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Take fire   /teɪk fˈaɪər/   Listen
Take fire

verb
1.
Start to burn or burst into flames.  Synonyms: catch fire, combust, conflagrate, erupt, ignite.  "The oily rags combusted spontaneously"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Take fire" Quotes from Famous Books



... away the Master said to me—The stubble-fields are mighty slow to take fire. These young fellows catch up with the world's ideas one after another,—they have been tamed a long while, but they find them running loose in their minds, and think they are ferae naturae. They ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... blonde Gaillefontaine, drawing up her swan-like throat, with a bitter smile. "I see that messieurs the archers of the king's police easily take fire at the handsome eyes ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... thunderbolt, the faint and weak the whirlwind. Aristotle, that all these proceed from dry exhalations, which, if they meet with moist vapors, forcing their passage, the breaking of them gives the noise of thunder; they, being very dry, take fire and make lightning; tempests and hurricanes arise from the plenitude of matter which each draw to themselves, the hotter parts attracted make the whirlwinds, ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... another, unless drunk, nor do you ever hear any Scolding amongst them. They say, the Europeans are always rangling and uneasy, and wonder they do not go out of this World, since they are so uneasy and discontented in it. All their Misfortunes and Losses end in Laughter; for if their Cabins take Fire, and all their Goods are burnt therein, (indeed, all will strive to prevent farther Damage, whilst there is any Possibility) yet such a Misfortune ends in a hearty Fitt of Laughter, unless some of their Kinsfolks and Friends have lost their Lives; but then the Case is alter'd, and they become ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson

... my Satires, I was thoroughly prepar'd for that Noise and Tumult which the Impression of my Book has rais'd upon Parnassus. I knew that the Tribe of Poets, and above all, Bad Poets, are a People ready to take fire; and that Minds so covetous of Praise wou'd not easily digest any Raillery, how gentle soever. I may farther say to my advantage, that I have look'd with the Eyes of a Stoick upon the Defamatory Libels that have been publish'd against me. Whatever Calumnies they have been willing to asperse ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte

... color masses since June. Now it is a veritable mixing pat for the autumn colors to come, yellow with goldenrod, blue with asters, purple with Joe-Pye weed, rosy because of the hardhack, and rimmed with delicate gray-white of thoroughwort. These colors it will hold until the maples take fire and the green of birches pales to softest yellow at the expectation of October. So the flash of coolness in the air after rain set all the wood folk busy. The squirrels seemed to scold more shrilly and dance along the boughs inspecting the swelling chestnut burrs with a livelier kick ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... of the sea. In order to prevent these dangerous accidents, a man stands constantly ready to divide the rope with a hatchet, in case it should happen to tangle; and another is continually pouring water over it for fear the swiftness of the motion should make it take fire. The poor whale, being thus wounded, darts away with inconceivable rapidity, and generally plunges to the bottom of the sea. The men have a prodigious quantity of cord ready to let out, and when their store is exhausted there are ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... persons like surly mastiffs. Blacks and whites go together to make up a world, and hence, on the point of temper, we have all sorts of people to deal with. Some are as easy as an old shoe, but they are hardly ever worth more than the other one of the pair; and others take fire as fast as tinder at the smallest offense, and are as dangerous as gunpowder. To have a fellow going about the farm as cross with every body as a bear with a sore head, with a temper as sour as verjuice and as sharp as a razor, looking as surly as a butcher's dog, is a great nuisance; and ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... seized upon his hair and garments with an exultant roar. He held fast. He must get the passengers off the floorless bridge that might ignite at any moment. He must check the engine as soon as he cleared the last pier, or the cars would take fire before they could be uncoupled. He shut his eyes from the maddening heat and glare, and drove straight on. Not so fast as to hurry the greedy flames that were doing their worst upon him, but at a rate that ran them over the river and upon solid earth as the fuel in the tender burst ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various

... people, and seeking to sow discord among these that were one in heart and work, is the character of the other. Now, keep thee from both these abominations, and do not think it is in thy power not to be infected with the contagion of their fellowship. "Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burnt? Can one go on hot coals and not burn his feet?" So whoever associates and goes in friendly to either of them "shall not be innocent," ver. ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... Methinks you that are courtiers should be my touch-wood, take fire when I give fire; that is, laugh when I laugh, were the ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster

... Flame in) it continued so long burning that it Lin'd all the Inside of the Glass with a Soot as Black as Ink, and so Copious, that the Closeness of the Vessel consider'd, almost all that part of the White Camphire that did take Fire, seem'd to have been chang'd into that ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle

... universal war should supervene. She held the Kaiser well at bay, mankind well in panic; and continually there came on all Europe, for about twenty years, a terror that war was just about to break out, and the whole world to take fire. The History so called of Europe went canting from side to side; heeling at a huge rate, according to the passes and lunges these two giant figures, Imperial Majesty and the Termagant of Spain, made at one another,—for a twenty years ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... projects with Christian people. They distributed missionary sermons. A list was made of the names of distinguished ministers, to whom these young men made frequent visits, urging their suit. Among them, the first to take fire, was Dr. Worcester. With one of them, Dr. Griffin, Mills asked to be permitted to study theology. Said the Doctor: "I had always refused such applications, but from the love I bore to him, I agreed to criticise one sermon a week. After that exercise he would commonly sit and draw letters ...
— A Story of One Short Life, 1783 to 1818 - [Samuel John Mills] • Elisabeth G. Stryker

... years old is broached, the servants are in a stir, the altar wreathed for sacrifice, the flames curling up the kitchen chimney, ivy and parsley gathered to make a wreath for Phyllis' hair. Come then, sweet girl, last of my loves; for never again shall this heart take fire at a woman's face—come, and learn of me a tune to sing with that dear voice, and drive away dull care. I am told that every man in making love assures the charmer that no woman shall ever succeed her in his regards; but this is probably a veritable amorous swan-song. He was older than ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell

... turn; having no longer faith In gods or men. Then what mysterious charm, What fascination is it chains my feet, And keeps me gazing like a curious child Into the holy places, where the priests Have raised their altar?—Striking stones together, They take fire out of them, and light the lamps In the great candlestick. They spread the veils, And set the loaves of showbread on the table. The incense burns; the well-remembered odor Comes wafted unto me, and takes me back To other days. I see myself among them As I was then; ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... slightly heated, burn with sparks. Organic bodies are violently attacked. A piece of cork placed near the end of the platinum tube, where the gas is evolved, immediately carbonizes and inflames. Alcohol, ether, benzol, spirit of turpentine, and petroleum take fire on contact. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various

... the timely rebuke which she administered, through her peculiar faculty of lyric song, to the unpatriotic inactivity of her countrymen. As a matter of course, he might still expect that the same muse would take fire under similar provocation hereafter. But he certainly never calculated on other and more decided services at her hands. He misunderstood the being whom he had somewhat contributed to inspire. He did not appreciate her ambition, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various

... goods they did carry away, and the manner of the setting the house on fire was, that Holmes did get to a cockpit; where, it seems, there was a publick cockpit, and set fire to the straw in it, and hath a fire-ball at the end of the straw, which did take fire, and so it prevailed, and burned the house; and, among other things they carried away, he took six of the cocks that were at the cockpit; and afterwards the boys told us how they had one dressed, by the same token it was so hard they could not eat it. But that which was most ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... particularly at Winter, who had the bow in his hand. He, finding himself wounded in the shoulder, endeavoured to refit his bow, and, turning about, was pierced with a second arrow in the breast. Oliver, the gunner, immediately presented his piece at the insidious assailants, which failing to take fire, gave them time to level another flight of arrows by which he was killed; nor, perhaps, had any of them escaped, surprised and perplexed as they were, had not Drake, with his usual presence of mind, animated their ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... English colonies, one essential point should be known: it is, that they are never taxed. The Mother Country should have taxed them from the foundation; I have certain advice that all the colonies would take fire at being taxed now."[30] The expulsion of the French from America had already lessened the dependence of the colonies upon the home country, when the House of Commons directed its corrupt and blighting attention to the English colonial system. The Stamp Act was ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead

... clad with dry, ragged bark stood near to the house. A flake of falling fire fell on it. Instantly the whole trunk-cover blazed up with a roar like that of a great beast in pain. It was sudden and for the instant terrible, but the snow-laden leaves still left on it failed to take fire, and what in summer would have been a calamity was ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... droppings of religion, and their spirits made timorous and apt for impression by the assiduity of prayer, and the continual dyings of mortification—the fancy, which is a very great instrument of devotion, is kept continually warm, and in a disposition and aptitude to take fire, and to flame out in great ascents; and when they suffer transportations beyond the burdens and support of reason, they suffer they know not what, and call it what they please." Henry More, too, says that those who would "make their ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

... the claimant himself!! An ex parte affidavit, made by an absent and interested party, with the certificate of an absent judge that he believes it to be true, is to be received as CONCLUSIVE, in the face of any amount of oral and documentary testimony to the contrary. "Can a man take fire into his bosom and not be burned?" Can a man aid in executing such a law without defiling his own conscience? Yet does this profligate statute, with impious arrogance, command "ALL GOOD CITIZENS" to assist in enforcing it, when required so to do ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various

... don't make me talk such nonsense. To take fire, a man must have some degree of combustibility; and if that other person is lost to him forever, why shouldn't he, as you said ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... from some nameless cause, at least some cause to us incomprehensible, the affections take fire the instant two persons, whose minds are in unison, observe each other, which, however, they may ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke

... Hence the compound atom or molecule of water, H{2}O, weighs 18. I must now show you that these two gases are possessed of totally different properties. Some gases will extinguish a flame; some will cause the flame to burn brilliantly, but will not burn themselves; and some will take fire and burn themselves, though extinguishing the flame which has ignited them. We say the first are non-combustible, and will not support combustion; the second are supporters of combustion, the third are combustible gases. Of course these are, ...
— The Chemistry of Hat Manufacturing - Lectures Delivered Before the Hat Manufacturers' Association • Watson Smith

... mountaineers is unsurpassed. They are by no means satisfied with damning their adversary's soul after the vulgar manner of the Anglo-Saxon, but invoke the direst calamities upon his body also; as, for example, "May the flesh be stripped from your face!" "May your heart take fire!" "May eagles drink your eyes!" "May your name be written on a stone!" (i.e. a tombstone); "May the shadow of an owl fall on your house!" (this, owing probably to the rarity of its occurrence, is regarded as a fatal omen); "May your hearth-fire ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... indeed. I expected every minute to see your feather take fire as he bent his red head down over it. I felt like giving him a beating," said Harry, savagely. Rose ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... the congregation rushed across there, Harry Winburn and two or three of the most active young men and boys leading. As they entered the yard, the flames were rushing out of the chimney, and any moment the thatch might take fire. Here was the real danger. A ladder had just been raised against the chimney, and, while a frightened farm-girl and a carter-boy held it at the bottom, a man was going up it carrying a bucket of water. It shook with his weight, and the top was slipping gradually along the face of the chimney, and ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... he stirred. His face grew crimson to the roots of his hair, and his eyes seemed of a sudden to take fire. He seized that little bag and held it ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... steps under our feet became in other places stalactites. The lava, very porous in certain places, took the form of little round blisters. Crystals of opaque quartz, adorned with limpid drops of natural glass suspended to the roof like lusters, seemed to take fire as we passed beneath them. One would have fancied that the genii of romance were illuminating their underground palaces to receive ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne

... back on the ketch, they could not untie the rope that held the ketch to the ship. The big ship was bursting into flames. The ketch would soon take fire. ...
— Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans • Edward Eggleston

... Her moods and aspirations were linked so closely with the love and success of Cowperwood that she could not, in spite of herself, but take fire at the least thought of losing him. He himself wondered sometimes, as he threaded the mesh-like paths of sex, what she would do once she discovered his variant conduct. Indeed, there had been little occasional squabbles, ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... pages there will be something brilliant, something memorable on every leaf, and there is not a chapter, however arid, without its fine things somewhere. It is impossible to tell where Raleigh's pen will take fire. He is most exquisite and fanciful where his subject is most unhopeful, and, on the other hand, he is likely to disappoint us where we take for granted that he will be fine. For example, the series of sections on the Terrestrial Paradise are singularly crabbed ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... a wooden ship, possessing only signal guns, would be before an iron-clad steamer. The time of year selected for this kind of warfare is nearly always that in which the grass is actually burnt off, or is so dry as readily to take fire. The dry grass in Africa looks more like ripe English wheat late in the autumn, than anything else we can compare it to. Let us imagine an English village standing in a field of this sort, bounded only ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... occasionally driving wedges of wood or stone behind the lower end of the upright pole, so as to press it the more on the end of the auger; by this constant friction and pressure, the ends of the auger would take fire, from which a fire would be instantly kindled, and thus the needfire would be accomplished. The fire in the farmer's house, &c. was immediately quenched with water, a fire kindled from this needfire, both in the farm-house ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various

... then got some dry grass and a piece of rotten wood, and turning a small stick rapidly between his hands, in the same manner as we mill chocolate, the friction caused the touchwood, in which the point of the stick was inserted, to take fire; while, wrapping it up in the dry grass, and shaking it backward and forward, he very soon produced a flame, which he communicated to some dry sticks, and other fuel that our party ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik

... discover, that true beauty and grace must arise from the play of the mind? and how can they be expected to relish in a lover what they do not, or very imperfectly, possess themselves? The sympathy that unites hearts, and invites to confidence, in them is so very faint, that it cannot take fire, and thus mount to passion. No, I repeat it, the love cherished by such minds, must have ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... having first placed a piece of Wood or Iron so, as one end thereof, being set against the end of the lower Wedge, and the other against the side-wall, so as it cannot slip. Which being done, and the Man retired, when the Powder comes to take fire, it will first drive out the uppermost Wedge, as far as it will go, but the slaunting figure of it being so made, as the farther it goes backward, the thicker it grows, till at the last it can go no farther, then the {85} fire tears ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... two feet, but made a little cellar to my mansion-house; and this cost me many days labour and pains. One day in particular a shower of rain falling, thunder and lighting ensued, which put me in terror lest my powder should take fire, and not only hinder my necessary subsistence, by killing me food, but even blow up me and my habitation. To prevent which, I fell to making boxes and bags, in order to separate it, having by me near 150lb. weight. And thus being ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe

... ashes, a piece of sheet-iron, in front of the fire, on which to set the irons, while heating; (this last saves many black spots from careless ironers;) three or four holders, made of woollen, and covered with old silk, as these do not easily take fire; two iron rings, or iron-stands, on which to set the irons, and small pieces of board to put under them, to prevent scorching the sheet; linen or cotton wipers; and a piece of beeswax, to rub on the irons ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... another that they would be revenged, and that not an Indian that came into their hands should have any quarter; and to work they went immediately, and yet not so madly as might be expected from the rage and fury they were in. Their first care was to get something that would soon take fire, but, after a little search, they found that would be to no purpose; for most of the houses were low, and thatched with flags and rushes, of which the country is full; so they presently made some wildfire, as we ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... inflaming spontaneously when brought in contact with chlorine. If a few pieces of carbide be dropped into saturated chlorine water the bubbles of gas take fire as they reach the surface, and if a jet of acetylene be passed up into a bottle of chlorine it takes fire and burns with a heavy red flame, depositing its carbon in the form of soot. If chlorine be bubbled up into a jar of acetylene standing over water, a violent explosion, attended ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... the temple was holy fire, such as at first was kindled from heaven, and when kindled, maintained by the priests, and of that the lamps were lighted (Lev 9:24; 2 Chron 7:1). Nor was there, upon pain of death, any other fire to be used there (Lev 10:1,2). These tongs, therefore, were used to take fire from off the altar to light the lamps and candlesticks withal. For to trim the lights, and to dress the lamps, was Aaron's work day by day. He shall light and order the lamps upon the pure candlestick before the Lord, and Aaron did so. He lighted the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... peroxide must be kept off of balance pans and should not be weighed out on paper, as is the usual practice in the rough weighing of chemicals. If paper to which the peroxide is adhering is exposed to moist air it is likely to take fire as a result of the absorption of moisture, and consequent evolution of ...
— An Introductory Course of Quantitative Chemical Analysis - With Explanatory Notes • Henry P. Talbot

... passing through the benzoline trough the wool passes through a similar trough filled with water. Benzoline is better than carbon bisulphide in that there is no tendency on the part of the wool to turn yellow after its use, on the other hand it is more inflammable, and when it does take fire is more dangerous, and being lighter than water is not so readily and safely stored. Another feature is that it is not so completely volatile at steam temperatures, so that a little may be left in the grease and thus tend to deteriorate it. Coal-tar benzol, the quality ...
— The Dyeing of Woollen Fabrics • Franklin Beech

... degree have you lapsed from your stewardship. Men react to fatigue in different ways: one is merely tired, weak and sleepy —a "dope," to use ordinary characterization—but another becomes a dangerous rebel, ready to take fire at any time. ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... skin and filled with wind, and others made of straw, in which are live birds, are placed in the arena. The bull tosses them in the air, but being made heavy at the base, they come to the ground always retaining an upright posture. The straw figures are furnished with fire-works, which are made to take fire when the birds escape from within, and it sometimes happens that the bull has the flaming and cracking figure upon his horns. Sometimes the bull is maddened by fire-works being fastened on him, which go off in succession. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 352, January 17, 1829 • Various

... whale-boat did not fly nearly as fast as the whale, the line of the harpoon spun out with such rapidity that it was to be feared that it would take fire in rubbing against the edge of the whale-boat. So Captain Hull took care to keep it damp, by filling with water the pail at the bottom of which ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne

... money; nor asks duty work nor duty turf. Well, when I was disappointed of the effigy, I comforted myself by making a bonfire of Old Nick's big rick of duty turf, which, by great luck, was out in the road, away from all dwelling-house, or thatch, or yards, to take fire: so no danger in life, or objection. And such another blaze! I wished you'd seed it—and all the men, women, and children, in the town and country, far and near, gathered round it, shouting and dancing like mad!—and it was light as day quite across the bog, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... an Angel, the High-Priest, stood at the Altar, having a golden Censer; and there was given him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all Saints, upon the golden Altar which was before the throne. The custom was on other days, for one of the Priests to take fire from the great Altar in a silver Censer; but on this day, for the High-Priest to take fire from the great Altar in a golden Censer: and when he was come down from the great Altar, he took incense from one of the Priests who brought ...
— Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John • Isaac Newton

... but they had no paper, and could find no dry leaves or fleecy bark of the birch, and the finest splinters or shavings they could whittle, in the dark, from the clefts of the imperfectly dry pine, would not take fire from the light, evanescent flash of the powder in their pans. Again and again did they renew the doubtful experiment; but every succeeding trial, from the dampness of their material in the driving snow, and from ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... very great, and hath many suburbes round about it, and all the houses are made of Canes which they call Bambos, and bee couered with strawe ['srawe' in source text—KTH]. In your house you haue a Warehouse which they call Godon, which is made of bricke to put your goods in, for oftentimes they take fire and burne in an houre foure or fiue hundred houses: so that if the Gordon [sic—KTH] were not, you should bee in danger to haue all burned, if any winde should rise, at a trice. In the newe towne is the king, and all his Nobilitie and Gentrie. It is a citie very great and populous, and is made ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt

... to make a dash for his life as soon as the cover should take fire, and he peered up into the soldier's face as the latter blew on the brand; but the flame had died, the thistles were not dry, and the fire was a failure; so, growling again, the soldier threw down the smoking stick and went away. As soon as he was safely afar, Rolf gathered a handful ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... Fire within, which sometimes not circulating right, breaks out in little Gusts of Wind and Heat, and is apt to indanger setting Fire to the Feathers, and this is more or less dangerous, according as among which of the Feathers it happens; for some of the Feathers are more apt to take Fire than others, as their Quills or Heads are more or less full of that ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe

... to take out a red dog, and cut its ear until the blood comes, and then lead the beast round about the house, letting the blood drip everywhere, for then the house will not take fire. ...
— Eskimo Folktales • Unknown

... without a blush, in Egypt, in Germany, in Spain, in Portugal, and but yesterday in Russia. Here also, therefore, his reclamations moved no feeling favourable to himself; and the time was gone by when the French people would have been ready to take fire at so lawless an aggression upon their national rights:—these Napoleon's tyranny had trampled down ere strangers dared to insult them. There were some few scattered instances of resistance; but in general, the first ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... is when you know that light for all the people already exists in life, and that there will be a time when they will begin to see it, when they will bathe their souls in it, and all, all, will take fire in its ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... and the Greeks had nearly the same tradition." This method, we learn from Lawson, was in use amongst the natives of Carolina, before they became acquainted, with the use of steel and flints. "They got their fire," says he, "with sticks, which by vehement collision, or rubbing together, take fire." "You are to understand," he adds, "that the two sticks they use to strike fire withal, are never of one sort of wood, but always differ from each other." Indeed it is probable that this method has been very generally practised. Seneca makes mention of it in the 2d book, chap. 22. of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... belief, Tom, that this wind will fan the flames till the forest will take fire before long as ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn

... and foot, and carted him home. The next morning we tied him to a tree, and whipped him until there was not a sound place on his back. I then tied his ankles and hoisted him up to a limb—feet up and head down—we then whipped him, until the damned nigger smoked so that I thought he would take fire and burn up. We then took him down; and to make sure that he should not run away the third time, I run my knife in back of the ankles, and cut off the large cords,—and then I ought to have put some lead into the wounds, but ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... held counsel with the gods and decided to destroy the reckless race of men. At first he wanted to turn his lightnings over all the earth, but the fear that the ether would take fire and destroy the axle of the universe restrained him. He laid aside the thunderbolt which the Cyclops had fashioned for him, and decided to send rain from heaven over all the earth and so ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various

... of a new temple; laborers poured water under the runners, that the heavily loaded and dried wood should not take fire. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... fading light of the misty window: it was half-full still!—One glass—a hair of the dog—would set her free from faintness and sickness, disgust and misery! There was no one to find fault with her now! She could do as she liked—there was no one to care!—nothing to take fire!—She set the bottle on the table, because her hand shook, and went again to the cupboard to get a glass. On the way—borne upward on some heavenly current from the deeps of her soul, the face of Gibbie, sorrowful because loving, like ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... advising all whose clothes take fire, to roll on the floor, or the ground, has become pretty firmly fixed in the public mind; and hearing it, Enoch at once threw himself down and rolled over and over in the road, to the accompaniment of a tremendous shout. The maneuver did not much improve matters; ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... was at Armagh with one of his fellow-bishops, he rose in the night and began to go round the memorials of the saints, of which there are many in the cemetery of St. Patrick,[809] with prayer. And lo, they saw one of the altars suddenly take fire. For both saw this great vision, and both wondered. And Malachy, understanding that it was a sign of the great merit of him, or those, whose bodies rested under that altar, ran and plunged into the midst of the flames with outstretched arms and embraced the ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor

... progress of the lava-flood; trees, houses, everything yields to its massive assault, The trees take fire before its approach, and when it reaches them they emit a hissing noise almost amounting to a shriek, and then plunging into the molten flood are seen no more. Even the sea cannot withstand the lava-stream, but retires on its approach; so that promontories ...
— Wonders of Creation • Anonymous

... accustomed to do all that, I own; but to do it in a manner that adds to its value by her simple unaffected feelings. She is not, I must acknowledge, like certain people of my acquaintance, a bundle of tinder to take fire at every spark that approaches, but she loves all she should love, and I fear she loves one too well that she should ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper

... eyes swept her from head to foot, and then rested on her face with an expression of intense curiosity and a wholly new interest, as if he were tracing out a suddenly suggested resemblance which overwhelmed him with emotion. And as he gazed, his eyes began to take fire from the faded features on which they had rested so many years in mere complacent friendliness, and she instinctively averted ...
— A Summer Evening's Dream - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... water in it," observed the doctor. "I am afraid that with dry sago in it the shell will take fire. However, we will try. Perhaps we may find a large flat stone which we can surround with a rim of wood; and by applying heat under the centre our ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... easily provoked. "It corrects a sharpness of temper, and sweetens and softens the mind." It does not take fire at the least opposition or unkindness, nor "make a man an offender for a word." One of the servants of Nabal described his character in this significant manner: "He is such a son of Belial that a man cannot speak to him." There are many ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb

... Proceed slow; Rise higher; Take fire; When most impressed Be self-possessed; To spirit wed form; Sit down in ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker

... At last he had found them. He made a step towards them, and then strode on losing himself fast in the cool effacing fog. Again he had been mistaken. The fog swirled about him, hiding wistful friendly faces, hands ready to meet his hands, eyes ready to take fire with his glance, lips cold with the mist, to be crushed under his lips. "From the girl at ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos

... hammering the earth itself into the superior purposes of man, enveloped Howat. He forgot for the moment his companion, lost in a swelling pride of Myrtle Forge, of his father's fibre—the iron of his character like the iron he successfully wrought. He could grasp Gilbert Penny's accomplishment here, take fire at its heroic quality; a thing he found impossible in the counting room above, recording such trivial details as wool stockings for Jonas Rupp. He could be a forgeman, he thought, but never a clerk; and in that limitation he realized that he was inferior ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... the crowd cried on all sides. "More than nine thousand livres! Oil and brandy, do you think those won't burn? The old witch, she drinks enough to know! If one put a candle near her she would take fire, fast enough!" ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Why not?" cried the girl; and her face glowed with heroic sympathy and defiance. It is from this heaven-born ignorance in women of the insuperable difficulties of doing right that men take fire and accomplish the sublime impossibilities. Our sense of details, our fatal habits of reasoning paralyze us; we need the impulse of the pure ideal which we can get only from them. These two were ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells

... ask what had passed in Violet's interview with him, and indeed was ready to take fire at the idea of their affairs ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... but not until they were entirely ruined. This, with the loss of my leggins, moccasins, and socks, which I had hung up to dry, was no trivial misfortune in such a country and on such a voyage. But I had reason to thank God that the powder, three small casks of which I had in my tent, did not take fire; if it had, I must certainly have lost all my ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various

... and can I divest that? Wilt thou bid me to separate the leaven that a lump of dough hath received, or the salt, that the water hath contracted, from the sea? Dost thou look, that I should so look to the fuel or embers of sin, that I never take fire? The whole world is a pile of fagots, upon which we are laid, and (as though there were no other) we are the bellows. Ignorance blows the fire. He that touched any unclean thing, though he knew it not, became unclean,[315] and a sacrifice was required (therefore a sin ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne

... pale, Tears rise at fortune, and true hearts take fire In all who hear, with quickening pulse's stroke, That cry that from the infinite people broke, When third among them Helen led the wail ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various

... dry combustibles," replied he, "and extremely suitable to the purpose,—no other, in fact, than yesterday's newspapers, last month's magazines, and last year's withered leaves. Here now comes some antiquated trash that will take fire ...
— Earth's Holocaust (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... COMPUNCTIO. And for such authorities they say, that only to God shall a man knowledge his defaults, yielding himself guilty and crying him mercy, and behoting to him to amend himself. And therefore, when they will shrive them, they take fire and set it beside them, and cast therein powder of frankincense; and in the smoke thereof they shrive them to God, and cry him mercy. But sooth it is, that this confession was first and kindly. But Saint Peter the ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown

... Means.—It is not in the province of this book to describe the various matches that take fire by dipping them into compositions; and I have already spoken of lucifer-matches in the last section. Only one source of fire remains to be ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... leaving clothing or paper too near a fire; throwing matches you thought had been put out into paper or other material which will catch fire easily; leaving oily or greasy rags where they will easily overheat or take fire spontaneously; leaving objects on stairs and in hallways which will cause others to fall; leaving scalding water where a child may fall into it or pull it down, spilling the scalding water over himself; leaving rags or linoleum with upturned edges for someone to fall ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... the water in the vessel C. Each bubble of the gas as it escapes into the air takes fire, and the product of combustion (P{2}O{5}) forms beautiful small rings, which float unbroken for a considerable time in quiet air. The pure phosphine does not take fire spontaneously. When prepared as directed above, impurities are present ...
— An Elementary Study of Chemistry • William McPherson

... approve, and felt for him a rising partiality which made her always see him with pleasure, and never part from him without a wish to see him again. Yet, as she was not of that inflammable nature which is always ready to take fire, as her passions were under the controul of her reason, and she suffered not her affections to triumph over her principles, she started at her danger the moment she perceived it, and instantly determined to give no weak encouragement to a prepossession ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney

... stars, the Bride's bright eyes, At every glance a constellation flies, And sows the court with stars, and doth prevent In light and power, the all-ey'd firmament: First her eye kindles other ladies' eyes, Then from their beams their jewels' lustres rise; And from their jewels torches do take fire, And all is warmth, and light, and ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... it holds of fire It renders up, even as it renders oft The frost that it contains within itself And thaws its ice and looseneth the knots. There is, moreover, a fountain cold in kind That makes a bit of tow (above it held) Take fire forthwith and shoot a flame; so, too, A pitch-pine torch will kindle and flare round Along its waves, wherever 'tis impelled Afloat before the breeze. No marvel, this: Because full many seeds of heat there be Within the water; and, from earth itself Out of ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius

... Dunkirkers, (for we were told at Yarmouth, that there were ten sail of them waiting for us); whereupon we all prepared to fight with them, and took down some cabins which were in the way of our ordnance, and out of every ship were thrown such bed matters as were subject to take fire, and we heaved out our long boats and put up our waste cloths, and drew forth our men and armed them with muskets and other weapons, and instruments for fireworks; and for an experiment our captain shot a ball of wild fire fastened to an arrow out of a cross bow, which ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... mother comes across, and mars the race. A grandsire or a grandame taints the blood; And seldom three descents continue good. Were virtue by descent, a noble name Could never villanise his father's fame; But, as the first, the last of all the line, Would, like the sun, even in descending shine; Take fire, and bear it to the darkest house, Betwixt King Arthur's court and Caucasus: If you depart, the flame shall still remain, 410 And the bright blaze enlighten all the plain: Nor, till the fuel perish, can decay, By nature form'd on things combustible to ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... safety. The second test is the "flash test." The object of this is to see how hot the oil must be before it gives off a vapor which will burn. The third, the "burning test," is to discover how hot the oil must be before it will take fire and burn on the surface. Most civilized countries make definite laws forbidding the sale of kerosene oil that is not up to a standard of safety. Oil for use in lamps should have an open flash test of at least 100 deg. F. and a burning point ...
— Diggers in the Earth • Eva March Tappan

... our eyes open," he concluded. "And now you must let me get on." He kissed his visitor as if to make up for dismissing her, or for his failure to take fire; and she held him a moment, burying her head ...
— The Marriages • Henry James

... Nicholas, "remember, if you say a word to Martial about the box, or the copper, or the clothes, you shall have a dance, so that you'll take fire; not to ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... caterpillar banded with black and spotted with gold was found on the 29th of August among the heather on the hill-side; the sun burning, the air all alight with the fire of the beams, a day of flame—as if the keen tips of the pine needles would take fire in the glow. The caterpillar in its colour and size seemed almost tropical; those who have not seen it would scarcely believe that a caterpillar could be so magnificent; but indoors in the cardboard box he lost his sun-burnished ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... immortality of glorious renown? Did envy for his cousin's greatness and resentment of his undisguised contempt—the passions of one who had been used for vile ends—conscious of self-degradation and the loss of honour, yet mindful of his intellectual superiority—did these emotions take fire in him and mingle with a scholar's reminiscences of antique heroism, prompting him to plan a deed which should at least assume the show of patriotic zeal, and prove indubitable courage in its perpetrator? Did he, again, perhaps imagine, being next in blood ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... engage in anything of the sort at Thornton Lacey without accepting his help. Only think how useful he was at Sotherton! Only think what grand things were produced there by our all going with him one hot day in August to drive about the grounds, and see his genius take fire. There we went, and there we came home again; and what was done there is not to ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... did it to stifle the sob that was rising within him.—I was very much affected.—The Shadow of the Bough and its appendages on the wall, and arching over on the Ceiling, made a pretty Picture—and then the raptures of the "very" little Ones, when at last the twigs and their needles began to take fire and "snap"—O it was a delight for them!—On the next day, in the great Parlour, the Parents lay out on the table the Presents for the Children: a scene of more sober joy succeeds, as on this day, after an old custom, the Mother says privately to each of her Daughters, ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... he had been married two years," he said. "She and the baby both died. That was before I came here. Damned if I wouldn't have pulled them through. That was her bird, and she made those fool flowers, poor little thing. I suppose if the hotel were to take fire Georgie K. would go for them before all the cash in ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman

... once at his house. I said to him, 'That is my nephew, Monsieur Charnot.' He replied, 'I congratulate you, sir; he seems a youth of parts.'—'That he is, but his heart is very inflammable.'—'At his age, sir, who is not liable to take fire?' That was how we began. Your friend Monsieur Charnot has a pretty wit. I did not want to be behindhand with him, so I answered, 'Well, sir, it caught fire in your house.' He started with fright and looked all round the room. I ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin

... Lord said unto the brother of Jared: What will ye that I should do that ye may have light in your vessels? For behold, ye cannot have windows, for they will be dashed in pieces; neither shall ye take fire with you, for ye shall not go by the light ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous

... think we'd have any need of a torch on this hike! Why, it was an altogether daylight affair, and we expected to be back home long before supper time. I even promised Mark to practice battery work some this afternoon. There, now watch when it drops. I hope there's nothing down there to take fire." ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas

... to give a high flame and bring the gauze down upon the flame till it touches the wick. Note that the flame does not rise above the gauze. Hold a piece of paper above the gauze near the flame and note that it does not take fire. Note also that the gauze soon becomes hot. The brass wires conduct the heat of the flame rapidly away so that there is not heat enough above the gauze to cause combustion. Now roll the gauze into a hollow cylinder, pin the edges together, insert a cork at each end, and have a short ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education

... us almost speechless with fear, his eyes bursting from their sockets, and shrieked out, 'The lion! the lion! he has got Hendrick; he dragged him away from the fire; I struck him with the burning brand upon his head, but he would not let go his hold. Hendrick is dead! Let us take fire and look for him!' The rest of my people rushed about, shrieking and yelling as if they were mad. I was angry with them for their folly, and told them if they did not stand still and keep quiet, the lion would have another of us; most likely there was a troop of them. ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... laughed. "Hardly," he said. "Miss Rita does not converse with menials. It was Peggy—Miss Peggy, I should say—who told me about it. She was quite inclined to take fire herself, but I think I cooled her down a bit. These are dangerous matters for young ladies to meddle with. I think she told me that young Mr. Carlos Montfort was ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards

... post in "Declamation" as well as in everything else; here, as elsewhere, the hateful child's prowess surpassed that of all others; and the teacher always entrusted her with the rendition of the "patriotic selections": Dora seemed to take fire ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington

... do?" said Reason, after a few moment's reflection. "You are ambitious of introducing your book into every writing and reading-chamber in Edinburgh, and yet you take fire at the thoughts of its being criticised by Mr. Fairscribe's young people? Be a ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott

... sear, burn in; corrode, char, calcine, incinerate; smelt, scorify[obs3]; reduce to ashes; burn to a cinder; commit to the flames, consign to the flames. boil, digest, stew, cook, seethe, scald, parboil, simmer; do to rags. take fire, catch fire; blaze &c. (flame) 382. Adj. heated &c. v.; molten, sodden; rchauff; heating &c. v.; adust[obs3]. inflammable, combustible; diathermal[obs3], diathermanous[obs3]; burnt ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... thousand ways to tell her love—but she could never quite arrange her avowal in a satisfactory manner. Long before she came to the decisive words which were to kindle his heart to flame in the imaginary dialogue, he would himself take fire by spontaneous combustion, and, falling on his knees, would offer his hand, his heart, and his fortune to her in words taken from "The Earl's Daughter" ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay

... necessary to his recovery. From the voracity with which he bolted down a loaf of bread which I bought for him, the vapour does not seem to injure the animal functions. Addison seems to have been very particular in his experiments upon the vapour of this cavern. He found that a pistol would not take fire in it; but upon laying a train of gunpowder, and igniting it beyond the sphere of the vapour, he found that it could not intercept the train of fire when it had once begun flashing, nor hinder it from running to ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... is! what a life my wife's is! If the house were to take fire, I wonder whether I should make an effort to save myself ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins

... forcibly down upon it. The point of the upright stick wears away the indentation into a fine powder, which runs off to the ground in the groove that has been cut; after a time it begins to smoke, and by continued friction it will at length take fire. ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy

... differing kind from that which is made of tar only, without other composition. There is a way which some ship-carpenters in those countries have us'd, to bring their tar into pitch for any sudden use; by making the tar so very hot in an iron-kettle, that it will easily take fire, which when blazing, and set in an airy place, they let burn so long, till, by taking out some small quantity for trial, being cold, it appears of a sufficient consistence: Then, by covering the kettle close, the fire is extinguish'd, and the pitch is made without ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... 17, 1498, a scaffold, dreadful to look on, was erected in the public square of Florence; two piles of large pieces of wood, mixed with fagots and broom, which should quickly take fire, extended each eighty feet long, four feet thick, and five feet high; they were separated by a narrow space of two feet, to serve as a passage by which the two priests were to enter and pass the whole length of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... the old woman. 'We know that Pharaoh's host was drowned in the Red Sea, and that they had a many chariots. It is like enough you should fish one of the wheels up. But to try to stuff your poor old granny that fish can fly, and water take fire! For shame, ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... that the car of the locomotive caught fire, and the engine-driver and the fireman were driven back over the tender into the passenger car, leaving the engine without control. The speed increased, and the volume of flame with it. There was imminent danger that all the carriages would take fire, and the whole be consumed. The passengers were panic-stricken. To jump off was certain death; to remain was to be burned alive. The engine-driver saw that the only way to save the passengers was to return to the engine ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various

