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Spark   Listen
verb
Spark  v. i.  
1.
To sparkle. (Obs.)
2.
(Elec.) To produce, or give off, sparks, as a dynamo at the commutator when revolving under the collecting brushes.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Spark" Quotes from Famous Books



... were made by the high garden wall, and the fourth and innermost by the house. Thus the whole length of the house fronted him, and it struck him as very singular that neither in the lower nor the upper windows was there anywhere a spark of light, nor was there any sound but the tossing of the branches and the wail of the wind among the chimneys. Not even a dog barked or rattled a chain, and from no chimney breathed a wisp of smoke. The house in the gloom of that melancholy evening had a singular ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason

... fragment whatever that floats in my memory concerning the great subject of this work to be lost. Though a small particular may appear trifling to some, it will be relished by others; while every little spark adds something to the general blaze: and to please the true, candid, warm admirers of Johnson, and in any degree increase the splendour of his reputation, I bid defiance to the shafts of ridicule, or even of malignity. Showers of them have been ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... Robert could not repress a shudder of horror. A slaver and he a prisoner on board her! He might be gone a year or more. Never was a lad in worse case, but somewhere in him was a spark of hope that refused to be extinguished. He gave a more imperious summons than ever to his will, and it returned ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler

... The lane, which was composed of dwellings of the lowest order, tenanted by the most abject profligates, was dark as midnight; for the tall dingy buildings absolutely intercepted every ray of light that proceeded from the murky sky, and there was not a spark in any of the sordid casements, nor any votive lamp in that foul alley. The only glimpse of casual illumination, and that too barely serving to render the darkness and the filth perceptible, was the ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... occasion as sufficient." The players having withdrawn, the judges, sergeants, benchers, and other dignitaries, danced 'round about the coal fire;' that is to say, they danced round about a stove in which there was not a single spark of fire. The congregation of many hundreds of persons, in a hall which had not comfortable room for half the number, rendered the air so oppressively hot that the master of the revels wisely resolved to lead his troop of revellers round an empty grate. The chronicler of this ridiculous ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... himself with that, and Agatha grew more resolute. There was not a spark of imagination in him, scarcely even a spark of the passion which, if it had been strong enough, might have swept her away in spite of her shrinking. He was a man of comely presence, whimsical, and quick, ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss

... another woman is to be won in five minutes. It is not to be supposed that Mrs Dobbs Broughton had ever been won by any one except Mr Dobbs Broughton. At least, let it not be supposed that she had ever acknowledged a spark of love for Conway Dalymple. But nevertheless there was enough of jealousy in her present mood to make her think poorly of Miss Van Siever's capacity for standing a siege against the artist's eloquence. Otherwise, having left the two together with the object which she had acknowledged to ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... engine of destruction was a fuse. The rain had drenched it and quenched its spark of fire, doubtless at some break in the fiber, since fuse is supposedly water-proof. Nothing but the thunder-storm had availed to save his life. He had walked into a trap, like a trusting animal, and chance alone had intervened to ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele

... opinion were blocked up. Books were still not only read, but discussed and thought over, and every slight allusion to the times was instantly applied. In the prevailing listlessness, the mere fact of increased mental activity was of importance. A spark of genius does much to raise a nation. It is in itself the incontrovertible proof that the race lives: a dead people does not produce men of genius. Whatever awakes one part of the intelligence reacts on all its parts. You cannot lift, any more than you can degrade, the heart of man piecemeal. ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... trials that remain: I trace them the vein and the other vein That meet on thy brow and part again, Making our rapid mystic mark; And I bid my people prove and probe Each eye's profound and glorious globe Till they detect the kindred spark In those depths so dear and dark, 580 Like the spots that snap and burst and flee, Circling over the midnight sea. And on that round young cheek of thine I make them recognize the tinge, As when of ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning

... the Peishwa is that he is a man without a spark of good feeling; that he has neither conscience nor gratitude, and would betray his own brother, if he thought that he would obtain any advantage by so doing. He is a born schemer, and his sole idea of politics is to play off one faction against another. I would rather take the ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty

... read as a popular and powerful book of devotion. His precepts are rigid, but they are founded on the gospel; his satire is sharp, but it is drawn from the knowledge of human life; and many of his portraits are not unworthy of the pen of La Bruyere. If he finds a spark of piety in his reader's mind, he will soon kindle it to a flame; and a philosopher must allow that he exposes, with equal severity and truth, the strange contradiction between the faith and practice of the Christian world. Under the names of Flavia and Miranda he has admirably described ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon

... of the fifteenth century, was not an unimportant event. The mere substitution of the Academic for the Peripatetic philosophy would indeed have done little good. But anything was better than the old habit of unreasoning servility. It was something to have a choice of tyrants. "A spark of freedom," as Gibbon has justly remarked, "was produced by ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... put out the fire, every spark, and took the burro and horse trail, to the rescue again. We must pretend that this was only a ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin

... of the whole City, or, at least, as far as the Bridge and Parts adjacent. Let his Thoughts proceed to examine, why, or how, in that precipitate Fall, not one Nail, nor one Piece of Iron, in that large Fabrick, should afford one little Spark to enflame that Mass of sulphurous Matter it was loaded with; and if he is at a loss to find a Providence, I fear his Friends will be more at a loss to find his Understanding. But the Battle of Landen happening while our ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe

... jade, your escapade, And, lo! your wounded shoulders show it! No manly spark left such a mark— Leastwise he surely ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field

... bringing up others of a strangely confusing nature, but at last, just when he was ready to confess to this fresh trouble, he came upon candle and tinder-box, over which his trembling fingers played for some minutes before the welcome spark appeared in the tinder and suffered itself to be blown up into a glow instead ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn

... a pair of good-lookin' blue eyes opened agin on this world, Arvilly had got the pretty little girl all washed and comforted, and a piller under his head; and the minute his blue eyes opened a spark flew out of 'em right from that piller that kindled up a simultanous one in the cool gray ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... other, pressing down his key. The blue spark leaped out for a long moment, but Mart was careful not to break it, and with a satisfied nod he threw off the current. The Seamew's wireless, in spite of a year of disuse, was in splendid shape; like other ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney

... the tiny spark seemed to increase, not only in size, but intensity; and, before many minutes had elapsed, it proclaimed itself no longer a mere spark, but a blaze of light, with its own luminous halo around it. The ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... concentrated by evaporation and cooled down, about five-sixths of the chlorate of potash crystallizes out. It is purified by redissolving and crystallization, and is sold either in the state of crystals or finely ground. During these operations care must be taken lest a spark should produce the inflammation of the chlorate on contact with any organic substance. Large quantities of potassium chlorate exposed to strong heat in contact with the wood of casks or the timber of a roof have produced violent ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... a spark through a barrel of gunpowder. Like wildfire it flew about the church that the Duke's party and the Parson had quarrelled, and this was a public protest. Whig and Tory settled that with one scrape of the feet, and Major Dyngwall ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... in a way to make you feel that you have received a favor. She kept reminding me that it was my business to wait on her: if these things were paid for in cash, I should want high wages, for the duties are far from light. But I can stand it: within the bosom of Robert T. glows a spark of warm and pure philanthropy. When I see my fellow-creatures in need, and this good right arm refuses to extend its friendly aid, may my hand cleave to the roof of my mouth—O well, you know what I mean. I used to retire to my meagre and philosophic cot-bedstead ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol

... have been very insulting to our officers, calling to them that very shortly they will give us battle. My best information is that they have fully determined to attack both outside and within the city before our additional troops arrive, and the least spark may ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... purporting to be a memoir of my own life would be to omit all allusion to one of the chief pleasures which has graced my later years. In the last fifteen years she has been, out of my family, my most chosen friend. She is a ray of light to me, from which I can always strike a spark by thinking of her. I do not know that I should please her or do any good by naming her. But not to allude to her in these pages would amount almost to a falsehood. I could not write truly of myself without saying that such a friend had been vouchsafed to me. I trust she may live to read ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope

... to my father since. God forgive me!" she cried, "but I have despised him from that hour. When I knew that he had plotted to sell me to that detestable brute, working upon me to save his honour, of which he has not the smallest spark; that he had recognized and denied you, friendless before our house, and sent you into the darkness at Vauxhall to be murdered, then he was no father of mine. I would that you might know what my mother has suffered from such a ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... characteristic love of small things, the germination of great truths; it pays a compliment to humanity by asserting the value of every opinion, it demonstrates that even in so sordid a thing as a police court there is a spiritual spark; in a word, it is an attempt to see God, not on the hill-tops or in the valleys, but in the back streets ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke

... to do this; that they sometimes do not is a matter which I will not now go into, suffice it for my purpose if I admit that Mr Hardy can do this. In Farmer Oak there is nothing to object to; the conception is logical, the execution is trustworthy; he has legs, arms, and a heart; but the vital spark that should make him of our flesh and of our soul is wanting, it is dead water that the sunlight never touches. The heroine is still more dim, she is stuffy, she is like tow; the rich farmer is a figure ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... for a moment think that his words would so touch his uncle. He had spoken from his own stand-point, with thought of himself alone, and would have been amazed indeed could he have known what a steady flame within his uncle's mind his little spark ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt

... his way? he wondered. Which direction ought he to take? He was still hesitating when some twenty paces away he suddenly saw a bright spark, the gleam of a lucifer. Guillaume was lighting a candle. Pierre recognised his broad shoulders, and from that moment he simply had to follow the flickering light along a walled and vaulted subterranean gallery. It seemed to be interminable and to run in a northerly direction, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... the Reformation, the liberty of the press, the spirit of the age—all that is or has been of value to man in modern times as a member of society, either in Europe or in the New World, may be traced to the spark left burning upon our shores by ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough

... that the sword is broken, Our sword, that was halfway drawn? Is it so, that the light was a spark, That the bird we hailed as the lark Sang in her sleep in the dark, And the song we took for a token Bore false witness ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... does," said Meldon. "That won't matter. What I have got to take care about is that he doesn't catch sight of either Miss King or Simpkins. I don't know whether you quite realise, Major, that as long as that judge is in Ballymoy we are living on the edge of a volcano. The smallest spark might set the thing off and cause ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham

... quick glance at the girl Lodusky. She leaned against the wall just as she had done before; she was as cool as ever, though the spark which hinted at exultation still shone steadily in ...
— Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... they always met as if they had parted only the night before. There was neither shyness nor forwardness in Dawtie. Perhaps a livelier rose might tinge her sweet round cheek when she saw Andrew; perhaps a brighter spark shone in the pupil of Andrew's eye; but they met as calmly as two prophets in the secret of the universe, neither anxious nor eager. The old relation between them was the more potent that it made so little ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald

... in Jim's condition of mind this yielding of her lips and her whispers of love had really been a mistake. Not only had she made the situation perilously sweet for herself, but in Jim's case she had added the spark to the powder. She realized her blunder when it was too late. And the fact that she did not regret it very much, and seemed to have lost herself in a defiant, reckless spell, warned her again that she, too, ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey

... not proved how feebly words essay To fix one spark of Beauty's heavenly ray? Who doth not feel, until his failing sight Faints into dimness with its own delight— His changing cheek—his sinking heart confess ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo

... first, though not a spark survive, Some careful hand may teach to burn; The last, alas! can ne'er survive; No touch can bid its ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... have genius. The contrary is of course probable, but it is not demonstrated. If you have, the world wants you more than you want it. It not only a desire, but a passion, for every spark of genius that shows itself among us; there is not a bull-calf in our national pasture that can bleat a rhyme but it is ten to one, among his friends and no takers, that he is the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... also in the fact, generally admitted by the inhabitants of the northern regions, that, when the auroras appear low, a crackling is heard similar to that of the electric spark. The Greenlanders think that the souls of the dead are then striking against each other in the air. M. Ramm, Inspector of Forests in Norway, wrote to M. Hansteen, in 1825, that he had heard the noise, which always coincided with the appearance of the luminous ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... The spark the Grecian from Olympus caught, Left not a loftier trace; The daring of the sculptor's hand has wrought A soul in that sweet face! He won as well the sacred fire from heaven. God-sent, not stolen down, And no Promethean doom for him is given, ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... Julius. The lapses of the virtuous may make, indirectly, for good. And your instinct, after all, was both the healthy and the artistic one. Velasquez ought to have been incapable of putting his talent to such vile uses, and the first comer with a spark of true philanthropy in him ought to have knocked that poor ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... had married this woman by force, and that she had once wished of her own accord to marry Starling. And now she walked with him; she wore a gown he must have brought; she had forgiven him. A hot spark ran from my heart to my brain. I turned and started ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith

... astonishment—almost consternation—she could think of nothing else. He would not buy it for her. He thought her too silly to trust. But, if it were Robin's—it would be hers also. A girl couldn't turn her own mother into the street. Amid the folds of her narrow being hid just one spark of shrewdness which came to life where she ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... was broached, and much of the powder scattered about. After the boats had disappeared, the pirates were retiring from the fort, when Tompion's gallant attack on the mistico called them back, and it was at this time that a spark from the lantern of a man, sent for a further supply of powder, fell among the scattered grains, and produced the conflagration I have before spoken of. As the flames burst forth, and burnt with terrific energy, Zappa flew towards the building, in vain ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... multiply, and replenish the earth? upon One who declared it to be a legitimate source of joy to every mother that a child was born to the world? upon One whose love to all whom He has made is to our love as the light of the mighty sun to a fire-fly's spark wandering in darkness?" ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod

... cause why the stars fall from heaven, he answered: "That it is but our opinion; for if one star fall, it is the great judgment of God upon us, as a forewarning of some great thing to come: for when we think that a star falleth, it is but as a spark that issueth from a candle or flame of fire; for if it were a substantial thing, we should not so soon lose the sight of them as we do. But likewise if so be that we see as it were a stream of fire fall from the ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various

... 16," shouted the Warder to the Duke; "lend a hand here on the road; look alive, now." The old man went toward the wall, as if nothing could surprise him, no indignity arouse a spark of resentment. He tried to hurry to win the Warder's approbation; but in doing so he stumbled in climbing the low wall, upon which he turned to the officer with a ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.

... keep a silence so inhuman; But seek some other hand to close your eyes. Tho' but a spark of life remains within you, My soul shall go before you to the Shades. A thousand roads are always open thither; Pain'd at your want of confidence, I'll choose The shortest. Cruel one, when has my faith Deceived you! Think how in my arms you ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine

... in the Tank involuntarily applauded: becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... faint heart beat quick. A spark of her mistress's spirit flew up into her eyes as she ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... in force two hundred pounds of the common gunpowder. At one end of the machine is fastened an invisible clock-work meant to regulate the time of the explosion, which time may be fixed from one minute to thirty-six hours. The spark is produced by means of a steel needle which gives a spark at the touch-hole, and communicates thereby the fire to the ...
— Studies in Occultism; A Series of Reprints from the Writings of H. P. Blavatsky • H. P. Blavatsky

... or reason in his fancies, they would not give way so easily; but it is all talk, all extravagant notions—here one day, gone the next. Not a spark of ambition!' ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... banish your image from my heart than I would to deliberately still its pulses. Never, never—such an attempt, such an act, if successful, would be a murder of the affections. No. Lucy, whilst one spark of mortal life is alive in my body, whilst memory can remember the dreams of only the preceding moment, whilst a single faculty of heart or intellect remains by which your image can be preserved, I shall cling to that image as the shipwrecked sailor ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... high, and a very handsome man to boot; but his advantages were purely physical; not a spark of genius animated his fine features and commanding figure, and he was battling for a moderate share of provincial celebrity, when Mrs. Piozzi fell in with him at Bath. It has been rumoured in Flintshire that she wished to marry him, ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi

... in the moral as well as the material order are of a nature to make us hate existence. "Then I loathed life."[122] Indeed, the so-called moral order which, were it, in theory, what it is asserted to be in truth, might reconcile us to our lot and kindle a spark of hope in the human breast, is but the embodiment of rank immorality. "All things come alike to all indiscriminately; the one fate overtaketh the upright man and the miscreant, the clean and the unclean, him who sacrifices and him ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... marry come up! [Sir J. Hooker jestingly congratulated him on taking up botany in his old age.] I should like to know of a younger spark. The first time I heard myself called "the old gentleman" was years ago when we were in South Devon. A half-drunken Devonian had made himself very offensive, in the compartment in which my wife and I were travelling, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... I, and these One essence I believe, so one and trine, They bear conjunction both with sunt and est. With the profound conjunction and divine, Which now I touch upon, doth stamp my mind Ofttimes the doctrine evangelical. This the beginning is, this is the spark Which afterwards dilates to vivid flame, And, like a star in heaven, is sparkling in me." Even as a lord, who hears what pleases him, His servant straight embraces, giving thanks For the good news, as soon as he is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... to which her husband had alluded. She recovered her self-possession on Mountjoy's appearance, with the ease of a mistress of her art. "Pardon me," she said, holding up her book with one hand, and tapping it indicatively with the other: "Shakespeare carries me out of myself. A spark of the poet's fire burns in the poet's humble servant. May I hope that I have made myself understood? You look as if you ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins

... one night when it was dark, She blew up such a tiny spark That all the town was bothered; From it she raised such flame and smoke That many in great terror woke, ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various

... front of her—the tall Adele Rossignol with her red hair and her coarse good looks and her sapphire dress, and the hard-featured, sallow maid. The maid was carrying Celia's white coat. They did not mean to murder her, then. They meant to take her away, and even then a spark of hope lit up in the girl's bosom. For even with her illusions crushed she still clung to life with all the passion of ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason

... day the tesserae were verified with greater care than usual; and what was more, the centurion Scevinus, a strict soldier, devoted soul and body to Caesar, recognized Vinicius. But evidently in his iron-clad breast there glimmered yet some spark of pity for misfortunes. Instead of striking his spear in token of alarm, he led Vinicius aside ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... thee, then, even if it displease," cried Amine; and she rose, her cheek glowing, her eyes spark ling, her beautiful form dilated. "I am a daughter of Granada; I am the beloved of a king; I will be true to my birth and to my fortunes. Boabdil el Chico, the last of a line of heroes, shake off these gloomy fantasies—these doubts and dreams that ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... because I, for my poor part, feel that there are few things which we, all of us, people and ministers, need more than to catch some of the infection of this courageous confidence, and to be fired with some spark of Paul's enthusiasm for, and glorying in, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... him in unseen without and unnoticed within, for the Colonel and Master Freake were again at their arguments of state, hammer and tongs, and they minded the click of the door behind them no more than the crack of a spark at their feet. Indeed the Colonel said "Pish!" with great vehemence, and Master Freake's "My dear sir!" had a shake of pepper in it. As for me, I like a man who, when he gets into a thing, gets into ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... shop with a German name over the door should be pillaged. Their verdict was, in effect, "Serve God right, for creating the Germans!" The incident would have been impossible in a country where the Church was as powerful as the Church of England, had it had at the same time a spark of catholic as distinguished from tribal religion in it. As it is, the thing occurred; and as far as I have observed, the only people who gasped were the Freethinkers. Thus we see that even among men who make a profession of religion ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw

... cynic he is a satirist as much as Pope or Dryden, but the most kindly satirist who ever wrote. His thrusts are keen and yet there is always a humorous laugh behind, and never a spark of malice or uncharitableness. Thackeray bore no hatred in his heart towards any man. He could not bear to give pain, and as he grew older his satire became more gentle even than at first, and he regretted some of his earlier and ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... A spark had shown out of the misty distance. A little glitter. It came, trembled a second, and disappeared. Again it came, a many-pointed ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer

... depended the wires that were attached to the receiving and sending apparatus. These wires were on a reel, and would he uncoiled as the balloon arose. The earth-end would be attached to the telephone receivers and to the apparatus, consisting of a spark-gap wheel and other instruments designed to send into space the electrical impulses that could be broken up into dots, dashes and spaces, spelling out words according to the Morse or ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis

... spark which now circles round the world, annihilating time and space, was evolved; it flashed down the wire; the ocean could not put it out; the dry powder received it; the massive rock burst into fragments; a decided shock was felt on board the barge, ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne

... smile, nor tell me what's amiss? Have I been cold to hug thee, too remiss, Too temperate in embracing? Tell me, has desire To-thee-ward died in the embers, and no fire Left in the raked-up ashes, as a mark To testify the glowing of a spark? I must confess I left thee, and appeal 'Twas done by me more to increase my zeal, And double my affection[]; as do those Whose love grows more inflamed by being froze. But to forsake thee, [] could ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... curious reactions and evasions, by distastes and prejudices and unintended hints of the past. The girl was proudly incapable of jealousy and, because he was extremely jealous, this virtue piqued him. He told her recondite incidents of his own life on purpose to arouse some spark of it, but to no avail. She possessed him now—nor did she desire ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... by informing Miss Penny, Mr. Graeme, that this meeting is purely accidental? I caught a spark in her eye and I know what it means. Had you the very slightest idea that we ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham

... terms so as not too greatly to hurt his feelings, had made constant appeal for the past fifteen years. Hitherto he had hidden all signs of humorous titillation behind his impassive mask. To-night, a spark of sentiment had been the match to explode the mine of his mirth. It was a serious position. Here had I been wasting on him half a lifetime's choicest objurgations. What was I to do in the future ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... beauty and truth and love is all that is most vital to the soul, all that feeds it and gives it power; if aught be lacking, it is the eye to see and the heart to understand. Grain, fruit and vegetable, wool, silk and cotton, gold, silver and iron, steam and electricity,—were not all, like the spark, within arm's reach of savage man? The slow material progress of mankind through ages is paralleled by the slow growth of the individual soul in laying hold of and putting to use the resources of spiritual strength that are nigh unto it. The service of man to man in the ways of the spirit is, in ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry

... in the costume of the period, for which we can always refer to contemporary numbers of "Punch," the fact that I was for the most part walking sedately either with my mother or my aunt, or even with my sister and her governess, caused the spark of my vision that they were armed for conquest, or at the least for adventure, more expansively to glow. I am not sure whether as a general thing they honoured me at such instants with a sign of recognition; but I recover in especial the sense ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... seeing a soul saved. They have spent years in study; but they have not spent a day, much less ten days, fasting and praying and waiting upon God for His anointing that should fill them with heavenly wisdom and power for their work. They are like a great gun loaded and primed, but without a spark of fire to turn the powder and ball ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle

... the shapes of tables and chairs—hunger and fancy!"—"My talents and superiority," he continues, "made me for ever at the head in my routine of study, though utterly without the desire to be so; without a spark of ambition; and as to emulation, it had no meaning for me; but the difference between me and my form-fellows, in our lessons and exercises, bore no proportion to the measureless difference between me and them in the wide, wild, wilderness ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... into which all will ultimately be absorbed. "As milk changes to curd, and water to ice, so is Brahma variously transformed and diversified, without aid of exterior means of any sort." The human soul, according to the Vedas, is a portion of the supreme ruler, as a spark ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... shining brightest when fanned most by the tempest, and standing out as a bulwark which Delmar, with all her relentless battering, could not surmount. Time upon time Delmar pounded dangerously near Elliott's goal yet each time the Elliott spark of resistance was somehow equal to the occasion with Tim Mooney's toe doing Herculean work toward driving the invaders well back into their own territory from whence they were forced to begin all ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman

... it was went by the name of James Wought alias Saphiro alias Spark and Spiro, put an ad in the papers saying he'd give a passage to Canada for twenty bob. What? Do you see any green in the white of my eye? Course it was a bloody barney. What? Swindled them all, skivvies and badhachs from ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... the last spark had been extinguished. Then men climbed all over the trestle to ascertain just how much it had been weakened ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen

... that Oor faithers didna ken, For ae way foond in "Buchan," noo The doctors gie us ten; But I hope to a' the Pooers abune Auld Death may be owre thrang To come an' smoor my vital spark Wi' ang-bang-pang. ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie

... and, carrying out the same bold idea of liberty, he continues, "It is time to act;" or, in the language of the Know Nothing salutation, "It is time for work;" for "what signifies self, if a single spark of that genius of liberty worthy of the past, can be bequeathed unquenchably to the future?" In the language of a ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow

... advance the business in hand. Towards the end of the fourth act, however, we approach the climax, and matters begin to move. Alexis' marriage being now imminent, Silvia thinks she can venture at least to give her lover some spark of hope by narrating her story under fictitious names. This she does, making use of the transparent anagrams Isulia and Sirthis[256]. As Silvia ends her tale Montanus rushes in, determined to be revenged for the favour ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... Minutes grew. With every passing minute the threat weighed heavier and heavier, until it seemed, at last, that only the smallest spark was needed to ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum

... the ship were held back for cargo I would have a whole week at a time, and in this way I saw a deal of my sister-in-law, Sarah. She was a fine tall woman, black and quick and fierce, with a proud way of carrying her head, and a glint from her eye like a spark from a flint. But when little Mary was there I had never a thought of her, and that I swear as I ...
— The Adventure of the Cardboard Box • Arthur Conan Doyle

... flower. And surely if changes like these may occur, Ye men who have reason, how could ye demur At change in superior orders of nature? And least in a species so sure to create your Felicity (if it is not the reverse: In such an event she is rather a curse). No one, that possesses a spark of the human, Would think of opposing the progress of woman; But all would be happy when one of her kind A sphere more refined and exalted should find— Should gracefully 'merge from a chrysalis state, To bask in the light of a loftier fate. But (those hateful digressions, I heartily ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... touch one of her pig-tails I'll up and tell right out how I found you snivelling in the ma'sh like a great baby. So now!" and Ben emphasized his threat with a blow of the suspended rail which splashed the water over poor Sam, quenching his last spark of resistance. ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott

... his gallant steed bestrode, And forth upon his way he rode, As spark flies from a brand; Upon his crest he bare a tower, And therein stuck a lily flower: Save him from ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley

... appreciated, and the admonition of the Wise Man more extensively heeded, what a change would be effected in human life! How many of its keenest sufferings would be annihilated! The spark which kindles many great fires would be withheld; and, great as are the evils and sufferings caused by war, they are not as great, probably, as those originating in impatience and want of temper. The fretfulness of human life, it seems not hard to believe, is a greater evil, ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous

... of Satan," he said, "to drive us to despondency, so as to choke out the God-spark in us. Your sin is great, but your Father in Heaven awaits you, and will rejoice as a King rejoices over a princess redeemed from captivity. Every soul is a whole Bible in itself. Yours contains Sarah ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... beneficent vital-spark every body, but a lawyer, is in search; and it is what every body, but a lawyer, is delighted to find. No wonder therefore that a lawyer should meet discomfiture, and confusion, when he pretends to discuss the abstract ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... accompanied by a constant iridescent gleam and flash of the tiny bubbles that slipped along the bends and vanished at last in the smooth, oil-like wake with its tiny whirlpools; and at frequent intervals a shoal of flying-fish would spark out from under the bows and go skimming and glittering away to port or starboard, like a shower of brand-new silver dollars hove broadcast by the hand of old Father Neptune himself. The cuddy breakfast was fairly under way, and a great clattering of cups and saucers, knives and forks, and the ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood

... infused the colonel with the strength of a lion went out like a spark, and as quickly. Umballa rolled from his paralyzed fingers and lay on the floor, gasping and sobbing. Hare fell back against the pillar, groaning. The cessation of dynamic nerve force filled him with racking ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath

... to the hospital to inquire from the lady superior how the poor idiot is, who has taken such a prominent part in the bloody drama at Valpinson. His mental condition remains unchanged since he has been examined by experts. The spark of intelligence which the crime had elicited seems to be extinguished entirely and forever. It is impossible to obtain a word from him. He is, however, not locked up. Inoffensive and gentle, like a poor animal that has lost its master, he wanders mournfully through the courts and gardens ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau

... self-sufficient German could not see was plain to Jane Clayton—that the sympathies of Obergatz' native soldiers lay with the villagers and that all were so heartily sickened by his abuse that it needed now but the slightest spark to detonate the mine of revenge and hatred that the pig-headed Hun had been assiduously fabricating beneath his ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... A spark shot out of Madeline's great, black eyes. Then she laughed unpleasantly. "There's something in the wind besides ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... battle he had no equal, with the possible exception of "Stonewall" Jackson. In this respect he to my mind more nearly resembled John Churchill, the great duke of Marlborough, than any other historical character of modern times of whom I have any knowledge. If he had not the spark of genius, he came very near to having it. This is a personal judgment put down here, the writer trusts, with becoming modesty and with no desire to put himself forward as ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd

... see you so pack up and come down with Dr. Gregory, if the least spark of regard for me is slumbering in your breast. Mamma and Florence are writing to beg you but though an insignificant member of the family, considering that instead of being 'next to head', only little Edith prevents my being ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell

... your mother keep her if she's so cross?" inquired Molly, leaning forward to blow the last spark which still lingered ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray

... men, on the morning of the 19th, lost their lives by a very melancholy accident. They were cutting up a captured ammunition-waggon for firewood, when one of their swords striking against a nail, sent a spark among the powder. When I looked in the direction of the explosion, I saw the two poor fellows about twenty or thirty feet up in the air. On falling to the ground, though lying on their backs or bellies, some extraordinary effort of nature, caused by the agony of the moment, made them spring ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid

... idioms of person or race and is universally acceptable in form and essence. Such is the intrinsic nature of the process, and the historical circumstances of its beginnings make it clear. It was the quick mind of the Greek which acted as the spark to fire the trains of thought and observation which had been accumulating for ages through the agency of the priests in Egypt and Babylonia. The Greeks lived and travelled between the two centres, and their ...
— Progress and History • Various

... that way entered into him, came so close, possessed him so completely, that he could not hold back those words about them. A spirit quite beyond his control had moved him to that little toast. After that, something—perhaps a spark from the nerve of those men of whom he had spoken—brought his mind firmly into possession of the feeling that everything was all right. It was not that he argued himself out of his fears, but rather that something brought the assurance of its being ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell

... He was beginning to doubt, if, after all, Fargeas intended to attempt the experiment. He longed, with keen desire, to speak to Marsa; to know if his look, his breath, like a puff of wind over dying ashes, would not rekindle a spark of life in ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... was informed that either at Deckendorf or Filtzhofen there was a barrel containing 20,000 florins, concealed at the house of an apothecary. Impelled by the desire of booty, Trenck hastened to the place, with a candle in his hand, searching everywhere, and, in his hurry, dropped a spark into a quantity of gunpowder, by the explosion of which he was dreadfully scorched. They carried him off, but the scars and the gunpowder with which his skin was blackened ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... he intended to place before her. Would she accept it? And—what then? The long days of work, unlit by any hope of the future. The process of building, building, which all men desire, without that spark of delight which inspires the desire. Just the drudgery of it. The resulting wealth and commercial power of it maybe, but not one moment of the joy with which only two days before he had regarded the ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum

... which had been nibbled by some giant mouse, she crept through it, and found herself in an enormous hall. She could not have seen the other end of it at all, except for the great fire that was burning there, diminished to a spark in the distance. Towards this fire she ran as fast as she could, and was not far from it when something fell before her with a great clatter, over which she tumbled, and went rolling on the floor. She was not much hurt however, and ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald

... suddenly cut down. Just such is Man, who vaunts himself to-day, Decking himself in all his best array; But in the midst of all his bravery Death rounds him in the ear, "Friend, thou must die." Or like a shadow in a sunny day, Which in a moment vanishes away; Or like a smile or spark,—such is the span Of life allowed this microcosm, Man. Cease then vain man to boast; for this is true, Thy brightest glory's as the morning dew, Which disappears when first the rising sun Displays his beams ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood

... classification of faculties in which the Victorine School almost revelled, and to concentrate his attention on the union of the soul with God. And therefore in his more developed teaching,[13] the "spark" which is the point of contact between the soul and its Maker is something higher than the faculties, being "uncreated." He seems to waver about identifying the "spark" with the "active reason," but inclines on the whole to regard ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge

... gray form to throw In a sliver cone on the wave below; His sides are broken by spots of shade, By the walnut bough and the cedar made, And through their clustering branches dark Glimmers and dies the fire-fly's spark— Like starry twinkles that momently break Through the rifts of the ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake

... said Mrs. Luttrell. "He stood in your place. If you had a spark of proper pride in you, you would know that he was your enemy, and you will feel ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... intense darkness, feeling with outstretched hands. The first object encountered was a rough table, the surface of which I explored, discovering thereon a candlestick with flint and steel beside it. With relief I struck a spark, and a yellow ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish



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