of pitch and sulphur which set on fire all they touched. Other species of falariques were in the form of spindles, the shaft wrapped round with flax dipped in pitch. Hannibal fought at the head of his troops with desperate bravery, and had a narrow escape of being crushed by an enormous ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... January, the birthday of the King of the Two Sicilies, another insurrection broke out in Sicily; this time it was serious indeed. The City of the Vespers lit the torch which set Europe on fire. ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... as well tell you now, Bob,' said she, still smiling at me. 'Bobbie's got a sore throat and it may be mumps; the chimney's been on fire and we're going to be summoned; ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... serving three terms I was decorated with the Vladimir of the third class with the approval of the government. [Aside.] I have the money in my hand and my hand is on fire. ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol
... my first idea. 'Can there be anything on fire?' But I dismissed the notion almost as soon as it suggested itself. The something, faint and shadowy, that came slowly rippling itself in as it were beyond the dark wood of the open door, was yet too material for 'smoke.' My next idea was a curious one. 'It ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... against this monastery that the wrath of Nobunaga was most strongly aroused. Marching against it in 1571, he bade his generals set it on fire. The officers stood aghast at the order, which seemed to them likely to call down the vengeance of Heaven upon their heads. With earnest protests they begged him not to do so unholy ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the other side of the lake whence Anton had taken his last look of the lordly home. The castle now stood before him in a crimson glow; every window-pane seemed on fire, and the red roses lay like drops of blood upon the dark green climbers beneath. And nearer and nearer rolled on the black clouds, as if to shroud the bright pile from sight. Not a leaf stirred, not a ripple curled the water. The baron looked down into the water for some living thing, ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... how blubbered is that pretty face! Thy cheek all on fire, and thy hair all uncurled! Prithee quit this caprice, and (as old Falstaff says) Let us e'en talk a little ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... the French with the natives was brief, but courteous and friendly on both sides. The English visits were interrupted by more or less hostility. "When Pring was about ready to leave, the Indians became hostile and set the woods on fire, and he saw it burn 'for a mile space.'"—De Costa. A skirmish of some seriousness occurred with Smith's party. "After much kindnesse upon a small occasion, wee fought also with fortie or fiftie of those: though some were hurt, and some slaine, yet within an hour after they ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... nothing! I'm told they never speak for months at a time when they are in the throes of composition, and habitually sit up at night writing until they fall asleep, knock over the lamp, and set the house on fire. You had better keep fire-escapes on every landing, for you are ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... plundered. Once their house was set on fire by a band of robbers, and everything was destroyed, themselves only escaping with their lives by a remarkable providence." (So intense is the hatred of some of the officials against Christianity that bold robberies will take place with their connivance, ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... him: a low, throaty little laugh that went clear to his brain and set it on fire again. Yet, nerving himself against her, he stood erect, dagger in hand, and met the blaze of her dusky eyes bravely. He shivered violently when her rich ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... contact with the atmosphere of our earth. All inflammable material on the face of the globe, which was exposed at the time of its passage through the tail of the comet, was burned up: both earth and sky were on fire! Fortunately our flying globe made a quick passage, thus it happened that large portions of its unexposed surface wholly escaped this terrible downpour of fire and gravel, and the absence of all drift deposit ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... subscriber to it. The paper came, and I read it from week to week with such feelings as it would be quite idle for me to attempt to describe. The paper became my meat and my drink. My soul was set all on fire. Its sympathy for my brethren in bonds—its scathing denunciations of slaveholders—its faithful exposures of slavery—and its powerful attacks upon the upholders of the institution—sent a thrill of joy through my soul, such as ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... mad," declared Mollie, looking at her chum with a mixture of amusement and sympathy in her eyes. "What do you want to do, Amy, start a fight, or set the town on fire? Whatever it is, I'm for you, as ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... house is that?" asked Mr. Brown. He looked at it closely. The little house had no windows, and only one door. And there was a queer smell about it, as though it had once been on fire. ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Camp Rest-A-While • Laura Lee Hope
... sheltered by the house on the canal, speculating as to which one of the houses still standing in Ramscapelle would be hit next, the light from those on fire reflected on the dark, brackish water of the canal, which was running in with the tide. Presently we noticed something in the water, and, stooping down in the twilight, we made out the body of a man face downward. The color of the coat and the little short skirt to it showed it was the ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... said, interrupting me; "it was the night you heard the disturbance upon deck. The men on watch no- ticed a slight smoke issuing from the large hatchway and immediately called Captain Huntly and myself. We found beyond all doubt, that the cargo was on fire, and what was worse, that there was no possibility of getting at the seat of the combustion. What could we do? Why, we took the only precaution that was practicable under the circumstances, and resolved most carefully to exclude every ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... pace; his imagination was on fire. Yes, there was a gateway, and surely the carriage had passed through but a few minutes before. Constans halted at the barrier and studied it attentively. It was snowing hard now, and he ran but small risk of ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... had been built since