"Spark" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of mind you are not timid or anxious, or fearful, or rigid and you will not allow any disturbing thought to influence you. You cast aside all fears, and think of yourself as a spark of the Divine Being, as a manifestation of the "One Universal Principle" that fills all space and time. Think of yourself thus as a child of the infinite, possessing ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... by a power outside their control, Protestants and Catholics stood henceforth in opposite political camps, and it became a fixed article of British policy to govern Ireland by playing upon this antagonism. The flame of the Volunteer spirit never perished, but it dwindled to a spark under the irresistible weight of a manufactured reaction. Dissenters and Anglicans united, not to lead the way in securing better conditions for their Catholic fellow-countrymen, not for the interests of Ireland as a whole, but under the ignoble colours of religious fanaticism. Hence that strangely ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... soft stuff, Magnus," advised Slinker. "You can do your spoonin' with the gal later on. We're here to git that gold, and don't you forget it. Plenty o' time afterwards to spark the wimmen." ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... to manifest the longing they experience, and who languish for want of help, without being aware that they are perishing. Oh, mingle sometimes with your earthly help the blessed Name of GOD; and if there remain one little spark of life in the soul, that Name will rekindle it, and carry comfort and resignation; even as air breathed into the mouth of any one apparently dead, rushes into the lungs, and revives the sufferer, if but one breath of ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.
... know. When I came back from abroad, knew I'd lost you, I was unhappy, terribly. Yet, it was enough for me to learn that you at least remembered me. Afterward, when we became friends, and you were kind to me, and into our friendship wavered a spark of something more than friendship, ah, I was almost happy! Only one thing tormented me: fear that such a feeling wronged Fedya. Afterwards, when Fedya tortured you so, I saw I could help. Then a certain definite hope sprang up in me. And later, when he became impossible and you decided ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... the images, and sold the pix to a goldsmith. But the man suffered severely for his purchase: he was shortly afterwards sentenced, by a decree of the parliament, to be hanged in front of his shop; and two of those concerned in the outrage also suffered capital punishment. The spark thus lighted, afterwards increased into a conflagration; and, to this hour, there is a larger body of Protestants at Rouen, than in ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... with our laws? It was as though Russia were to turn upon the United States and declare that their Congress should be put down. What would avail the loudest voice of Great Britain against the smallest spark of a law passed by our Assembly?—unless, indeed, Great Britain should condescend to avail herself of her great power, and thus to crush the free voice of those whom she had already recognised as independent. ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... the least idea. Bless my spark-plug, but they might have imagined I had money. Anyhow I'm glad ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... obtained from him my commission to decorate the Stanza della Segnatura. But, fool that I was, I fancied my luck could not desert me, and painted only when it pleased me, ran my horses at all the races in Italy, and played the dandy, the spendthrift, and the roistering spark, until his Holiness in disgust turned me from the Vatican, and called Raphael to take my place, bidding him erase the little work I ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... out his brightest necktie from the portable possessions rolled up in his slicker; the Duke produced his calfskin vest. There was not a coat between them to save the dignity of their profession at the boss lady's board. Taterleg's green-velvet waistcoat had suffered damage during the winter when a spark from his pipe burned a hole in it as big as a dollar. He held it up and looked at it, concluding in the end ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... inevitably impress itself on the thinking and feeling man and woman is that the sight of brutal clubbing of innocent victims in a so-called free Republic, and the degrading, soul-destroying economic struggle, furnish the spark that kindles the dynamic force in the overwrought, outraged souls of men like Czolgosz or Averbuch. No amount of persecution, of hounding, of repression, can stay ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... owed so much. He never debated. He rarely answered other men's arguments, never with warmth or heat. But he was exceedingly tenacious of his own opinion. He was, in the things he stood for, as unyielding as flint and true as steel. But his flint or steel never struck out a spark by collision with any other. He spoke very rarely in debate in general; only when his official place on his committee, or something which concerned his own constituents especially, made speaking absolutely imperative. Then he gave ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... would any woman give for merely a nominal or legal husband, just to live with and provide for her, but who entertained not one spark of love for her, or whose affections were bestowed upon another? How absurd, how preposterous the doctrine that the obligations of marriage derive their sacredness from legal enactments and injunctions! How it literally profanes this holy of holies, and drags down ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... scaffolds had been reared, and they were burdened with fire-works, intended to surpass in brilliancy and sublimity any spectacle of the kind earth had ever before witnessed. Suddenly a bright flame was seen, a shriek was heard, and the whole scaffolding, by some accidental spark, was enveloped in a sheet of fire. Then ensued such a scene as no pen can describe and no imagination paint. The awful conflagration converted all the ministers of pleasure into messengers of death. Thousands of rockets filled ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... machine, giving an eighteen inch spark. It was set in motion by a lever fitted into the table, which I could easily reach from where I sat. As I spoke the visitor was treated to a little exhibition of electricity. The change in his bearing was amusing. ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... hearing what I said, exclaimed, "Massa, me got light, nebber fear!" Groping about, he soon found two pieces of dry wood, and fashioning them with his knife, he began to rub one against the other in a way which at length produced a bright spark. I had a handful of leaves ready, and we had quickly a capital fire blazing up just inside the cave. How grateful we felt ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... shouts of "Men from Mars!" Excited men came into the station about nine o'clock with incredible tidings, and caused no more disturbance than drunkards might have done. People rattling Londonwards peered into the darkness outside the carriage windows, and saw only a rare, flickering, vanishing spark dance up from the direction of Horsell, a red glow and a thin veil of smoke driving across the stars, and thought that nothing more serious than a heath fire was happening. It was only round the edge of the common that any disturbance was perceptible. ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... really entered the world, they instantly waged two great wars with it—or (if the view be preferred) it instantly waged two great wars with them. America and France revealed the real nature of the English Parliament. Ice may sparkle, but a real spark will show it is only ice. So when the red fire of the Revolution touched the frosty splendours of the Whigs, there was instantly a hissing and a strife; a strife of the flame to melt the ice, of the water ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... peculiar to man, received no support from a closer study of nature,—rather objections amounting to refutation,—but it has reacted injuriously on morals, and through them on religion itself. Buddha taught that the same spark of immortality exists in man and brute, and actuated by this belief laid down the merciful rule to his disciples: "Do harm to no breathing thing." The apostle Paul on the other hand, recognizing in the lower ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... of these masses is a miraculous Man, even as thyself art; struggling, with vision, or with blindness, for his infinite Kingdom (this life which he has got, once only, in the middle of Eternities); with a spark of the Divinity, what thou callest an immortal ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... tin, and then a short, sharp, nicking sound began, accompanied by a display of flowery little sparks. At the end of a minute the frowning face of the smuggler was lit up as he blew softly at the tinder, into which a spark had fallen and caught; the light increased, and as a brimstone match was applied to the incandescent tinder, the brimstone melted, bubbled, and began to turn blue. Then the splint of wood beneath began to burn, and at last emitted a blaze, which was communicated to the wick ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... wonder to the good man that there could be a spark of virtue in the boy's character, and that he had been so far preserved from the taint of his vile home as to care for the purity of his gentle neighbor's. He did not remember how beautiful the contrast must be to Pat as he came ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... and a system of equality would lessen instead of increasing the pressure. Malthus, again, has proposed that parents should be responsible for their children. That is, says Hazlitt, Malthus would leave children to starvation, though he professes to disapprove infanticide. He would 'extinguish every spark of humanity ... towards the children of others' on pretence of preserving the 'ties of parental affection.' Malthus tries to argue that the 'iniquity of government' is not the cause of poverty. That belief, he says, has ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... of Diane held a spark of hostility as she leaned forward. The word had already been passed among the faithful that this young man was not taking the right ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... thus provided Dolph attached the light wires so that the electric spark would be communicated to each stick in this "mine." This was done by looping a circuit wire around each separate stick, and connecting the wire with each detonating cap. The dynamite, frozen on the snow crust, had thawed again at this ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock
... absence of scruple in the satiating of her hatred, she still hesitated to employ that mode of vengeance, so much atrocious cruelty was there in causing a daughter to spy upon her mother. It was Alba herself who kindled the last spark of humanity with which that dark conscience was lighted up, and that by the most innocent of conversations. It was the very evening of the afternoon on which she had exchanged that sad adieu with Fanny Hafner. She was more unnerved than usual, and she was conversing with Dorsenne in ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... the land, although the farms and butchers' shops were still well stocked. The general community would be like an automobile when the magneto fails. Everything would be there and in order, except for the spark of credit which keeps ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... I beg you, if it be your will, To grant the Prince his pardon after all: Fulfil it ere an odious deed be done. You know that every army loves its hero. Let not this spark which kindles in it now Spread out and wax a wild consuming fire. Nor Kottwitz nor the crowd he has convened Are yet aware my faithful word has warned you. Ere he appears, send back the Prince's sword, Send it, as, after all, he has deserved. One piece of chivalry ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... swarmed about it in greatly augmented numbers, finally enlarging the hole in the net to such an extent that at length it was big enough to permit the passage of a man, when one after another they began to force their way through. It was at this precise moment that the spark of the burning fuse reached the powder, which of course instantly blew up, igniting the hundred or so of cartridges that remained in the case, and scattering the bullets in them in all directions. There was a quick ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... performance of a comical part was never, I believe, in the world before as Nell do this, both as a mad girle, then most and best of all when she comes in like a young gallant; and hath the motions and carriage of a spark the most that ever I saw any man have. It makes me, I ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... only this book is so stupid. I think novels are stupid nowadays; the heroes are so gaudy, and the heroines have not a spark of spirit. You may talk to me instead, if you like. What have you been doing with yourself ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... for all the world to see; and what more convincing or spectacular evidence of their nearness could be set before the Parisians than a German aeroplane flying over their heads? I think it will prove the spark to light one of the historical explosions of the French people, and that this will probably show itself ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... there is not also a lawsuit. But no court could settle the differences between the United States and Germany. The nation squarely faced the fact that the two countries were officially not on speaking terms; they were on the dangerous ground of open enmity, when the least provocation would be as a spark to a powder magazine. Sparks there were in plenty; but the explosion waited. President Wilson guarded the magazine. He waited an "overt act" before giving up his vigil and letting ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... architects, and others, embracing the most severe tests, and it was fully proved that the tar paper roof is as fireproof as any other. These experiments were made in two different ways; first, the readiness of ignition of the tar paper roof by a spark or flame from the outside was considered, and, second, it was tested in how far it would resist a fire in the interior of the building. In the former case, it was ascertained that a bright, intense fire could be kept burning upon the roof for some time, without igniting the woodwork ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... phantom. To-day, from minute observation, the conjecture rose in her that something uncommon had happened, and that something more must happen, also; she was colder and more formal than ever, with a burning spark of fear in the depth of her blue, clear eyes. Her dress was of cloth, closely fitting, somewhat masculine in the cut of the waist, and on the top of her head was a Japanese knot of fiery hair, pierced by a pin with steel lustres. ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... in the hush, clear from the valley, and ceased. A light was lit, like a spark, in a distant window: more stars appeared and the woods were all dark now, and shapes even on the hill slopes began ...
— Tales of War • Lord Dunsany
... town had changed. That little semidormant spark of wickedness and criminality which is perhaps in every mother's son and daughter of us had been fanned to a flame by the lawlessness of Ragtown. The feverish night life, the chink of gold on gambling tables that were seldom unoccupied, the continual ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... for the bonfire, Fin-fin rubbed two sticks briskly together. Soon a spark fell upon the wood, and instantly the flames leaped upward. Then the fishes put some roots in front of the ...
— Story Hour Readers Book Three • Ida Coe and Alice J. Christie
... next house, where the Seiffarts lived, and which had a little tower on it. Thence we gazed in admiration at the ever-deepening glow of the sky, toward which great tongues of flame kept streaming up, while across the dusk shot formless masses like radiant spark-showering birds. Pillars of smoke mingled with the clouds, and the metallic note of the fire-bells calling for help accompanied the grand spectacle. I was only six years old, but I remember distinctly that when Ludo and I were taken to the Lutz ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... continued without listening to him, "you must never breathe a word of what has passed between you and Countess Rostova. I know I can't prevent your doing so, but if you have a spark of conscience..." Pierre paced the ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... shall the strong man be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark; and they shall both burn together, and none shall ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... member of the Cabinet occupies such a position of grave responsibilities, for a false step upon his part, the revelation of a secret policy, of an unfriendly attitude maintained injudiciously, may at any moment cause the spark in the ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... it, and other vines coiled around his waist. He dug his heels into the sand and clashed the swords together, trying to produce a spark. ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... tiny spark that set Europe on fire. Out of it grew the Thirty Years' War, the most terrible that ever scourged the civilized world. When Catholic League and Evangelical Union first mustered their armies, Bohemia had a prosperous population of four million ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... savory stew that all seemed to relish. An old, cross-looking, wrinkled crone presided at the steaming chowder-pot, and as she peeled the potatoes with her fingers she, at short intervals, quickly thrust one of the best into the mouth of a little wild-eyed girl that crouched beside her, a spark of natural love which charmed her withered face and made all the big gloomy house shine. In honor of our visit, our host put on a genuine white shirt. His wife also dressed in her best and put a pair of dainty trousers on her two-year-old boy, who seemed to be the pet ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... of the deep, Down, down! Like veiled lightning asleep, Like the spark nursed in embers, The last look Love remembers, 85 Like a diamond, which shines On the dark wealth of mines, A spell is treasured but for ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... you of this friend. He found me happiest of the happy; fortune and honour crowned me; and love and peace lived in my heart. One spark of folly lurked there; That too he found; and by deceitful breath, blew it to flames that have consumed me. This friend were ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... system of oppression, of which old Orgles's sending dozens of girls "on the game," who might otherwise have kept straight, was another portion. The realisation of this fact awoke in Mavis a burning sense of injustice; it only needed a spark to cause an explosion. This was not long in coming. The Marquis examined the things that she set before him with critical eye; his eagerness to handle them did not prevent his often looking admiringly at Mavis, a proceeding that did not ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... finds," says Sainte-Beuve, "this theory of work pushed to such a degree by Jasmin, with whom the spark of inspiration seems always so prompt and natural, what a sad return we have of the poetical wealth dissipated by the poets of our day." Sainte-Beuve summed up his praise of the Gascon poet by insisting that he was invariably sober in ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... One." Hymns extolled him, inscriptions on the monuments, which all could read, spoke of him, the one God, who manifested himself to the world, pervaded the universe, and existed throughout creation not alone as the vital spark animates the human organism, but as himself the sum of creation, the world with its perpetual growth, decay, and renewal, obeying the laws he had himself ordained. His spirit, existing in every form of nature, dwelt also in man, and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the blest Gospel's peaceful page explore, Only to fight against its precepts more. Near to these seats behold yon slender frames, All closely fill'd and mark'd with modern names; Where no fair science ever shows her face, Few sparks of genius, and no spark of grace; There sceptics rest, a still-increasing throng, And stretch their widening wings ten thousand strong; Some in close fight their dubious claims maintain; Some skirmish lightly, fly, and fight again; Coldly profane, and impiously gay, Their end the same, though various ...
— The Library • George Crabbe
... in the most vigorous words. There was no tact, policy, or persuasion in his message. He hurled his verbal thunderbolts right into his crowd, the very force and earnestness emanating from him serving to charge his words with a vitality and magnetism which dashed itself into the crowd like a spark of electricity, knocking men from off their feet, and driving the Truth into them as if by a charge of a powerful explosive. He told them that the spiritual grain was to be gathered into the garners, while the chaff was to be consumed as if by a fiery furnace; that the axe ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... Destruction of the whole City, or, at least, as far as the Bridge and Parts adjacent. Let his Thoughts proceed to examine, why, or how, in that precipitate Fall, not one Nail, nor one Piece of Iron, in that large Fabrick, should afford one little Spark to enflame that Mass of sulphurous Matter it was loaded with; and if he is at a loss to find a Providence, I fear his Friends will be more at a loss to find his Understanding. But the Battle of Landen happening while our Regiment was here on Duty, we were soon remov'd ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... loved. They adore noble and elevated descriptions and portrayals. They even search among the scum for a 'divine spark.' They also are surprised and offended when any one offers them a veracious and sombre picture. And most of them then do not fail to declare: 'The author has described himself in his work.' But no, my dear friends and readers, it is you, ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... word "SYMPATHY." The General was speaking of leadership in relation to warfare; and by "Sympathy" he meant swift insight into the minds of others; and, with this insight, the power to arouse and fan into a flame the spark of chivalry and true nobility in each. The career of the Nawab Nizamat Jung has not been set in the world of action,—he is at present a Judge of the High Court in Hyderabad,—but nevertheless this definition of sympathy is not irrelevant, for ...
— Sonnets • Nizam-ud-din-Ahmad, (Nawab Nizamat Jung Bahadur)
... alive! He had left the spark of life in him, and the woman who loved him had fanned it back into ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... man," said the Deacon. "I think he was the first spark we have seen in the ashes of our prayer meeting for many ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... burst sail, Drench'd wing, as moth toward the spark— I fetch, I fail, Glad only that the gale Breaks not my ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... the great discoveries' which science owes to Faraday; and he asks a question which reveals his cast of thought at the time: 'What is the most simple combination to give to a voltaic battery, in order to produce a spark capable of setting fire to powder under water or under ground?' Should the necessity arise, the French Emperor will not lack at the outset the best appliances of modern science; while we, I fear, shall ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... fireside; when the whole world rang with English steel, and the wide sea foamed with English keels, and the air was full of the blaze of the living and the ghosts of the mighty dead. And down in Nick's plucky young English heart there came a spark like that which burns in the soul of a mariner when for the first time an unknown ocean rolls ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... reconciling Spain to what it, is impossible for us to relinquish. An accident at this day, like that now complained of, would put further parley beyond our power; yet to such accidents we are every day exposed by the irregularities of their officers, and the impatience of our citizens. Should any spark kindle these dispositions of our borderers into a flame, we are involved beyond recall by the eternal principles of justice to our citizens, which we will never abandon. In such an event, Spain cannot possibly gain; and ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... incombustible and extinguishes flame. It is a singularly inert substance, and is incapable of directly entering into union with any other element except oxygen, and with that it combines with the greatest difficulty, and only by the action of the electric spark—a peculiarity which has very important bearings on many points we shall afterwards have to discuss. Nitrogen is found in plants to the extent of from 1 to 4 ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson
... will become good women and you will have their eternal gratitude. If you do not stand by them, you are worse than the beasts of the jungle and deserve their eternal curse. You are unworthy to be, or to be called, parents, for you are devoid of the least spark of that sacred feeling called Parental Love, a feeling which unfortunately in only too many parents is replaced by nothing but the most sordid, ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... (as it may have crossed me ere now), that he could make the wisdom of a mortal angel help his ambition, as well as her beauty his happiness; or whether (which I will never believe of one of those dark children of the devil, though I can boldly assert it of myself) some spark of boldness within him made him too proud to take by force what he could not win by persuasion, certain it is, as the Indians themselves confessed afterwards, that the savage only answered her by smiles; and bidding his men unbind her, told ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... the floor, addressed the House with great ability in review of Mr. Pitt's recent Union speech, which he designated "a paltry production." But again, a majority mustered, at the nod of the minister, 161 to 140—a few not fully committed showing some last faint spark of independence. It was on this occasion that Mr. Corry, Chancellor of the Exchequer, member for Newry, made for the third or fourth time that session, an attack on Grattan, which brought out, on the instant, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... through that of his neighbours. They had been five years married before she brought him an heir to his poverty, and she lived five years more to train him—then, after a short illness, departed, and left the now aging man virtually alone with his little child, coruscating spark of fresh vitality amidst the ancient surroundings. This was the Cosmo who now, somewhat sore at heart from the result of his cogitations, entered the kitchen ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... cadenced majesty, speaks to the imagination, perfects its images, and leads it at will through unknown paths, beguiling with its harmony and beauty." "There is another poetry, natural, rapid, terse, which springs from the soul as an electric spark, which strikes our feelings with a word, and flees away. Bare of artificiality, free within a free form, it awakens by the aid of one kindred idea the thousand others that sleep in the bottomless ocean of fancy. The first has an acknowledged value; it is the poetry of everybody. The ...
— Legends, Tales and Poems • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer
... some poor wretch is in peril. Generally, a little flask of spirits is tied round the neck of the animal, by drinking which the benighted traveller may recruit his strength, until more effectual rescue arrive. The monks hasten in the direction of the sound, and often succeed in rekindling the vital spark before it is quite extinguished. Very many travellers have been thus rescued from death by these benevolent men and their intelligent and interesting ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... what trust they had in her youth and her vitality. Their sense of helplessness oppressed the men heavily; their concern increased as the hours dragged along and the life within the girl flared up to a blaze or flickered down to a mere spark. ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... enjoyment of prosperity and sunshine, and had flourished on to a hearty and florid old age; whilst the poor parson, on the contrary, had dried and withered away, among dusty tomes, in the silence and shadows of his study. Still there seemed to be a spark of almost extinguished fire, feebly glimmering in the bottom of his soul; and as the Squire hinted at a sly story of the parson and a pretty milkmaid, whom they once met on the banks of the Isis, the old gentleman made an "alphabet of faces," which, as far as I could decipher ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... to Lowndes, and one word of mine, etc., the old cant. But I will not go two yards to help him. I dined with Mrs. Vanhomrigh, where I keep my best gown and periwig, to put on when I come to town and be a spark. ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... lies in the boy, not in the master," interrupted Gaunt. "A sneak! a coward! If he has a spark of manly honour in him, he'll speak ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... should talk above your 'eads, my friends, but I say, an' I maintain, that this insolent upstawt, this pestilenshul braggadosho, this blood-suckin', fire-eatin', spark-spittin', sausage-guzzlin', beer-swillin' ranter, this imitashun eagle, with a cawdboard beak an' a tin 'elmet, this 'ypercritical 'umbug, 'as forfeited the larst shred of the respec' of any but the mos' sooperfishul stoodent of international affairs, or welt-politik, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... room warm, Harry," said Mrs. Castleton, "you had better go in the dancing-room—there is not a spark of fire there." ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... Perch was sinking. More pronounced now that masklike aspect of her face. Yes, dying. He spoke the word to himself. "Dying." As of a fire in the grate gone to one dull spark among the greying ashes.—It is out; it cannot burn again. So life here too far retired, too deeply sunk to struggle back and vitalise again that hue, ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... the whole tendency of his thinking was to leave the unprofitable classification of faculties in which the Victorine School almost revelled, and to concentrate his attention on the union of the soul with God. And therefore in his more developed teaching,[13] the "spark" which is the point of contact between the soul and its Maker is something higher than the faculties, being "uncreated." He seems to waver about identifying the "spark" with the "active reason," but inclines on the whole to regard it as something even higher still. "There is something in the soul," ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... was about to black out from stun-gun paralysis, and Martha was headed for the readjustment chamber where they'd reduce her mental activity to the level of a menial, sterilize her, and put her to work in an occupation that no man or woman with a spark of intelligence, ambition, or ...
— Stop Look and Dig • George O. Smith
... ecclesiastical discipline from political considerations, were to them the subject of much offence; and the king hoped that, in their present disposition, the plight of their native prince, flying to them in this extremity of distress, would rouse every-spark of generosity in their bosom, and procure ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... husband to take care of her; a man with a brave headpiece of his own, who lets her spark it with the fairest company in the town, but would make short work of any fop who dared attempt the insolence of a suitor. Hyacinth has seen the worst and the best of two Courts, and has an experience of the Palais Royal and St. Germain ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... lodging at the Grange, and after the morning's mass and meat, sped them on their way with his blessing, muttering to himself, "That elder one might have been the staff of mine age! Pity on him to be lost in the great and evil City! Yet 'tis a good lad to follow that fiery spark his brother. Tanquam agnus ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... there was the spark of a match against the darkness framed in by the window opposite. A hand and arm shone in the flicker of light across the upper sash. A tiny spark, tremulous at first, like a bird alighting on a frail branch, paused, steadied, and became fixed. In the light of a small taper the man caught ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... Esme! The electric spark of thought leaped the long space of years from the child, Esme, to the girl, in the vain love of whom he had eaten his heart hollow. For the moment, passion for the vivid woman-creature before him had dulled that profounder feeling almost ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... sister far too well to think of marrying at such a time, and said she must attend to no one else. All that winter and spring she was nursing her sister day and night, watching over her, and quite keeping up the little spark of life, the doctors said, by her tender care. And though Lady Jane lived on day after day, she never grew so much better as to be fit to hear of the engagement and that if she recovered her sister would be separated ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... good and gracious, like a lurid spark aflame, Chastened of its sin and anger, Sisupala's ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... have lied and so escaped, but John Allandale's weakness was such that he had not the courage to resort to subterfuge. Moreover, there was a faint spark of honor nickering deep down in his kindly heart. The girl's affectionate display was surely fanning that spark into a flame. Would the flame grow or would it sparkle up for one brief moment and then go out from pure lack of fuel? Suddenly something of the truth of the cause ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... called forthwith from every tent, Unto the rendezvous he them invites; Letter on letter, post on post he sent, Entreatance fair with counsel he unites, All, what a noble courage could augment, The sleeping spark of valor what incites, He used, that all their thoughts to honor raised, Some praised, some paid, some ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... hat and turning it round and round in his gloved fingers while he ducked his head, pressed his lips together with a humorous quirk, shuffled his spurred feet on the dirty floor and bowed again as awkwardly as he could. In this manner he hoped to draw some little spark of individuality from Mary Hope, who sat behind her yellow-painted table and stared at him over her folded arms. But Mary Hope, he observed, had been crying, ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... a drop of water from the moment he left us. The deep and narrow channel I had so frequently visited, and which I had hoped might still contain water, had long been dry, and thus was our retreat cut off in that quarter also. There was apparently no hope for us—its last spark had been extinguished by this last disappointment; but the idea of a detention in that horrid desert ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... cent—went directly on to Mr. Balfour's desk, if it was so addressed; Brian Taggert would never have been so cruel as to deprive Mr. Balfour of the joy of sorting through the thousands of crackpot letters in search of those who had the true spark of mysticism which so fascinated ...
— Fifty Per Cent Prophet • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the gasoline, and the vapour is sucked into each of these cylinders in turn when the piston moves—like this." He sought to explain the action of the piston. "That compresses it, and then a tiny electric spark comes just at the right moment to explode it, and the explosion sends the piston down again, and turns the shaft. Well, all four cylinders have an explosion one right after another, and that keeps the shaft ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... person, who, without having studied at the college, or truckled to the pedantry of a diploma, hath employed a great portion of his valuable time in experimental processes upon the bodies of unfortunate fellow-creatures, in whom the vital spark, to mere vulgar thinking, would seem extinct, and lost for ever. He omitteth no occasion of obtruding his services, from a case of common surfeit-suffocation to the ignobler obstructions, sometimes induced by a too wilful application of the plant Cannabis outwardly. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... vehemence aloud: "What grace is this vouchsaf'd me?" By his looks I ne'er had recogniz'd him: but the voice Brought to my knowledge what his cheer conceal'd. Remembrance of his alter'd lineaments Was kindled from that spark; and I agniz'd The visage of Forese. "Ah! respect This wan and leprous wither'd skin," thus he Suppliant implor'd, "this macerated flesh. Speak to me truly of thyself. And who Are those twain spirits, that escort thee ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... The Young Deliverers of Pleasant Cove. The Cruise of the Casco. The Child of the Island Glen. John Godsoe's Legacy. The Fisher Boys of Pleasant Cove. A Stout Heart; or, The Student from Over the Sea. A Spark of Genius; or, The College Life of James Trafton. The Sophomores of Radcliffe; or, James Trafton and his Boston Friends. The Whispering Pine; or, The Graduates of Radcliffe. The Turning of the Tide; or, Radcliffe Rich and his Patients. Winning his ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... no cynic he is a satirist as much as Pope or Dryden, but the most kindly satirist who ever wrote. His thrusts are keen and yet there is always a humorous laugh behind, and never a spark of malice or uncharitableness. Thackeray bore no hatred in his heart towards any man. He could not bear to give pain, and as he grew older his satire became more gentle even than at first, and he regretted some of his earlier and ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... strength induced by sheer power of will? The doctor resumed his usual ferocity of manner and refused to be questioned. For hours he and Philippa sat beside the bed, watching a feeble, flickering spark of life—so feeble that it seemed that every moment it must be extinguished; but gradually—very gradually—the distressing symptoms decreased, a little colour returned to the face which had looked so lifeless, and again hope ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... It is the will of the brave Barabbas, and of the militant Nationalists who admired him and crucified the pro-Gentile. But the Prussians must save their own souls. They also have their Shaws and Chestertons and a divine spark in them for these to work on. . . . What we have to do is to make ridiculous the cry of "Vengeance is mine, saith Podsnap," and, whenever anyone tells an Englishman a lie, to explain to the poor devil ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... this battery of malevolence stung to life within me a spark of nobleness, and I said aloud, "Well, if he is a better man, let him ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... spark bravely to the match. The spark—a feeble spark, first principle of a conflagration—shone in the darkness like a fire-fly, then was deadened against the match which it inflamed. Porthos enlivened the flame with his breath. The smoke was a little ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... is my own brother's son, and mate to a collier) to be cotched up by a press-gang, and ten to one his wages all unpaid? Div yo' think I'd send up Measter Cholmley to speak up for that piece o' work? Not I.' He took up his pipe again, shook out the ashes, puffed it into a spark, and shut his eyes, preparatory ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... to Rivermouth I looked upon girls as rather tame company; I hadn't a spark of sentiment concerning them; but seeing my comrades sending and receiving mysterious epistles, wearing bits of ribbon in their button-holes and leaving packages of confectionery (generally lemon-drops) in the hollow trunks ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... infinite hunger, that lies as a germ in every human heart and is man's best attribute, in that it raises him for ever incontestably above the beasts that perish, and stands serene and steadfast as the Rock of Ages, the one barrier past which the materialists and the scientists cannot go: the divine spark within the human, which no theory can account for and no learning of sage or ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... Harry from time to time tested the wireless and sent short messages back to the camp. It worked perfectly and the spark was as strong as if only a few miles separated airship and camp. Nor did there seem to be any weakening as the distance ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... again some electric current flashed from her feverishly bright eyes, burning its way to the secret chambers of his selfish heart, melting the dross that ambition and greed had slowly cemented, and dropping one deathless spark into a deep adytum, of the existence of which he had never even dreamed. Unconsciously he leaned toward her, but she pressed back against the iron bars, and drew her dress aside as if shunning a leper. There was no petulance in the motion, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... near the operator's seat, and on the post just under the wheel were the spark and throttle levers on the fuselage beam. The steering wheel was a solid piece of wood about eight inches in diameter with two holes cut into it to fit ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... with real estate, an' burrs, an' everythin' loose what would stick to him. An' when he gets to where I sits, he flops down flat on his back. He sure is exhausted; even his paws is limp. But one of his eyes seems t' hold a spark o' life, an' he fixes that on me. An' he ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... make fudge, we'd start a shack right here in this well house and sell lemonade and fruit and fudge and cookies and things, and if we make lots of money I'd go up to Baxter City and buy some auto accessories like spark plugs and tire tape and things and we'd sell those, too. We'd put signs on the trees along the road telling people to stop here and I know how to make up signs so as to get people good and hungry. You have them say that things are hot in the pan and ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... poor man, but the rest of us, we have no right to know the Bertrams. Now, do look at that young captain. Why, he's making the little Bells laugh themselves into fits. Dear me, I'd better go out. These girls don't know manners, and their heads will be turned by that fine young spark. They are certain to believe any rubbish he talks ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... and kindly thought, that Jean ordered this arrangement, for Blackfoot, though old and scarred, a trail-worn veteran, had not a spark of unkindness in his composition. He was the dog with Newfoundland blood in him, who, like Bill the leader, and unlike the rest of the pack, had not snarled at sight of Jan. He even held out a friendly muzzle in welcome as, rather reluctantly, ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... light up to now, it was at this point she was to light her candle and place it on the floor, so that in returning she should not miss the staircase and get a fall. She had promised to do this, and was only too happy to see a spark of light scintillate into life ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... once staying with his nephew, M. Aube, and had the misfortune to let a spark fall upon his clothes, which set fire to the bed, and eventually to the room. M. Aube was extremely angry with his uncle, and shewed him what precautions he ought to have taken to prevent such an accident. "My dear nephew," replied Fontenelle, ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... at him, and the look of triumph he saw there roused every spark of energy within him, and it was in a tone of well-assumed composure that he replied to the inspector, "My licence is in my pocket, and my coat is below there;" and without a moment's hesitation sprang into his hole to fetch it. ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... afar off over the horizon, and were reflected in a deeper hue on the calm surface of the sea, with a perfectness and grandeur that I never remember to have witnessed before. Not a ship was in sight; but out on the extreme line of the wilderness of grey waters there shone one red, fiery spark—the beacon of the Eddystone Lighthouse. Before us, the green fields of Looe Island rose high out of the ocean—here, partaking the red light on the clouds; there, half lost in cold shadow. Closer yet, on the mainland, a few cattle were ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... is," pointing to a black hulk which lay sullenly, without a spark of light visible, close ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... touched the hidden powder magazine with an electric spark, and a cheer swept the crowd. It died away at last—rose with new power and rose a third time before it subsided, and ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... under discussion; but it is much worse to take money for getting a bill passed. If we are extreme to mark a slight breach of form, how severely ought we to deal with that corruption which is eating away the very substance of our institutions!" That was enough; the spark had fallen; the train was ready; the explosion was immediate and terrible. After a tumultuous debate in which the cry of "the Tower" was repeatedly heard, Wharton managed to carry his point. Before the House rose a committee was appointed to examine the books of the City of London ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... for the jolly picnic And the crew of the red Noah's Ark. I'll whistle and sing like a bird in the spring, While the red flames gleam and spark." ...
— The Cruise of the Noah's Ark • David Cory
... whatever that floats in my memory concerning the great subject of this work to be lost. Though a small particular may appear trifling to some, it will be relished by others; while every little spark adds something to the general blaze: and to please the true, candid, warm admirers of Johnson, and in any degree increase the splendour of his reputation, I bid defiance to the shafts of ridicule, or even of malignity. Showers of them have been discharged at ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... force, if we will only use it, so weighted with public disaster, with national decay, with private misery, that it insists on making itself felt if there be a spark of life left and the nation has not become mere dead carcase for the vultures of God's judgments to prey upon. Here alone is a power strong enough to compel us to simplify our life and restore its old divine order of marriage and hard ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... trembling voice grew faint and hoarse, his grasp was childish weak, His eyes put on a dying look, he sighed, and ceased to speak; His comrade bent to lift him, but the spark of life had fled— The soldier of the Legion in a foreign land is dead; And the soft moon rose up slowly, and calmly she looked down On the red sand of the battle-field with bloody corses strewn; Yet calmly on that dreadful scene her pale light seemed to ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... a loose collar F to which the fore and aft cords are attached that go to the elevators, or horizontal planes. The upper end of the stem has a wheel G, which may also be equipped with the throttle and spark levers. ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... I cried. "Do not take offence at my words. I'm aware that I'm a hopeless blunderer in love. All I know, Sylvia, is that my only thought is of you. And I—I've wondered whether you, on your part, can ever entertain a spark of affection ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... at any rate, it appears best to resist a natural temptation; to deny the desire to paint such closing scenes in petto. Much more does this certainty hold of their explanation. Enough has been said to enable those in whom the spark of understanding may burn, to discover by its light how much is left unsaid. Enough has been hinted at to teach how much there is still to guess. At least few will deny that some things are best abandoned to the imagination. To attempt to drag the last veil from the face of ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... to lead her back to the subject of the Lennoxes, in hopes of being able to extract some spark of knowledge from the dark chaos ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... his two hands and they remained silent, not daring, with their scruples as Catholics, to utter the sacrilegious thing which was fomenting in their heads. In the depth of her eyes, the evil spark went out. ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... the latter—was becoming too much for him, and that his nerves were beginning to suffer. Was Joseph Chestermarke never coming? Had he gone off somewhere?