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Torch   Listen
noun
Torch  n.  
1.
A light or luminary formed of some combustible substance, as of resinous wood; a large candle or flambeau, or a lamp giving a large, flaring flame. "They light the nuptial torch."
Torch thistle. (Bot.) See under Thistle.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Torch" Quotes from Famous Books



... nose poking above like a porpoise coming up for air. When I looked back, I could see, along the jagged rim of the ridge, the busy reflected flickerings of the bubble-camp the techs were throwing together. Otherwise all was black, except for our blue-white torch beams that darted here and there over the gritty, ...
— Zen • Jerome Bixby

... To begin to {flame}. The punning reference to Marvel Comics's Human Torch is no longer widely recognized. 2. To continue to flame. ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... miraculous effort he freed himself. He leaped away; sprang to the mantelpiece; seized a pocket electric torch he had placed there—clac—a light flashed out!... Fandor saw, recognised ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... the Church apologists that during the Middle Ages the priests and monks kept up the torch of learning, that, being the only literate people, they brought back the study of the classics. Historically speaking, this is about the most impudent statement that one could imagine. It was the ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... stovepipe hat and a silver cape and carrying a torch, came in, looking much the worse for wear. The hat was dented, the cape was torn, and there were marks on Mr. ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne

... captive, and motioned the men to bring a burning stick from the fire. Several at once hastened to obey, tumbling over one another in their eagerness. One, more active than the rest, extricated himself, seized a flaming torch, and rushed toward the prisoner. He had almost reached him, and Reynolds felt that the moment of doom had arrived. But just at this critical instant a peculiar noise fell upon his ears, and he listened intently. ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody

... hulk of a building, with its few lights showing like glowering eyes in ambush, the State House was transformed into a temple of glory, thrust into the heavens from the top of Capitol Hill, a torch that signaled comforting ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... Nature by the 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 vocation, the special gifts, the genius, the talent ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac

... they had even sometimes come into the house. In the veranda they found a guard of four spearmen, keeping watch for the same purpose. The Englishman thought that they were jesting, until he saw that none of the people themselves went a few yards beyond the house without a torch. One man going to bathe in the lake just below, another accompanied him with a torch. They also saw four men coming up the road with two large torches, who, they said, were returning from their work from the village hard by. They still thought ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... as the brig was fairly clear of the anchorage, I went, with two of my boat's crew, to the leewardmost building of the settlement and set light to a little pile of combustibles that had been carefully arranged in each room, finally thrusting a blazing torch into the thatch upon quitting the building. And in the same way we proceeded to each building in turn, until the entire settlement, barracoons and all, was a roaring furnace of flame. Then, bidding my crew get down into the boat and stand by to shove ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood

... the present occasion seemed to forget his deeply sworn hatred against his dangerous neighbours. The Torch of Pengwern (for so Gwenwyn was called, from his frequently laying the province of Shrewsbury in conflagration) seemed at present to burn as calmly as a taper in the bower of a lady; and the Wolf of Plinlimmon, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... sowed, so must you reap. Evil has but one child—Death! For hundreds of years you have nursed and nurtured Evil. Do you complain if her monstrous progeny is here now, with sword and torch? What else did you expect? Did you think she would ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... Arcot, "we're going outside, and we have to have someone in here to operate the airlock. Suppose you get to work on the hirsute adornment; there's an atomic hydrogen cutting torch down in the lab you can use, if you wish. The rest of us are going outside." Then Arcot's voice became serious. "By the way, don't try any little jokes like starting off with a little acceleration. I don't think you would—you've ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell

... those of the roaring torrents they had passed and the scream of the condor as it circled the snowy peaks above. Here all vegetation disappeared except the clinging lichens and a tall plant which bore plumes instead of leaves and was covered with yellow flowers, resembling a funeral torch. To add to the terrors of the journey the path was marked by crosses, erected in memory of travellers who had perished by ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... Tutola, advised them to do neither, but by a stratagem to avoid both war and surrender of the women. This stratagem was that they should dress Philotis and the best looking of the other female slaves like free women, and send them to the enemy; then at night Philotis said she would raise a torch, and the Romans should come under arms and fall upon the sleeping enemy. This was done, and terms were made with the Latins. Philotis raised the torch upon a certain fig-tree with leaves which spread all round and behind, in such a manner that the ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... cutting off all infirm looking backward from the hardships of their march, had been thought so necessary a measure by all the chieftains, that even Oubacha himself was the first to authorize the act by his own example. He seized a torch previously prepared with materials the most durable as well as combustible, and steadily applied it to the timbers of his own palace. Nothing was saved from the general wreck except the portable part of the domestic ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... the 'Burning of the Car,'" she told him. "Back in the time of the Crusaders, one of the men of old Florence who went to Jerusalem brought from the Holy Sepulchre two pieces of the stone, and also a torch lighted from the holy light that has been kept burning there since ...
— Rafael in Italy - A Geographical Reader • Etta Blaisdell McDonald

... insight and understanding, but also a radiant countenance like that of Moses, from whose face issued rays like those of the sun. In giving all these qualities to Joshua, Moses lost nothing. Moses' wisdom was like a torch, whereas Joshua's may be compared to a candle only, and just as a torch loses none of its intensity if a candle is lighted therefrom, so little was Moses' wisdom diminished by the wisdom he gave to Joshua. [835] The rays, too, that emanated from ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... centre of the room stood a rough table, around which were several "seats" made of portions of trunks of trees, hacked into shape with a chopper. A torch stuck in a piece of wood gave a flickering light, around which flew a swarm of moths ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... keep a houseful of idle servants for?" he demanded crisply. "Let Bates hunt it up—he'd better take a torch." ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... slits of streets, where it seemed as if our 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 inn stands we wondered in what sort of den we should have to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various

... exulting sight Marks it afar.—From waning Life she flies, Wrapt in a mist, covering her starry eyes With her fair hand.—But now, in floods of light, She meets thee, SYLVIA, and with glances, bright As lucid streams, when Spring's clear mornings rise. From Hymen's kindling torch, a yellow ray The shining texture of her spotless vest Gilds;—and the Month that gives the early day The scent od[o]rous[1], and the carol blest, Pride of the rising Year, enamour'd MAY, Paints its redundant ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... told me that one of the sportsmen had been successful. I got up as softly as possible, wrapped my damp shawl round my still damper shoulders, and, fastening the flax-stick securely in the ground, stole along the bank of the creek towards the place where a blazing tussock, serving as a torch, showed the successful eel-fisher struggling with his prize. Through the gloom I saw another weird-looking figure running silently in the same direction; for the fact was, we were all so cramped and cold, and, weary of sitting waiting for bites which never ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... to be howling and crouching in their kennels instead of barking. I chid them, and called to them, but even the fiercest would not follow me. Then, thought I, I must show you the way to set to work; so I grasped my sword firmly, I set my torch on the ground close beside me, and I let the gates fly open without further delay. For I well knew that it would be no easy matter for any one to come in against my will. A loud laugh greeted me, and I heard these words, 'Well, well, what mighty preparations are these before one small man can ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... Quakers have had a certain general usefulness in the world. They have kept more, I apprehend, to first principles, than any other people. They have afforded a moral example. This example ought to have been useful to others. To those who were well inclined, it should have been as a torch to have lighted up their virtue, and it should have been a perpetual monument for reproof to others, who were entering upon a ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... to their feet and were about to fly, when an idea occurred to Geoffrey. He seized a torch, and, standing by the side of a barrel placed on end by a large tier, shouted in Dutch, "Another step forward and I fire ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty

... my respects to the Column of July that stands on the spot formerly occupied by the Bastile. It is 163 feet in height, and on the top is the Genius of Liberty, with a torch in his right hand, and in the left a broken chain. After a fatiguing walk up a winding stair, I obtained a splendid view of Paris from the top of ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown

... Truth is a torch, but a huge one, and so it is only with blinking eyes that we all of us try to get past it, in actual ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... forecasted a republican Virginia finally at peace and prosperous—whether they saw in a vision a new capital, perhaps at Middle Plantation, perhaps at the Falls of the Far West, a capital that should be without old, tyrannic memories—cannot now be said. However it all may be, they put torch to the old capital town and soon saw it consumed, for it was no great place, and not ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston

... been drawn to witness a destruction that meant to them loss of bread. The foliage near was red as blood in the dreadful glare, and the neighboring pines tossed their tasselled boughs like dark plumes at a torch-light funeral. With a sudden roar a pyramid of flame shot up through the roof, and was echoed by a despairing cry from those whose vocation now indeed was gone. A moment later a fiery storm of flakes and burning shingles ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe

... themselves well off, in spite of the many taxes laid upon them. But what are the people? a vulgar multitude who, like the gnats, fly towards every thing brilliant, and, so long as the taper burns, will continue to flutter round it, even though they burn their wings in doing so. Let Pisistratus' torch burn out, Phanes, and I'll swear that the fickle crowd will flock around the returning nobles, the new light, just as they now do ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the irregular pressure of the surrounding earth and rock at a part of the tunnel where a "fault" had occurred in the strata. A party of the directors accompanied the engineer to inspect the scene of the accident. They entered the tunnel's mouth preceded by upwards of fifty navvies, each bearing a torch. ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... enterprising citizens, the men of mark,—all their names and dates are to be found here. Of the literary execution of the book we cannot speak highly. The style is of the worst. If a meeting-house is spoken of, it is a "church edifice"; if the Indians set a house on fire, they "apply the torch"; if a man takes to drink, he is seduced by "the intoxicating cup"; even mountains are "located." On page 68, we read that "the pent-up rage that had long heaved the savage bosom, and which had only been smouldering ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... had become very lively. The Democrats were hopeful and the Republicans resolute, and both parties were active in getting out their whole strength, as the saying is, at such times. This was done not only by speech-making, but by long nocturnal processions of torch-lights; by day, as well as by night, drums throbbed and horns brayed, and the feverish excitement spread its contagion through the whole population. But it did not affect Bartley. He had cared nothing about the canvass from the beginning, having an equal contempt ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... his value as a slave; yet the idea that he was born to be free will survive it all. 'Tis allied to his hope of immortality—the ethereal part of his nature which oppression cannot reach. 'Tis the torch lit up in his soul by the omnipotent hand of Deity Himself." The true and tried hosts of freedom, represented and led by Garrison, Douglass, Lovejoy, Phillips, Garnet, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Frances Ellen ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... burn out for my God!' he cries, still thinking of the brand plucked from the flames. He plunges, like a blazing torch, into the darkness of India, of Persia and of Turkey. He leaves the peoples whom he has evangelized the Scriptures in their own tongues. Seven short years after he left England, he dies all alone on a foreign strand. 'No kinsman is near to watch his last look or receive ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham

... their summits, and took upon themselves the semblance of Alpine heights touched by the mystic glory of the dawn, and a clear silver radiance flashed across the ocean for a second and then vanished, as though a flaming torch had just flared up to show the troublous heaving of the waters, and had then been instantly quenched. As the evening came on the weather steadily cleared;—and presently a pure, calm, dark-blue expanse of ether stretched balmily across the ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... to express his opinion. The name of this personage was Meton. The artifice which he adopted was this: he disguised himself as a strolling mountebank and musician, and then, pretending to be half intoxicated, he came into the assembly with a garland upon his head, a torch in his hand, and with a woman playing on a sort of flute to accompany him. On seeing him enter the assembly, the people all turned their attention toward him. Some laughed, some clapped their hands, and ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... quietly, with a decision that brooked no resistance, he took her by the chin with his free hand and turned her face up to his own. He looked deep into her eyes. His own were no longer ablaze, but a fitful light came and went in them like the flare of a torch in the ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... retreat began to carry out their orders with exactitude; the chasseurs cheered and advanced in about equal numbers, torch-bearers and musketeers with fixed bayonets, the former waving their burning brands, and all cheering loudly as in the distance they caught sight of those in retreat; but it was only to find as the rattle and echoing ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn

... the royal throne, arrayed in princely garments, clad with a golden ephod upon his breast, and the fine gold of the ephod sparkled, and the carbuncle, the ruby, and the emerald flamed like a torch, and all the precious stones set upon the king's head flashed like a blazing fire, and Joseph was greatly amazed at the appearance of the king. The throne upon which he sat was covered with gold and silver and with onyx stones, and it had seventy steps. If a prince or other distinguished ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... Days, described by Schellhas as the moon and night god. To the left of the torrents is a figure, nearly erased, but with the wristlets characteristic of the god of death, and holding in the hand a torch. The glyph [Hieroglyph] occurs written in the ...
— Commentary Upon the Maya-Tzental Perez Codex - with a Concluding Note Upon the Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs • William E. Gates

... the pointed end of his torch into the mouth of an amphora standing erect in a corner, and began to unpack the load they had brought on a mule. It looked like the preparation for a feast: there were loaves of bread, fruit, a flask of choice wine; ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... and switched on his electric torch, trying to focus the circle of light upon that particular window. There was nothing there. Only, it seemed to me that something, incredibly swift and silent, flashed down one of the bewildering turns to which ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler

... year, he received a visit from the great author himself. Carlyle did not take to many people, but he took to Froude. Perhaps he was touched by the younger man's devotion. Perhaps he saw that Froude was no ordinary disciple, and would be able to carry on the torch when he relinquished it himself. At all events he expressed a wish to see him oftener in his walks, in his rides, in his home. Nothing could be more flattering than such an invitation from such a man. Froude responded cordially, and became an habitual visitor. Like ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... my dungeon by my gaoler accompanied by two figures that looked immensely tall in their black monkish gowns, their heads and faces covered by vizored cowls in which two holes were cut for their eyes. Seen by the ruddy glare of the torch which the gaoler carried to that subterranean place of darkness, those black, silent figures, their very hands tucked away into the wide-mouthed sleeves of their habits, looked spectral and lurid—horrific messengers ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... rarely cared for except in early youth, and out of which arises a chase by the person touched, in order to catch him by whom he has been touched. One evening, when the Court was at Nancy, and just as everybody was going to bed, M. de Longueville spoke a few words in private to two of his torch-bearers, and then touching the Duc de Coislin, said he had given him the last touch, and scampered away, the Duke hotly pursuing him. Once a little in advance, M. de Longueville hid himself in a doorway, allowed M. de Coislin to pass on, and then went quietly home to bed. Meanwhile the Duke, lighted ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... again cast my eyes on the lifeless form of my friend, indignation was rekindled within me. "Wretch!" I said. "It is well that you come here to whine over the desolation that you have made. You throw a torch into a pile of buildings, and when they are consumed, you sit among the ruins and lament the fall. Hypocritical fiend! If he whom you mourn still lived, still would he be the object, again would he become the prey, of your accursed vengeance. It is not pity that you feel; ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

... of pa-lo'-ki, a small olla of water, a small wooden dish or a basket of cooked rice, and a bamboo tube of basi or tapui. Many persons had also several small pieces of pork and a chicken. As they passed out of the pueblo each carried a tightly bound club-like torch of burning palay straw; this would ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... bears a world of mystery— His arrows, quiver, torch, and infancy: 'Tis not a trifling work to sound A sea of science so profound: And, hence, t' explain it all to-day Is not my aim; but, in my simple way, To show how that blind archer lad (And he a god!) came by the loss ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... Seats were built up on all sides in amphitheatre fashion, the queen, the king, the court, and the dignitaries of the two clerical parties were there in special boxes, and again were the people much in evidence, but this time much in doubt as to the final outcome. When all was ready, the torch was applied to the pile and the two volumes were committed to the flames. The book which was not consumed by the fire was to be considered acceptable to God. To the chagrin of the papal party, the Roman book was utterly consumed, but the Gothic missal came forth unscathed. ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... pans called spiders, and the potatoes were roasted in the ashes, likewise the corn pone. Their masters being more or less kind, there was pork, chicken, syrup and other foodstuffs that they were allowed to raise as their own on a small scale. This work was often done by the light of a torch at night as they had little time of their own. In this way slaves earned money for small luxuries and the more ambitious sometimes saved enough money to buy their freedom, although this was not encouraged ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... first till they come to the sheepcote; she goes in and bade them follow her. Then she lit a torch, and held it up and said, "Here, Njal, is thy son Hauskuld, and he hath gotten many wounds upon him, and now he ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders

... the further window. Outside the rain was pattering and there was absolutely no light. In the pocket of her raincoat Nan had slipped the electric torch she had brought from home, something of which Aunt Kate cordially approved, and was always begging Uncle Henry to ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr

... attired in coats of linen covered with pitch and bestuck with flax to represent hairy savages. They entered the hall dancing, the five being fastened together, and the king in front. By accident the five were set on fire with a torch. Two were burned to death on the spot, two afterwards died; one fled to the buttery, and jumped into a vessel of water. It might be represented as the fate of a ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... her side, rode into the town, all the people welcoming her with torches in hand, shouting Noel! as to a king, throwing flowers before her horse's feet, and pressing to touch her, or even the harness of her horse, which leaped and plunged, for the fire of a torch caught the fringe of her banner. Lightly she spurred and turned him, and lightly she caught at the flame with her hand and quenched it, while all men marvelled at her ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... tripped on a root and fell headlong, pitching his torch into the dry duff a man's length before him. There was a rush to stamp out the incipient fire, the autumn terror of the forests, before any one lent a hand to help the fallen. Robertson went half-way up his leggings in a spring, and stood ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton

... bravery in facing the fighting crowds, and they choose him to be umpire. He delivers a noble speech in favor of peace, full of allusions to the architectural glories of Provence, that grew up when "faith and union lent their torch." He tells the story of the building of the bridge of Avignon. "Noah himself with his ark could have passed beneath each of its arches." He touches their emotions with his appeal for peace, and they ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer

... A shudder ran over the hollow of the amphitheater, as the dragged corpse, mauled by the sand and turning over, became a mere lump of pounded meat. The chill of the onlookers appeared to reach Palus. He halted his team near the pyre, arena-slaves dragged away Hector's corpse, one brought a lighted torch and Palus himself kindled the pyre at each of its four corners, walking twice round it. When it was enveloped in crackling flames, he mounted the chariot and Narcissus drove him out; drove him out, to the horror of all beholders by the Gate ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... not Serbia was seriously in the wrong is a matter of opinion, but it is generally held that Austria dealt with her neighbour with too much heat and too little discretion. Austria kindled the flames of war, but it was Germany's mission to seize a blazing torch ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith

... 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 ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... The moon grows. Who of you will cross the river and ride once more into the Red Man's Paradise, and give the prairies to the flames? The torch is all that is left ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth

... education given them now-a-days would be suitable; but in the due order of nature they need one entirely different. They should not use the mind at all, until it has all its faculties. For while it is blind it cannot see the torch you present to it; nor can it follow on the immense plain of ideas a path which, even for the keenest eyesight, reason traces ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... there had rushed down to hear what had taken place, and to inquire after friends. Above the yells and shouts of the frenzied negroes sounded the deep roar of the horns, and the angry beating of the Obi drums. Numbers of torch bearers were among the crowd, and although nearly half a mile away, the scene could be perfectly ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty

... simplicity and conscientious discharge of the duty they had assumed, but others, from lubricity of morals or the irritations of curiosity, pushed their investigations into unhallowed paths of speculation. They held aloft a torch for exploring guilty recesses-of human life, which it is far better for us all to leave in their original darkness. Crimes that were often all but imaginary, extravagances of erring passion that would never have been known as possibilities to the young ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey

... horse to such a burst of speed must have been in the form dreaded above all others—that of the wild Indians who at that day roamed through the vast wilderness of the West and hovered along the frontier, eager to use the torch, the rifle, or the tomahawk, whenever and ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis

... taken—no chance e'en of flight; And with torch and with axe the bloody Cossacks Went hither and thither a-hunting in packs: They slashed and they slew both Christian and Jew— Women and children, they slaughtered them too. Some, saving their throats, plunged ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray

... man loses not his virtue in misfortune. A torch may point towards the ground, but its flame will ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston

... was at the bottom, where a wide Portal conducted to an inner room: From thence a light shone out on every side, As of a torch illumining the gloom. Fair Bradamant pursued her faithless guide, Suspended there, and pondering on her doom: And came upon the felon where he stood, Fearing lest she might lose ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... silvery glister on the slopes of the mountain before them, and in the brilliant light the colossal forms of the Lion's Head were prismatically outlined against the speckless sky. Through the silvery veil there burned here and there on the densely wooded acclivities the crimson torch of a maple, kindled before its time, but everywhere else there was the unbroken green of the forest, subdued to one tone of gray. The boy heard the stranger fetch his breath deeply, and then expel it in a long sigh, before he could bring ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... at no great distance. This night, a few hours ago, I lay sleepless on my pillow, anxious for your fate, when a carriage stopped at the door. It was surrounded with guards and torch-bearers, and I was told that my presence was instantly required at the palace. My alarm at so untimely a summons was dissipated by the arrival of Geronimo. 'Fear nothing,' he said: 'the hour of happiness is at hand. He whom you hate is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... of every sigh!—thou gold of gold, Beauty of the beautiful, strength of the strong! My soul for ever turns agaze for thee. There is no purpose of eternity For faith or patience; but thy buoyant torch Still lighted from the Islands of the Blest, O'erbears all present for potential heavens Which are not—ah, so more than all that are! Whose chance postpones the ennui of the skies! Be thou my genius—be my hope in thee! For this were heaven: to be, ...
— Memories and Studies • William James

... had become involved. He would go, he said, as cautiously as possible, avoiding all parties of the enemy, and being favored by the darkness of the night, he hoped to find some way of retreat. If he succeeded, he would display a torch on a distant elevation which he designated, so that the party in the glen, on seeing the light, might be assured of his safety. He would then return and guide them all through the danger, by the way which he should ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott

... night on the Yaquina Bay by the coast Indians was a very picturesque scene. It was mostly done by the squaws and children, each equipped with a torch in one hand, and a sharp-pointed stick in the other to take and lift the fish into baskets slung on the back to receive them. I have seen at times hundreds of squaws and children wading about in Yaquina Bay taking crabs in this ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan

... rope and sundry torches of pinewood, Heinz and two of the serfs were speedily ready, and Christina implored her son to let her come so far as where she should not impede the others. He gave her his arm, and Heinz held his torch so as to guide her up a winding path, not in itself very steep, but which she could never have climbed had daylight shown her what it overhung. Guided by the constant exchange of jodeln, they reached a height where ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... destination, proceeded in a due northerly direction, walking day and night till they reached a sacred shrine of Siva with the crescent mark on his brow. Then those tigers among men, the sons of Pandu, arrived at the banks of the Ganga, Dhananjaya, that mighty car-warrior, walking before them, torch in hand, for showing the way and guarding them (against wild animals). And it so happened that at that time the proud king of the Gandharvas, with his wives, was sporting in that solitary region in the delightful waters of the Ganga. The king of the Gandharvas heard the tread ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... great jewels such as amazed the wit and the eye, and the thought was bewildered at their charms, for indeed, each of them was brighter than the sun and the moon. Before them they kindled lighted flambeaux in torch-holders of gold, but their faces outshone the flambeaux, for that they had eyes sharper than drawn swords and the lashes of their eyelids ensorcelled all hearts. Their cheeks were rosy and their necks and shapes swayed gracefully ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... neighbouring house, and she did not attend to me. I pressed my forehead more closely against the bars of the balcony, and strained my eyes more eagerly towards the object of my curiosity. Presently the figure of the lamp-lighter with his blazing torch in one hand, and his ladder in the other, became visible; and, with as much delight as philosopher ever enjoyed in discovering the cause of a new and grand phenomenon, I watched his operations. I saw him fix and mount his ladder with his little ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... the city in its mantle of gloom, and it was not the torch of Phoebus which had spread the rosy gleam of dawn over the sky! As Dea Flavia looked, she saw a canopy of dull crimson over her head, and from beyond the Palace of Tiberius there rose at intervals ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... An elegance she would diffuse around her, if her mind were opened to appreciate elegance; it might be of a kind new, original, enchanting, as different from that of the city belle as that of the prairie torch-flower from the shopworn article that touches the cheek of ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller

... our waning age We count them backwards to the title-page! Oh let us trust with holy men of old Not all the story here begun is told; So the tired spirit, waiting to be freed, On life's last leaf with tranquil eye shall read By the pale glimmer of the torch reversed, Not Finis, but The ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... vast love duet. Isolde is waiting in the castle garden, listening to the distant horns of the King's hunting-party, and longing for the approach of night, when she may meet her lover. In spite of the entreaties of Brangaene, she extinguishes the torch which is to be the signal to Tristan, and soon she is in his arms. In a tender embrace they sink down among the flowers of the garden, murmuring their passion in strains of enchanting loveliness. Brangaene's warning voice falls upon unheeding ears. The King, followed by ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... curtain, when I saw Fledermausse on the watch behind her window. She could not see me. I opened my window softly; the window opposite was opened! Then her manikin appeared to rise slowly and advance before me. I, also, advanced my manikin, and seizing my torch with one hand, with the other I quickly opened the shutters. And now the old woman and myself were face to face. Struck with sudden terror, she had let ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... of disturbance confined to Naples. In Florence, too, the torch of war was alight, and if—as he afterwards swore—Cesare Borgia had no hand in kindling it, it is at least undeniable that he complacently watched the conflagration, conscious that it would make for the fulfilment of his own ends. Besides, there was still that little matter of the ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini

... up the railroad track away from Richmond and in search for another base. We soon came to the commissary depot of the army. Here were piled millions of dollars' worth of supplies—hundreds of thousands of rations were to be cremated, the torch had been applied to the mass and the work of destruction was well under way. Some of our men slid out of the ranks and went to this stock of stores and helped themselves to whatever they saw that they wanted. They came back with their rubber blankets ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller

... tabernacle, the rejoicing trees sank into the valley in showers of light, every separate leaf quivered with buoyant and burning life; each, as it turned to reflect or to transmit the sunbeam, first a torch and ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn

... directs the wandering traveller Doth, as it were, light another's torch by his own; Which gives him ne'er the less of light, ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell

... torch, and this happened to be in his hand while he was thus amusing himself with Potter. Absently now he pressed the button and watched the light, shining behind his closed fingers, turn them a bright, transparent red. He did not realize that Tusk had been keeping ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris

... dismissed. Herbs and magic rites are necessary, that the corpse may be again unanimated, and the spirit never more be liable to be recalled to the realms of day. The sorceress constructs the funeral pile; the dead man places himself upon it; Erichtho applies the torch, and the charm is ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... Methinks this is a mighty fault in her; I could be angry with her: O, if I be so, I shall but put a link unto a torch, And so give greater light to see her fault. I'll rather smother it in melancholy: Nay, wisdom bids me shun that passion; Then I will study for a remedy. I have a daughter,—now, heaven invocate, She be not of like spirit as her mother! If so, she'll be a plague unto her husband, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various

... daylight had fled from the valley of the Limpopo, when Willem and Hendrik, provided with a torch and accompanied by the Kaffir and the dog Spoor'em, again set forth to ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid

... approach to a grin;—"'taint over easy to tell whether his Vs are one side up or 'tother. Now I'd like to know from you where the hitch is. The Squire aint likely to set the Mong in a configuration just yet—but if he's swingin' a torch round, I'd jest as lief put it out afore ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... The more torch-light one flings into the immense cavern which we are now trying to illuminate, the more profound it appears. It is a bottomless abyss. It appears to us that our task will be accomplished more agreeably and more instructively if we ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... girl's protest, stunned by a belief in the complete truth of her indignant accusations. These devotees, these fanatics, were immolating a beautiful young life on the altar of their own selfish faith. The virgin was already bound to the rock, and the priest, torch in hand, was about to apply ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... body of his uncle upon the pyre, with all the armour that Sigurd had worn. The ship was further loaded with the dead men and with weapons. Then, when the tide had risen and the vessel was afloat with her sail hoisted, Olaf went on board alone with a lighted torch and kindled the pyre. The wind blew off shore and the ship sailed slowly out upon the dark sea. There was a loud crackling of dry twigs and the flames rose amid a cloud of black smoke, showing Olaf standing at the stern with the tiller in his hand. Very soon the fire caught the ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton

... of the question, because beauty is not genius. But her mind is as trenchant as her brother's. She could reign on any throne in Europe and stand out as conspicuous in brilliant contrast to that colorless royalty as a torch flaming among candles. I'll wager that her courage is as unflinching as his and her gifts as varied and remarkable. Why, even old Tom, the father, is, for all his seeming of pompous emptiness, the ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... maneuvre a very dangerous one; firstly, on account of the proximity of the coast; and, secondly, on account of the number of vessels passing up and down the channel. To avoid a collision, we hung out a lantern on the foremast, while, from time to time, a torch was lighted, and held over the side, and the bell frequently kept sounding: all very alarming occurrences to a person ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... 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

... the divine in nature and humanity. And, in general, a ripe and all-pervading culture, which has made Athens a synonym for all that is greatest and best in the genius of man; so that literature, in its most flourishing periods has rekindled its torch at her altars, and art has looked back to the age of Pericles for her purest models.[853] All these enter into the very idea of Greek civilization. We can not resist the conviction that, by a Divine Providence, it was made subservient to the purpose ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... quarter of a mile across the river, drifted, no bigger than a tiny star, passing slowly athwart the circle of the port. Voices from Mr. Van Wyk's jetty answered the hails from the ship; ropes were thrown and missed and thrown again; the swaying flame of a torch carried in a large sampan coming to fetch away in state the Rajah from down the coast cast a sudden ruddy glare into his cabin, over his very person. Mr. Massy did not move. After a few last ponderous turns the engines stopped, and the prolonged clanging of the gong signified that the captain ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad

... him, and advanced lazily to examine it. The young man had caught up his rifle by the barrel; he took a long and steady aim, as he knew that he must die if the bear was only wounded; and as the angry animal raised his paw to strike down the obnoxious torch, he fired. There was a heavy fall, a groan and a struggle,—the light was extinguished, and all was dark as before. The next morning Boone rejoined his companions as they were taking their morning meal, and, throwing at their feet his bleeding trophies, he said to them, "Now, who will dare ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... the maid servants to set beds in the room that was in the gatehouse, and to make them with good red rugs, and spread coverlets on the top of them with woollen cloaks for the guests to wear. So the maids went out, carrying a torch, and made the beds, to which a man-servant presently conducted the strangers. Thus, then, did Telemachus and Pisistratus sleep there in the forecourt, while the son of Atreus lay in an inner room with lovely Helen ...
— The Odyssey • Homer

... foeman 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

... light green with a yellow disk in the center bearing a black arm holding a red flaming torch; the flames of the torch are blowing away from the hoist side; uses the ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency

... returned to so intense a degree that the snow which had half melted on the statues had congealed itself in large bunches or in icicles. Now, the figures seemed dressed in transparent robes of ice, with lace trimmings like spun glass. Dorothea was holding a torch, the liquid droppings of which fell upon her hands. Cecilia wore a silver crown, in which glistened the most brilliant of pearls. Agatha's nude chest was protected by a crystal armour. And the scenes in the tympanum, the little virgins in the arches, looked as if they had been there for centuries, ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola

... in his Sedan chair, by smart velvet-coated livery men ["I have a piece of his livery of green silk velvet by me now," said my informant, when further questioned about his grandfather] preceded at night by the "link boy," or someone carrying a torch to light the way through the dark streets! I have been unable to find any trace of the use of the Sedan Chair by any of the residents of Royston, albeit that gifted but ill-fated youth, John Smith, alias Charles Stuart, alias King Charles ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston

... Maunday Thursday. It will not be uninteresting here to briefly describe an interdict. It was usually announced at midnight by the funeral toll of the church bells; whereupon the entire clergy might presently be seen issuing forth, in silent procession, by torch light, to put up a last prayer of deprecation before the altars for the guilty community. Then the consecrated bread, that remained over, was burnt; the crucifixes and other sacred images were veiled up; the relics of the ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby

... London office, but by the movements of the crops and the sun. That they were men of the finest type only the sentimentalist can declare. But they kept to the life of daylight. They are England's hope. Clumsily they carry forward the torch of the sun, until such time as the nation sees fit to take it up. Half clodhopper, half board-school prig, they can still throw back to a nobler stock, and ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... attempted to seize Silvia, saying: 'Silvia is mine.' Upon this Valentine said to him in a very spirited manner: 'Thurio, keep back: if once again you say that Silvia is yours, you shall embrace your death. Here she stands, take but possession of her with a torch! I dare you but to breathe upon my love.' Hearing this threat, Thurio, who was a great coward, drew back, and said he cared not for her, and that none but a fool would fight for a girl who ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... 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

... the powder"—when a boat, f'r instance, sinks, And the "hyphens" raise a loud hurrah and blow themselves to drinks; When 'bout a hundred neutral lives are snuffed out like a torch, An' "hyphens" read the news an' smoke, a-settin' on the porch— Well, it's then the native's kind o' apt to see a little red, An' it's hardly fair to criticise the burning things he sed. For since the eagle's not a bird ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... periwig,' or 'L10 a year pension for life.' No matter to what desperate 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 "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

... ancient race was not to be trifled with, with impunity. Even Jones's Bull went down in the end—though, mind you, evidence went to show that he made an hour's stand!—before the overwhelming rush and the terrible horns of the forest monarch. And the victor only gave back before a wall of brandished torch and blazing ferns, that the unsportsmanlike spirit of the keepers did not scruple to resort to. No—she would not admit that Dave's bull had ever met his match. She would say how he had killed a man, which Gwen had told her also; but to save the boy from too much commiseration for this man, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... but among a majority of the English people themselves,—and these, too, who had the prestige of wealth and culture. I do not believe the Presbyterian party, as represented by Hampden and Pym, and who like Mirabeau had applied the torch to revolutionary passions, would have consented to this foolish murder. Certainly the Episcopalians would not have executed Charles, even if they could have been induced ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord

... a torch for burning; Lucien's hot desire to be revenged on Dauriat took the place of conscience and inspiration. For three days he never left Coralie's room; he sat at work by the fire, waited upon by Berenice; petted, in moments of weariness, by the silent and attentive Coralie; till, at the end of that ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... character, a noble house of warriors, statesmen and saints. If we accept the legends, his greatness was foreshadowed. Before his birth, his mother dreamed she saw her son under the figure of a black-and-white dog, with a torch in his mouth. "A true dream," says Milman, "for he will scent out heresy and apply the torch to the faggots;" but, as will be seen later, this observation does ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart

... electric torch and threw a blob of light upon the gravelled pathway for them to see the descent. Then one by one they went quietly down the steps, and West ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew

... burnished, Thrust it in the leathern scabbard, Tied the scabbard to his armor. How do heroes guard from danger, Where protect themselves from evil? Heroes guard their homes and firesides, Guard their doors, and roofs, and windows, Guard the posts that bold the torch-lights, Guard the highways to the court-yard, Guard the ends of all the gate-ways. Heroes guard themselves from women, Carefully from merry maidens; If in this their strength be wanting, Easy fall the heroes, victims To the snares of the enchanters. Furthermore are heroes watchful ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.

... hobby. Everyone will eventually decide what he thinks he ought to have, in order to come home with a free conscience after any eventuality. Another runner has suggested my adding a pair of small pincers, a pocket tool outfit, matches or fusees, an electric torch, scissors. ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse

... "But ere the torch be laid To my unshrinking limbs by some true hand, Athwart the orange-fragrant laughing land, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... however, can be our only weapon against poverty. In the end, the crucial effort is one of purpose, requiring the fuel of finance but also a torch of idealism. And nothing carries the spirit of this American idealism more effectively to the far corners of the earth than ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... they could see the city gate, wide open, with a blazing torch on either side of it, and through the gate, swarming like ants before the rains, there poured an endless stream of humans that marched—and marched—and marched; four, ten, fifteen abreast; all heights and sizes, jumbled in and out among one another, anyhow, ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy

... the rabbit who has long ears and no tail at all except a white thumb of cotton. But it was hard for the yellow flongboo who at night lights up his house in a hollow tree with his fire yellow torch of a tail. It is hard for the yellow flongboo to lose his tail because it lights up his way when he sneaks at night on the prairie, sneaking up on the flangwayers, the hippers and hangjasts, so good ...
— Rootabaga Stories • Carl Sandburg

... the great loom-rooms of the mill with but one fact clear in his cloudy, faltering perception,—that above him the man lay quietly sleeping who would bring worse than death on him to-morrow. Up and down, aimlessly, with his stoker's torch in his hand, going over the years gone and the years to come, with the dead hatred through all of the pitiless man above him,—with now and then, perhaps, a pleasanter thought of things that had been warm and cheerful in his life,—of the corn-huskings long ago, when he was a boy, down ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... came and looked at him in the light of a torch from the fire, and retreated muttering. Ivan decided to pretend sleep. The third time Michael gave a ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston

... not succeed as well as she expected, however, for though just in the act of setting fire to a funeral pyre, the Professor dropped his torch, metaphorically speaking, and made a dive after the little blue ball. Of course they bumped their heads smartly together, saw stars, and both came up flushed and laughing, without the ball, to resume their seats, wishing ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... a petticoat over her bedgown, Polly took the ewer, and with Jinny as torch-bearer set forth. There was still some noise in the public part of the house, beside the bar; but the passage was bare and quiet. The girls crept mousily past the room occupied by the two young men, and after several ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... recesses. The carved figures and columns of the Temple are fine, the principal idol being of great size—a huge representation of the Hindoo Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, which make the three-headed god. The effect of such a monster, seen dimly by the lighted torch, upon ignorant natures, could not but be overpowering. When examined closely there is nothing repulsive in the faces; on the contrary, the expression of all three is rather pleasing than otherwise, like that of Buddha. It is ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... that to scare him off," replied Paul. "You know we don't want to shoot a gun, if we can help it; because the report would tell the men that we'd come back, and might bring trouble. I've got my little electric hand torch with me, and if I flash that into the face of any wild animal the chances are it'll give him a scare that'll send him off ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren

... business, and I was doubting whether I would take my chance of hiding or make for the cliff, when I saw a light coming dancing down from the camp, and knew it was a chap on horseback with a torch. As he came up the man who had spoken before said: 'How many torches have you ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty

... its egress, which human needs and ingenuity had broadened, heightened and closed by heavy iron bars, slipped into stone slots. Behind this gateway glimmered a faint light that brightened into a red star; and soon, a figure clad in the long, black monastic gown, and bearing a huge torch of blazing pitch pine, emerged from the bowels of the earth. There was the rattle of a chain, the creak of a pulley, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... but the paper which it had carried so faithfully was destroyed in the washing. They filled the bottle with seeds, though it scarcely knew what had been placed in it. Then they corked it down tightly, and carefully wrapped it up. There not even the light of a torch or lantern could reach it, much less the brightness of the sun or moon. "And yet," thought the bottle, "men go on a journey that they may see as much as possible, and I can see nothing." However, it did something quite as important; it travelled to the place ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