the fall of the Federation and the climb up from the barbarism that had followed, and a great deal of it was of wood. Fires started almost at once, and it was almost completely on fire by the end of the second day. It had been visible in the telescopic screen even after they were out of atmosphere, a black smear until the turning planet carried it into darkness ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... Thomas Fuller, who lived on the western borders of the village, near Ipswich River, coming along the road towards Procter's Corner about two hours before daylight, on the way probably to Salem market, saw his roof on fire, gave the alarm, and stopped to help put it out. Thomas Gould and Thomas Flint thought it must be the work of an incendiary, or of "an evil hand," as they expressed it, from the place where it took and the hour when it occurred. On the other hand, it was testified by James ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... neck under the right ear, passed through the roof of the mouth, and came out under the left jaw-bone, carrying with it two teeth. The pistol had been held so near, that the hair and beard of the Prince were set on fire by the discharge. He remained standing, but blinded, stunned, and for a moment entirely ignorant of what had occurred. As he afterwards observed, he thought perhaps that a part of the house had suddenly ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the miners," returned the man, "although they think that you is agin 'um, and that you had better move. A man, whose name we don't know, gave us five pounds to set the place on fire." ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... outward action he led his ships to victory and died upon a foreign sea; but symbolically he established something indescribable and intimate, something that sounds like a native proverb; he was the man who burnt his ships, and who for ever set the Thames on fire. ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... similar liking for "turns." "The performance at the Frivoli Music Hall was in full swing when the scenery was noticed to be on fire. The audience got ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... been attacked on the high seas by the piratical craft "Panda," robbed of twenty thousand dollars in specie, set on fire, and abandoned to her fate, with the crew fastened down in the hold. One small skylight had accidentally been overlooked by the freebooters. The captain discovered it, and making his way through it to the deck, succeeded in putting ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... wise thing to be polite; consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude. To make enemies by unnecessary and willful incivility, is just as insane a proceeding as to set your house on fire. For politeness is like a counter—an avowedly false coin, with which it is foolish to be stingy. A sensible man will be generous in the use of it. It is customary in every country to end a letter with the words:—your most obedient servant—votre tres-humble serviteur—suo devotissimo ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... George Baker. Then he uttered a sudden cry of alarm. "By George, she's on fire. That scamp has sneaked in and set fire to the boat under our very noses. I'm positive that he did it. Pile into the launch with all the pails you can find and let's get out there. That villain must ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... Christian land for centuries, but even now many deadly sins are not considered sinful, and it is an easier task to save the savage than to convince those, for example, whose tongue, to use the words of the apostle, is set on fire of hell, that they are in danger of damnation. I hope, therefore, my brethren, that you will ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... MacMahon's troops, after drenching some of the principal buildings with petroleum they set them on fire. The Tuileries and the Hotel de Ville were consumed, as were also portions of the Louvre, the Palais Royal, and the Palais de Luxembourg, and the city in ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... indeed, a pity, my friends," rejoined the doctor. "The clouds are dangerous for us; they contain opposing currents which might catch us in their eddies, and lightnings that might set on fire. Again, those perils avoided, the force of the tempest might hurl us to the ground, were we to cast our anchor ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... German with a round little stomach and affectionate, oily little eyes. Adolf Andreyitch Bruni (that was his name) was bustling round the table of hors-d'oeuvres as zealously as though it were a house on fire, filling up the wine-glasses, loading the plates, and trying in every way to please, to amuse, and to show his friendly feelings. He clapped people on the shoulder, looked into their eyes, chuckled, rubbed his hands, in fact was as ingratiating as ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... down from the safe recesses of the pillars at the head of the long flight of steps leading up to a temple. Presently an arrow whirred over Drusus's head and smote on the masonry across the street. There were lights ahead—scores of torches waving—a small building was on fire; the glare grew redder and brighter every instant; and a din, a din lifted by ten thousand men when their brute instincts are enkindled, grew and grew. Drusus dashed the cold sweat from his brow, his hand was trembling. He had a quiver and bow in the chariot,—a powerful Parthian bow, and the arrows ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... best friend my sister died. What did I do that ruined me by inches? In Australia I have heard of evil men taken red-handed being left in the bush with food and water by them, bound to a fallen tree which has been set on fire at one end. And the fire smoulders and smoulders, and travels inch by inch along the trunk, and they watch their slow, inevitable death coming towards them day by day, until it at last destroys them also inch by inch. What had I done ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... I still remember the tinder box in the kitchen, the steel, the flint, and the threads dipped in sulphur. The sparks made by striking fell on the tinder and caught it on fire here and there. Soon after the long, rough lucifer matches appeared, which were dipped into a little bottle filled, I believe, with asbestos wet with ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... no longer dazzled nor ecstatic; his problem had diminished to the scale of any other great human problem, to the scale of political problems and problems of integrity and moral principle, problems about which there is no such urgency as there is about a house on fire, for example. ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells |
