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Torch   /tɔrtʃ/   Listen
Torch

noun
1.
A light usually carried in the hand; consists of some flammable substance.
2.
Tall-stalked very woolly mullein with densely packed yellow flowers; ancient Greeks and Romans dipped the stalks in tallow for funeral torches.  Synonyms: Aaron's rod, common mullein, flannel mullein, great mullein, Verbascum thapsus, woolly mullein.
3.
A small portable battery-powered electric lamp.  Synonym: flashlight.
4.
A burner that mixes air and gas to produce a very hot flame.  Synonyms: blowlamp, blowtorch.



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"Torch" Quotes from Famous Books



... wheels must strike the houses on each side, cracking his whip and jingling the bells of the harness. Under black archways sat groups of peasants, their swart visages lit up from below by the glow of a brazier, while a flaring torch stuck through a ring overhead threw fierce lights and shadows across the scene. Sharp cries and shouts like maledictions rose as we passed, and as we turned into the little square on which the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various

... wholly impossible for any man to comprehend the Light which shone upon human darkness nearly two thousand years ago without bringing the documents of the Church to the light which is shining across the world at this present hour from the torch of science. ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie

... light is not daylight, I know it I: It is some Meteor that the Sun exhales, To be to thee this night a Torch-bearer, And light thee on thy way to Mantua. Therefore stay yet, thou need'st not be gone, Rom. Let me be tane, let me be put to death, I am content, so thou wilt haue it so. Ile say yon gray is not the ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... investigate the supernatural would be expected to take precautions that no tricks were likely to be played upon him. It would be suspicious if I didn't make a little noise. Now we will settle ourselves. I shall lie on the bed. You move a chair under that glass and sit there. I have an electric torch with me. Don't fall asleep ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner

... negatives at night. A small lantern with a very feeble light, made still more feeble by interposing red paper, suffices for my own purpose; but the too attentive chowkee-dar, observing that my room is in darkness, and fancying that my light has gone out accidentally, comes flaring in with a torch, threatening ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... the last transformation of the material, visible man called James Otis, the courageous herald who ran swinging a torch in the early dawn ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath

... are not even of the second or third rank. Yet they speak to him; they seem written to him—are more to him, in a way, than Shakspere and Milton and all the public library of the world. In the line of light bringers who pass from hand to hand the torch of intelligential fire, there are men of most unequal stature, and a giant may stoop to take the precious flambeau from a dwarf. That Scott should have admired Monk Lewis, and Coleridge reverenced Bowles, only proves that Lewis and Bowles had something to give which Scott and Coleridge ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... it is customary to find a few well made mats of pandanus or buri palm leaf. These are spread on the floor when the owners wish to retire and for the rest of the time are rolled up and laid along the walls. Carved forked sticks which serve as torch-holders stand in various parts of the room, while somewhere near the stove is a miscellany of wooden meat blocks, bamboo fans and fly swatters, gourds filled with millet, salt, or mashed peppers, ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole

... army demoralized by the inefficiency of his predecessor and expect him to fight battles and gain victories. And yet General Hunter did this and to the satisfaction of the country. Had he been less active with the torch, his reward in history would ...
— Siege of Washington, D.C. • F. Colburn Adams

... not great among his kindred, and had it not been that one or two influential chiefs sided with him, his own efforts to relight the still smoking torch of ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne

... trampling of our Horses as we rushed by the Barn. He flew to the Door with a burning Torch in his hand, ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... of the torches to Brother Billy Fleming, a "holiness man." Suddenly he leaped into the air, shouting and brandishing his blaze in every direction. The paroxysm of joy was short, however, and when quiet was restored, in the deeper darkness—for Brother Fleming's torch had gone out—a tall man arose from near the middle of the congregation. He had a bushy brown beard, a little apostrophe nose, childish china-blue eyes, and a thin high voice which gave the impression upon hearing it that he was at the very moment trying hard to squeeze ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris

... sighed her sharp sigh; and Mr. Wortley, shifting his position behind the Italian Ambassador's wife, thought that Brangaena was a trifle hoarse; and suspended in the gallery many feet above their heads, Edward Whittaker surreptitiously held a torch to his miniature score; and ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... work unfinished," he exclaimed. "Come, Archie, you and I and Tim Nolan will soon do the job;" and, springing on shore with a torch which he had just lighted, followed by Archie and Tim, each with a musket as well as a torch, he made his way towards the storehouse. As the party ran on they caught sight of several people in the distance, and Archie thought he saw some ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston

... all governments ... Villa tracked, hunted down like a wild beast ... Villa the reincarnation of the old legend; Villa as Providence, the bandit, that passes through the world armed with the blazing torch of an ideal: to rob the rich and give to the poor. It was the poor who built up and imposed a legend about him which Time itself was to increase and embellish as a shining example ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela

... the thunderous roar of a bomb which clearly had landed close by (it got a railway shed and a freight car on the tracks behind me). The terrific noise and the shock to our building, which rattled as if it were coming down, considerably accelerated my movements. I snapped on the electric torch which always lay, together with my cap and slippers, beside the bed, slipped a skirt over my nightdress and my great-coat atop, and got into the cap and slippers in record time. But by the time I had ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various

... no answer. He took a small instrument from his bag, took a torch from one of the soldiers, and went to one side. After a while there was a low hissing, and the torch ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... the author's principles were strenuously disputed; but he was admitted to have made many discoveries in literary history, and to have introduced an entirely new method of criticism. Perhaps it would be more correct to say, that he had carried the torch of an enlightened judgment into a period which the brilliancy of succeeding ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... From cottage-door to palace-porch— Love enters free as spicy winds, With purple wings and lighted torch, With tripping feet and silvery tongue, And bow ...
— Poems • George P. Morris

... the big consolidation, and, lighting my torch, looked over the boiler-head at the Kid. He was lying on a board on the seat, with his overcoat for a covering and ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady

... our heads, for it was evident that nothing was to be made of Peterkin in the water. But we could not rest satisfied till we had seen more of this cave; so, after further consultation, Jack and I determined to try if we could take down a torch with us, and set fire to it in the cavern. This we found to be an undertaking of no small difficulty, but we accomplished it at last by the following means: First, we made a torch of a very inflammable nature out of the ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne

... to shine in such a sphere, For who could of a candle tell To light a hero into hell; 280 And, lest the sun should partial rise To dazzle one or t'other's eyes, Or one or t'other's brains to scorch, Might not Dame Luna hold a torch? These points with dignity discuss'd, And gravely fix'd,—a task which must Require no little time and pains, To make our hearts friends with our brains,— The man of war would next engage The kind assistance of the sage, 290 Some previous method ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... black stalactites hang from the spacious vault, and the sides are covered with glazed stripes, a thick covering of ice, clear as crystal, coating the floor. One spot in particular is mentioned by a traveller, when seen by torch-light, as surpassing anything that can be described. The roof and sides of the cave were decorated with the most superb icicles, crystallized in every possible form, many of which rivalled in delicacy the clearest froth or foam, while from the ...
— Harper's Young People, June 15, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... at Apaiang had been as follows:- It chanced we were benighted at the house of Captain Tierney. My wife and I lodged with a Chinaman some half a mile away; and thither Captain Reid and a native boy escorted us by torch-light. On the way the torch went out, and we took shelter in a small and lonely Christian chapel to rekindle it. Stuck in the rafters of the chapel was a branch of knotted palm. 'What is that?' I asked. ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... away in the retreat, his wrists tightly bound with cords. The Indians rejoiced over the capture of their great enemy, and he was doomed to the torture. In the deep forest he was stripped naked, bound to a sapling, wood was piled high around him, the death-songs of the savages were chanted, and the torch was applied. Just then a heavy shower of rain almost extinguished the flames. They were again bursting forth with fiercer intensity, when a French officer, informed of what was going on, darted through the crowd of yelling savages, ...
— The Military Journals of Two Private Soldiers, 1758-1775 - With Numerous Illustrative Notes • Abraham Tomlinson

... fast, the cafes and casinos within the porticoes, which surround three of its sides, being already thronged with company. While all beneath the arches was gay and brilliant with the flare of torch and lamp, the noble range of edifices called the Procuratories, the massive pile of the Ducal Palace, the most ancient Christian church, the granite columns of the piazzetta, the triumphal masts of the great square, and the giddy tower of the campanile, were slumbering in the more ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... torch of remembrance kindled in the night of ignorance, these living eternally in the presence of the mystery! They pine upon shores, looking over the unbridgeable abyss, yearning their souls towards ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham

... upon luncheon under the shade of a welcome mimosa upon which I had already hung my water-skin to cool. We cut sonne long thin strips of flesh from the giraffe, and lighted a fire of dry babanoose wood expressly for cooking. This species of wood is exceedingly inflammable, and burns like a torch; it is intensely hard, and in colour and grain it is similar to lignum vitae. The festoons of giraffe flesh were hung upon forked sticks, driven into the ground to leeward of the fire, while others were simply thrown upon the embers by my men, who, while the food was roasting, employed themselves ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... there were no candles there, and the hearth-fire was but smouldering. Wild-wearer sat silent and musing now, and Face-of-god spake not, for he was deep in wild and happy dreams. At last the lower door opened and the fair woman came into the hall with a torch in either hand, after whom came the huntress, now clad in a dark blue kirtle, and an old woman yet straight and hale; and these twain bore in the victuals and the table-gear. Then the three fell to dighting the board, and when it was all ready, and Gold-mane ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris

... Councillor reached these words, then, as by one impulse, they rose and burst into a grand doxology. Then a company of torch-bearers entered. Then, the children took up their place at the head of the coffin and began again to sing. The bearers lifted the coffin. The King and Faith and the two Princes followed; after them the peasants ...
— The Children's Portion • Various

... and at a great distance, he saw a flickering, waving light, and he went towards this through drifts of heather, and over piled rocks and sodden bogland. When he came to the light he saw it was a torch of thick branches, the flame whereof blew hither and thither on the wind. The torch was fastened against a great cliff of granite by an iron band. At one side there was a dark opening in the rock, so he said: ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens

... by forms of earthly semblance led, They found the crowded inn, the oxen's shed. No pomp was there, no glory shone around On the coarse straw that strewed the reeking ground; One dim retreat a flickering torch betrayed, In that poor cell the Lord of Life ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... the republic, but they were moderate, and entirely opposed to those brutal men who were in favor of filling Paris and France with blood. Madame Roland writes, later: "Danton leads all; Robespierre is his puppet; Marat holds his torch and dagger: this ferocious tribune reigns, and we are his slaves until the moment when we shall become his victims. You are aware of my enthusiasm for the revolution: well, I am ashamed of it; it is deformed by monsters and become hideous." Madame Roland now struggled to overthrow the ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett

... waltz plume hurt pluck song swan glue curl drunk strong wasp droop deck chill for sheath gloom neck drill corn shell loop next quill fork shorn hoof text skill form shout roof desk spill sort shrub proof nest frill torch shrug ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey

... over rocks of ignorance, though we encounter clouds of doubt that veil the glorious peak from our longing view for a time, though we meet wild beasts, (untamed human nature), though we cross shadowy valleys and dark ravines, lighted only by the torch of faith, we shall have transcendant glimpses of the fair Beyond, shall breathe the perfumed air of Zion's Hills, and be transported with delight at the never ceasing revelations made to the true seeker after ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson

... war; the one, it is to be supposed, presaging what would ensue, by the intervention of his attendant Genius; and the other, either upon rational consideration of the project, or by use of the art of divination, conceived fears for its issue, and, feigning madness, caught up a burning torch, and seemed as if he would have set his own house on fire. Others report, that he did not take upon him to act the madman, but secretly in the night set his house on fire, and the next morning besought the people, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... the castle bell to toll. He then led De Lacy to the window; on which, for it was now dark, a strong ruddy light began to gleam from without. A body of men-at-arms, each holding in his hand a blazing torch, were returning along the terrace from the execution of the wild but high-soul'd Briton, with cries of "Long live King Henry! and so perish all enemies of the gentle ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... fright. The little girl, Almira, who could not run so fast, lost her footing and fell helpless on the ground as the lion was approaching her. Antonio quickly seized a glowing fire-brand, swung it in circles and thus renewed the flames. With this fiery torch whirling before him, he walked boldly in the direction of ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne

... in Epirus, that puts out any lighted Torch, and kindles any Torch that was not lighted. Of the River Selarus, that in a few hours turns a rod or a wand into stone (and our Camden mentions the like wonder in England:) that there is a River in Arabia, of which all the Sheep that drink thereof have ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton

... others, "it is not our nobility that we regret; but how is the persecution to which we are abandoned to be supported? There is no safety for us, for our property, or for our families. Wretches who are our debtors, the small farmers who rob us of our incomes, daily threaten us with the torch and the lamp post. We do not enjoy one hour of repose; not a night that we are certain to pass through without trouble. Our persons are given up to the vilest outrages, our dwellings to an inquisition of armed ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... then hotter, and the picturesque flower sellers on the eleven white steps outside put their white torch cheroots into their mouths—you could see neither red ash nor smoke in such light—folded their parasols and took their roses and baskets and went up the steps and sat themselves down in the porch in the shade and were as pretty ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... of fury in war among the Romans, related by the poets to Mars as sister, wife, or daughter; inspirer of the war-spirit, and represented as armed with a bloody scourge in one hand and a torch in ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... the church as of the monument. That kneeling figure of Clement XIII., kneeling upon its exalted tomb—I shall see it whenever I think of St. Peter's. It is here, and not in the Vatican, that Canova triumphs. That genius of Death, reclining underneath the pontiff, with his torch reversed—what could be more expressive, more tender, more melancholy! And Faith, or Religion, whichever she may be, standing upright on the opposite side, and leaning her outstretched hand with force upon the marble—is a noble figure too. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various

... of the besiegers were directed against the gates, which they endeavored to break open with axes, or to set on fire by an application of the torch. From this latter circumstance we may gather that the gates were ordinarily of wood, not, like those of Babylon and Veii, of brass. In the hot climate of Southern Asia wood becomes so dry by exposure to the sun that the most solid doors may readily ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... whether it might not be some delusion of the fancy, Columbus called Rodrigo Sanchez of Segovia, and made the same inquiry. By the time the latter had ascended the round-house, the light had disappeared. They saw it once or twice afterwards in sudden and passing gleams, as if it were a torch in the bark of a fisherman, rising and sinking with the waves, or in the hand of some person on shore, borne up and down as he walked from house to house. So transient and uncertain were these gleams, that few attached any importance to them; Columbus, however, considered them as certain ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous

... darkness ever more loudly, till presently a single torch was lit at the end of the chamber, then another and another, though I could not see who lit them, and the room was a flare of light. Now the altar, the victim, and the priests were all gone, there was no ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... hour later they were pouring forth toward the horse tents, while the engineers were making their way along the torch-lit path to the ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd

... among them the mothers of the babies who received them from the men in yellow copes at the end of the ceremony. One of these young men was very handsome, and as he stood looking down and smiling on the baby he held, with the light of the torch sharpening the lines of his features, would have made a lovely picture. The expression was sweeter than St. Vincent de Paul, because his smile told that he could have played with the baby as well as have prayed for it. In this country one gets to see ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... crowned king in his room, and by his name. He, with the powerful aid of the Queen Dowager Kaahumanu, abolished tabu, and his subjects cast away their idols, and fell into indifferent scepticism, the high priest Hewahewa being the first to light the iconoclastic torch, having previously given his opinion that there was only one great akua or spirit in lani, the heavens. This Kamehameha II. was the king who with his queen, died of measles in London in 1824, after which the Blonde ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... Stock Exchange, the great altar of Plutus, whereon millions of human beings had been sacrificed to him, and there to make a bonfire of them. A great pillar stands on the spot to-day, and from its summit a mighty torch of electric flame is always streaming, in commemoration of that event and as a testimony forever to the ending of the parchment bondage that was heavier than the scepters of kings. It is estimated that certificates of ownership in human beings, or, as you called them, titles to property, to the ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... their song, like the surge of the seas, With the "Star-Spangled Banner" swelled over the leas; And the sword of DURYEA, like a torch, led the way, Bearing down on the batteries of Bethel, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... of Clytius in the chest with a spear as he was bringing fire towards the ship. He fell heavily to the ground and the torch dropped from his hand. When Hector saw his cousin fallen in front of the ship he shouted to the Trojans and Lycians saying, "Trojans, Lycians, and Dardanians good in close fight, bate not a jot, but rescue the son of Clytius lest the ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... breath and sat up in his chair. There was no mistaking the light in Patricia's eyes now; the pure flame of which it was the visible radiance is the torch which has kindled the beacon fires on all the heights since ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... as if ashamed of their vacancy, shrink behind boardings vivid with the news of picture-plays. It was the year when they were advertising the screen-masterpiece, Passion Aflame; and here was depicted Luciline Lynch, a torch in her hand, her hair in maenadic dishevelment, leading on a mob to set fire to a town. Letty herself having been in that mob paused in search of her face among the horde of the great star's followers. It was a blob of scarlet and green from which she dropped her ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... of grasping the many as one, so as to form an idea and a word. Light or lighting, warmth or warming, exist nowhere in the world, and are nowhere given in sentient experience. Every object of sense exists individually, and is perceived as such individually, such as the sun, a torch, a stove; but heat in general, like everything general, is the product of our thought; its name is made by us, and is ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller

... straits the Company was reduced, it never forgot a captain who had saved a cargo from raid, or the hero of a fight, or a wood-runner who had carried trade inland. For those who died in harness, 'funeral by torch-light and linkmen [torchbearers] to St Paul's, Company and crew marching in procession, cost not to exceed L20'; and though the cost might run up higher, it was duly paid, as in one instance on record when the good gentlemen at the funeral had '2 pullets and a dozen bottles ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut

... length of the valley, like an enormous snake lying uncoiled in its den. The numerous turf cottages on either side were invisible in the darkness, save that ever and anon the brief twinkle of a light indicated their existence and their places. In a recess of the stream the torch of some adventurous fisher now gleamed red on rock and water, now suddenly disappeared, eclipsed by the overhanging brushwood, or by some jutting angle of the bank. The distant roar of the stream mingled sullenly in the calm, with its nearer and hoarser dash, as it chafed on the ledges below, ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... are you?" demanded Dad peering in, holding his torch low, exposing a hole about six feet square at the top, widening out as it ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin

... proceeded, Cudjo's torch paled, and the waters of a subterranean stream they were following caught gleams of the struggling day from another opening beyond. Climbing over fragments of huge tumbled rocks, and up an earthy bank, Penn found himself in the bottom of an immense chasm. ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... Juno at Elis, Sleep and his twin-brother Death were represented as children reposing in the arms of Night. On various funeral monuments of the ancients the Genius of Death issculptured as a beautiful youth, leaning on an inverted torch, in the attitude of repose, his wings folded and his feet crossed. In such peaceful and attractive forms, did the imagination of ancient poets and sculptors represent death. And these were men in whose souls the religion of ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... intervals—"spaced," one of the officers had said, "like the reports of a heavy gun." First one had been fired, and then a second, and then a third; Delcasse, closing his eyes, had a vision of a ghostly figure stealing from one to another, torch in hand.... ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... stand the strain longer, was about to flash his little pocket electric torch again when suddenly the stillness of the night was broken by a ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates

... billows rolled past, bearing the prison officers with them, and threatening them all with instant death if any secret nook remained undisclosed, Defarge laid his strong hand on the breast of one of these men—a man with a grey head, who had a lighted torch in his hand—separated him from the rest, and got him ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... see," I whispered. "Now I can see the man with the torch. I say, will it blow the ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn

... rank as to be capable of abusing their opportunities of concealment for the infliction of wanton injury upon the woods and fences which bounded the margin, of the high-road. Under the cloud of night and solitude, the mischief-loving traveller was often in the habit of applying his torch to the withered boughs of woods, or to artificial hedges; and extensive ravages by fire, such as now happen, not unfrequently in the American woods, (but generally from carelessness in scattering the glowing embers of a fire, or even the ashes of a pipe,) were then occasionally the result ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... themselves against fierce knights and noblemen who rode at the head of marauding bands to steal and plunder at will. The peasants had to look on sadly, with no hope of redress, when brutal men at arms drove off their sheep, or tossed the torch into their cottages—and as there was little to choose between friend and foe, the villagers stood guard in the tower of a nearby monastery, and gave the alarm when any ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards

... rats trying to burrow into the granary of democracy. But she had no particular fear of the result. The reacting chemicals of American humour and common sense would neutralize that virus. Supposing a ripple from this indecent eddy had touched her feet? The torch of liberty in the hands ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath

... instantly ran to the braces—though not a sail was left aloft. For the moment all the aghast mate's thoughts seemed theirs; they raised a half mutinous cry. But dashing the rattling lightning links to the deck, and snatching the burning harpoon, Ahab waved it like a torch among them; swearing to transfix with it the first sailor that but cast loose a rope's end. Petrified by his aspect, and still more shrinking from the fiery dart that he held, the men fell back in ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... his own courses, and to his chosen friend Ralph, a low-born Norman priest, beloved by the King partly for his qualities as a boon companion, partly for his ingenuity as an extortioner. He was universally known by the nickname of Flambard, or the Torch, and was bitterly hated by men of every class. He was once very nearly murdered by some sailors, who kidnapped him, and carried him on board a large ship. Some of them quarrelled about the division of his robes, a storm arose, and he so worked on their fears that they ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... accustomed, would have prevented them from flying so very widely asunder; and both might have been thus saved from those extremes of principle, which Mr. Burke always, and Mr. Fox sometimes, had recourse to in defending their respective opinions, and which, by lighting, as it were, the torch at both ends, but hastened a conflagration in which Liberty herself might have been the sufferer. But it was evident that such a compromise would have been wholly impossible. Even granting that Mr. Burke did not welcome the schism as a relief, neither the temper of the men nor the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... day returning, Dearer still as ages flow, While the torch of Faith is burning, Long as Freedom's altars glow! See the hero whom it gave us Slumbering on a mother's breast; For the arm he stretched to save us Be its ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various

... a curate in La Vendee before the Revolution, and one of those priests who lighted the torch of civil war in that unfortunate country, under pretence of defending the throne of his King and the altars of his God. He not only possessed great popularity among the lower classes, but acquired so far the confidence of the Vendean ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... saw the wreckage, and the gear-wheel dismounted, he burst into a wailing curse. The mine had been all right, pumps operating, hoist running, when he had left the day before; but the minute he turned his back—— "What's the matter?" he demanded and then, pushing the engineer aside, he flashed a torch on the wreck. Wedged in the gearing of the shattered gear-wheel was a pair of engineer's overalls. They had jammed tight in the teeth and the resistless driving of the engine had cracked the great gear-wheel like an ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge

... preparation; but the approved warriors and the old men went more sedately, and with them walked Diccon and I, as steady of step as they. The women and children for the most part brought up the rear, though a few impatient hags ran past us. One of these women bore a great burning torch, the flame and smoke streaming over her shoulder as she ran. Others carried pieces of bark heaped with the [v]slivers of pine of ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... scuffle of feet carrying a heavy load. Nearer and nearer they came, and one-eyed Hans stood aside. Six men came struggling through the doorway, carrying a litter, and on the litter lay the great Baron Conrad. The flaming torch thrust into the iron bracket against the wall flashed up with the draught of air from the open door, and the light fell upon the white face and the closed eyes, and showed upon his body armor a great red stain that was not the stain ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle

... meal was a rich and delicate one we did it little honour. When we had finished, the ambassador left, entreating me to remain, which I did, without thinking at all of the pleasures of a party of two, for Love lighteth not his torch at the hearts of two lovers who are full of grief and sorrow. M—— M—— had grown thin, and her condition excited my pity and shut out all other feelings. I held her a long time in my arms, covering her with tender and affectionate kisses, but I shewed no intention of consoling her by amusements ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... the torch to my last ship," said he; "but this is no time to hesitate. Mr. Ransom, I do not trust my eyes, I do not trust my ears, nor your eyes, nor your ears, nor those of any one here, because I have talked with a man who was on the same train with my sisters. ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green

... barnacles of custom and prejudice, —and in every gale of wind pulling and straining at a rusty chain anchor. But the spirit of Change is in the world; a hurrying movement that has wings of fire, and might possibly be called Revolution! It is better that the torch should be lighted from the ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... of 'em, I reckon!" exclaimed Bud, as he flashed his torch on others in the bunch, revealing more of ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker

... went to the spot, where they found the dead Indian and took away his tomahawk, knife, and bullet-bag; but they never found his gun. The other Indian had come back, had loaded his horses with furs, and was gone. They followed him all that day and all night with a torch of dry cane, and could never overtake him. Finding that there were other bands of Indians about, they then left their hunting grounds. Towards the close of his life old Mansker, like many another fearless and ignorant backwoods fighter, became so much impressed by ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... date, as, though classed among the great festivals, they were not of so high an importance as the May and November Eves. To February 2, Candlemas Day, probably belongs the sun-charm of the burning wheel, formed by the whirling dancers, each carrying a blazing torch; but no special ceremony seems to be assigned to August 1, Lammas Day, a fact suggestive of a ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray

... a world they will Have in each star, though it be past their skill To make it manifest to any man, That reason hath, or tell his fingers can.[13] But I have too long held thee in the porch, And kept thee from the sunshine with a torch. Well, now go forward, step within the door, And there behold five hundred times much more Of all sorts of such inward rarities As please the mind will, and will feed the eyes With those, which if a Christian, thou wilt see Not ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... identification of the Socialist Party with the revolutionary mass aspirations. A vote for Berger is a betrayal of all the efforts, sacrifices and dreams of those whose lives have gone into the socialist movement as torch-bearers of proletarian triumph over capitalist exploitation, from Marx to the humblest comrade fighting today in the ranks ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... the front of which is ornamented with diamond forms filled with foliage. Above it is a kind of stylobate with pilasters supporting the columns of the next stage, the spaces between them decorated with reliefs of torch-bearing putti, who are represented as issuing from partly open double doors, some of which are very pretty. Each side contains six arches, two of which are pierced with windows, the others having shell-headed niches divided by channelled pilasters ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson

... wood, branches and whole trees, lay about us in the canon; and of this apt material Rayburn presently constructed a great torch. Lighting this in the open canon was not to be thought of, for while we felt tolerably certain that the main body of our enemies had not followed us, we could not be wholly certain that they were not close upon our heels and ready to open upon us with a volley of arrows and spears. Rayburn ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier

... the nature of all those who have ever attended on me, by breeding avaricious plots and hopes within them; I have engendered such domestic strife and discord, by tarrying even with members of my own family; I have been such a lighted torch in peaceful homes, kindling up all the inflammable gases and vapours in their moral atmosphere, which, but for me, might have proved harmless to the end, that I have, I may say, fled from all who knew me, and taking refuge in secret places have lived, of late, the ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... without really knowing whether they're in love or not—mistake the gregarious habit for the mystic fire of Hymen's torch, the pangs of a bad digestion for the barbed arrows from ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... the islands and continents of the West; which, acted upon by the near rays of the sun, drop their liquid juices into the subjacent sea, whence, by the force of tempests, they are thrown out upon the opposite coasts. If the nature of amber be examined by the application of fire, it kindles like a torch, with a thick and odorous flame; and presently resolves into a glutinous matter resembling pitch or resin. The several communities of the Sitones [266] succeed those of the Suiones; to whom they are similar in other respects, but differ in submitting ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus

... of indigestion after serving dinner, and I promised to look in and see how she was during the night. Just as I came out of her room I thought I heard groans and rushed upstairs; found the studio door open, and by aid of my electric torch, found Winslow ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... anguish. ansiar desire, yearn for, long for, crave. ansiedad f. anxiety, eagerness, longing, anguish. ansioso, -a anxious. ante prep. before. antes adv. before; —— de prep. before. antiguo, -a old, ancient, former. antojo m. fancy, caprice. antorcha f. torch, taper. anublar becloud, darken. anunciar announce, proclaim. aadir add. ao m. year. apagado, -a extinguished, softened. apagar extinguish. aparecer(se) appear. aparicin f. apparition, ghost. apartar remove, withdraw. aparte adv. aside. apenas adv. hardly, barely. ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup

... the presiding genius of the cavern," said Mr Twigg, taking a torch and advancing a few steps towards an object which had a wonderful resemblance to a statue carved by the sculptor's hand. It was that of a venerable hermit, sitting in profound meditation, wrapped in a flowing robe, his arms folded and his ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston

... gloom of the northern sea. Across the dip in the Bay the huge, white-capped cliff seemed to loom nearer and more gigantic in the whimsical light. For a few moments a red bar shot across it, and as the golden fire faded and died away Philip could not but think it was like a torch beckoning to him. A few hours more, and where that light had been he would see Jeanne. And now, down there, Eileen was ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood

... intervals, staining my doublet; and as I was without my cloak, which I had left in the house in the Rue Valois, I had nothing to cover my disordered dress. I was keenly, fiercely anxious. Stray passers meeting me in the glare of a torch, or seeing me hurry by the great braziers which burned where four streets met, looked askance at me and gave me the wall; while men in authority cried to me to stay and answer their questions. I ran from the one and the other with the same savage impatience, disregarding everything in the feverish ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... torch unlighted, and moved along; there was a little illumination from the phosphorescent markers at some of the corners, and from the stars. He could just make his way without ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey

... friend of Bridoux's, who made puns all the time. At last, after having examined some hundred designs, having ordered an estimate and made another journey to Rouen, Charles decided in favour of a mausoleum, which on the two principal sides was to have a "spirit bearing an extinguished torch." ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... keep no further journal of that same hesternal torch-light; and, to prevent me from returning, like a dog, to the vomit of memory, I tear out the remaining leaves of this volume, and write, in Ipecacuanha,—'that the Bourbons are restored!!!'—'Hang up philosophy.' ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... Avenue a young Italian, with the face of a poet, was roasting peanuts in a little kerosene stove beside a flickering torch which enkindled the romantic youth in his eyes. Farther away some ragged children were dancing to the music of a hand-organ, which ground out a melancholy waltz; and from a tiny flower stall behind the stand of a bootblack there drifted the intense sweetness ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... von Arnheim himself, that compelled humility, and John, like the fierce democrat he was, did not like it at all. The belief was too firmly imbedded in his mind ever to be removed that men like Auersperg and the mad power for which they stood had set the torch to Europe. ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler

... lord, almost mad himself, thought fit to find this Queen pretty, and publicly testify his love for her. The jealousy of the religious King flared up like a funeral torch. He conceived a hatred of his wife, reserved and innocent though she was. She died cruelly by poison. And Monseigneur le Dauphin probably ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... two who waited in the gloom below, boded little good. The two could descry figures moving to and fro before the faint red light of the smouldering matches; and presently a man on the gate kindled a torch, and held it so as to fling its light downward. The stranger's attendant cowered ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... love! She utter'd one sharp cry of mortal dread While they did chain her. This thing passeth words, Albeit told out for ever in my soul. As the torch touched, thick volumes of black reek Rolled out and raised the wind, and instantly Long films of flaxen hair floated aloft, Settled alow, in drifts upon the crowd. The vile were merciful; heaped high, my dear, Thou didst not suffer long. O! it was soon, Soon over, and I knew not ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow

... square such as most Western towns had at that date for farmers to unhitch their teams in, and in that open square a closely covered wagon connected with a tent. It was nearly dark. But at the tent entrance a tin torch stuck in the ground showed letters and pictures on the tent, proclaiming that the only pig-headed man in America was therein exhibiting himself and his accomplishments, attended by Fairy ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... in the history of the Renaissance Scholarship may be said to have reached its climax in Erasmus; for by this time Italy had handed on the torch of learning to the northern nations. The publication of his "Adagia" in 1500, marks the advent of a more critical and selective spirit, which from that date onward has been gradually gaining strength in the modern mind. Criticism, in the true sense of accurate testing and ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... sacrifices, a vision of great import was granted to Abraham. The sun sank, and a deep sleep fell upon him, and he beheld a smoking furnace, Gehenna, the furnace that God prepares for the sinner; and he beheld a flaming torch, the revelation on Sinai, where all the people saw flaming torches; and he beheld the sacrifices to be brought by Israel; and an horror of great darkness fell upon him, the dominion of the four kingdoms. ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... House by him, in language which, although he claims to be courteous, I could not regard as such, when I was, by implication, but with a disclaimer of personal offense, charged with disseminating treason, with lighting the torch in the dwelling of my southern brethren, and of crimes of which, if I was guilty, I should not be entitled to a seat upon this floor, I then rose in my place and told the gentleman from Missouri that if he would withdraw that resolution I would answer this book page by page, or those ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... in the fight, A brother when the fight was o'er, The hand that led the host with might The blessed torch ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott

... deduced with thankfulness that he was temporarily stunned. Unluckily, he now recovered. As I stood victorious, but breathless, my cap lost in the scuffle and my coat torn, I heard him stirring, and an instant later he pulled himself to his feet and flashed on an electric torch. ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... failed. The resolutions which had induced the experiment were finally renounced. Five years nearer to death, and the last hope that had flitted across the narrowing passage to the grave, fallen like a faithless torch from his own hand, and trodden ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... preparations for the defense. The army marched from Moscow, and following the valley of the Masta, entered the spacious province of Novgorod. They entered the region, not like wolves, not like men, but like demons. The torch was applied to every hut, to every village, to every town. They amused themselves with tossing men, women and children upon their camp-fires, glowing like furnaces. The sword and the spear were too merciful instruments ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... sentry. She prevails upon this sentry to let her descend, contrary to orders, and after a long and arduous passage through the rough, dripping corridors, and after running the risk of discovery by an official, and even of death (when she extinguishes her torch to escape the official, and proceeds in the dark), she reaches her husband and the other Decembrist exiles, and delivers to them the letters from their friends, which she has with her. The poem is ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... pretty, but she looked charming when the clear red blood rose to her cheeks and made her deep blue eyes flash like stars, actually ignited with the torch of anticipation. ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose

... good enough, sir, to take some other way," said Mr. Lucre; "you are a rude and vulgar person whom I neither know nor wish to know. The pike and torch, sir, are congenial weapons to such a mind as yours; I do beg you will take some other way, and not continue to annoy me ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... on," said Houston, who seemed to be the leader of the adventures. "Let's get to work," and, picking up a bag which one of the men had put down, he pressed into my hand a short, circular electric torch, saying: ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux

... avail ourselves of the darkness, and to inspect the Abbey by torch-light. This being acceded to, we all set off to view the beautiful but mouldering edifice, where, by an artificial light, the ruins might present a new aspect, and, in dim grandeur, assist the labouring imagination. At the instant the huge doors unfolded, the horned moon ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... make the light without a noise or its rays reaching his face. He had startled her with the electric torch because of its novelty. She was no longer afraid. She would know how to press the button. He had left the thing lying on the table beside the black bag. He might have hidden the gold. He would not remember in his drunken stupor to move ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon

... splintered redwood, before overlooked, that was now blazing fiercely in the upper wind. A vague and indefinable terror was in the air. The conflagration no longer seemed to obey any rule of direction. The incendiary torch had passed invisibly everywhere. They scrambled out of the hollow, and again ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... Almighty. Supported by many texts from the Sacred Scriptures, which he used as a commentary on his own statements to express by concrete images the abstract arguments he felt to be wanting, he flourished the Spirit of God like a torch over the deep secrets of creation, with an eloquence peculiar to himself, and accents that urged conviction on his audience. As he unfolded his mysterious system and all its consequences, he gave a key to every symbol and justified the ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac

... rode was but to imply his appreciation of the scene as a bit of chiaroscuro, the panorama of the desert night, eternal romance typified by the man and woman scaling the heights, the goddess of love lighting them on their way by her flaming torch. But Judith, who said little because she felt much, was in no mood to brook such dalliance, and, urging the mare sharply, she cantered down the divide at peril of life and limb. Peter, cursing the heavy-footed beast he ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning

... his chamber at midnight for supper, twelve servants bore each a lighted torch before him, which were placed near his table, and gave a brilliant light to the apartment. The hall was full of knights and squires, and there were plenty of tables laid out for any person who chose to sup. No one spoke to him at his table, unless he first began ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... it stood," said Bert, as he looked at the round, wet mark on the porch where the freezer had set. He flashed his torch on it, and then ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope

... houses. We do not know whether the competent Dufour was still the farmer at Malbaie. But all the fine pictures of better cattle, better pigs and sheep, better farming, better fishing, ended with the applying of the British soldiers' torch to the wooden buildings: much of the settlement went up in smoke. Some of the cattle, pigs and sheep found their way perhaps to Wolfe's commissariat. But a good many were left and no doubt they are the ancestors ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong

... times were not equal. Sometimes he came at cockcrow, or near it, before or after it. He went to one of the posts where the priests were stationed, and opened a wicket which led into the court. Here the priests, who marched behind him torch in hand, divided into two companies which went one to the east, and one to the west, carefully ascertaining that all was well. When they met each company reported "It is peace." Then the duties of the watch were ended, and the priests who were to prepare for the daily ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... his torch at the flame of Jean Jacques Rousseau. In a letter to Agnes Carus, Schumann has acknowledged his obligation to Richter, in a style ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... have no man's love For ever, and no face of children born Or feeding lips upon me or fastening eyes For ever, nor being dead shall kings my sons Mourn me and bury, and tears on daughters' cheeks Burn, but a cold and sacred life, but strange, But far from dances and the back-blowing torch, Far off from flowers or any bed of man, Shall my life be for ever: me the snows That face the first o' the morning, and cold hills Full of the land-wind and sea-travelling storms And many a wandering wing of noisy nights That know the thunder and ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... Meanwhile—she didn't tell me, but I gathered it from things she dropped—she was in almost daily correspondence with the young man. I thought this a strange concomitant of his bridal arrangements; but apparently, henceforth, they were bent on convincing each other that the torch of virtue lighted their steps, and they couldn't convince each other too much. She intimated to me that she had now effectually persuaded him (always by letter), that he would fail terribly if he should try to found his happiness on an injury done to another, and that of course she could never ...
— The Path Of Duty • Henry James

... inequality gives an additional picturesqueness to the place. But as we were come in search of horrors, we scorned these merely lovely things, and hastened to immure ourselves in the dungeons below. The custodian, lighting a candle, (which ought, we felt, to have been a torch,) went before. ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... too old to want women or money. The sands are running out and I shall never now read the immortable Hobbes, but I'll not die in your bloody harness. In me you do not see the man who picked up the torch of Franklin and Greeley and Dana where Henry Watterson dropped it. Loose of your gangrenous chains, you behold the freelance correspondent of the North American Newspaper Alliance, the man who will devote his declining years to reporting in the terse and vivid prose ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... lights along the beach, we at first thought they proceeded from a fishing-party, but on looking through a night-glass, the group was seen to consist of above a dozen people, each carrying a blazing torch, and going through the movements of a dance. At one time, they extended rapidly into line; at another, closed, dividing into two parties, advancing and retreating, crossing and recrossing, and mixing up with each other. This continued for half an hour; and having apparently been got up for our amusement, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various



Words linked to "Torch" :   fire, blowlamp, electric lamp, flambeau, light, common mullein, light source, burner, mullein, flashlight battery, burn, penlight, flannel leaf, velvet plant, burn down



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