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

... the Frenchmen were as busy as bees. We could hear the crackle and snap of wood as they seemed to be tearing it out of the counting-house; and then it was evident what they had been doing, for a torch danced here and there, and stopped in one place and seemed to double in size, to quadruple, and at last there was a leaping flame running up and a pile of wood ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn

... rain came trampling along the dark streets of the capital a body of four thousand troopers and lansquenettes. Many torch-bearers attended on the procession, whose flambeaux threw a ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... along the rough, rudely made floor, on and on and on, the little torch showing always the few feet in front of them, to safeguard them against any pitfalls that might be laid for the unwary traveller. It seemed hours that they walked thus, and their wonder at the elaborateness of this extraordinary tunnel system grew. There were turnings ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew

... minutes they reached the banks of the stream, and stopped fifty paces from the pyre, upon which still lay the rajah's corpse. In the semi-obscurity they saw the victim, quite senseless, stretched out beside her husband's body. Then a torch was brought, and the wood, heavily soaked ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne

... half-closed eyes, the visions of that day of battles left him. He sat wrapped in a dream world, far from stern realities of men and arms. So for a while, as he lounged on the divans, following the play of the torch-light on the face of Roxana as her long fingers plied the strings. What was it to him if Leonidas fought a losing battle? Was not his happiness secure—be it in Hellas, or Egypt, or Bactria? He tried to persuade himself thus. At the end, ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... carried out the law of the Guild both in spirit and letter to the extent of insisting upon payment in advance! This was Nicolo Grosso, who worked about 1499. Vasari calls him the "money grabber." His specialty was to make the beautiful torch holders and lanterns such as one sees on the Strozzi Palace ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... himself, by and by, in certain rare Manifestoes, which still exist in the cabinets of the curious. Belleisle next, after only a few days, went to Munchen; to operate on Karl Albert Kur-Baiern, a willing subject. And, in short, Belleisle whirled along incessantly, torch in hand; making his "circuit of the German Courts,"—details of said circuit not to be followed by us farther. One small thing only I have found rememberable; probably true, though vague. At Munchen, still more out at Nymphenburg, the fine Country-Palace not ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... Sonnets: The Torch Race To Sleep Sister Snow The Contrast A Mystery Triumph In Winter, with the Book we had in Spring Sere Wisdom Isolation The Lost Dryad The Gifts of the Oak The Strayed Singer ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone

... whole under the direction of a superior officer of that arm, who now walked to and fro, conversing in a low voice with Major Blackwater. One gunner at each of these divisions of the artillery held in his hand a blazing torch, reflecting with picturesque yet gloomy effect the bright bayonets and equipment of the soldiers, and the anxious countenances of the women and invalids, who, bending eagerly through the windows of ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... flare of a gasoline torch, he came face to face with Louis Akers. The two men confronted each other, silently, with hostility. Neither moved aside, but it was ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... into a jungle of brush and they crouched there, completely hidden, while a file of soldiers marched by, their file leader flashing an electric torch to show ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson

... the torch. The United Irishmen were organised and drilled in every county. The English garrison was becoming day by day more slack and contemptible. What traitors there were were known and marked. The dawn was in the sky. A little more patience, a little ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed

... a child, didst fear before, Being in the dark where thou didst nothing see; Now I have brought thee torch-light, fear no more; Now when thou diest thou canst ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... people from the front—on, on, on, in a strong struggling current of angry faces, with here and there a glaring torch to lighten them up, and show them out in all their wrath and passion. The houses on the opposite side of the ditch had been entered by the mob; sashes were thrown up, or torn bodily out; there were tiers and tiers of faces in every window; ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... brought the torch near the face of the frozen man, but his features could not be distinguished. Only when a second attendant lifted the head from the chest, they ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... could be offered to them. My uncles were, however, delighted with the commission—it was all for the benefit of science; and, providing themselves with torches and a hammer, they set out for the caves. And I, of course, accompanied them—a very happy boy—armed, like themselves, with hammer and torch, and prepared devotedly to labour in behalf of science and ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... be found on his way to it. This is a new and quite original occurrence: the State assumes the attitude of a mystogogue of culture, and, whilst it promotes its own ends, it obliges every one of its servants not to appear in its presence without the torch of universal State education in their hands, by the flickering light of which they may again recognise the State as the highest goal, as the reward of all ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche

... do nothing of the kind." She ran into the kitchen, and returned holding high a lighted torch—a grey-haired woman with traces of past comeliness, overlaid now by an air of worry, almost of fear. But her manner showed only a defiant pride as she led us up the uncarpeted stairs, past old portraits sagging and rotting ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... of infantry, and after all a noble body of cavalry, on fine horses, in striking uniform, each of them carrying a spear-topped banner in their hands. The general appearance of this procession, (each member of which, with the exception of the soldiers, carried a lighted candle or torch in his hand,) marching through one of the superb but narrow streets, while from almost every balcony was suspended a gay "trede," (a scarf-like awning,) either of blue, or crimson, or yellow, the balconies themselves ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various

... to tell of Linton's "Torch-Dance of Liberty," or of Massey's "Men of Forty-eight," and there are many more—the utterance of men who spoke from the heart, knowing in their own lives what suffering was. But let us rather turn ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson



Words linked to "Torch" :   common mullein, velvet plant, flashlight, flambeau, light, torch singer, electric lamp, torch song, light source, woolly mullein, burner, blowlamp, flannel mullein



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