—possibly leaving a dead man behind, whose body was only a few yards away. There was no spark of comfort visible save one. Old Rob Walford would be home late that night from Wymington—sooner or later he would hear of Neale's disappearance and he would sharpen his naturally acute wits and come to the right conclusion. Yet—that might be ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... of regret for the little bright spark which the growing light must necessarily quench.] It ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... at Tunbridge (for of this important matter Jocasta cannot be certain) it was her ladyship's fortune to become acquainted with a young gentleman, whose conversation was so sprightly, and manners amiable, that she invited the agreeable young spark to visit her if ever he came to London, where her house in Spring Garden should be open to him. Charming as he was, and without any manner of doubt a pretty fellow, Jocasta hath such a regiment of the like continually marching round her standard, that 'tis no wonder her attention is distracted ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... powers we possess, to impress upon the mind the great importance of a good education; and not only to impress it upon the mind, but to assist the mind to act, that it may obtain it. But our principal aim is to fan into life the almost dying spark of virtue, and kindle anew the moral feelings, that they may glow with fresh ardor, and shine forth again in the beauty of innocence. Our object is not to store the memory with facts, but to elevate the soul; not to think for the children, but to teach them to think for themselves; ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... fairest, purest, best into flowery dells where she can pluck the richest food of knowledge, and crowns her brow with a coronet of gems whose brilliancy can never grow dim: for they glisten with the purest thought, that seems as a spark struck from the mind of Deity. There is no need for the daughters of this community to seek colleges of distant climes whereat to be educated, for right here in their own city, God's paradise on earth, is situated a noble college, the bright diadem of that paradise, ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... not believe your husband agrees with you. I know I do not. Mrs. Herron is a tiny old lady, with a feeble spark of vitality left; and with all her strength she is clinging to life, and pleading with it to give her word of her only child before she goes out unsatisfied. She knows that her daughter is gone, and now her hopes are fastened on you. If for only a few days, you certainly ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... me!" he said one day, when, with a spark of real anger, Julia had begged him to make his calls at the settlement house a little less frequent and less conspicuous. "What was it?" And with twinkling eyes he caught up the hand that lay near him on ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... was the spark of genius. All things seemed to come right with them at all times. Fate was kind, the openings occurred, and they were prepared to ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... morning and shall have a good breakfast before you leave. But before we part for the night, you must turn your pockets inside out that I may see that you have no matches or anything else that will strike a spark." ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... in the morning I awoke and took the lantern, and went out of the front door and round the verandahs. There was never a spark of dawn in the east, only the stars looked a little pale; and I expected to find them all asleep in the workhouse. But no! the stove was roaring, and Talolo and Fono, who was to lead the party, were standing together talking by the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... appear; And punks of different characters we meet, As frequent on the stage as in the pit. Our modern wits are forced to pick and cull, And here and there by chance glean up a fool: Long ere they find the necessary spark, They search the town, and beat about the Park; 20 To all his most frequented haunts resort, Oft dog him to the ring, and oft to court, As love of pleasure or of place invites; And sometimes catch him taking snuff at White's. Howe'er, to do you right, the present ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... entirely unconscious of doing any thing disagreeable. If not, perhaps he did not consider it of much consequence. He may have grown up with the opinion that little things are of small importance. Now, that this is not always so, you may easily see if you drop a spark of fire in a pile of shavings: the whole will be immediately in flames, and will do as much injury as if it had been kindled by ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... combine two things which do not necessarily go together, warmth and wakefulness. Everything was so quiet, that he seemed to hear Timotheus and Sylvanus pacing about rapidly like himself, when suddenly a little spark of fire appeared at the far end of the verandah towards the stables. Cautiously, under cover of bushes he approached the spot, but saw nothing, although he smelt fire. Then he knelt down and peered under the flower laden structure. ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... found to resolve themselves into mere steps or phases of still loftier progress. Verily, it is an astonishing world! Change rising above change—cycle growing out of cycle, in majestic progression—each new one ever widening, like the circles that wreathe from a spark of flame, enlarging as they ascend, finally to become lost in the empyrean! And if all that we see, from earth to sun, and from sun to universal star-work—that wherein we best behold images of eternity, immortality and God—if that is only a state or space of a course ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... no very high ideals before his eyes, was not, as we have seen, destitute of the quality of sympathy, nor could he entirely obliterate from his memory a time when he himself had been fired by a spark of ambition, and had recognised a longing to accomplish something great. True, the spark had been but a feeble one at best, and the unceasing demands upon his powers to supply the bare necessaries of ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... was no hope for him in those tears. There was resignation, heartbroken resignation to the inevitable, but not a touch of yielding, not a spark of hope ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... press this key," he said, "an electrical spark is sent up into the antenna, the big wire that you see suspended from the mast over the station, and is ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... speed! May ravens tear the careless eyes, Wolves make the coward heart their prize! As sinks that blood-stream in the earth, So may his heart's-blood drench his hearth! As dies in hissing gore the spark, Quench thou his light, Destruction dark! And be the grace to him denied, Bought by this sign to all beside! He ceased; no echo gave again The ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... there is the Divine Spark of the Deity, if we are in truth His sons and daughters, she reasoned, then we have some rights that this Deity is ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... cross-question it, at least the need of understanding so far as possible how, in a world in which difficulty and disaster are frequent, the most wavering and flickering of all fine flames has escaped extinction. We go back, we help ourselves to hang about the attestation of the first spark of the flame, and like to indulge in a fond notation of such facts as that of the air in which it was kindled and insisted on proceeding, or yet perhaps failed to proceed, to a larger combustion, and the draughts, blowing about the world, that were either, as may have happened, to quicken ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... Beautiful. All this damned materialism: what good is it to anybody? Ive got a soul: dont tell me I havnt. Cut me up and you cant find it. Cut up a steam engine and you cant find the steam. But, by George, it makes the engine go. Say what you will, Summerhays, the divine spark is ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... discard some vice, some sin, some weakness. We use them in the interest of procrastination—that we may put off the parting day with something our conscience, or our taste, or both, disapprove. By them we appoint a time when we shall say to the divine spark within our breasts, you may flame out into our daily life. By them we give a respite which alas, often ends in a commutation of sentence and oftener still in a full pardon and ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley
... became a burthen to him; he was a marked man; he, whose only wish was to pass unnoticed, unheard, unseen; he, who of all the creeping things on the earth, pitied the glowworm most, because the spark in its tail attracted observation. He gave up his lodgings and his piebald, and went "in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 389, September 12, 1829 • Various
... then, have been some other force which, at the appointed time, struck from this stream of signals a spark, so to speak, into the magazines of La Liberte, one after the other. That there was an appointed time we cannot doubt—we know that it was the moment of sunrise yesterday. That the magazines were fired one at a time, and at spaced intervals we also know. That they could not ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... material that may create a spark, shall be used for tamping, and some soft material must always be placed next to the cartridge or explosive. When it is necessary to tamp dynamite, nothing but a wooden tamper shall be used. (Sec. ...
— Mining Laws of Ohio, 1921 • Anonymous
... precarious fire, The immortal ties of Nature shall expire; These shall resist the triumph of decay, When time is o'er, and worlds have passed away. Cold in the dust this perished heart may lie, But that which warmed it once shall never die— That spark, unburied in its mortal frame, With living light, eternal, and the same, Shall beam on Joy's interminable years, Unveiled ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... of the sun, had still some fires which they were permitted to avail themselves of as if they were light. But those men whom you approve of, after having enveloped us in such darkness, have not left us a single spark to enable us to look around by. And if we follow them, we become bound with such chains that we cannot move. For when assent is taken away, they take away at the same time all motion of our minds, and all our power of action; ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... I pen the Mighty Line Suffused with the spark divine As who should say: "By George! ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... in the neighbourhood over it. When this ceremony is ended, they consider the cure complete; after which they drink whiskey, and dance to the bagpipe or fiddle round the celestial fire till the last spark is extinguished." ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... him—in the careless twist of his head, around, to speak to the woman behind him. The light above struck blind on the glass in one eye, but the other danced with a genial, a mad scintillation. The light of it caught like contagion, and touched the merest glancer at him with the spark of its warm, ironic mirth. The question which naturally rose to Flora's lips—"Who in the world is that?"—she checked; why, she didn't ask herself. She only felt as she followed Clara, trailing away across the floor, that the interest of ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... alive except myself. So, although I am to be a hopeless cripple, yet I am not sorry that the skill and untiring patience of the great English surgeon, Dr. Thompson, managed to nurse back the feeble spark of my life through all those weeks that I hung on the borderland; for if he had not, the world ...
— The Undersea Tube • L. Taylor Hansen
... my thighs, Like rotten old Cheshire, low Vervane or Ling, And altho' I'm goddess, I'll hang in a string. Your self, Lady Fair, that arose from the sea, Sure will not presume to be fragrant as me: The spark that has laid at your feet all his trophies, Has smelt you sometimes strong as pickl'd anchovies: But what if he has, were you ranker and older, You'd be e'en good enough for a smith or a soldier." ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous
... wind and remembering the position of adjacent coverts, will give a good guess as to the direction in which the field will move. No; he must make an effort. The time of his penance has come, and the penance must be borne. There is a spark of pluck about him, though unfortunately he has brought it to bear in a wrong direction. The blood still runs at his heart, and he resolves that he will ride, if only ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... to be filled with missiles and gunpowder. The plunger, with its spring, was set vertically above the tube. In throwing this contrivance one released its spring by the pressure of his thumb. The hammer fell and the spark it made ignited a fuse leading down to the powder. Its owner had to throw it from behind a tree or have a share in the peril it was sure ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... the spark of Connie's enthusiasm to start all the forbidden fires in her. Her eyes flew to ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... its own accord. Half every country's energy, half every country's time and money was spent in piling up explosives. In every country envy and hatred of every other country was preached as a religion. They called it patriotism. Sooner or later the spark fell. ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... We cannot have passed the big landing-place yet. If we have, only just. Yes, that must be it, and this must be the spot. Oh! if we could only see a spark of light from the Residency we ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... hints of the past. The girl was proudly incapable of jealousy and, because he was extremely jealous, this virtue piqued him. He told her recondite incidents of his own life on purpose to arouse some spark of it, but to no avail. She possessed him now—nor did she ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... mankind, is by some Sylph embrac'd: For Spirits, freed from mortal laws, with ease Assume what sexes and what shapes they please. 70 What guards the purity of melting Maids, In courtly balls, and midnight masquerades, Safe from the treach'rous friend, the daring spark, The glance by day, the whisper in the dark, When kind occasion prompts their warm desires, 75 When music softens, and when dancing fires? 'Tis but their Sylph, the wise Celestials know, Tho' Honour is the word with ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... the crowns and stumbling over the bride's train, smiling too and seeming delighted at something, were at one moment left behind, at the next treading on the bridal pair as the priest came to a halt. The spark of joy kindled in Kitty seemed to have infected everyone in the church. It seemed to Levin that the priest and the deacon too wanted to ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... the house, I thought I perceived in that direction a tiny spark of light, which vanished almost as soon as it appeared. Still more remarkable, a faint glimmer of light appeared in a small gable-window high up, where assuredly I had never before seen a light. It may have been on this account or from old association that, instead of approaching the ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... into danger, but one pair met their fate in this way. The first bird came flying to the nest, in which there were eggs, as soon as a shot was heard in the distance. It was killed, and hardly had the spark of the flash disappeared when the other bird dropped down out of the gloom straight on to the eggs, and met the same fate. Forty young chickens were taken by a pair of crows from a farm in one spring. It was objected by some young ladies who were "interested" in the farm that the crows ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish |
