"Afire" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wouldn't blame him, would you? Not a mite! But s'pose things went on that way till they warn't real agreeable for neither one of 'em. Then—s'pose one night—when he warn't himself, mind you!—he shook out his pipe on the settin'-room carpet and set the house afire. You wouldn't blame him for that either, would ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... Stephen to show the way to Master Randall's, and granted somewhat reluctantly, Master Headley saying, "I'll have thee back within an hour, Stephen Birkenholt, and look thou dost not let thy brain be set afire with this fellow's windy talk of battles and sieges, and deeds only fit for ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thunder was heard therewith. In the night of that day the dyke between Wilsen and Kampen was broken down, and the cattle and beasts of burden at Mastebroic were drowned. In Zutphen the tower of the church was set afire by lightning, and the roof was cleft above, and certain persons were wounded, and some were slain by this sudden mischance—in other parts also divers houses were destroyed by fire. In Zwolle, after Mass, a mighty terror fell upon them that were ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis
... no bounds. "I'll baste like a house afire!" she exclaimed. "It's a thousand yards round that skirt, as well I know, having hemmed it; but I could sew pretty trimming on if it was from here to Milltown. Oh! do you think aunt Mirandy'll ever let me go to Milltown with Mr. Cobb? He's ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... though he war a Methody twice o'er. I'm fair beat wi' Seth, for I've been teasin' him iver sin' we've been workin' together, an' he bears me no more malice nor a lamb. An' he's a stout-hearted feller too, for when we saw the old tree all afire a-comin' across the fields one night, an' we thought as it war a boguy, Seth made no more ado, but he up to't as bold as a constable. Why, there he comes out o' Will Maskery's; an' there's Will hisself, lookin' ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... for me, old man, when we are almost over the hacienda? The fuse is lighted, and I'm afraid I might heave it on to the wing and set us afire." ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... to the top of Cherry Clack Hill, and the light poured in between the tree trunks so that you could see red and gold and black deep into the heart of Far Wood; and Parnesius in his armour shone as though he had been afire. ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... amorous plenilune, Azure and gold and ardent grey, made strange With fiery difference and deep interchange Inexplicable of glories multiform; Now, as the sullen sapphire swells towards storm Foamless, their bitter beauty grew acold, And now afire with ardour of fine gold. Her flower-soft lips were meek and passionate, For love upon them like a shadow sate Patient, a foreseen vision of sweet things, A dream with eyes fast shut and plumeless wings That knew not what man's love or life ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... late hour and my fatigue—I have been dead tired for a week now—I am writing this with the greatest ease, my pen gliding, as it were, over a surface of ice-like slippiness, although my fingers are all blistered from manual work. Why, you will ask? Well, simply because my imagination is afire, and taking complete control of such minor things as the nerves and muscles of my right arm, my eyes and my general person, it speeds me along with astonishing celerity. Let your imagination be aflame and you can ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... that dreadful, hateful Mrs. Cabot," she cried, plunging back, her pale eyes afire. "Oh! I feel so wicked, Mrs. Fisher, whenever I think of her, I'd like to tear her, I would, for picking at Polly," she declared ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... to the second period in that passage of Lear, the majesty and despair of the old king in voice and gesture. The words were afire with feeling as they came off his tongue, and all looked at ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... you-alls,' he says, 'about how the Ratons gets afire mighty pecooliar, an' comes near a-roastin' of me up some, do I? It's this a-way: I'm pervadin' 'round one afternoon tryin' to compass a wild turkey, which thar's bands of 'em that Fall in the Ratons a-eatin' ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... She was in de kitchen at de time. I was quite small. 'Round two years old—now how old dat make me, Miss? 74? Well, I knows I is gittin' 'long. I remember dem talkin' 'bout it all. Dey searched de house, and take out what dey want, den set de house afire. Ma, she run out den an' whoop an' holler. De lady of de house wuz dere, but de Massa had went off. De place wuz dat of Dr. Bucknor. My mother been belong to de Bucknors. After dat, dey moved to de old home place of de Bucknors down here at Robertville. ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... countries, I guess he'd be glad to set a spell in the temple. Le's have on another stick—that big one there by you. My! it's the night afore Christmas, ain't it? Seems if I couldn't git a big enough blaze. Pile it on. I guess I'd as soon set the chimbly afire as not!" ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... gentleman, and had a sort o' grand way o' bein' polite to women-folks. Wal, I guess there was a rus'lin' among the bunnets. Mis' Pipperidge gin a great bounce, like corn poppin' on a shovel, and her eyes glared through her glasses at Huldy as if they'd a sot her afire; and everybody in the meetin' house was a starin', I tell yew. But they couldn't none of 'em say nothin' agin Huldy's looks; for there wa'n't a crimp nor a frill about her that wa'n't jis' so; and her frock was white as the driven snow, and she had her bunnet all trimmed up with ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... vaguely who had done it; not Keith Cameron, surely, for Sir Redmond had all but accused him openly of setting the range afire. Would he stamp out a blaze that was just reaching a size to do mischief, if left a little longer? No one would have seen it for hours, probably. He would undoubtedly have let it run, unless—But who else could ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... blind guessing. I saw my chap was crippled and I went back after the other, to keep him off you. I'd lost sight of you, but I reasoned you'd be on the way home. I knew you couldn't go very fast. Then all at once I saw I was afire. One of my wings had caught from something — probably an explosive shell. Well, I had to turn back. Meantime those planes arriving from our side had swept the Boches clean off. I saw I wasn't getting much of anywhere and I just managed ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... cried a voice at the opening which seemed to the quiet listener within strangely like that of Sheriff Gleason. "Damn me, boys, if I don't believe you've killed the nigger, shooting in there. Hadn't we better just set the cabin afire and ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... located one would-be killer behind a mass of splintered planking that once had been a wall. He set the wood afire by a blaster-bolt and then viciously sent other bolts all around the man it had sheltered when he fled from the flames. He could have killed him ten times over, but it was more desirable to open communication. So he ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... walked straight on. Pomfrette stepped swiftly in front of the mealman. There was fury in his face-fury and danger; his hair was disordered, his eyes afire. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... party, even more startling than when they had first burst upon Wallie in their bead-work and curio-store trappings. Mr. Stott was wearing a pair of "chaps" spotted like a pinto, while Mr. Budlong in flame-coloured angora at a little distance looked as if his legs were afire. ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... quickly. She was much excited at this meeting; and it seemed to her strangely romantic, a sign of the civilisation of the times, that these two people with raging passions afire in their hearts, should exchange the commonplaces of polite society, Alec, having recovered from his momentary confusion ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... two to one, and the fight lasted more than ten minutes. Then down went a Hun, not afire but tumbling end over end behind our lines. I learned afterwards that this fellow was unhurt and was taken prisoner. That left it an even thing. We could see half a dozen planes rushing to attack the lone Boche. He saw them too. For he turned tail ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... prisoners who were in the battle, was in Piru, where it and another vessel sunk our almiranta. He fought as a good soldier until the enemy surrendered after a hard fight. While a captain and soldiers from our side were in the said vessel, that ship of the enemy's that was coming down upon it afire, as the executor of divine justice, set fire to this one, and it was burned. That ship was burned because His [Divine] Majesty did not choose that there should be more spoils from that victory than the memory of the just punishment that He gave by ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... held there by the awful force of their acceleration as the space-car tore through the thin layer of the earth's atmosphere. So terrific was their speed, that the friction of the air did not have time to set them afire—they were through it and into the perfect vacuum of interstellar space before the thick steel hull was even warmed through. Dorothy lay flat upon her back, just as she had fallen, unable even to ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... through they sot the house afire and the gin and burned up 'bout a hundred bales a cotton. They never bothered the niggers' quarters. That was the time the overseer carried us to Texas to get rid of ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... hot; like a furnace, like an oven; burning, hot as fire, hot as pepper; hot enough to roast an ox, hot enough to boil an egg. fiery; incandescent, incalescent^; candent^, ebullient, glowing, smoking; live; on fire; dazzling &c v.; in flames, blazing, in a blaze; alight, afire, ablaze; unquenched, unextinguished^; smoldering; in a heat, in a glow, in a fever, in a perspiration, in a sweat; sudorific^; sweltering, sweltered; blood hot, blood warm; warm as a toast, warm as wool. volcanic, plutonic, igneous; isothermal^, isothermic^, isotheral^. Phr. not a ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... their mettle, and did the best they could. If the hot biscuits were not quite so flaky as their mothers' own cooks made them at home, and some of the poached eggs broke in the poacher, and the broiled bacon got afire several time and "fussed them all up," as Mina said, the general opinion of the occupants of Green Knoll Camp was that "there was no kick coming"—of course, expressed thus by the ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... about one of the chimneys little tongues of flame leaped up as she approached. She could hear a fierce crackling, too, of that spiteful sort made by the burning of dry wood. The house was all of wood, and old, and it was evidently thoroughly afire within. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... And he took me by the hand, or if he didn't it come to the same thing of my getting there, and he set me up in a dark high place, the like of the yew-tree near Carne Castle. And then he saith, 'Look back, Zeb'; and I looked, and behold Springhaven was all afire, like the bottomless pit, or the thunder-storm of Egypt, or the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. And two figures was jumping about in the flames, like the furnace in the plain of Dura, and one of them was young Squire Carne, and the other ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... He keeps hitting the books with a little switch, and screamin' out as if the house was afire." ...