... settled this matter:—or rather, I should say, so had Two of them; for Friedrich Wilhelm wanted, now or afterwards, nothing in this Election, but that it should not take fire and kindle him. Two of the Neighbors: and of these two, perhaps we might guess the Kaiser was the principal contriver and suggester; France and Saxony being both hateful to him,—obstinate refusers of the Pragmatic Sanction, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... each of whom took occasion to say something complimentary about his writings; but he escaped as soon as possible from social engagements. "Amidst all the splendors of London and Paris, I find my imagination refuses to take fire, and my heart still yearns after dear little Sunnyside." Of an anxious friend in Paris, who thought Irving was ruining his prospects by neglecting to leave his card with this or that duchess who had sought his acquaintance, he writes: "He attributes ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... reduced to a fine powder, well mixed and kneaded together with the clay moistened with water, and then formed into balls of the size of hens eggs, and thoroughly dried, might be used with great advantage instead of wood for kindling fires. These kindling balls may be made so inflammable as to take fire in an instant and with the smallest spark, by dipping them in a strong solution of nitre and then drying them again, and they would neither be expensive nor liable to be spoiled by long keeping. Perhaps a ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford

... Begums are on terms of mutual goodwill. It would ill become this government to interpose its influence by any act which might tend to revive their animosities,—and a very slight occasion would be sufficient to effect it. They will instantly take fire on such a declaration, proclaim the judgment of the Company in their favor, demand a reparation of the acts which they will construe wrongs with such a sentence warranting that construction, and either accept the invitation ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... the wind, which had been blowing all the morning hot from the N.E., increased to a heavy gale, and I shall never forget its withering effect. I sought shelter behind a large gum-tree, but the blasts of heat were so terrific, that I wondered the very grass did not take fire. This really was nothing ideal: every thing, both animate and inanimate, gave way before it; the horses stood with their backs to the wind, and their noses to the ground, without the muscular strength to raise their heads; ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt

... lieutenants of the Victory, seeing this, depressed their guns of the middle and lower decks, and fired with a diminished charge, lest the shot should pass through, and injure the Temeraire. And because there was danger that the Redoubtable might take fire from the lower-deck guns, the muzzles of which touched her side when they were run out, the fireman of each gun stood ready with a bucket of water, which, as soon as the gun was discharged, he dashed into the hole made by the shot. An ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... which formerly adorned Nero's circus at the Vatican, he forbade on pain of death that any one should speak lest the attention of the workmen should be taken off from their arduous task. A naval officer of S. Remo, who happened to be present, foreseeing that the ropes would take fire, cried out "acqua alle funi". He was immediately arrested by the Swiss guards, as we see him represented in the small fresco in the Vatican library, and was conducted before the Pontiff. Sixtus shewed that his severity was based on justice; for instead of punishing the transgressor of ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs

... danger of being torn in pieces, in which case we should be driven upon the rocky shore of Col. It was very dark, and there was a heavy and incessant rain. The sparks of the burning peat flew so much about, that I dreaded the vessel might take fire. Then, as Col was a sportsman, and had powder on board, I figured that we might be blown up. Simpson and he appeared a little frightened, which made me more so; and the perpetual talking, or rather ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... safer when you are here. And you help me a great deal about house, and in the care of the children. Your father is away so much I have to depend on you. And what if, when you are away, the cabin should take fire,—and you know our stove is none of the tightest,—or if we should have trouble with the savages? And who would get the wood up for us during the cold winter that is coming? God took too good care of us, Tom, to let you forsake us that morning. Besides, ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson

... air. It lies at the bottom of pits, extinguishes candles, and kills animals that breathe it, on which account it had obtained the name of the choke damp. The other is lighter than common air, taking its place near the roofs of subterraneous places, and because it is liable to take fire, and explode, like gunpowder, it had been called the fire damp. The word damp signifies vapour or exhalation in the German and ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley

... money,' continued the voice, which belonged to Agnes; 'and if you'd secure me the five hundred pound, I warrant she should take fire ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... them disperse 20 Like to a potters vessel shiver'd so. And now be wise at length ye Kings averse Be taught ye Judges of the earth; with fear Jehovah serve and let your joy converse With trembling; Kiss the Son least he appear In anger and ye perish in the way If once his wrath take fire like fuel sere. Happy all those who have in ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... a very severe ordeal for Ishmael. The young ladies had all gathered around Claudia, and were examining her favourite. Ishmael felt his face burn until it seemed as if the very tips of his ears would take fire. ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... to the quantity of a Walnut, bind them with small Thread, and prick holes in the Rag or Paper with a Bodkin, and place six or ten of them on the Head of a great Rocket, as you did the Quills, and when the Rocket expires, they take fire and spread into a Flame, hovering in the Air like Stars, and descend leisurely till the matter is spent that gives ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett

... shadow, like Marius in his, was all ready to take fire. Destiny, with its mysterious and fatal patience, slowly drew together these two beings, all charged and all languishing with the stormy electricity of passion, these two souls which were laden with love as two clouds are laden with lightning, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... the yellow-burning gleam of a Hell-on-Earth!—Bull, my friend, you must strip that astonishing pontiff-stole, imperial mantle, or whatever you imagine it to be, which I discern to be a garment of curses, and poisoned Nessus'-shirt now at last about to take fire upon you; you must strip that off your poor body, my friend; and, were it only in a soul's suit of Utilitarian buff, and such belief as that a big loaf is better than a small one, come forth into contact with your world, under true professions ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle

... he explained. "It is an explosive mixture at this height, but too thin to take fire. It will pass. Beyond this is pure hydrogen. And ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various

... from Hanan, the High Priest, that would give me the right to arrest all ill thinkers, and to lead them back in chains to Jerusalem, and these letters seemed to take fire in my bosom, and when we came in view of the town, and saw the roofs between the trees, I heard a voice crying to me: Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks; and trembling I fell forward, my face upon the ground, and the Lord said: ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... her long, brown, waving ringlets falling loosely across my face and on my bosom, her hand in mine. What were her thoughts I cannot guess—mine, God forgive me, were a fervent wish either for her mother's appearance, or that the hotel would suddenly take fire, or some other extensive calamity arise to put the finishing stroke ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... bombs overhead, to crash through roofs inside the walls. Wolfe from the Lighthouse Battery throws shells and flaming combustibles straight into the midst of the remaining French fleet. At last, on July 21st, masts, sails, tar ropes, take fire in a terrible conflagration, and three of the fleet burn to the water line with terrific explosions of their powder magazines; then the flames hiss out above {255} the rocking hulls. Only two ships are left to the French, and the deep bomb-proof casemates ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... move and rise up, but found that the confines of my narrow quarters would not permit it. I then realized that we were wrecked and that I was in a bad predicament. I felt that I had no bones broken, and my only fear was that the wreck would take fire. My fears were not groundless for I soon smelled smoke. I cried out as loudly as I could, but my berth had evidently become a "sound proof booth." Then I felt that my time had come, and had about given up all hope, and was trying to say a prayer, when I ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady

... liquor that the breath becomes strong with the vapor of alcohol and takes fire when a light is brought near the mouth. These stories are probably not true, although it sometimes happens that persons become diseased in such a way that the breath will take fire if it comes in contact with a light. Alcohol may be a cause of this kind ...
— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg

... saturated salt solution, in which it is only slightly soluble. At ordinary temperatures it unites directly with many other elements; thus with hydrogen, combination takes place in direct sunlight with explosive violence; arsenic, antimony, thin copper foil and phosphorus take fire in an atmosphere of chlorine, forming the corresponding chlorides. Many compounds containing hydrogen are readily decomposed by the gas; for example, a piece of paper dipped in turpentine inflames in an atmosphere of chlorine, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... an inch or two of some of the logs were sufficiently seasoned to take fire, they were all too damp and soaked to burn. Oonamoo had hardly spoken when the blaze went out of itself. A perfect storm of arrows, tipped with burning tow, now came sailing in upon them, but the only inconvenience they occasioned ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis

... far communicated, that is, the parts of each can yield but very little, and therefore the violence of the concussion will be exerted on that piece of Steel which is cut off by the Flint. Thirdly, that the filings or small parts of Steel are very apt, as it were, to take fire, and are presently red hot, that is, there seems to be a very combustible sulphureous Body in Iron or Steel, which the Air very readily preys upon, as soon as the body is a little ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... as poverty is imperilled amid riches, honesty amid business, humility amid honours, abstinence amid feasting, purity amid pleasures, so is justification by faith imperilled among ceremonies. Solomon says, "Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?" (Prov. vi. 27). And yet as we must live among riches, business, honours, pleasures, feastings, so must we among ceremonies, that is among perils. Just as infant boys have the greatest need of being cherished in the bosoms and by the ...
— Concerning Christian Liberty - With Letter Of Martin Luther To Pope Leo X. • Martin Luther

... Wilhelm to do? Seek justice for himself by his 80,000 men and the iron ramrods? Apparently he will not get it otherwise. He is loath to begin that terrible game. If indeed Europe do take fire, as is likely at Seville or elsewhere—But in the meanwhile how happy if negotiation would but serve! Alas, and if the Kaiser, England; Holland and the others, could be brought to guarantee me,—as indeed they should (to avoid a CASUS BELLI), ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... however injudicious it might be to bruit it. Mild-mannered commanding officers sometimes amaze their subordinates by most unlooked for and unwelcome eruptiveness of speech when they feel that an unwarrantable liberty has been taken. Webb did not take fire. ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... their Understanding: It must be owned however, that (as it generally happens) they had each a Perverseness of Humour suitable to their Distortion of Body. The eldest, whose Belly sunk in monstrously, was a great Coward; and tho' his splenetick contracted Temper made him take fire immediately, he made Objects that beset him appear greater than they were. The second, whose Breast swelled into a bold Relievo, on the contrary, took great pleasure in lessening every thing, and was perfectly the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... must use their means to bring it about. Every thing that has the smell of woman will be destroyed. Woman is the capsheaf of the abomination of desolation-full of all deviltry. In a short time, the world will take fire and dissolve; it is combustible already. All women, not obedient, had better become so as soon as possible, and let the wicked spirit depart, and become temples of truth. Praying is all mocking. When you see any one wring ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth

... through their Broadway or their Pennsylvania Avenue or their Montgomery street and milked at the doors of the houses. I saw real glass windows in the houses of even the commonest people. Some of the houses are not of stone, nor yet of bricks; I solemnly swear they are made of wood. Houses there will take fire and burn, sometimes—actually burn entirely down, and not leave a single vestige behind. I could state that for a truth, upon my death-bed. And as a proof that the circumstance is not rare, I aver that they have a thing which they call a fire-engine, which vomits forth great streams of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Hector, mimicking the Indian mode of speaking; "but listen to the words of the wise. I propose to take all our household stores that are of the most value, to the island, and lodge the rest safely in our new root-house, first removing from its neighbourhood all such light, loose matter as is likely to take fire; the earthen roof will save it from destruction; as to the shanty, it must take its chance to ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill

... risky as it looks," commented Barry as he explained the tactics to the midshipmen. "You see, they can torpedo us as much as they like, and blow the dummy sides of the ship to bits piecemeal. We can't sink, since we'll be hard aground. We can't take fire—at least, it would be quite a job to get any part of her to burn without being able to keep the flames under control. Gunnery, of course, puts a different aspect on the subject. If the enemy start shelling us with their heavy guns, then the sooner we abandon ship and clear out the better, and ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman

... stand 110 burning test every time. Kerosene oil, at ordinary temperature, should extinguish a match as readily as water. When heated it should not evolve an inflammable vapor below 110 degrees, or, better, 120 degrees Fahrenheit, and should not take fire below 125 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. As the temperature in a burning lamp rarely exceeds 100 degrees Fahrenheit, such an oil would be safe. It would produce no vapors to mix with the air in the lamp and make an explosive mixture; and, if the lamp should be ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various

... this fierce electric sputter and explosion? From D'Orleans! cries the Court-party: he, with his gold, enlisted these Brigands,—surely in some surprising manner, without sound of drum: he raked them in hither, from all corners; to ferment and take fire; evil is his good. From the Court! cries enlightened Patriotism: it is the cursed gold and wiles of Aristocrats that enlisted them; set them upon ruining an innocent Sieur Reveillon; to frighten the faint, and disgust men with the career ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... Dragonfly passed a German cargo steamer which had sought refuge here at the outbreak of war. She was a large ship, full of oil, and she had been moved from the quay-side to an anchorage in the bay by the captain of the port, lest by design or inadvertence she should take fire and set the town aflame. There she lay, a source of endless misgiving to every allied ship which sailed these waters, kept clean and trim as a yacht, her full crew on board, her dangerous cargo below, in the ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason

... of fact, she had no intention of criticising Nora at the moment. She meant, merely, that she would be more economical with experience. But Nora was in the mood to take fire at once. ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett

... re-creating the human document; and Hazlitt, Coleridge, Leigh Hunt, and others were re-creating criticism. Sparks are flying all about the place, and it will be not less than a miracle if something combustible and indestructible in you does not take fire. ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT

... withheld him from this impulse. "For," they said, "let not the Earth, the mother of all, take fire and perish. But seek out some means to destroy mankind and ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody



Words linked to "Take fire" :   burn, blow out, turn, catch, change state, conflagrate, light up, ignite, erupt



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