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Firebrand   /fˈaɪərbrˌænd/   Listen
Firebrand

noun
1.
A piece of wood that has been burned or is burning.  Synonym: brand.
2.
Someone who deliberately foments trouble.  Synonyms: inciter, instigant, instigator, provoker.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Firebrand" Quotes from Famous Books



... few seconds he slipped out softly and silently. Our little fire had sunk to embers. A dozen sticks radiated from the centre of coals. Each made a firebrand with one end cool to the grasp. Captain D. hurled one of these at the devoted ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... the impression made by it will not immediately vanish with the impulse which caused it, but will remain for a time proportioned to the strength of the impulse. This, with respect to sight, is proved by whirling a firebrand in a circular manner, by which the impression of a circle is caused, instead of a moving point: and, with respect to hearing, it may be observed, that when children run with a stick quickly along railing, or when a drum is beaten quickly, the idea ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett

... divines did not like to be pelted with such epithets as these: "Thou fiery fighter and green-headed trumpeter! thou hedgehog and grinning dog! thou mole! thou tinker! thou lizard! thou bell of no metal but the tone of a kettle! thou wheelbarrow! thou whirlpool! thou whirligig! thou firebrand! thou moon-calf! thou ragged tatterdemalion! thou gormandizing priest! thou bane of reason and beast of the earth! thou best to be spared of all mankind!"—all of which are genuine epithets from the Quaker books of that period, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... were out hunting, he saw his fort suddenly fill with armed Assiniboines bent on massacre. They jostled him aside, broke into the armory, and helped themselves to weapons. Saint-Pierre had only one recourse. Seizing a firebrand, he tore the cover off a keg of powder and threatened to blow the Indians to perdition. The marauders dashed from the fort, and Saint-Pierre shot the bolts of gate and sally-port. When the white hunters returned, they quickly gathered ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... there exists no adequate biography of Karl Marx, and here is also an intimation that simply as a man, and not merely as a great firebrand of socialism, Marx is well worth studying. And so it has occurred to me to give in these pages one episode of his career that seems to me quite curious, together with some significant touches concerning the man as apart ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... seeking for conclusive evidence against Mortimer he should prove him innocent? He was treading upon dangerous ground, pushing out of his path with a firebrand a fuse closely attached to a mine that might explode and shatter ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... the crops are offered over and over again. After that nobody may enter a yam-field or a cemetery or touch sea-water for three days. On the third day a man stationed on a mound chants an invocation or incantation in a loud voice. Next all the men go down to the shore, each of them with a firebrand in his hand, and separating into two parties engage in a sham fight. Afterwards they bathe and repairing to the charnel-house deposit coco-nut leaves beside the skulls of their ancestors. They are then free to partake of the feast which has ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... before the ideal match is secured. Some of us are almost glad that Juliet passed away in swift fashion when the cup of life foamed most exquisitely at her lips. How would she have fared had that changeable firebrand Romeo taken to wandering once more? It is a grievously flippant question to ask when the most glorious of all love-poems is in question; yet I ask it very seriously, and merely in a symbolic way. Romeo is a shadow, the adored Juliet is a shadow; but the two immortal shades represent ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... left-end, responded at just the right moment, and how Pretty dodged and ran with the alertness he had learned in many a championship tennis tournament; and how Reddy, as left half-back, flew across the field like a firebrand, or hurled himself into the line with a fury that seemed to have no regard for the bones or flesh of himself or the ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes

... rather, committed the least possible evil amidst the contrariety of interests and passions in which he and all public men are placed. This, however, is but a poor apology for one who lent his powerful talents to wage wars that involved the happiness of millions, who became a willing firebrand among nations, and who, as a tool or a principal, was foremost in every work of contemporary mischief. The love of office, and a passion for public speaking, were, doubtless, the predominant feelings of his soul. To gratify ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips

... Reynolds, seven by Cotes (some of them in crayons, in which he was supposed to excel), and three by Gainsborough. West sent two pictures—the 'Regulus,' of which mention has already been made—the firebrand work which brought about indirectly so much mischief and discussion—and a 'Venus lamenting the Death of Adonis.' There were also landscapes by Barrett, Gainsborough, Sandby, Serres, Wilson, and Zucarelli, and 'poetical and historical works by Cipriani, Bartolozzi, and Miss ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... sailors in a storm, a thousand businesses at once; yet, in all this tumult, he does not love combustion, but will be the first man that shall go and quench it. He is never a good christian till a hissing pot of ale has slacked him, like water cast on a firebrand, and for that time he is tame and dispossessed. His cunning is not small in architecture, for he builds strange fabricks in paste, towers and castles, which are offered to the assault of valiant teeth, and like Darius' palace in one banquet demolished. He is a pittiless murderer ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... the hotels. They held peculiar conversations, words and gestures for use in the room, and all this was changed outside the room, into the most commonplace and human. Sometimes, in the room, they all blazed up like a huge woodpile, and Yozhov was the brightest firebrand among them; but the light of this bonfire illuminated but faintly the ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky

... gazed at length in silence drear, Unbroke, save when in comrade's ear Some yeoman, wondering in his fear, Thus whispered forth his mind:- "Saint Mary! saw'st thou e'er such sight? How pale his cheek, his eye how bright, Whene'er the firebrand's fickle light Glances beneath his cowl! Full on our lord he sets his eye; For his best palfrey, would not I Endure that ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott

... that looks for a better." Which rudeness of his, the guests resenting, unanimously voted his expulsion; & the malcontent was thrust out neck & heels into the cellar, as the properest place for such a boutefeu & firebrand as he had shewn himself ...
— A Masque of Days - From the Last Essays of Elia: Newly Dressed & Decorated • Walter Crane

... called myself a thousand fools, for being afraid to see the devil one moment, who had now lived almost twenty years in the most retired solitude. And therefore resuming all the courage I had, I took a flaming firebrand, and in I rushed again. I had not proceeded above three steps, when I was more affrighted than before; for then I heard a very loud sigh, like that of a human creature in the greatest agony, succeeded with a broken noise, resembling words half ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe

... passed all that was changed. Times of war and trouble were not yet over for England. Once again heathen hordes fell upon our shores. The Danes, fierce and lawless, carrying sword and firebrand wherever they passed, leaving death and ruin in their track, surged over the land. The monasteries were ruined, the scholars were scattered. A life of peaceful study was no longer possible, the learning of two hundred years was swept away, the lamp of knowledge ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... to revel in comparative luxury, to enjoy a certain social distinction, to exchange their native bogs for the British metropolis, and to draw a salary beyond their wildest dreams. These questionable gentlemen, with the horse's tongue and cow's tail cutters, the firebrand priests and landlord-shooters, the moonlight marauders who shoot old women and children in the legs, burn the haystacks of their neighbours, refuse coffins and decent burial for the dead, apply the fiendish ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... say, Mr Cringle, you are appointed to the Firebrand, do you know that?"—I did not know it, and began to fear my cruise on shore was all up.—"But I don't look for her from Havanna for a month; so leave your address with L——, that you may get the order to join when ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... "Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure." And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails. And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... of that here. [Authoritatively.] Another word of this kind of insurrection, another word to the women of your treason, and you will be locked up and take your just punishment. You remember I had to look out for you in the beginning when you talked against this war. You're a firebrand, and you know how we handle the like of you. [Goes to door, turns to the mother.] I am sorry you have to have this trouble, Maria, on top of everything else. You don't deserve it. [To Hedwig.] You have been warned. ...
— War Brides: A Play in One Act • Marion Craig Wentworth

... century, when in the ears listening for the signals of the Messiah, the Hep! Hep! Hep! of the Crusaders came like the bay of blood-hounds; and in the presence of those devilish missionaries with sword and firebrand the crouching figure of the reviled Jew turned round erect, heroic, flashing with sublime constancy in the face of torture and death—what would the dingy shops and unbeautiful faces signify to the ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... them. The 'massacre' (so their own chronicler, Mr. Bancroft, has termed it) spread from one hut to another; for the Indians were asleep and unarmed. But the work of slaughter was too slow. 'We must burn them,' exclaimed the fanatic chieftain of the Puritans; and he cast the first firebrand to windward among their wigwams. In an instant the encampment was in a blaze. Not a soul escaped. Six hundred Indians, men, women, and children, perished by the steady hand of the marksman, by the unresisted broadsword, and ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... that my authority is of little weight, on account of my enmity with his father. But I both rejoice that Hamilcar perished, for this reason, that, had he lived we should have now been engaged in a war with the Romans; and this youth, as the fury and firebrand of this war, I hate and detest. Nor ought he only to be given up in atonement for the violated treaty; but even though no one demanded him, he ought to be transported to the extremest shores of earth or sea, and banished to a distance, whence neither his ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius

... representatives, in principle, of Force and Authority, whose prototypes in bygone times would undoubtedly have sent him to the scaffold or to the stake; nor is it improbable that both Carlyle and Newman, though in all other opinions they differed widely, would have agreed that a revolutionary firebrand and a pestilent infidel deserved some such fate. The poet might console himself with the reflection that they must have abhorred each other's principles quite as much ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... deal sacrificed, and rather represented in the light of a firebrand of a fellow whom my cloud of lawyers had restrained with difficulty from extremes. But I let it pass, and made but the one suggestion, that I should be described as ready to deliver my own evidence and adduce that of others before ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Miss Lorne, that enthusiastic old patriot, that rabid old spitfire whose one dream is the wresting back of Alsace-Lorraine, the driving of the hated Germans into the sea? Do you mean that ripping old firebrand?" ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... mother to pull together better, which sent Ethelyn down to breakfast the next morning and kept her below stairs a good portion of the day, and made her accept James' invitation to ride with him in the afternoon. Then when it was night again, and she saw Eunice carrying through the hall a smoking firebrand, which she knew was designed for the parlor fire, she changed her mind about staying alone upstairs with the books she had commenced to read, but brought instead the white, fleecy cloud she was knitting, and sat with ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes

... publicly absolved Sir John Friend and Sir William Perkins, at their execution, for being concerned in a plot to assassinate King William. His 'Essays on Moral Subjects' were published in 1697; 2nd vol., 1705; 3rd vol., 1709. But the only way to put out a firebrand like this is to let it alone, and Jeremy, being, no longer persecuted, began, at last, to think the game was grown stupid, and gave it up. He was a well-meaning man, however, and as long as he had the luxury of a grievance, would ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... name is now scarcely known, even in France, but I venture the prophecy that when the French Army marches down the Champs Elysees after the war is over, when the vanguard passes under the Arch de Triomph, de Maud'Huy—a nervous little firebrand—will be right up in the ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... not have held out long against the strength of the hyena; but it was just at that moment that Swartboy came up with his firebrand, and beat off the ravisher with a ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid

... said Cappen, regretfully but firmly. "'Twould be ill for my health. No, I will but trouble you for a firebrand and then the princess and I will ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson

... the wine them skinked* all about. *poured And Venus laughed upon every wight (For January was become her knight, And woulde both assaye his courage In liberty, and eke in marriage), And with her firebrand in her hand about Danced before the bride and all the rout. And certainly I dare right well say this, Hymeneus, that god of wedding is, Saw never his life so merry a wedded man. Hold thou thy peace, thou ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... time they stayed of their own free will, thinking it might injure Mataafa if they escaped when others did. And you will see by the enclosed paper how these poor fellows spent the first hours of their liberty.[12] You will see also that I am not the firebrand that I am sometimes painted, and that in helping me, if you shall decide to do so, you will be doing nothing against the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... cause and centre of a little war all its own. Once a man stole it, and on a swift camel he fled by night only to fall into the power of still greater thieves and wickeder men. Thus the sword, like a firebrand, was passed from hand to hand. At one time it even got as far south as Abyssinia, in Africa, and became by purchase the property of a Hamran Arab, one of the most daring, reckless, fearless, skilful hunters that ever walked on earth, as ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True

... century abounds in indications that amid a great deal of superficial talk about the excellence of toleration the older spirit of persecution was quite alive, ready, if circumstances favoured it, to burst forth again, not perhaps with firebrand and sword, but with the no less familiar weapons of confiscations and imprisonment. Toleration was not only very imperfectly understood, even by those who most lauded it, but it was often loudly vaunted by men ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... Margaret vaguely, absently, thinking always of the little firebrand in that room beyond, but so ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford

... to coast. In California Emma Goldman became friendly with the members of the Isaak family, and learned to appreciate their efforts for the Cause. Under tremendous obstacles the Isaaks first published the FIREBRAND and, upon its suppression by the Postal Department, the FREE SOCIETY. It was also during this tour that Emma Goldman met that grand old rebel of ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman

... never yet ventured to declare his affection to her; somehow or other he could not. A little spark of nobleness still remained in him unquenched by the drink, and it lighted him to see that to bind Mary to himself for life would be to tie her to a living firebrand that would scorch and shrivel up beauty, health and peace. He dared not speak: before her unsullied loveliness his drink-envenomed lips were closed: he could rattle on in wild exuberance of spirits, but he could not yet ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson

... to go off without allowing him to defend himself, he purposely discussed the language question a little more openly than was at all his wont with such prickly subjects, speaking a few quiet truths in a way that even a firebrand like van Hert could not possibly resent. When they joined Diana she was sitting on a table, swinging her feet, and singing a ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... overloaded bosom; but when applied to the purposes of indulgence and debauchery, it rends the nerves, destroys the strength, weakens the intellect, and undermines life. But fear not thou to use its virtues in the time of need, for the wise man warms him by the same firebrand with which the madman burneth the tent." [Some preparation of opium seems ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... strange that crooked little Felix Poluski, ex-Nihilist, the wildest firebrand ever driven out of Warsaw, and the only living artist who could put on canvas the gleam of heaven that lights the Virgin's face in the "Immaculate Conception," should justify his nickname of Le Bourdon by ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... or threatened with the pursuit of the Inquisition, took every means to escape the action of that tribunal: they left the soil of Spain and went to Rome. Would those who imagine that Rome has always been the hot-bed of intolerance, the firebrand of persecution, have imagined this? The number of causes commenced by the Inquisition, and summoned from Spain to Rome, is countless, during the first fifty years of the existence of that tribunal; and it must be added ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... hundred steps behind old Hekt's cave, I heard a troop of jackals barking so furiously that I said to myself directly they had attacked a human being, and I knew too who it was, though no one had told me, and the woman could not call or cry out. Frantic with terror, I tore a firebrand from the hearth and the stake to which the goat was fastened out of the ground, rushed to her help, drove away the beasts, and carried her back senseless to the hut. My mother helped me, and we called her back to life. When we were alone, I wept like a child for joy ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Sacheverell had been foolishly prosecuted for attacking the Whig Government, and calling the Lord Treasurer Godolphin "Volpone" (a character in a celebrated play written by Ben Jonson). A guard of butchers escorted the firebrand to his trial at Westminster Hall, at which Queen Anne was present. Riots then broke out, and the High Church mob sacked several Dissenting chapels, burning the pews and pulpits in Lincoln's Inn Fields, Holborn, and elsewhere, and even threatened to use a Dissenting preacher as ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... Big Turtle. "Warriors, when men are injured, they always take revenge. I cook this for the warpath. I cook sweet corn and a buffalo paunch. You will go after Corn Crusher for me," saying this to his servants. "Call to Comb, Awl, Pestle, Firebrand, and Buffalo Bladder ...
— Myths and Legends of the Great Plains • Unknown

... the cave, overlooking the Blyde River Valley, in which he and his mother had hidden themselves while spear and firebrand were erasing his tribe from the face of the surrounding country. This cave could only be entered by climbing up the trunk of a white ironwood-tree and stepping on to a ledge from one of its branches. Other fugitives, Kameel told ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully

... of the two oarsmen was no other than the future firebrand peacemaker, Miching Mallecho, our fierce little Tartarin de Berlin. One wondered how he, who would not be ruled, would come in turn to rule? That question is a burning one; and may yet set the world in flames ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... African hostilities; who had seen every shape of mental and physical suffering, when men were left to perish of gun-wounds, as the rush of the charge swept on; when writhing horses died by the score of famine and of thirst; when the firebrand was hurled among sleeping encampments, and defenseless women were torn from their rest by the unsparing hands of pitiless soldiers. But the torture which shook for a second the steel-knit frame of this Arab passed all that he had dreamed as possible; it was mute, and held in bonds of iron, for the ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... sense of something tumbling about his ears; while Mr. Longstaffe, eyeglass in hand, surveyed the table with a distinct sense of pleasurable entertainment. He had not seen much of Elsmere yet, but it was as clear as daylight that the man was a firebrand, and ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... from?—not from the burnt cottage—he had smelled that smell before—indeed this was by no means the first accident of the kind which had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young firebrand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether lip. He knew not ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... college, young Puffington made the acquaintance of several very dashing young sparks—Lord Firebrand, Lord Mudlark, Lord Deuceace, Sir Harry Blueun, and others, whom he always spoke of as 'Deuceace,' 'Blueun,' etc., in the easy style that marks the perfect gentleman.[1] How proud the old people were of him! How they would sit listening to him, flashing, and telling how ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... was recruited, a navy created, and a force made ready for action in the north. Neither religiously nor politically indeed had Elizabeth any sympathy with the Scotch Lords. Knox was to her simply a firebrand of rebellion; her political instinct shrank from the Scotch Calvinism with its protest against the whole English system of government, whether in Church or State; and as a Queen she hated revolt. But the danger forced her hand. Elizabeth was ready to act, ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... imagine such a thing? Base and worthless as you have made me, I am too much in your power, I fear—I love you still too much; and, though like a poison or a firebrand you have clung to my bosom, I could not have felt for you a single thought of resentment. You say well when you call me shrinking. I am a creature of a thousand fears; I ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... to turn myself to seek for my wife. I had heard her shrieks; and the shivering of despair came over me, when I thought it might have been her death groans which had struck my ears. I threw myself into the midst of the carnage, and, armed with a firebrand, snatched from my burning nuptial chamber, I made my way through the combatants, more like a maniac at the height of his frenzy, than a bridegroom on his wedding-night. Getting into the skirts of the village again, I thought I heard the shrieks of my beloved. I ran towards ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... enough, but breaking him up as my appearance did just now is the limit. I hope Mr. Leslie doesn't hear of my unfortunate escapade, and I hope the colonel doesn't undertake to hurt my chances. He's an irrational firebrand when he takes a dislike to anybody, and Mrs. Harrington ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman

... of honour that had improvised itself from the masses. And very necessary was this. For no sooner had the Chamber assembled than the house was assailed by the gendarmerie of M. de Lesdiguieres, dispatched in haste to arrest the firebrand who was inciting the people of Rennes to sedition. The force consisted of fifty men. Five hundred would have been too few. The mob broke their carbines, broke some of their heads, and would indeed have torn ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... the throne of Sweden in 1611 of Gustavus Adolphus, grandson of Gustavus Vasa, that country gained its ablest king, and the most famous with the exception of the firebrand of war, Charles XII., of later date. For courage, judgment, administrative ability, generous devotion to the good of his country, and military genius this great monarch was unequalled in his time and won a renown which has placed his name ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris

... fever and died. The savage mind knows nothing of pneumonia or delirium tremens. It knows nothing of what we call natural death. To the savage all death means murder, for like other men he judges of the unknown by the known. In the Indian's experience normal death was by tomahawk or firebrand; abnormal death (such as we call natural) must come either from poison or from witchcraft. So when the honest chronicler Hubbard tells us that Philip suspected the Plymouth people of poisoning his brother, we can easily believe him. It was long, however, before he was ready to taste the ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske

... platform. If he had observed her, it might have seemed to him that she hoped to find the fierce expiation she sought for in exposure to the thousands she had disappointed and deceived, in offering herself to be trampled to death and torn to pieces. She might have suggested to him some feminine firebrand of Paris revolutions, erect on a barricade, or even the sacrificial figure of Hypatia, whirled through the furious mob of Alexandria. She was arrested an instant by the arrival of Mrs. Burrage and her son, ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James

... justice,—and you do not know, nor care to know, so much as what the Bible word 'justice means.' Do but learn so much of God's truth as that comes to; know what He means when He tells you to be just: and teach your sons, that their bravery is but a fool's boast, and their deeds but a firebrand's tossing, unless they are indeed Just men, and Perfect in the Fear of God;—and you will soon have no more war, unless it be indeed such as is willed by Him, of whom, though Prince of Peace, it is also written, 'In Righteousness He doth judge, and ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... If a firebrand had fallen into a barrel of gunpowder, it could not have caused a greater explosion in the hall than that cry; for after a short pause, in which every one stood silent as if thunderstruck, there arose from all the nobles, young and old, the terrible war-cry—"Jodute! Jodute! [Footnote: The learned ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold

... the weapon back into his blouse. He was beginning to like this little firebrand. In truth, Grim had rather fairly described him as a gamecock. His stature, the bristly red hair that flamed above a freckled face, the lightest of blue eyes that snapped with excitement, the peculiar ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner

... could not drag his eyes from the horrible features of their enemy, about which the dog was sniffing in a puzzled way. But at last he turned to where Tregelly was waving the great firebrand, which shed a bright ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn

... firebrand; it must be kept out of the schools; it must be kept out of politics. All the churches unite in saying that orthodox religion is not for every day use. The Catholics object to any Protestant religion being taught to children. Protestants object ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... bitten off at the knee-joint. This was the more extraordinary, as another man was at the same time asleep under the blanket with the unfortunate victim; this courageous fellow snatched a heavy firebrand from the pile, and beat the lion on the head in the endeavour to save his friend. Instead of relinquishing its prey, the lion dragged the man only a short distance, and commenced its meal so immediately that the cracking of bones could ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... is a man of sense; he will laugh at the joke to-morrow, and accept his defeat gracefully. What a firebrand your cousin is! Did you notice his eyes flash? I thought he meant to make mincemeat of me! It is a pity you are always against him; he will take ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens

... agitation of this subject, or any other, by any constitutional provisions? No! Look at the details of your scheme. You propose through the Constitution to require payment for fugitive slaves: to make the North pay for them. You are thus throwing a lighted firebrand not only into Congress, but into every State Legislature, into every county, city, and ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... a firebrand. This business at Malloring's—what's it going to lead to, Tod? We must look out, old man. Couldn't you send Derek and Sheila ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Tim would be all right in a day or so. If this firebrand scout convinced himself that he had been tricked, and ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger

... Estenega and told him of what I had seen. In the first place I had to tell some one, and in the second I thought to end his infatuation and avert further trouble. "You firebrand!" I exclaimed, in conclusion. "You see the mischief you have worked! You will go, now, thank ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... fight was hot on both sides. The savages tried to board Hubbel's boat, but the fire was too hot for this. Hubbel received two severe wounds, and had the lock of his gun shot off by an Indian; still he fought, touching off his broken gun from time to time with a firebrand. The Indians found the struggle too hard, and were glad to paddle off. Presently they returned, and attacked the other boat; this they seized almost without an effort, killed the captain and a boy, and took all the women as prisoners to their own boats. Now ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip

... Ferrand, "History of the Dismemberment of Poland," vol. i., p. 84.] "Such rich tribute may well give her strength to attempt any thing; but every thaler which your majesty pays into her treasury is a firebrand which will one day consume all Europe. If indeed, as you say, Russia is strong and formidable, it is for your majesty to hold her in check; if she is exhausted, her alliance is not worth having." [Footnote: Kaunitz's own words. Ferrand, vol. ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... me how my aunt, a decent, law-abiding woman—a sick woman at that—took a firebrand like Deolda into her home, all I would be able to answer is: If you had seen her stand there, as I did, on the porch that morning, you wouldn't ask the question. The doorbell rang and my aunt opened it, I tagging behind. There was a girl there who looked as though she were ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... of the Countrey are reported to be so cold, that the very ice or water which distilleth out of the moist wood which they lay upon the fire is presently congealed and frozen: the diuersitie growing suddenly to be so great, that in one and the selfe same firebrand, a man shall see both fire and ice. When the winter doth once begin there it doth still more and more increase by a perpetuitie of cold: neither doth that colde slake, vntill the force of the Sunne beames doth dissolue the cold, and make glad the earth, returning to it againe. Our mariners which ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt

... inky flood—a veritable river of death—rolling close beneath us, but quite invisible most of the time; and the night itself a profound mystery, through which we burned an endless tunnel—like a firebrand hurled into space. ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard

... rather, on ears that had determined not to hear. From London and Paris came proposals for conference, for arbitration, with welcome for any suggestion from the other side which might lead to a peaceful solution of the disputed demands, already recognised by Europe as a firebrand wantonly flung into the midst of dangerous and inflammable material. Over that burning firebrand, preventing and warding off all the eager hands that were stretched to put it out, stood the figure of the nation at whose bidding it had ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson

... report of the volleys of musketry from the Royal Scots, the hissing of the hand grenades flung bursting into the jungles of the laurel. Instead, all the clifty defiles of the ranges were filled with the roar of flames and the crackling of burning timbers as town after town was given to the firebrand, and the homeless, helpless Cherokees frantically fleeing to the densest coverts of the wilderness,—that powerful truculent tribe!—sought for shelter like those "feeble folk the conies" in the hollows ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock

... out of nowhere," Capper went on. "She never tried to account for him. He was her husband's son. She made him hers. But he's been a tiger's cub all his life, a hurricane, a firebrand. He and Bertie are usually at daggers drawn and Lucas spends his time keeping the peace; which is about as wearing an occupation for a sick man as I can imagine. I want to put a stop to it, Lady Carfax. I speak as one family friend to another. Lucas seems to ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell

... consist of large logs and but little brushwood, keep all you can spare of the latter to make a blaze, when you get up to catch and pack the cattle in the dark and early morning. As you travel on, if it be bitter cold, carry a firebrand in your hand, near your mouth, as a respirator—it is very comforting; then, when the fire of it burns dull, thrust the brand for a few moments in any tuft of dry grass you may happen to pass by, which will blaze up and give a new life ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... dared even throw a firebrand into the darkness. For if he did he was jeered to death by the others, who cried "Fool, anti-social knave, why would you disturb us with bogeys? There is no darkness. We move and live and have our being within the light, and unto us is given ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... the substitution seems to make. And on the other hand, when some of the Suffragettes say in their pamphlets and speeches, "Woman, leaping to life at the trumpet call of Ibsen and Shaw, drops her tawdry luxuries and demands to grasp the sceptre of empire and the firebrand of speculative thought"—in order to understand such a sentence I say it over again in the amended form: "Mrs. Buttons, leaping to life at the trumpet call of Ibsen and Shaw, drops her tawdry luxuries and demands to grasp the sceptre of empire and the firebrand ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton

... to blush for. With inferior capacity, he is only considered by Talleyrand as an inferior intriguer, employed in a country ruled by an inferior policy, neither feared nor esteemed by our Government. His secretary, Desaugiers the elder, is our real and confidential firebrand in the North, commissioned to keep burning those materials of combustion which Grouvelle and others of our incendiaries have lighted and illuminated in Holstein, Denmark, Sweden, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... and shoots had dislodged shingles, the stoutly-nailed walls stood firm. No firebrand had been set to the sawn-up wood, and after some work with an axe to wrench away the boards that had been nailed over window-shutter and door, there was the old place fairly intact, with the utensils just as they had ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn

... Liberal schoolmaster had been actively at work within the last few years, and any attempt to re-enact that glaring iniquity would, to say the least, be attended with serious risk to the actors. The most feasible method of disposing of the noisy little firebrand presented itself in the shape of successive indictments for libel, to which his aggressive and unguarded mode of writing would be certain to expose him. It is of course impossible to obtain direct evidence of an express conspiracy ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... it again when we play to-night, Darnley," answered Mr. Riddle, crossly. "And as for the seat in the coach, you are welcome to it. That firebrand of a lad ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... institutions; and, though material power never can be superseded, it is subordinate to the influence of mind. Barbarians can provide themselves with swift and hardy horses, can sweep over a country, rush on with a shout, use the steel and firebrand, and frighten and overwhelm the weak or cowardly; but in the wars of civilized countries, even the implements of carnage are scientifically constructed, and are calculated to lessen or supersede it; and a campaign ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... now free to shoot, and hurling the firebrand at the wildcat, he caught up his rifle and blazed away in short order. The wildcat had turned to retreat, but the guide was too quick for it, and down went the beast with a shot through its head. It gave a shudder or two, and then stretched ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield

... sounded. Each had its trained pet animals, and the soldiers exhausted their skill and patience in teaching these varied tricks. One regiment had a pair of bull-terrier dogs that played a game which never failed to amuse. At a signal one of the dogs would seize a firebrand by the unburnt end and start off on a run through the camp; the other would follow at speed, trying to trip up the first, to collar him or push him over, and so force him to drop the brand. The second ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... for a while, and glowed so deeply within it, that the silvery orb thereabout seemed burning with gold. Other lights, with a song of rapture, then descended like a crown of lilies, on the top, of the letter; and then, from the body of it, rose thousands of sparks, as from a shaken firebrand, and, gradually expanding into the form of an eagle, the lights which had descended like lilies distributed themselves over the whole bird, encrusting it with rubies ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... clothier, but his ambition led him into the Church, as being at that time the fairest field for the display of talent; and he rose from one station to another till he reached the high post of Bishop of Alexandria. The fickle, irritable Alexandrians needed no such firebrand to light up the flames of discontent. George took no pains to conceal the fact that he held his bishopric by the favour of the emperor and the power of the army against the wishes of his flock. To support ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... darts the winged lightning,— Walks upon the foaming wave,— Send forth arrows of conviction Here,—exert his power to save: Burst the bars of Satan's prison: Snatch the firebrand from the flame, Fill the doubting with assurance: Teach the dumb to ...
— Favourite Welsh Hymns - Translated into English • Joseph Morris

... introduced, and defended by the very men who were regarded as pillars of the Lutheran Church, it was evident from the outset that this document must of necessity precipitate most serious internal troubles. From the moment the Wittenbergers cast the Interim as a firebrand into the Church, a domestic warfare was unavoidable,—if indeed any true disciples of Luther still remained in the Church of which he, and not Melanchthon, was the founder. While the Augsburg Interim resulted in an external theological warfare of the Lutherans against ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... being now one of the King's Serjeants, and rode in the cavalcade with Maynard, to whom people wish the same fortune. There was also this night in King-street, [a woman] had her eye put out by a boy's flinging a firebrand into the coach. Now, after all this, I can say that, besides the pleasure of the sight of these glorious things, I may now shut my eyes against any other objects, nor for the future trouble myself to see things of state and show, as being sure never to see the like ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... prepared," said Hilyard; "when the bombard explodes, the match has become useless; when the flame smites the welkin, the firebrand ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... mandarine vessels standing for the bay. On nearing us, they formed a line, and stood close in; each vessel as she discharged her guns tacked to join the rear and reload. They kept up a constant fire for about two hours, when one of their largest vessels was blown up by a firebrand thrown from a Ladrone junk; after which they kept at a more respectful distance, but continued firing without intermission 'till the 21st at ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various

... open ground. Here a new scene met my gaze: a strange-looking man was running across the platform, with a huge firebrand,—the bole of a burning pine-tree,—which he waved in the air. He was chasing one of the hears, that, growling with rage and pain, was making every effort to reach the cliffs. Two others were already half-way up, and evidently clambering with great difficulty, ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... which Mr. Clifford's eloquence and convincing arguments had lighted in my breast. Another reason for my refusing to make one of the Wimbledon parties was, the probability that I should there meet with Sir Francis Burdett, whom I was induced to look upon almost as a political madman, a dangerous firebrand in the hands of Mr. Tooke, who appeared to me to be nothing less than a designing incendiary. Mr. Clifford took some pains to persuade me out of my ridiculous notions; yet, in the account which he gave me of Mr. Tooke's character, he in ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... both heaven and earth shook. Then he looked into the west "airt," and he thought he saw thereabouts a ring of fiery hue, and within the ring a man on a grey horse. He passed quickly by him, and rode hard. He had a flaming firebrand in his hand, and he rode so close to him that he could see him plainly. He was as black as pitch, and he sung this ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders

... his horse had vanished, and John Louder, seizing a firebrand, searched the ground for the print of a cloven foot. He found it and, snatching up his rifle, ran home as rapidly as he could. It was late that night when he reached his house and, rapping on the ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick

... leave Mr. Bruce. He signed a declaration of belief in James's narrative; public apologies in the pulpit he would not make. He was banished to Inverness, and was often annoyed and 'put at,' James reckoning him a firebrand. ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang

... seems to be now, I warrant you—I have taken care he shall meet with a d——d cold reception there; he will have to make his appearance before Lord Frostyface, Lord Scarecrow, Lord Sneerwell, Lord Firebrand, Lord Mawmouth, Lord Waggonjaws, Lord Gripe, Lord Brass, Lord Surly and Lord Tribulation, as hard-fac'd fellows as himself; and the beauty of it is, not one of them loves him a whit more than ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock

... butter their bodies anointed; I never saw devils so well appointed. The master-devil sat in his jacket, And all the souls were playing at racket. None other rackets they had in hand, Save every soul a good firebrand, Wherewith they played so prettily That Lucifer laughed merrily, And all the residue of the fiends Did laugh thereat full ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... And I, among the first, and the most heartily, do wish you a warlike answer from that firebrand of a Napoleon. But tell me, why do you come to ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... new Lloyd George who stepped from unofficial to official stewardship of England: a Lloyd George with the firebrand out of his being, purged of bitter revolt, chastened and mellowed by the years of war ordeal. Out of contact with mighty sacrifice has come a kinship with the spirit. He is to-day like a man transformed. "England ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson

... walked over; with a burning brand in hand, to look at the cat's fastenings. The lion jumped at him. Jim poked the firebrand into the animal's face, which sent the cat back the full length of his tether. After examining the fastenings carefully, Nance pronounced them so secure that the beast ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin

... an exquisite stroke of irony, Grenelli. I am connoisseur enough to admire really good technique wherever I find it. The nations assemble for a council of peace, and an invisible hand hurls a firebrand into the very centre of the august circle! Puff! The resolutions, with their well-rounded periods, go up into smoke and the tramp of armed men is heard throughout the world. Excellent! ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen

... defect of the eye of the perceiving person, and to the mysterious influence of merit and demerit, the light and the earth are not apprehended, while the water is apprehended.—In the case again of the firebrand swung round rapidly, its appearance as a fiery wheel explains itself through the circumstance that moving very rapidly it is in conjunction with all points of the circle described without our being able ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... Guardian of her Son Clotharius, and kept Possession of it for 13 Years; in the first Place she poyson'd her Son's Uncle Childebert, together with his Wife; afterwards she stirred up the Hunns against his Sons, and raised a Civil War in the Republick. And lastly, She was the Firebrand of all those Commotions which wasted and burnt all Francogallia, during many Years, as Aimoinus tells us, [lib. 3. cap. 36. & lib. ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman

... stringent laws to a long night of mental darkness. It was a crime to teach a black man how to read even the Bible, the sacred repository of the laws that must light the pathway of man from death unto life eternal. For to teach a slave was to make a firebrand—to arouse that love of freedom which stops at nothing short of absolute freedom. It is not, therefore, surprising that every southern state should have passed the most odious inhibitary laws, with severe fines and penalties for their infraction, upon ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... running against me next term for governor; he's a firebrand; wants niggers to vote and all that—pardon me a moment, there's a darky I know—" and he hurried to the black bishop, who had just descended from the "Jim-Crow" car, and clasped his hand cordially. They talked ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... John P. Hale threw a firebrand resolution into the Senate, calling for additional laws to compel this city to prevent riots. This also gave rise to ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton

... you will forgive me for saying that it is from Catholics that we have to fear the most. I do not mean by that that Mr. Jermyn is not excellent and sincere; for I know nothing of him except what you have told me yourself. But zeal without discretion is a very firebrand; and prudence without zeal may become something very like cowardice; and either of these two things may injure the Catholic cause irreparably in the days that are coming. St. Peter's was the one, and Judas', I take it, was the other; ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... what it is, you know, Mordan: you're a regular firebrand, you know; by Jove, you are; an out-and-out Socialistic Radical: that's what you are. By gad, sir, I don't mince my words. I consider that—er—opinions like yours are a danger to the country; I do, indeed; a danger to ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... extinguishing the fire pretty quickly, what our chances of life were worth, and I think the bravest drew his breath heavily at the thought of our danger. Fortunately, they succeeded in extinguishing the firebrand before any mischief was done; but I do not think the crew of the "Medora" slept very comfortably that night. It was said that the Russians had employed an incendiary; but it would have been strange if in that densely crowded ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole

... father was hanged, for murder I have heard, and his mother has married another man, and abandoned the child. A woman here took charge of him, but treated him most cruelly. Once she became angry with him, took a firebrand, and beat him until half his body was burned; another time she bound him, and then slashed him with a knife across the back, and might have injured him still more if a man had not come by and rescued him. The magistrates then gave him to other people, but they did not take care of him, ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries

... as the light, while they answered the shouts by a curious hooting; from which reason, and from their blindness, the men called them sea-owls. After this, the boats were frequently sent over, and by simply waving, a firebrand, sea-fowls invariably collected round them, so that they in a short time could kill as many with their sticks as would fill ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston

... acquaintance, especially those with rising young families. The doctor and she thought a good deal of this catch they were making in the person of Ernest Le Breton. Poor souls, they little knew what sort of social qualities they were letting themselves in for. A firebrand or a bombshell would really have been a less remarkable guest to drop down straight into the prim and proper orthodox society ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... we in our judgments that we as often as not seize the firebrand by the burning end; that is, we condemn ourselves while in the very act of rebuking others. The reproach of the Gospel, Physician, heal thyself,[1] we may take to ourselves. So also that other, Why seest thou the mote that is in thy brother's ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus

... I've merely had to defend my rights. Will you assure this young firebrand that my misdemeanours didn't force you to leave me. That there were misdemeanours I don't deny; and of course you are too good for the likes of me; but your coming away wasn't my fault, was it.—That's what I've said.—And that saints forgive sinners, sometimes.—That's ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... at each performance of "Ha-Ha Hortense!" half-a-dozen seats were kept from sale and occupied by six of the worst-looking vagabonds that could be hired from the streets, further touched up by the Triangle make-up man. At the moment in the show where Firebrand, the Pirate Chief, pointed at his black flag and said, "I am a Yale graduate—note my Skull and Bones!"—at this very moment the six vagabonds were instructed to rise conspicuously and leave the theatre with looks of deep melancholy and an injured dignity. It was claimed though ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... mocked Olympian thunder. Torch in hand, Drawn by four steeds, through Elis' streets he came, A conqueror, borne in triumph through the land. And, waving high the firebrand, dared to claim The God's own homage and a godlike name. Blind fool and vain! to think with brazen clash And hollow tramp of horn-hoofed steeds, to frame The dread Storm's counterfeit, the thunder's crash, The matchless bolts ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... happy family": A priest went one day to the house of one of his followers, and amongst other things he said, "Tell me now, which of your four children is the best-behaved?" The father replied, "Look, sir, at that boy who has climbed to the top of that thatched building, and is waving aloft a firebrand. Among them all, he is the divinely excellent one." Whereupon the priest placed his finger on his nose, drew a deep, deep sigh, and said, "Is it indeed so? What, then, must the other ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston

... more amusing than Ralph or Miss Reid, but more like flesh and blood, and more alive now than they. Is not Amelia preparing her husband's little supper? Is not Miss Snapp chastely preventing the crime of Mr. Firebrand? Is not Parson Adams in the midst of his family, and Mr. Wild taking his last bowl of punch with the Newgate Ordinary? Is not every one of them a real substantial HAVE-been personage now—more real than Reid or Ralph? ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... He seized a great firebrand and charged at them, beating right and left, and they backed away in front of him, protesting from under forearms raised to protect their faces. He refused to hear a word from them, and drove, them ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... Paix" and one of his police would come in and say, "A young officer is at the 'Godbert,' sir. He's had too much to drink, and is behaving very badly." Maude would curse loudly at his dinner being spoilt, but would always leave at once, and would calm down whatever young firebrand it was, find out where he had to go, and have him seen off by lorry or train to his destination. All this meant much more trouble for Maude than to have him arrested, and much less trouble for the culprit; but he always put them on their honour never to do it again; and many are the letters I have ...
— An Onlooker in France 1917-1919 • William Orpen

... a fence rail from the tender, placed it in the furnace, until one end was blazing, and then contrived to hand it to the leader from the rear of the tender. Andrews seized it, and applied the firebrand to several places in the car. But it was no easy task to make a conflagration; it seemed as if ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins

... to judge, truthful testimony. Whenever the veracity of a witness is doubted he may be obliged to take a kind of oath which consists in the burning of beeswax. A little beeswax is melted by holding a firebrand over it. While this is being done, the person whose veracity it is desired to test, utters a wish that in case of falsehood his body may be melted like the wax. In the case of suspects, ordeals are employed. They ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... Turnus first a firebrand flings; It strikes the sides, takes hold, and clings; The freshening breezes spread the blaze, And soon on plank and beam it preys. The inmates flutter in dismay And vainly wish to fly; There as they huddle ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke

... was no mistaking the significance of those words and that look; and his wrath redoubled. Anger in him, when once roused, was terrible; he had small need of words to vent it. His eye withered, his gesture appalled. Conscious but of one burning firebrand in brain and heart—of a sense that youth, joy, and hope were for ever gone, that the world could never be the same again—Arabella left the house, her character lost, her talents useless, her very means of existence stopped. Who henceforth would take her to ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... against divisions in the Republican ranks generally, and particularly for the contest of 1860. The point of danger is the temptation in different localities to 'platform' for something which will be popular just there, but which, nevertheless, will be a firebrand elsewhere, and especially in a national convention. As instances, the movement against foreigners in Massachusetts; in New Hampshire, to make obedience to the fugitive-slave law punishable as a crime; ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay



Words linked to "Firebrand" :   bad hat, mischief-maker, firewood, ringleader, troubler, trouble maker, troublemaker



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