— Captain Horace • Sophie May
... Ball's fellow-agitators were John Wraw, in Suffolk, Jack Straw, in Essex—both priests these—William Grindcobbe, in Hertford, and Geoffrey Litster, in Norfolk. In Kent lived Wat Tyler, of whom nothing is told till the revolt was actually afire, but who at once was acknowledged leader and captain by the ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... a century the Balkans have presented a problem which disturbed the minds of the statesmen of Europe. Again and again, during that period, it seemed that in the Balkan mountains might be kindled a blaze which might set the world afire. Balkan politics is a labyrinth in which one might easily be lost. The inhabitants of the Balkans represent many races, each with its own ambition, and, for the most part, military. There were Serbs, and Bulgarians, and Turks, and Roumanians, and Greeks, and their territorial divisions did ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... life is, and ever must be now, Cannot be changed or turned in new direction; It must expire—here find a resurrection; And, if 'tis real, it nothing knows of rue! Each Beauty in the world is sole, unique; So must the love be that would Beauty seek! So long as Youth lives on with pulse afire, Out to the chase! ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... 1st of June the Confederate infantry under General Kershaw endeavored to drive us out, advancing against my right from the Bethesda Church road. In his assault he was permitted to come close up to our works, and when within short range such afire was opened on him from our horse-artillery and repeating carbines that he recoiled in confusion after the first onset; still, he seemed determined to get the place, and after reorganizing, again attacked; but the lesson of the first repulse was not without ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 3 • P. H. Sheridan
... met his stonily; out of the ashen mask of his face, that suddenly had whitened beneath the brown, they glared, afire but unseeing. His hands writhed, the fingers twisting together with cruel force, the knuckles grey. Abruptly, as if abandoning the attempt to reassert his self-control, he jumped up and went quickly to a window, there to stand, ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... cry that died weakly amid the chaos of sound beating over her, the girl ran to the window and looked out. What she beheld was a nightmare scene. The well was afire. It had exploded into flame. Where, a moment before, it had been belching skyward an enormous stream of gaseous vapor, all but invisible except at the casing head, now it was a monstrous blow torch, the flaming crest of which was tossed a hundred feet high. Nothing in the nature of ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... EYES, an' he thought IT WAS GETTIN' DARK, so he tried to light the lamp to see the deeds. He was fingerin' them when I left, but he didn't say he couldn't see them. The lamp was just on the bare edge of the table, the wick way up an' blackened, the chimney smashed on the floor, the bed afire." ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... and it did not agree with our simple lives. I could feel myself deteriorating, morally and intellectually. I had a desire to beat the Precious Ones (who were certainly well behaved for children shut up in two stuffy rooms) or better still to set the house afire, and run amuck killing and slaying down four flights of stairs—to do something very terrible in fact—something deadly and horrible and final that would put an end forever to this melancholy haunt of ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... a record I made in climbing that tree—an aspen's bark is slick—but in a jiffy I was at the top and could peer out. (Note 47.) All the sky was smoke, veiling the upper end of the valley and of the ridge. The ridge must be afire; the fire was spreading along our side; and if we tried for the opposite slope and the bare spot we might be caught halfway! Something whisked through the trees under me. It was a coyote. And as I slid down like lightning, thinking hard as to ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... not ask him in, and so he went away at once, beating his way back in the wind and rain, fording a little stream where the low foot-bridge was covered, reaching home soaking wet, but afire with dreams. ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... tent front, and thrusting the flaps aside staggered out. The world lay quiet and serene, as though it held no grief. The waves lapped gently against the rocks. The sky was afire ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... ways to th' Public," retorted the old dame driven to desperation. "I'm tired o' heark-enin' to thee. Get thee gone to th' Public, or we'st ha' th' world standin' still; an' moind tha do'st na set th' horse-ponds afire as tha goes ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the cliff-top with my brain afire, and my return, draggled and dripping, an hour late for dinner; of my writing and re-writing, of my tears and black depression, of the pens I wore out and the quires of paper I spoiled, and finally of the ecstasy of the day when the piece ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... for a visit with them when he brought their food. While they were eating, another terrific thunder-storm arrived. In the midst of it a bolt struck the barn and rent its roof open and set the top of the mow afire. Solomon jumped to the rear wheel of one of the wagons while Jack seized the tongue. In a second it was rolling down the barn bridge and away. The barn had filled with smoke and cinders but these dauntless men ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... looks to see where the dreadful voice is coming from, and espies a strange striped monster with eyes afire, and eyebrows and whiskers bristling ferociously. She dashes towards ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... Draw, a creek that never to my knowledge "ran" except after a very heavy rain. Prairie fires were the greatest danger in this level range country, there being no rivers, canons, or even roads to check their advance. Lightning might set the grass afire; a match carelessly dropped by the cigarette-smoker; a camp fire not properly put out; or any mischievously-inclined individual might set the whole country ablaze. Indeed, the greatest prairie fire I have record of was maliciously ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... circles, making a splash with their money. You, and the sort of thing you call our position, made a sissy of me right up till the war came along. There was nothing I was good for but parlor tricks. And you and everybody else expected me to react from that and set things afire overseas. I didn't. I didn't begin to come up to your expectations at all. But if I didn't split Germans with a sword or do any heroics I did get some horse sense knocked into me—unbelievable as that may appear to you. I learned that there was ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... draw it back. For the first time I knew how long was a man's tongue. The sight of the sand on it made me sick for the second time. It is a terrible thing, the next day after a night of drinking. I was afire, dry afire, all the inside of me like a burnt cinder, like aa lava, like the harpooner's tongue dry and gritty with sand. I bent for a half-drunk drinking coconut, but Aimoku kicked it out of my shaking fingers, and Humuhumu smote ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... earth-works, when it occurred to Prescott that it would now be the appropriate thing to fire. He made a statement of that kind to his troops, and those of the enemy who were alive went back to Charlestown. But that was no place for them, as they had previously set it afire, so they came back up the hill, where they were once more well received and tendered the freedom of ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... way; and it is covered with snow, and looks white. I can follow that white glimmer in a long, long curve to the right—twenty miles or more, maybe. Yes, it is cold. But ah! what is that out there, and what is it doing? It is setting all the long white curves of ice afire. It is throwing down hammered silver in a broad path, out there on the water. Those are not ripples. That is silver! There will be angels walking on that pathway before long! That is not the moon coming up over the lake! It is the ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... tricksy Puck! With antic toys so funnily bestuck, Light as the singing bird that wings the air,— (The door! the door! he'll tumble down the stair!) Thou darling of thy sire! (Why, Jane, he'll set his pinafore afire!) Thou imp of mirth and joy! In Love's dear chain so strong and bright a link, Thou idol of thy parents,—(Drat the boy! There goes ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... 300-foot ship in this channel with those two propellers churning and there's any loose German mines around, there won't be a blamed one of 'em she'll miss. But if I keep her straight on, there's a chance. So hell's afire!" I says to Mac—"there's only one thing for us to do now and that is to keep straight on!" And I kept straight on, sir—and, I beg leave to report it now, ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... style In which some villain died. "Dancing," quoth he, "To the poor music of a single string! Biting," quoth he, "after his head was off! What use of that?" Or, "Shivering," quoth he, "As from an ague, with his beard afire!" And then he'd roar until his ugly mouth Split at the corners. But to see me boil— that will be the queerest thing of all! I wonder if they'll put me in a bag, Like a great suet-ball? I'll go, and tell Count Guido, on the instant. How he'll laugh ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... you how he broke down before; but on Sunday morning, in spite of mine own amended Litany, I had just as much hope of the breakdown of the Falls of Niagara, or a nineteen-feet spring tide. You would have said his face was afire, and those great eyes of his were lit up like the red lamps on ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... what would have happened if I'd just missed that ugly customer when I pulled those triggers. For he was coming at me like a house afire, and with blood in his eyes. But, I didn't, all the same, and what's the use bothering over it? Is the storm going down any, d'ye ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... Westerfelt has done you exactly as he has many a other gal," was the bolt the woman hurled. "He's settin' up to Lizzie Lithicum like a house afire. I don't know but I'm glad of it, too, fer I've told you time an' time agin that he didn't care a hill o' beans fer no gal, but was out o' sight out o' mind with one as soon as another ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... been captured by the pirates and lay in the harbor of Tripoli, on February 31, 1804, he manned a little boat called the Intrepid, with seventy volunteers, and, braving the enemy, he reached the Philadelphia, set it afire and got away, with the loss of ...
— The Mentor: The War of 1812 - Volume 4, Number 3, Serial Number 103; 15 March, 1916. • Albert Bushnell Hart
... I hear the children singing — and what of it? Have you come with eyes afire to find me now and ask me that? If I were not their father and if you were not their mother, We might believe they made a noise. . . . What are ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... not more than a couple of miles beyond the eastern edge, dragging with them a flexible pipeline through which was pumped fueloil, now priceless in the freezing cities. Methodically they sprayed a square mile and set it afire, feeding the flames with the oil. The burning area sank neatly through the snow, exposing the grass beneath: dry, yellow and brittle. The stiff, interwoven stolons caught; oil was applied unstintedly; the crackling and roaring ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... sky at last is overgloomed, And men see that fair sign of coming wind And imminent rain, and seeing, they are glad, Who for their corn-fields' plight sore sighed before; Even so the sons of Troy when they beheld There in their land Penthesileia dread Afire for battle, were exceeding glad; For when the heart is thrilled with hope of good, All smart of evils past is wiped away: So, after all his sighing and his pain, Gladdened a little while was Priam's ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... in which I woke, and it seemed to stand in a tunnel that was afire at one end. Two huge trees, branches and all, were burning on a big hearth, stones glowing under them; and figures with long beards, in black robes, passed betwixt me and the fire, stirring a cauldron. If ever witches' brewing was seen, it looked ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... My poet, take thy lyre. Youth's living wine Ferments to-night within the veins divine. My breast is troubled, stifling with desire, The panting breeze has set my lips afire; O listless child, behold me, I am fair! Our first embrace dost thou so soon forget? How pale thou wast, when my wing grazed thy hair. Into mine arms thou fell'st, with eyelids wet! Oh, in thy bitter grief, I solaced thee, Dying of love, thy youthful strength outworn. Now I shall die of hope—oh ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... the smoke-filled air inflamed his nostrils and throat. Coals of fire pelted him from the river of flame, carried by the strong breeze blowing down. From the canons on either side of the workers came a steady roar of a world afire. Occasionally, at some slight shift of the wind, the smoke lifted and they could see the moving wall of fire bearing down upon them, wedges of it far ahead of ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... Wade Hampton burned Columbia, falls to the ground. The other part of his account, in which he maintained that the fire spread to the buildings from the smoldering cotton rekindled by the wind, which was blowing a gale, deserves more respect. His report saying that he saw cotton afire in the streets was written April 4, 1865, and Howard's in which the same fact is stated was written April 1, very soon after the event, when their recollection would be fresh. All of the Southern evidence (except one statement, the most important ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... appreciate all the difficulties that composers have encountered; but I feel myself as capable of overcoming them as any other composer. Au contraire when I convince myself that all is well with my opera, I feel as if my body were afire—my hands and feet tremble with desire to make the Frenchman value and fear the German. Why is no Frenchman ever commissioned to write a grand opera? Why must it always be a foreigner? In my case the most unendurable thing ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... went on with his lilting tune. What a pair they were, these lads! Randy, afire with his dreams, and rather tragic in his dreaming. Truxton, light ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... deep cellar-ways a man ran out, his clothes and hair and beard afire; on his heels a breathless throng of men and boys; following them, close behind, a rush ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... he just grand!" he exclaimed. "Honest, Stephanie, your young man has me in the ditch with two blow-outs and the gas afire!" ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... and I stood there And cursed that devil-littered hare, That left me stranded in the dark In that wide waste of quaggy peat Beneath black night without a spark: When, looking up, I saw a flare Upon a far-off hill, and said: 'By God, the heather is afire! It's mischief at this time of year ...' And then, as one bright flame shot higher, And booths and vans stood out quite clear, My wits came back into my head; And I remembered Brough Hill Fair. And as I stumbled towards the glare I knew the sudden kindling meant The Fair was over for the day; And ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... look here, Smoke; don't you go an' get bug-house," Shorty pleaded. "Think of me! Let your think-slats rip. Come on an' help me pull that shack down. I'd set her afire, if it wa'n't ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... a thin wreath of smoke curled from under the open doorway and spread lazily in the frosty air. Another followed; another; still another. The cabin was afire. ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... social and political condition which must continue in this and every other slaveholding community."[5] Girls were insulted, teachers were abused along the streets, and for lack of police surveillance the house was set afire in 1860. It was sighted, however, ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... chase, overtook her, and stabbed her through the shoulder. She, however, succeeded in making good her escape, carrying the baby with her. To' Kaya then returned to his house, whence his son had also fled, and set it afire once more, and this time it blazed ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... his leave in leisure. Here and there he saw familiar faces, but these, after the finding glance, he studiously avoided. He wanted to be alone. For while the music was still echoing in his ears, in a subtone, his brain was afire with keen activity; but unfortunately for the going forward of things, this mental state was divided into so many battalions, led by so many generals, indirectly and indecisively, nowhere. This plan had no beginning, that one had no ending, and ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... close to him, put her arm about his neck, drew his head down as if to whisper her confidence in his ear. Her breath was on his cheek, his heart was afire in one foolish leap. She put up her lips as if to kiss him, and he, reeling in the ecstasy of his proximity to her radiant body, bent nearer to take what she seemed ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... stars, and the moon, and had listened for Gray Wolf's call, while the big Dane lay sleeping. To-night it was colder than usual, and the keen tang of the wind that came fresh from the west stirred him strangely. It set his blood afire with what the Indians call the Frost Hunger. Lethargic summer was gone and the days and nights of hunting were at hand. He wanted to leap out into freedom and run until he was exhausted, with Gray Wolf at his side. He knew that Gray Wolf was off there—where the stars hung ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... want and poverty. If the man had opportunity to work for his living, he would as a rule abstain from stealing. Other crimes are committed in passion; but such criminals need education and training in self-control, and (often) removal of the provocations which set their passions afire. Many other crimes, and almost all vices, are due to physical or mental disease, or to actual insanity. It is the doctor and not the jailer who should ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... her to me, if I look but for a moment from afar?" Ibrahim replied, Yes; and the painter rejoined, "This being so, tarry with me till thou set out." But the youth retorted, "I cannot tarry longer; for my heart with love of her is all afire." "Have patience three days," said the Shaykh, "till I fit thee out a ship, wherein thou mayst fare to Bassorah." Accordingly he waited whilst the old man equipped him a craft and stored therein all that he needed of meat and drink and so ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... gathering for the kings' men, and when they came out to the hall they saw that it was afire; so King Halfdan went thereto with some of the folk, but King Helgi followed after Frithiof and his men, who were by then gotten a-shipboard and ...
— The Story Of Frithiof The Bold - 1875 • Anonymous
... some faded page I read about a Golden Age, But gods and Caledonian hunts Were nothing to what I knew once. Here on these hills was hunting! Here Antelope sprang and wary deer. Here there were heroes! On these plains Were drops afire from dragons' veins! Here there was challenge, here defying, Here was true living, here great dying! Stormy winds and stormy souls, Earthly wills with starry goals, Battle—thunder—hoofs in flight— Centaurs ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... in the world must have echoed that sharp command; every television screen must have shown to a breathless audience the figure whose blond hair was awry, whose lean face was afire with protest, as Chet Bullard sprang forward ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... was dead, the bath was over, and clad once more in his deerskin, Siegfried set out for the smithy. He brought no charcoal for the forge; all that he carried with him was a heart afire with anger, a sword quivering to take the life ...
— Stories of Siegfried - Told to the Children • Mary MacGregor
... a football field. They were fortunate that there was no heavy machinery left here. From each side, dim-lighted tunnels led off into the distance. While Odin and the strongest soldiers guarded, Ato and his people shoved benches, tables and chairs to the four tunnels and set them afire. There were still quite a number of benches left, and some of these were stacked close together into one corner of the room, making a sort of rude balcony that looked down upon the littered floor. More benches and machines were left. These were made ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... on the hill, Campesino Garcia?' 'I saw beside the milking byre, White with want and black with mire, The little man with eyes afire Marshalling his bowmen.' ...
— Songs of Action • Arthur Conan Doyle
... broadsides of the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau. The Glasgow, in the rear, exchanged shots with the light cruisers, the Leipzig and the Dresden. The shooting was deadly. The third of the rapid salvos of the enemy armoured cruisers set the Good Hope and the Monmouth afire. Shells began to find their mark, some exploding overhead and bursting in all directions. In about ten minutes the Monmouth sheered off the line to westward about one hundred yards. She was being hit heavily. ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... it turned out that this was the house that was afire, possibly set ablaze through some spark that had been carried by the wind, and lodged where it could communicate to some waste material. A peculiar sense of "coming events casting a shadow before" assailed Jack. He had a vague idea that there might prove to be more ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... to use this means of life. People who don't want to live, people who would sooner hibernate than feel intensely, will be wise to eschew literature. They had better, to quote from the finest passage in a fine poem, "sit around and eat blackberries." The sight of a "common bush afire with God" ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... switches. Suddenly it seemed alive, rather the red was alive, the color was no longer part of the object, it was an entity in itself, blazing like flame, liberated from matter, it was a living drop of blood, afire. ...
— Last Resort • Stephen Bartholomew
... saving money. With every hour grew the feeling that their unity and strength were embodied in the Emperor. Mme. de Remusat was tired of his ill-breeding: it shocked her to observe his coarse familiarity, to see him sit on a favorite's knee, or twist a bystander's ear till it was afire; to hear him sow dissension among families by coarse innuendo, and to see him crush society that he might rule it. But such things would not have shocked the masses of plain burgher Frenchmen at all. When the querulous lady opened her ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... the Norse vikings—a warrior, at the approach of death from natural causes, embarking alone in his vessel, floating out to sea, and setting it afire, that he might perish ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... and nature, entitled to all the essential privileges of Britons. What God in his Providence has united let no man dare attempt to pull asunder." Thirteen years later, the sundering blow was struck. Patrick Henry's resolutions submitted to the Virginia House of Burgesses, in 1765, set that colony afire, but at that time neither he nor his associates desired separation and independence if their natural rights were recognized. It was not until the revolution of 1895 that the independence of Cuba became a national demand, a movement based on realization of the ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... care," I answered, whose blood was all afire. "I know only that wherever you grow and from whatever soil, you are the ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... will be searching for his mate and finding her, planning a home and building it before he is twenty-five; and the man who does not, is either too weak or too selfish to do it. In either case you need not fear him. "He will never set the world afire." ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... overflowing good spirits, his hearty and unmistakable enjoyment of life, that first won their regard. The boy suddenly dropped into their midst was no blase youth, no mere swaggering puppy. He was afire with the joy of existence, radiant with happiness, excited—and not ashamed to show it—by all the newness and fascination of Indian life. The Major screwed his eye-glass into his eye and smiled encouragingly; the Adjutant measured him with peg to his lip and knew ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... fallen the issues of the fight were still undecided. "The French, sir. They give way everywhere." "Thank God! I die in peace," replied the English hero. At a time when the momentous results of this battle had set the whole of Great Britain afire with enthusiasm it is easy to understand the popularity of a picture such as this. It was sold in 1791 for oe28, and now belongs to the Duke of Westminster. There is a replica of it in the Queen's drawing-room ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... real smart cuss, now ain't you?" queried Hopalong, his eyes twinkling and his face wreathed with good humor. "An' how innocent you act, too. Thought you could scare me, didn't you? Thought I'd go tearing 'round this fool town like a house afire, hey? Well, I reckon you can guess again. Now, I'm owning up that the joke's on me, so you hand over my cayuse, an' I'll ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... out the burning paper. well when i got it out she was prety mad with me and made me clean the room and wash the floor and windows. ferst i went out and picked up my snapcrackers. they were all rite but all the canon crackers but 2 had went of. Mother she asked me how they got afire and i said i was fooling with them and they got on fire and i had to plug them out of the window. then she said that was what fritened Miss Hartnett so and i said was she fritened and she said she was so fritened ...
— 'Sequil' - Or Things Whitch Aint Finished in the First • Henry A. Shute
... a-stirring. Near by, in an undergrowth, I fell in with a few worm-eating warblers. They seemed of a peculiarly unsuspicious turn of mind, and certainly wore the quaintest of head-dresses. I must mention also a scarlet tanager, who, all afire as he was, one day alighted in a bush of flowering dogwood, which was completely covered with its large white blossoms. Probably he had no idea how well ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... I returned to seek her. During that time I sent scores of letters to Basilio, but received no reply. Twice I was wounded in fight, once very seriously. I was also a prisoner for several months. I made my escape at last, and, returning to Montevideo, obtained leave of absence. Then, with heart afire with sweet anticipations, I sought that lonely sea-coast once more, only to find the weeds growing on the spot where Basilio's rancho had stood. In the neighbourhood I learnt that he had died two years before, and that after his death ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... most feateous of finery. They ceased not to be in this case till near the hour of mid-afternoon prayer, when they came forth of the basin and, donning their feather-shifts, flew away home. Thereupon he waxed distracted, with a heart afire for love of the chief damsel and repenting him that he had not stolen her plumery. Wherefore he fell sick and abode on the palace-roof expecting her return and abstaining from meat and drink and sleep, and he ceased not to be so till ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... motionless, his brain still afire with the imminent emprise, but his hot heart turning cold, and failing; for the snow—oh, treacherous cloud!—the snow would betray his steps and the ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... airplanes. Near Amiens, above Villers-Bretonneux, Guynemer, making his rounds with Sergeant Chainat, attacked one of these groups on June 22, isolated one of the airplanes and, maneuvering with his comrade, set it afire. That was, I believe, his ninth. This combat took place at a height of 4200 meters. The advantage went more and more to the ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... audacity of the girl's ruse, her clever acting in feigning horror to line the guards up at the cell door and the thrilling decisiveness with which she had used the little black gun in her hand set every drop of blood in his body afire. No sooner was he outside his cell than he was the old Jim Kent, fighting man. He whipped Carter's automatic out of its holster and, covering Pelly and the special constable, relieved them of their guns. Behind him he heard Marette's voice, ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... suthing was afire some'r's," conjectured the hired man, surveying the horizon for ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... heart out with a wild desire, One day, behind his counter trim and neat, He hears a sound that sets his brain afire— The Highlanders are marching down the street. Oh, how the pipes shrill out, the mad drums beat! "On to the gates of Hell, my Gordons gay!" He flings his hated ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... and attacked the Japanese Legation. The Minister, Hanabusa, and his guard, with all the civilians who could reach the place—the rest were murdered—fought bravely, keeping the mob back until the Legation building was set afire. Then they battled their way through the city to the coast. The survivors—twenty-six out of forty—set to sea in a junk. They were picked up at sea by a British survey ship, the Flying Fish, ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... as through the western pines, on meadow, stream, and pond, Flamed the red radiance of a sky set all afire beyond, Slowly o'er the eastern sea-bluffs a milder glory shone, And the sunset and the ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... speech heightened the lazy impression which he was never unwilling to convey. His hearers generally regarded him as an easygoing, indolent good fellow with a love of humor—with talent, perhaps—but as one not likely ever to set the world afire. They did not happen to think that the same inclination which made them crowd about to listen and applaud would one day win for him the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... pause, and hear speeches passed in a lower key, as if they were surprised to find the door open. But the pause was brief, for the blind man again issued his commands. His voice sounded louder and higher, as if he were afire with eagerness ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... store wouldn't chalk nothin' for us no more." Then she added, quickly, as if in defence of the humiliating position, "Our corn-crib was sot afire last fall and we ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... tail—and, for a few moments snatched from the press of public business, play the familiar and agreeable. If he ever caught any one railing at Grumbo—any colored individual, that is, in bad odor with his dogship—and cursing him for a misbegotten wolf, Big Black Burl would be all afire in the flash of a gun-flint, and ready to pulverize the false muzzle that dared dab the fair name of his four-footed chum with a slur so foul. Sometimes, though, the white hunters, also, would curse Grumbo—denouncing ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... thrilling even in its coldness to the bashfully admiring man. And she was that weak and dizzy, he must let her lean on his arm going down; and they must go SLOW. She was sure he was cold, too, and if he would wait at the back door she would give him a drink of whiskey. Thus Lanty, with her brain afire, her eyes and ears straining into the darkness, and the vague outline of the barn beyond. Another moment was protracted over the drink of whiskey, and then Lanty, with a faint archness, made him promise not to tell her mother of her escapade, and she promised on her part not to say anything ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... Andrew! he cannot see mischief a-foot but he is all afire to stop it. I like it in the lad, but I wish yon poor fanatic had been content to stay at home and mind his own business, instead of crossing us so ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... had been set afire emotionally by the first reports, the logs of the first captains of England and France who visited Tahiti. In that eighteenth century, for decades the return to nature had been the rallying cry of those who attacked the artificial and ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... as he felt the heat, and he began slapping at the smoldering spots where the molten metal from the vibroblades had hit his clothing. He wasn't afire; modern clothing doesn't flame up—but it can get pretty hot when you splash liquid ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Then all afire with mad desire, They chased him through the dark, And each soul carried his dead bodie, ...
