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Alight   /əlˈaɪt/   Listen
Alight

adjective
1.
Lighted up by or as by fire or flame.  Synonyms: ablaze, afire, aflame, aflare, on fire.  "Even the car's tires were aflame" , "A night aflare with fireworks" , "Candles alight on the tables" , "Houses on fire"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Alight" Quotes from Famous Books



... strange place in which to alight on the problem of the use and abuse of those products of nature or art which induce intoxication or stupefaction. Roots or juices with such properties have been known to nearly all races, the savage as well as the civilised; ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker

... he would often fly in to see her. The first thing he would do would be to hug her. No, he would alight on the water-jug ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie

... his brother possessed no such thing afore. But there it was: he'd been tempted to buy the toy, and though it couldn't bring him back to life, there was just a dog's chance it might save his brother's. Amos knew the thing wouldn't last very long alight, so he husbanded it careful and only turned it on when his hands couldn't tell him ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts

... of the apparatus there is a gas chamber having sufficient capacity, in the case of an occulting light, for maintaining the flame in action for seven seconds, and by means of a by-pass a jet remains alight in the centre of the burner. During the period of three seconds' darkness the gas chamber is re-charged, and at the end of that period is again opened to the main burner by a tripping arrangement of the valve, and remains in action seven seconds. The gas chamber of the buoy, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... approached the depot she observed an immense crowd of people gathered together, among which the red coats of the firemen were conspicuous. A fight was evidently in progress, and as the horses began to grow restive she begged of the driver to let her alight, saying she could easily walk the remainder of the way. Scarcely, however, was she on terra-firma when the yelling crowd made a precipitate rush towards her, and in much alarm she climbed for safety into an empty buggy, whereupon the horse, equally alarmed, began to rear, and ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... work I was engaged on. I started up, and looking up at my big sunlight, saw to my horror that I had wound up my easel, which is twelve feet high, and more nearly resembles a guillotine than anything else, so far that the top of it was in immediate contact with the gas, and actually alight! ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... dear, and a strong one. I have hoped that you will see the right. That you will marry a great citizen, one unwavering in his service and devotion to our Republic." The Judge's voice trembled with earnestness as he spoke. And the gray eyes under the shaggy brows were alight with the sacred fire of his life's purpose. Undaunted as her spirit was, she could ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... one startling disaster. Captain Miller of the Theseus, whose ammunition ran short, carefully collected such French shells as fell into the town without exploding, and duly returned them, alight, and supplied with better fuses, to their original senders. He had collected some seventy shells on the Theseus, and was preparing them for use against the French. The carpenter of the ship was endeavouring ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... Close beside an eglantine, Upon a throne of beaten gold, The lord of ample France behold; White his hair and beard were seen, Fair of body, and proud of mien, Who sought him needed not ask, I ween. The ten alight before his feet, And him in ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various

... this early prowl, while the hands of the clock were between half-past six and seven, that he received something like a shock from seeing the captain alight at the school gate from the ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed

... discussed the possibility of making a fire to cook our provisions. There was room enough in the fork of a large branch; but the danger was that we might set the whole tree alight, and burn it and ourselves. Still, we did not as yet feel inclined to eat the frogs and lizards, or even the birds, raw, though we knew that we might in the end be compelled to ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston

... you think of that, Captain? What do you suppose this mysterious mission can be?" Marjorie's face was alight with affectionate curiosity. ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... took to right-about at a sharp angle and the broad Chateau, with its noble portico and numerous windows all alight, suddenly loomed up in the center of a forest-clearing on the mountain side. Where the path to the garden crossed a frozen stream was a small open space. Here the Indians had been encamped. We hallooed for servants and by ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... even as a melted jewel flowing from the fingers of the maker, the Almighty One. The ship ceased not sailing till they came to a narrow strait, where the sea was but a river between fair sloping hills alight with towers and palaces, opening a way to a great city that was in its radiance over the waters of the sea as the aspect of myriad sheeny white doves breasting the wave. Hitherto the young warrior had held aloof in coldness of courtesy from Bhanavar; but now ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... were alight with a somber frenzy, which blazed and waned with every mouthful. There was very little skin to the face. The face, for that matter, sunken and emaciated, bore little likeness to ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London

... Christie when the mist about her was so thick she would have stumbled and fallen had not the little candle, kept alight by her own hand, showed her how far "a good deed shines in a naughty world;" and when God seemed utterly forgetful of her He sent a friend ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... ineptitude, inflicted on me by an eccentric editor for translation, drove me to madness, and not an hour ago I cast it from my window in disgust. It is a novel entirely devoid of taste and tact, and it had the clumsiness to alight on my landlord's head. Being a man of small nature, he retaliated by demanding ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... his knees before the girl. With his shaking hands, he touches her breast; then he kisses it gently. She does not repel him, but her bored and absent expression discourages any amorous action and withers the kisses at the very moment when they alight upon her flesh. Then he half-raises himself to gaze at her from head to foot; and with all his ardour he silently asks for the consenting smile and ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc

... met so evenly that feint, and catch and heave as each combatant would, the other remained unthrown. Once Red Murdo got his antagonist by the waist, lifted him clean off the ground and whirled him round like a totum, only to have him alight on his feet. Once, also, the sergeant, by a supple twist of arm and leg, working together, got Red Murdo half down and no more. Really it was a toss-up who should win, or whether there would be a ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne

... now and placing himself at the back of Lois's chair, where he too could see what was going on in front of the house. A queer little vehicle had certainly stopped there, and somebody very much muffled had got out, and was now helping a second person to alight, which second person must be a woman; and she was followed by another woman, who alighted with less difficulty and less attention, though she had two ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner

... our stations, are the only portions of the rocket system which much resemble anything connected with railroads. It is said that great skill and long practice on the conductor's part are required to cause the cars to alight well on the slides and draw up at the stations. The slides at many stations are nearly level with the ground, but ascend in opposite directions, till at the distance of a mile, where they end, they are 100 feet high. The cars are now made quite cylindrical, tapering off abruptly at the closed end. ...
— The Dominion in 1983 • Ralph Centennius

... proceeding than Holmes had imagined, for he did not return to the inn until nearly nine o'clock. He was pale and dejected, stained with dust, and exhausted with hunger and fatigue. A cold supper was ready upon the table, and when his needs were satisfied and his pipe alight he was ready to take that half comic and wholly philosophic view which was natural to him when his affairs were going awry. The sound of carriage wheels caused him to rise and glance out of the window. A brougham and pair of greys under ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle

... with pleasure, for Salford Hall is an old mansion of grey stone, built three hundred years ago, and now mysterious and, except for a few rooms, desolate. It has also an old garden and a fish-pond, and a little Roman Catholic chapel whose altar-candles have been alight ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas

... of Norton's machine told us he was approaching. We scattered to give him space enough to choose the spot where he would alight. As the men caught his machine to steady it, he jumped lightly ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve

... and about twenty clergymen on horseback, made a call at the humble dwelling of Roberts, on their way to Tedbury, where the Bishop was to hold a Visitation. "I could not go out of the country without seeing you," said the prelate, as the farmer came to his coach door and pressed him to alight. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... shops. They formed the proper background for her broodings, but they scarcely entered into her mood. She could not have said just what flight her mood was taking, or upon just which branch her thought would alight. She was confused and puzzled and vaguely uneasy. She had a sense that somehow, somewhere, a door had been opened and that a strong, devastating wind was clearing the air and bringing dead things to ground in a disorderly shower. She was stirred by twilights of uneasiness. It was almost as ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... the one who had been honoring Nora with his regard, came forward with a hand outstretched to help her alight, while another man, the ordinary type of English laborer placed ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett

... de Coislin and his son, M. de Metz, on foot upon the pavement of Ponthierry, where their coach had broken down. We sent word, accordingly, that we should be glad to accommodate them in ours. But message followed message on both sides; and at last I was compelled to alight and to walk through the mud, begging them to mount into my coach. M. de Coislin, yielding to my prayers, consented to this. M. de Metz was furious with him for his compliments, and at last prevailed on him. When M. de ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... hereupon, though almost as venerable in appearance as its mother—possessing, indeed, the whole antiquity of its progenitors in miniature,—mustered vivacity enough to flutter upward and alight ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... seek this obscure retirement affected him but slightly; he even was thrilled with a vague memory of the old shiftless camp they had both abandoned. A certain instinct—he knew not why, or less still that it might be one of delicacy—made him alight before they reached the first house. Bidding the carriage wait, Uncle Billy entered, and was informed by a blowzy Irish laundress at a tub that Jim Foster, or "Arkansaw Jim," lived at the fourth shanty "beyant." He was at home, for "he'd shprained ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte

... by moon or stars, made out a long line of moving blackness in the narrow gloom of the Koeniginstrasse. The forward cars entered the palace from the Schlossplatz, and as lights immediately appeared in the courtyards Gisela saw eight or ten men alight stiffly and hurriedly enter the inner portals. The other automobiles ranged themselves in an apparently unbroken line on all sides of the palace. Gisela had amused herself imagining the nervous speculations of those ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton

... the couple alight from the aero-taxi, walk up the broad steps and pass through the magic portals of the Martian Club. He could imagine what the club was like, the deference of the management, the exotic atmosphere of the dining room, the excellence ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak

... am glad to see you," said he. "Alight and hitch. The bronco didn't get away from you, I suppose. And you found ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon

... the grandest enclosed court in the world, is a circular space 144 feet across and roofed in with glass at a great height. Carriages are driven into this enclosure, and, in the nearest approach to severe weather known in San Francisco, guests can alight ...
— My Native Land • James Cox

... found there was much anxiety at home over their long absence. Mr. Sherwood was on the watch when the sleigh drove up, and was beside it in time to help the muffled figures alight, and anxious to hear the ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... life are there which will bear comparison with the beginning of our second term at the University? So far as external circumstances are concerned, it seems hard to know what a man could find to ask for at that period of his life, if a fairy godmother were to alight in his rooms and offer him the usual three wishes. The sailor who had asked for "all the grog in the world," and "all the baccy in the world," was indeed driven to "a little more baccy" as his third requisition; ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... who answered that question at five o'clock, when, from the post ambulance, he and Bright sprang forth, and presently aided to alight a very solemn-looking civilian, shaved, dressed and groomed with extreme care, but for pallor and nervousness, a reputable-looking criminal—Case. Accused with assault with attempt to kill, the bookkeeper, none the less, had been taken in charge by officers of the army, ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... as if he had been his father and king in one, and stood gazing after him as long as he was in sight. I noticed also—who could have failed to notice?—that every now and then a bird would drop from the tree we were passing under, and alight for a minute on my host's head. Once when he happened to uncover it, seven or eight perched together upon it. One tiny bird got caught in his beard ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... Tower Street, they rattled merrily enough over the uneven streets until they came close to the theatre, when, being in high spirits and feeling anxious to test the value of their disguise, they resolved to alight from their conveyance, enter the playhouse, and offer their wares for sale in presence of ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... a well-dressed woman covered with diamonds, and whom nobody knew, alight from a very handsome carriage, were curious to know who it was, and sent to enquire of the lackey. He replied, with a sneer, "It is a lady who has recently tumbled from a garret into this carriage." This lady was probably of the same sort as Madame Bejon's ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... sitting-room and stood face to face with Mademoiselle Elizabeth Dollon. She came forward, her eyes shining, her face alight ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... colour; but its short neck and great round head told the naturalist at a glance that it was a bird of the owl genus. It was the largest of the kind that Lucien had ever seen, and was, in fact, the largest known in America—the "great cinereous owl." Now and then it would alight upon a rock or tree, at the distance of an hundred yards or so from the camp; where it would watch the operations of Lucien, evidently inclined to help him in dissecting some of the animals. Whenever he took up his gun and tried to approach within shot, it would rise into the air again, ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... for an instant did their glances leave the cards. Ellis was drinking whisky again, mixed with soda, his hand continually groping for the glass with a mechanical gesture; the Dummy was so excited he could not keep his cigar alight, and contented himself with chewing the end with an hysterical motion of his jaws. The perspiration stood in beads on the back of Vandover's hands, running down in tiny rivulets between his fingers, his teeth were shut close together and he was breathing short through ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris

... license, kissing the wives and talking love-talk to the girls in his wanderings, as he begs for his Church and his order. His hood is stuffed with trinkets to give them; he is worthily known as the best beggar of his house; his eyes alight with wine, he strikes his little harp, trolls out funny songs and love-ditties. Anon, his frolic over, he preaches to the collected crowd violent denunciations of the parish priest, within the very limits of his parish. The very principles ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... they sat, each in plain sight of the other but only one seeing the other. This was because Juniper had been fortunate enough to see Whitey alight on that stump. Jumper had been sitting still when Whitey arrived, and so those fierce yellow eyes had not yet seen him. But had Jumper so much as lifted one of those long ears, Whitey would have seen, and his great claws would have been ...
— Whitefoot the Wood Mouse • Thornton W. Burgess

... lights in the valley-lights of palaces to my imagination. Stars and tramps seemed to me to go together. Houses imprisoned us, I thought a lost father was never to be discovered by remaining in them. Plunged among dark green leaves, smelling wood-smoke, at night; at morning waking up, and the world alight, and you standing high, and marking the hills where you will see the next morning and the next, morning after morning, and one morning the dearest person in the world surprising you just before you wake: I thought this a heavenly pleasure. But, observing the narrowness of the tents, it struck ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... not one "Lost," or gone astray. Those who have stepped forth into the arena of this present manifestation of life on this planet, have, each in their place, their responsibility and task, to keep alight the beacons of reason, and intelligence, as guides to truth, and to pander never to the powers of ignorance and superstition, however manifested ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield

... in a mess with a group of flying-officers, drinking tea out of a tin mug. One boy, the youngest of them, had just brought down his first "Hun." He told me the tale of it with many details, his eyes alight as he described the fight. They had maneuvered round each other for a long time. Then he shot his man en passant. The machine crashed on our side of the lines. He had taken off the iron crosses on the wings, and a bit of the propeller, as ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... called to be its organs. The spirit of inspiration might fall on anyone at any time; no prescribed training was necessary to make a man a prophet. It might come, as it did to Amos, on the husbandman in his fields or the shepherd among his flock. It might alight on the young noble amidst the opening pleasures of life, as it did on Isaiah and Zephaniah; or it might come, as it did on Jeremiah and Ezekiel, on the young priest preparing ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker

... likely that young Dr. Carter was unused to smiling; but suddenly his eyes were alight. He spoke, and the dry, impersonal ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... the chickadee Singeth to me on fence and tree: But in my inmost ear is heard The music of a holier bird; And heavenly thoughts, as soft and white As snow-flakes, on my soul alight, Clothing with love my lonely heart, Healing with peace each bruised part, Till all my being seems to be Transfigured ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various

... compliment due to a lady so fair; (How I tremble to think of the blood it has spilt!) Then he lowers down the point, and kisses the hilt. Your ladyship smiles, and thus you begin: 'Pray, captain, be pleased to alight and walk in.' The captain salutes you with congee profound, And your ladyship curtseys half way to the ground. 'Kit, run to your master, and bid him come to us; I'm sure he'll be proud of the honour you do us; And, captain, you'll ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... never seen a white man for as far as one can ascertain no one has been up here for ten years. However, where there is a village the Chief comes on board and presents a chicken. About midday the kitchen canoe paddles by with fire alight and pot boiling. Soon after Chikaia shouts: Le cuisinier est tombe dans l'eau, and a little way ahead is seen a canoe apparently upside down close to the bank and twelve or fifteen black heads bobbing up and down in the water. Mountmorres ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman

... throughout the house, was presently traced to the school-room, and thither Darrow mounted with Anna. He had never seen her so alight with happiness, and he had caught her buoyancy of mood. He kept repeating to himself: "It's over—it's over," as if some monstrous midnight hallucination had been routed by the ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton

... to alight and ushered her through the door, which opened almost as they stopped, into ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace

... constellations throbbing in sultry summer, and their white fires sparkled, flared as if blown by interstellar storms. The large family of Lazarus huddled over dying embers on darkening hearths, and shivered under scanty shreds of covering; but the house of Dives was alight with the soft radiance of wax candles, fragrant with the warm aroma of multitudinous exotics, and brimming with waves of riotous music, on which merry-hearted favorites of fashion swam in measured mazes. The "reception" given by Judge Parkman to the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... alight, his body alert, as he came to Arsdale's side. The latter looked up at him in surprise, feeling his presence before he saw. Donaldson's ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... at the Abbey door, and Winnington, still absolutely silent, helped her to alight. She led the way, past the drawing-room where Lady Tonbridge sat rather anxiously expecting her, to that bare room on the ground floor, the little gun-room, which Gertrude Marvell had made her office, ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... of trees in the deer park not far away. There they poured the oil over her, piled faggots of wood around, and set all on fire. They fed the flames with more and more kerosene, until everything was consumed, save a few bones. Almost before the body was alight the Regent was being borne in triumph to the palace under an escort of triumphant Japanese soldiers. He at once assumed control of affairs. The King was made a prisoner in his palace. The Regent's partizans were summoned to ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie

... this supply appeared very strongly from the report of our people, who found some of these poor creatures actually gnawing a piece of hard sealskin with the hair on it, while few of the huts had any lamp alight. It must be remembered that the failure of their seal-fishery always involves a double calamity, for it not only deprives them of food, but of fuel for their lamps. When this is the case, not to mention the want of warmth and light in the huts, ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... XXVIII There they alight and took their way on foot, The empty chariot vanished out of sight, Yet still the cloud environed them about. At their left hand down went they from the height Of Sion's Hill, till they approached the route On that ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... he had to alight and lift it off its hinges. Just as he had done so, and had got it sufficiently open for a horse to pass, George Cheek came up from behind, and slipped ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... by the snow. The idea came to me of lighting the kitchen fire, and I thus got sufficient boiling water to melt the top coating of snow on the side where I wanted to alight. Having done this, Claude and our coloured servants got down and cleared away a small portion ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt

... berries, and doing small businesses. The birds, which seem so free, live a life of labour; and they may not always follow their hearts. But be sure that your bird knows his friends; and some day, when he has opportunity, he will alight again. To him his songs seem but a small gift, a shallow twittering that can hardly please." "Nay," said the Lady Beckwith, "but this was a nightingale that knew the power of song, and could touch all hearts except his own; and thus, finding love so simple a thing ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... strange star again. And it was now so bright that the waxing moon seemed but a pale yellow ghost of itself, hanging huge in the sunset. In a South African City a great man had married, and the streets were alight to welcome his return with his bride. "Even the skies have illuminated," said the flatterer. Under Capricorn, two negro lovers, daring the wild beasts and evil spirits, for love of one another, crouched together in a cane brake where the fire-flies hovered. "That is our star," they whispered, and ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... she had dropped into the term of endearment with this young girl. It was so much a part of her nature to do so. Peggy's cheeks became rose-tinted with pleasure, and her eyes alight with happiness. Her smile was radiant as she slipped to Mrs. Harold's side saying: "Oh, if Compadre were only here to decide it right away. He is my guardian you know, and, of course, I must do as he wishes, but I hope—oh I HOPE, he will let me ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... completed by early in the afternoon of Christmas Eve, and after an early tea in parlour and kitchen—the servants, clean and neat, piled up the Yule clogs in the rooms, getting the large ones well alight, and keeping them going by smaller knots of wood. Long, large, white Christmas Candles were lighted, set in old-fashioned, time-honoured, brass candlesticks, accompanied by equally old and honoured brass snuffers and trays, all bright and shining. Of candles, there was ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton

... by her knitting at father's words, and rose and walked feebly to the window, where she stood a long time looking out at the death-white waste, shut in by the morose, ominous sky. Then, turning slowly, her face alight and beautiful with that beauty which is fairer than youth, she said, "It puts me in mind of the Great Snow, Ephraim,—it puts me in mind of a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... yet; Though it hate thee, suffer long; Put the Spirit in the wrong; Brother, no decrepitude Chills the limbs of Time; As fleet his feet, his hands as good, His vision as sublime: On Nature's wheels there is no rust; Nor less on man's enchanted dust Beauty and Force alight. ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... I was bid, and rejoined the dervish, whom I found trying to kindle a fire out of some dry wood. As soon as it was alight, he threw on it a handful of perfumes, and pronounced a few words that I did not understand, and immediately a thick column of smoke rose high into the air. He separated the smoke into two columns, and then I saw a rock, which stood like a pillar between the two mountains, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.

... in mind that these ecclesiastics who became skilled in architecture were taught by the Masons, and that it was not the monks, as some seem to imagine, who taught the Masons their art. Speaking of this early and troublous time, Giuseppe Merzaria says that only one lamp remained alight, making a bright spark in the darkness that extended ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton

... legs up high into the air to save them. He flung himself too far, though, for his face and chest hit the water on the far side. And out of this water rose the head of a great fish, with the lake slime of years on its flat, black head, its whiskers bristling, its corpsy eyes alight. Its horny jaws closed and clamped in the front of Jake's flannel shirt. His hand struck out wildly and was speared on a poisoned fin, and unlike Joel, he went from sight with a great yell and a whirling and a churning of the water that made ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb

... lived so long. What he could not clear away, however, was the effect of those years of morbid and unnatural life spent in the hidden chambers of the old house; and it was only the devotion of his wife and of his son which kept the thin and flickering flame of his life alight. She whom I had known as the play actress of Anstey Cross became the dowager Lady Avon; whilst Boy Jim, as dear to me now as when we harried birds' nests and tickled trout together, is now Lord Avon, beloved by his tenantry, the finest sportsman ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... blowing the candle out, but which did blow it out nevertheless—thus affording Tom's enemies an opportunity of asserting that it was he, and not the wind, who extinguished the candle, and that while he pretended to be blowing it alight again, he was in fact kissing the girl. Be this as it may, another light was obtained, and Tom was conducted through a maze of rooms, and a labyrinth of passages, to the apartment which had been prepared for his reception, where the girl bade him ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... England of ours is all alight and aflame with Protestant indignation against popery; the Church of England being likely to rekindle the fires of 1780, by way of vindicating the right of private judgment. I, who hold perfect freedom of thought and of conscience the most precious of all possessions, have of course my ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... door he sprang out to help her to alight, but she ignored his offered aid. Though she turned away he saw that there ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster

... in gala, and the Royal Apartments upstairs are brilliantly alight; Duke of Lorraine with the other high strangers are requested to take their place up there, and wait for a short while. Prussian Majesty, Queen and Crown-Prince with him, proceeds then, in a solemn ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... collected. If there is anything that this people ought to save, it is certainly oil, for this signifies to them both light and heat. In the roof of the bedchamber some bars are fixed over the lamps on which clothes and shoes are hung to dry. The lamps are kept alight the whole day, during night they are commonly extinguished, as otherwise they would require continual attention. Some clothes and fishing implements, two or three reindeer skins to rest upon—these are the whole furniture of ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold

... maddeningly pretty as she smiled down at him, with her bright hair roughened, and the afterglow of the dance alight in her eyes and cheeks. Nevertheless, for one whirling moment, the old Adam, an Adam blissfully unaware of the existence of Eve, asserted himself in Rupert. He picked up his cap and stick without a word, and turned towards the door. There, however, ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... door wide open until the candle was well alight, and then I shut them in, and walked down ...
— The Red Room • H. G. Wells

... helped him to alight. The train had stopped just outside a small station; on a cross line in front of the engine lay a goods truck smashed to pieces; people were rushing about with ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... beat upon the uppermost coral cells and break them up into fine white sand. Currents of ocean throw upon this beach pieces of sea-weed and drifting marine substances of various kinds. The winds convey the lighter seeds of land plants to it, and sea-birds that alight upon it to rest do the same thing. Thus, little by little, things accumulate on the top of the coral ring until the summit rises above the reach and fury of the waves. No sooner is this accomplished than the genial sun of those regions calls the seeds ...
— The Cannibal Islands - Captain Cook's Adventure in the South Seas • R.M. Ballantyne

... two forces met; the sea came rolling in towards the ships and tents of the Achaeans, but waves do not thunder on the shore more loudly when driven before the blast of Boreas, nor do the flames of a forest fire roar more fiercely when it is well alight upon the mountains, nor does the wind bellow with ruder music as it tears on through the tops of when it is blowing its hardest, than the terrible shout which the Trojans and Achaeans raised as they sprang upon ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... the gate-way, I perceived it slightly open, and the visage of a man peering through. In an instant afterward, this man came forth, accosted my companion by name, shook him cordially by the hand, and begged him to alight. It was Monsieur Maillard himself. He was a portly, fine-looking gentleman of the old school, with a polished manner, and a certain air of gravity, dignity, and authority which ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... antagonist Another guest, with his mouth full of tea, witnessing this absurd contretemps is unable to restrain his laughter, the result of which is that he blows a stream of tea into the left ear of the man who has lost his wig, at the same time setting his own pigtail alight in the adjoining candle. All these disasters, passing in rapid succession from left to right, are the direct "consequences" of one unfortunate pinch ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... "The passengers will please alight on this side of the stage, turn their pockets inside out and deposit their coin on top of the box" continued the road agent. "My friend with the spike beard and the gold eye-glasses! You dropped something on the bed of the stage. Pick it up, if you're anxious to retain a whole ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... those white-breasted birds sometimes alight on ploughed fields round Otterbourne, and even some miles farther from the sea. They are sometimes kept in gardens to destroy ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge

... invited me to take a ride. I consented, supposing we should soon return: but when we reached St. Antoine suburbs, she drove up to a house which I had formerly heard to be some kind of refuge, stopped, and requested me to alight. My first thought was, that I should be exposed to certain detection, by some of the priests whom I presumed officiated there; as they had all known me in the nunnery. I could not avoid entering; but I resolved to feign sickness, hoping thus to ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk

... one's oars; repose on one's laurels, take breath; stop &c (discontinue) 142. stagnate; quieta non movere [Lat.]; let alone; abide, rest and be thankful; keep within doors, stay at home, go to bed. dwell &c (be present) 186; settle &c (be located) 184; alight &c (arrive) 292; stick, stick fast; stand like a post; not stir a peg, not stir a step; be at a stand &c n.. quell, becalm, hush, stay, lull to sleep, lay an embargo on. Adj. quiescent, still; motionless, moveless; fixed; stationary; immotile; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... towards Sofala, Quiloa, and Melinda, that there were certain birds in that country, which would come to the negroes on a call, and as the negroes moved on through the woods, the birds would do the same from tree to tree, till at length they would alight on a tree whence they would not remove: And, on examining that tree, the negroes were sure to find wax and honey, but knew not whether it grew there naturally or not[31]. In the same country, they find much wax and honey ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... beat quicker for a moment. Not a word did he say, but she felt that a new atmosphere surrounded her when he was by, and although he used none of the little devices most lovers employ to keep the flame alight, it was impossible to forget that underneath his quietude there was a hidden world of fire and force ready to appear at a touch, ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... a good deal tired; but after I got into bed I kept my candle alight for a time, hoping Jael would bring the Rushlight and put it on the floor near Margery's bed, as I had asked her to do. But after a while I had to put out my candle, for Grandmamma is rather particular about it, and then I ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... lapping of the tide along the icy land-wash and the dull whispering of it among the seaward rocks were the only sounds. The skipper stood motionless beside his own door for a few minutes. Small windows blinked alight here and there; faint, muffled sounds of awakening life came to him from the cabins; pale streamers of smoke arose into the breathless air ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts

... is given us of a woman who walked alone from Hay River to Province on snowshoes, taking thirteen days to do it. She had no matches, and carried her fire with her, keeping it alight in a little copper kettle. This, of course, necessitated her guarding it very closely and stopping to renew the fire from time to time; for if the burning wood was once permitted to die down, her life in that intense cold would go ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... had ceased to be curved minutes ago. Now the ground rose gradually. The ground was green. Large green growths clustered off to one side of the flat area where the ship was to alight. They were the equivalent of trees on this planet. Undoubtedly there were equivalents of grass and shrubs, and seed-bearing and root-propagating vegetation, and Huks would make use of some seeds and ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... from the engine; the conductor strode with dignity worthy a Pullman official, to the one passenger coach behind the baggage car, and assisted a very young and very sickly man to alight. ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... He seemed to have been lost in the confusion. And as a matter of fact he was as though he were the lost soul of the dead autocracy wandering about in space, mournfully looking for some spot on which he might alight. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... in a few minutes after the Count. He will land the Count in a field near here, let him alight, and then take off again and proceed to this 'drome. The Count, left alone, will doubtless make his way into the woods bordering the field, where he will promptly be nabbed. That little drama should be taking place now. For your ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke

... if his flight were constant; but though there is much inconsistency in the accounts, the sum of testimony seems definite that the swallow is among the most fatiguable of birds. "When the weather is hazy," (I quote Yarrell) "they will alight on fishing-boats a league or two from land, so tired that when any one tries to catch them, they can scarcely fly from one end of the boat ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin

... went out upon the platform, a little distance from the mill. Mr. Devlin gave a signal, touched a wire, and immediately it seemed as if the whole valley was alight. The mill itself was in a blaze of white. It was transfigured—a fairy palace, just as the mud barges in the Suez Canal had been transformed by the search-light of the 'Fulvia'. For the moment, in the wonder of change from darkness to light, the valley became ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the time did not seem long to them. They hired a taxicab in advance, and by the time that transaction was finished they could see the train in the distance. As it drew into the station, they eagerly scanned the alighting passengers. Larry was one of the last to alight, and the boys were almost beginning to fear that he was not on the train when they spied him on the last car. With one accord they rushed in that direction, and in a few seconds Larry found himself on the platform, with the boys bombarding ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman

... the panes of the windows having been crudely daubed with bands of indigo and yellowish green; it was freezing, the stove was not alight, and the church, paved like a kitchen floor, ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... fifty to one when the carriage came to a stop at the steps of Lord Cressett's mansion; but he was anxious, and well he might be, seeing Countess Fanny alight and pass up between two lines of gentlemen all bowing low before her: not a sign of the Old Buccaneer anywhere to right or left! Heads were on the look out, and vows offered up ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... alight to the bower aloft And it burned up speedily, And her good love and her great heart Might all ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris

... was helping the ladies to alight; in another instant he had regained his seat, and he and Renard were flying down the ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... came, somewhat slovenly, his coat not over-well brushed, having in his hand a small trunk, covered with gilt crimson leather, very dingy, and somewhat ceremoniously assisted a lady to alight. This dame, as she stepped with a long leg, in a black silk stocking, to the ground, swept the front windows of the house from under her velvet hood with a sharp and evil glance; and in fact she was ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... the moonlight, bringing health to the earth. The air was fragrant with the wet grass and the white flowers: it was like a rich garden. At home, everything was put away, the table cleared and wiped; the lamp was alight and all the doors open. The boys were in bed. Horieneke had read evening prayers to them and then hurried to her little room, to be alone; and there she had lain thinking of all that had happened during that long day: her ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels

... looking like a man bent on policy at any price. The carriage was brought round by the time that Sol reappeared from the yard. He entered and sat down beside Mountclere, not without a sense that he was spoiling good upholstery; the coachman then allowed the lash of his whip to alight with the force of a small fly upon the horses, which set them up in an angry trot. Sol rolled on beside his new acquaintance with the shamefaced look of a man going to prison in a van, for pedestrians ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... the policeman, with the air of a man who has made a discovery. "What sort of a thing is that? A blazer? Was it alight?" ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed

... that established, between the tent of the young ambassador and the balcony of the princess, a mysterious and magical bond of sympathy—a bond created by thoughts imprinted with so much strength and persistence of will, that they must have caused happy and loving dreams to alight upon the perfumed couch, which the count, with the eyes of ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... the faint four-o'clock shadows begin to come out, and we look through the green vistas and along the farm lanes toward the west, or out across long stretches of fields above which spring seems fairly hovering, just ready to alight, and note the teams slowly plowing, the brightened mould-board gleaming in the sun now and then,—it is at such times we feel its fresh, delicate attraction the most. There is no foliage on the trees yet; only here and there the red bloom of the soft maple, illuminated ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs

... friend and comrade, not thy sovereign!" cried the handsome youth gaily, as he raised Gaston and looked smilingly into his face, his own countenance alight with satisfaction and excitement. "Ah, thou knowest not how glad I am to welcome thee once more! For the days be coming soon when I must needs rally all my brave knights about me, and go forth to France for a new career of glory there. But today another task is ours, and not as thy Prince, but ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... pass from Chaucer's age, we have to overleap nearly a hundred and eighty years before we alight upon a period presenting anything like an adequate show of literary continuation. A few smaller names are all that can be cited as poetical representatives of this sterile interval in the literary history of England: ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven. ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various



Words linked to "Alight" :   go down, climb down, land, lighted, lit, come down, fall, set down, descend



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