— Bees in Amber - A Little Book Of Thoughtful Verse • John Oxenham
... reflected, dizzily. It followed, therefore, that she must have waited every evening for his coming, and that her songs had been sung for him. An ecstasy swept over him. Regaining the path, he went downward to the monastery, his brain afire, his body tingling. ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... out, ma!" she exclaimed. "Grandma, ain't supper ready yet? I never was so hungry in all my life. I could eat a house afire." ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... white smoke, that changed ere long to flame, From site unknown; for by the seaward crest That keep lay hidden. Hands to forehead raised, Wondering they watched it. One to other spake: "The huge Dalriad forest is afire Ere melted are the winter's snows!" Another, "In vengeance o'er the ocean Creithe or Pict, Favoured by magic, or by mist, have crossed, And fired old Milcho's ships." But Patrick leaned Upon his crosier, ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... pail of it in the yard, and one pig will run and dip his nose into it, and run off scalded and squealing like mad; another sees that, but, all the same, dips his nose and runs off scalded and squealing like a house afire; and a third does likewise, and a fourth follows suit! And so on till the whole herd are scalded! And the girls are just like that!" concluded the lady from the ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... to hear that you've had some spiritual advantages; now, stay right here in the orchard till Jabe comes; and don't set the house afire," she added, as Samantha took the reins and raised them for the mighty slap on Maria's back which was necessary to wake her ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... way wum,(1) Thy haase is afire, thy childer all gone; All but poor Nancy, set under a pan, Weyvin' gold lace as ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... two or three times doorin' the flashes o' lightnin'. Well, stooard, there was lightnin' playin' round the mizzen truck, an' the main truck, an' the fore truck, an' at the end o' the flyin' jib-boom, an' the spanker boom; then there came a flash that seemed to set afire the entire univarse; then a burst o' thunder like fifty great guns gone off all at once in a hurry. At that identical moment, stooard, there came up from the fore-cabin a yell that beat—well, I can't rightly say what it beat, but ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... canyon must be reached before dark. The sheep would be very thirsty by the time they arrived, and she could not risk letting them tear down the precipitous edge among the sharp rocks in the dark. Already over the sand stretches a peculiar liquid glow was flooding, so that the whole desert seemed afire. The burning sun had slipped behind a saddle of the purple peaks, leaving a brilliant horizon of many ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... the air was collected into a great ball that turned crimson in the west, touching the crests of the waves with red as though blood had been splashed upon them, setting Marcella's hair afire, turning her white frock rosy-pink. Two bells sounded, and the sea and the sky grew deep blue, while shadows began to slink about the decks and stalk over the water; grey veils fell over the western sky, and she sat up ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... a cheery voice. "You scared me most to death! I saw the smoke coming from the chimney and thought the house was afire, so ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... of smoke broke from the forecastle and was swept off by the wind. A tongue of red flame flashed upward and expired. Skipper Bill did not need the cries of terror and warning to inform him. The First Venture was afire! And she was not only afire; she was off the Chunks in a gale of ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... lines of hose were laid to the lake, and with the windmill that pumped fresh water to give pressure, the hose was played constantly on the roofs and walls of the buildings of the camp, to make it harder for flying sparks to set them afire. ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland
... un right here," he commented, "and maybe I can lay a fire against the log and if I can get un afire she'll burn a long while ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... the chill that gripped them by the heart when above the howling of the blast the old warning tocsin broke out! Hands clutched at guns and clothing, and the women and children ran to the windows, sick for fear lest the fort be afire. ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... was a long, keen blade. He felt a stealthy hand near his own and he lunged the knife. A heavy groan and a few words in a language which only he understood, and the body sank to the floor. The tiger's blood was now afire and he leaped upon the faro table, revolver in hand. His form was outlined in silhouette by a light across the street, when a spark flashed in the darkness and he fell headlong to the floor. There was a heavy roar of voices, as the ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds |
