"Set on fire" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gambol: raisins and almonds being put into a bowl of brandy, and the candles extinguished, the spirit is set on fire, and the ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... commenting on Ps. 79:17, "Things set on fire and dug down," says that "every sin is due either to fear inducing false humility, or to love enkindling us to undue ardor." For it is written (1 John 2:16) that "all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, or [Vulg.: 'and'] the concupiscence ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... preparations, Dido, with garments tucked up, and with one foot bare, approached the altars, breaking over them a consecrated cake, and embracing them successively in her arms. The pyre was then to be set on fire; and, as the different objects placed upon it were gradually consumed, the charm became complete, and the ends proposed to the ceremony were expected to follow. Dido assures her sister, that she well knew the unlawfulness of her proceeding, and protests that nothing ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... discharge of fire, be set in a blaze, the effect of which must be to heat the shields to such a degree, that they could neither be held, nor the heat beneath endured by the miners. This was immediately resorted to at all the gates, and the success was complete. For no sooner was the cold pitch set on fire and constantly fed by fresh quantities from above, than the heat became insupportable to those below, who suddenly letting go their hold, and breaking away from their compacted form, in hope to escape from the stifling heat, the burning substance ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... glare of their flames the gunners poured shot and shell at the black hulls as they sped swiftly by. Shot after shot found its mark, but still the fleet continued on its course. Then, after the bonfires died down, houses were set on fire to enable the artillerists to see their targets, but before daylight the whole fleet had run the gauntlet and lay almost uninjured below Vicksburg, ready to ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... the bush was thoughtlessly set on fire by some of our people, and continued burning for several days, until nearly the whole island had been passed over; the long dry grass and dead trees blazing very fiercely under the influence of a high wind. At night the sight ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... longing heaviness doth come, Whence oft great sickness grows of heart and home; Sick are they all for lack of their desire; And thus in May their hearts are set on fire, So that they burn ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... root which gives words meaning "burning," "shining," etc., and from which comes also Irish grian, "sun." The god is still remembered in a chant sung round bonfires in Auvergne. A sheaf of corn is set on fire, and called "Granno mio," while the people sing, "Granno, my friend; Granno, my father; Granno, my mother."[62] Another god of thermal springs was Borvo, Bormo, or Bormanus, whose name is derived ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... appears on the scene, with his usual disposition to fault-finding. "The so-called chateau," he says (1685), "is built of wood, and is dry as a match. There is a place where with a bundle of straw it could be set on fire at any time,... some of the gates will not close, there is no watchtower, and no place to shoot from."— (Denonville au Ministre, 20 ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... pillow—but if the shot was unsuccessful, with a heavy sigh he left it to take its chance. So well known, indeed, was this little habit of Lord Alvanley, that hostesses who were anxious not to have their houses set on fire at midnight would depute a servant to watch in a neighbouring apartment till his lordship composed himself to sleep, a precaution which was invariably adopted by Mrs Stanhope when he paid his annual ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... Balquidder extended west from Loch Voil, to the northward of the scene of the poem. midnight blaze. The heather on the moorlands is often set on fire by the shepherds in order that ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... soldiers in the town, among them being Mobile Guards, Gendarmes, Franc-tireurs, and a party of Marine Fusiliers. The German column which began to ascend the Rue Basse was repeatedly fired at, whereupon its commanding officer halted his men, and by way of punishment had seven houses set on fire, before attempting to proceed farther. Nevertheless, the resistance was prolonged at various points, on the Place des Jacobins, for instance, and again on the Place des Halles. Near the latter square is—or was—a little street called the Rue Dumas, from which the French picked off a dozen or ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... across the sky at night had a similar meaning. The head of the arrow was dipped in some highly inflammable substance and then set on fire at the instant before it was discharged from the bow. One fire-arrow shot into the sky meant that the enemy were near; two signaled danger, and three great danger. When the Indian shot many fire-arrows up in rapid succession he was signaling ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers
... The fallen trees were left some months on the ground to dry in the summer sun, while the farmer turned to other work on his farm, or, if he were starting in life, hired out for the summer. In the autumn the tops were set on fire, and the lighter limbs usually burned out, leaving the great charred tree-trunks. Then came what was known as a piling-bee, a perfect riot of hard work, cinders, and dirt. Usually the half-burned tree-trunks were "niggered off" in Indian fashion, by burning across ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... striking full upon his closed eyelids, and bringing with it the alarming thought that Fort Reynolds had been set on fire by an army of besieging Indians, roused Big Black Burl from the deepest, heaviest sleep he had ever known. With a huge start he had scrambled to his feet, and, blinded by the glare, was rushing out ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... Paris; the city was for many weeks in complete possession of the mob; Thiers and the army retired on Versailles, and recommenced the siege of Paris by French troops. The Archbishop and other hostages were murdered, and at last the city was set on fire. Nothing even in the First Revolution equalled the madness of this period. What a curious contrast to the even tenour of London life! I find in my diaries no trace of these ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... land, and arrived at that city of Inga the emperor; for it chanced that while Ordas with his army rested at the port of Morequito (who was either the first or second that attempted Guiana), by some negligence the whole store of powder provided for the service was set on fire, and Martinez, having the chief charge, was condemned by the General Ordas to be executed forthwith. Martinez, being much favoured by the soldiers, had all the means possible procured for his life; but it could not be obtained in other sort than this, that he should ...
— The Discovery of Guiana • Sir Walter Raleigh
... must tell you, this stroke has failed me.... Dresden has been reduced to ashes, third part of the Altstadt lying burnt;—contrary to my intentions: my orders were, To spare the City, and play the Artillery against the works. My Minister Graf von Finck will have told you what occasioned its being set on fire." ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... enabled to spend a week at home. Returning to the port in which they had been instructed to join the Colodia the evening before she again was to sail, the four chums were held up by a burning railroad bridge, which had been set on fire by German agents. ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... Confederacy flaunting in the breeze over the old Capitol! Hundreds of officials were at the depot, to get away from the doomed city. Public documents, the archives of the Confederacy, were hastily gathered up, tumbled into boxes and barrels, and taken to the trains, or carried into the streets and set on fire. Coaches, carriages, wagons, carts, wheelbarrows, everything in the shape of a vehicle was brought into use. There was a jumble of boxes, chests, trunks, valises, carpet-bags,—a crowd of excited men sweating as they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... taken and entered Johannesburg; a friend, who, being on the British side, had been allowed to go up, wrote me that he had visited my house and found it looted, that all that was of value had been taken or destroyed; that my desk had been forced open and broken up, and its contents set on fire in the centre of the room, so that the roof was blackened over the pile of burnt papers. He added that there was little in the remnants of paper of which I could make any use, but that he had gathered and stored the fragments ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... King and Queen and all the court came out and watched while the big heap was set on fire. The people came out to watch too in their thousands, and a very fine sight it was to see the enormous flames shooting up into the air and to hear the crackle and hiss of the burning wood that sounded like the discharge of a ...
— The Sleeping Beauty • C. S. Evans
... by a second on the night of August 12-13, 1915, which was directed against the military establishment at Harwich. Six people were killed and seventeen wounded by the bombs, and the post office was set on fire by an incendiary bomb. Aside from this, damage was limited. On August 17 and 18, 1915, a squadron of four Zeppelins again attacked the English east coast, and their bombs killed ten persons and wounded thirty-six. Once again ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... British guns had continued to play upon the fort, vomiting shot and shell as from an exhaustless and angry volcano— and several of the latter falling short, the town which was of wood had been more than once set on fire. As, however, it was by no means the intention of the General to do injury to the inhabitants, no obstacle was opposed to the attempts of the enemy to get it under, and the flames were as often and as speedily extinguished. An advanced ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... insurgents. The Dominicans also captured Puerto Plata, but the city was retaken by Spanish troops from Cuba. Reinforcements were sent to the besieged garrison of Santiago, and in the fight which the Dominicans made to prevent the joining of the Spanish forces, the city of Santiago was set on fire and reduced to ashes. The Spaniards determined to evacuate the place, and marched down to the coast, being constantly harassed by Dominican guerillas, so that they lost over a thousand men before reaching Puerto Plata. The Dominicans established a provisional government ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... away the two tallow candles, which stood in large pewter candlesticks on the high mantel-shelf, and the spirit was set on fire ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... on that very evening, before the premises had been set on fire, Mary Mahon, by O'Donnel's order, had entered the house, and under, as it were, the protection of the military, gathered up as much of Reilly's clothes and linen as she could conveniently carry to her cottage, which was in the immediate vicinity of Whitecraft's residence—it ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Zealanders, inasmuch as their practice is first to make a hole in the wood with the tooth of the acouti, and then to insert in this an instrument resembling a wimble, by the rapid revolution of which the wood is set on fire. ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... the intention of demolishing the tower, probably soon after the time of the dissolution of the monastery, for the hole contained timber shores which were sufficient to support the tower while the workmen were enlarging the hole, but which were probably intended to be set on fire and burnt away, thus allowing the workmen to escape before the tower fell. This wood was found partially decayed, and probably to its state the settlement of the tower was partially due. The hole was, by Scott's ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... Agatho and Dr. Newman, the tongue "which is set on fire of hell," does not separate us from God, but an error of opinion does. Pride, "which comes before a fall," and sensuality, which makes of a man a beast, do not come between the soul and God so much as ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... of Osa, the goose-girl, and little Mats, whom he had encountered so unexpectedly; and he fancied that the little cabin which he had set on fire must have been their old home in Smaland. Now he recalled that he had heard them speak of just such a cabin, and of the big heather-heath which lay below it. Now Osa and Mats had wandered back there to see their ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... The commissary building was set on fire by one of the two parties, but it was never fully settled whether it was done by Gen. Sherman's men or by the Confederates, who might have, as surmised by some, as they had to evacuate the city, set it on fire to ...
— My Life In The South • Jacob Stroyer
... Taloona to settle up with the old man. They found you there and, to blind you as to the real character of Dudgeon, they pretended to make him a prisoner. Then you showed fight, Dudgeon was shot by the bullet intended for you, the lamp was upset, and the place set on fire just as the troopers I sent arrived ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... of the enemy, Bobadilla came against the ship, all his men rowing as hard as they could; and Esteybar attacked it at the stern. The Spaniards then were going to board the ship with a rush, when a ball fired from the vessel of Esteybar set on fire the Santa Barbara [i.e., powder-magazine] of the Dutch ship, thus blowing it into pieces. Only twenty-four of its crew survived, and these were drawn out of the sea and made prisoners. Esteybar continued his voyage to ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... their landing-place, they erected a battery commanding that part of the river, with a furnace for heating shot. On the twenty-seventh, they opened fire in range, and in fifteen minutes the schooner was set on fire by the red-hot missiles and burned to the water's edge. The fire of the battery was next directed against the Louisiana, a larger war-vessel, the preservation of which was of great importance. Lieutenant Thompson, in command, with the combined efforts of one hundred men of his crew, ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... expedition against Petrea, in Arabia, and set on fire all the places round about it, because of the great difficulty of access to it. And as his army was pinched by famine, Antipater furnished him with corn out of Judea, and with whatever else he wanted, and this at the command of Hyrcanus. And when he was ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... middle of the forest the father told the children to collect wood to make a fire to keep them warm; and Hansel and Grethel gathered brushwood enough for a little mountain; and it was set on fire, and when the flame was burning ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... was gallantly delivered by about three hundred volunteers under the command of Eloff, who had crept round to the west of the town—the side furthest from the lines of the besiegers. At the first rush they penetrated into the native quarter, which was at once set on fire by them. The first building of any size upon that side is the barracks of the Protectorate Regiment, which was held by Colonel Hore and about twenty of his officers and men. This was carried by the enemy, who sent an exultant message along the telephone to Baden-Powell to tell ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... imagination, we will mention, in this place, that we knew of a child left under such circumstances, and half-perishing with cold, who was nearly burned to death by some hops (for there was no fuel to be found), which it scraped together in its ragged apron, and set on fire with a ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... when the scourge of smallpox raged through the Huron villages, devastating the wigwams so that the timber wolves wandered unmolested among the dead, it was easy for the humpback sorcerer to ascribe the pestilence also to the influence of the Black Robes. Once their houses were set on fire. Again and again their lives were threatened. Often after tramping twenty miles through the sleet-soaked, snow-drifted spring forests, arriving at an Indian village foredone and exhausted, the Jesuit was met with no better welcome than a wigwam flap ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... forehead and thin grey hair. The expression of his countenance was the most winning I ever saw, and his clear grey eyes beamed with a look that was frank, fearless, loving, and truthful. In front of the chief was an open space, in the centre of which lay a pile of wooden idols, ready to be set on fire; and around these were assembled thousands of natives, who had come to join in or to witness the unusual sight. A bright smile overspread the missionary's face as he advanced quickly to meet us, and he shook ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... story is soon told," Isidore went on to say. "Three of our great ships had already been set on fire in the harbour, and the enemy kept up such a cannonade upon them that it was impossible to save them; but the town being, as you know, three or four miles from the spot where the landing was made, the siege ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... are cutting off the feet, others are employed in digging a circular hole in the ground some ten feet deep and three wide, the earth being heaped round the edge. An enormous heap of dry wood and leaves is then piled over the hole, set on fire, and allowed to burn itself out. As soon as the last sticks have fallen into the hole, the men begin to rake out the glowing embers with long poles. This is a laborious and difficult task, the heat being so great, that each man can only work for a few consecutive seconds, and then ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... from his own ship wrote a hasty letter to the Lord Admiral, giving his opinion as to the best way to arrange the order of battle, and requesting him to supply a couple of great fly-boats to attack each of the Spanish galleons, so that the latter might be captured before they were set on fire. ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... aim was uncertain in the first volley; a second, in which mitraille and grooved bullets were used, produced terrible effect. Nevertheless, the Jane being boarded by the swarming islanders, her defenders were massacred, and she was set on fire. ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... destroy. Something had gone wrong, something that at other times could easily have been mended. But with the French in pursuit there was no time to pause, nor could cars of such value be left to the enemy. So they had been set on fire or blown up, or allowed to drive head-on into a stone wall or over an embankment. From the road above we could see them in the field below, lying like giant turtles on their backs. In one place in the forest of Villers was a line of fifteen ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... thirteen heavies into that village in pretty quick time. One old ruin was set on fire, and I felt the consequent results would be worse than just losing the building; as all the men in it had to rush outside and keep darting in and out through the flames and smoke, trying to save their rifles ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... was a bit of a battle on Tuesday at Bentonville, and we have come hither in smoke, as usual. But this time we thank Heaven that it is not the smoke of burning homes, —only some resin the "Johnnies" set on fire before ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... cometh heaviness, And thereof groweth greate sickeness, And for the lack of that that they desire: And thus in May be heartes set on fire, So that they brennen* forth in great ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... preachers charged such a crime upon Louis, the husband of Eleanora. It seems that, in a quarrel which he had with one of his neighbors, he had sent an armed force to invade his enemy's dominions, and in storming a town a cathedral had been set on fire and burned, and fifteen hundred persons, who had taken refuge in it as a sanctuary, had perished in the flames. Now it was a very great crime, according to the ideas of those times, to violate a sanctuary; and the hermit-preacher urged Louis to go on a crusade in order to atone ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... battle the French were without artillery, but they took eight cannon from the enemy. The Prussians, however, being speedily reinforced, recovered their advantage and gained a complete victory. Wissembourg, a small town in Alsace, was bombarded and set on fire. There seemed no officer among the defeated French to restore order. They had never anticipated such a rout, and were, especially ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... conductivity. [effects of heat 2.] thermal expansion; coefficient of expansion. V. heat, warm, chafe, stive[obs3], foment; make hot &c. 382; sun oneself, sunbathe. go up in flames, burn to the ground (flame) 382. fire; set fire to, set on fire; kindle, enkindle, light, ignite, strike a light; apply the match to, apply the torch to; rekindle, relume[obs3]; fan the flame, add fuel to the flame; poke the fire, stir the fire, blow the fire; make a bonfire of. melt, thaw, fuse; liquefy &c. 335. burn, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... building, goes towards the Corbeille, shouts out once or twice, is answered only by an echo in the solitude, and then returns, saluted on his passage by his fellow-ghost. And to think that a little bombardment, followed by a successful attack, seven or eight houses set on fire by the Versailles shells, seven or eight hundred Federals shot, a few women blown to pieces, and a few children killed, would suffice to restore these desolate spectres to life and joy. But, alas! hope for them is deferred; the last circular of Monsieur Thiers ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... kindness he promised them corn, and caused them to be led outside the town to a barn, where each one was to receive as much corn as he wished. The unhappy folk hurried forth, their hearts full of gratitude; but when they were all in the barn, Hatto ordered the doors to be locked and the barn to be set on fire. ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... ingredients of this colouring matter. Another kind, of inferior quality, is prepared from molasses, boiled until it is considerably darker, bitter, and of a thicker consistence; and when judiciously made, at the close of the boiling, it is set on fire and suffered to burn five or six minutes, then it is extinguished, and cautiously diluted with water to the original consistence of treacle. The burning or setting on fire gives it the greater part of its flavour, ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... sick. This little settlement later became know as "Shant Field." Food was carried to a hill and left so that the sick persons could get it without coming in contact with the others. To kill the fever, sticks of fat pine were dipped in tar and set on fire and then placed all ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... king let all these men be seated in one room, which was well adorned, and made a great feast for them, and gave them strong drink in plenty. Now when they were all very drunk, he ordered the house be set on fire, and it and all the people within it were consumed, all but Eyvind Kelda, who contrived to escape by the smoke-hole in the roof. And when he had got a long way off, he met some people on the road going to the king, ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... and watering. Our commodore, in order to clear the ground of the overgrown grass, which grew in some places in great quantities, and also to improve the soil, which appeared to be of a barren sandy nature, gave orders for the grass to be set on fire in different places, which was no sooner done, than the flames ran so fast, that in less than half an hour they spread several ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... Kingfisher sloop, the Alarm and Spitfire, galleys, were stationed; and it being no longer possible to prevent them from falling into the hands of the enemy, their stores, guns, and crews were landed, and the vessels set on fire. ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... to crackle, and to be partially red-hot. I felt it like an ordinary stone, neither hot nor cold. Mr. Home then pushed it off my hand with one finger on to a double sheet of cartridge paper, which it at once set on fire. I am quite certain that I was in my ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett
... grassy spots, where the wind and sun had dispersed the snow from the sides of the hills, and these were to form resting-places to support the animals for a night in their passage across. On our way across we had set on fire several broken stumps, and dried trees, to melt holes in the snow for the camps. Its general depth was five feet; but we passed over places where it was 20 feet deep, as shown by the trees. With one party drawing sleighs ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... planks. Before this could be effected, another party crept through the small holes, serving the purpose of gates, and penetrated to the centre of the town, where, assembling around the great council-tree, they gave three cheers. The houses were then set on fire, and, within fifteen minutes, presented one mass of conflagration. The palisades likewise caught the flames, and were consumed, leaving an open space of blackened and smoking ruins, where, half an hour before, the sun had shone upon ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... of all the lost were let loose on me. My own wicked feelings were kindled into a flame by the divine wrath. Now I understood that scripture, 'They have no rest day nor night.' My ears, that had taken pleasure in evil conversation, were filled with revilings. My tongue, which had set on fire the course of nature, now itself set on fire of hell, I gnawed for pain. I looked up to beg a drop of water; but instead of it came the word, 'Daughter, remember.' As I looked up, I got a glimpse of one of my companions in Abraham's bosom. Once we were together pointed to Jesus. Now the ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... sword is a tongue that is set on fire of hell, and that can bend itself to speak evil of Shaddai, his Son, his ways, and people. Use this; it has been tried a thousand times twice told. Whoever hath it, keeps it, and makes that use of it as I would have him, can never be ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... I more large thy praises forth shall show, That all the world thy beauty shall admire, Desiring that most sacred nymph to know Which hath the shepherd's fancy set on fire; Till then, my dear, let these thine eyes content, Till then, fair love, think if I merit favour, Till then, O let thy merciful assent Relish my hopes with some comforting savour; So shall you add such courage to my muse ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... ahead, we gathered some green bread fruit, and cooked some meat, in the same manner as they cook the largest of their fish, which is this.—A hole is dug in the ground, and after it has been filled with wood, it is set on fire, and then covered with stones. As the wood burns away, the heated stones fall to the bottom, which, when the fire is out, are covered with a thick layer of green leaves, and then the meat or fish is placed upon these leaves, and covered again in a careful and ingenious ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay
... night, dark night, the silent of the night, The time of night when Troy was set on fire, The time when screechowls cry, and bandogs howl." SHAKSPEARE: in Johnson's Dict., ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... coats—they might be burned! These we could first remove, putting great stones in their place; and we proceeded to do so. In a few minutes that was accomplished: the grass and leaves were staffed in; some tufts were set on fire and thrust through; more rubbish was piled on top, until it reached up on a level with the hole; and then the hole was closed with a bundle of grass, so as to prevent ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... of Galilee. Heightening the Walls of Jotapata under Shelter of Ox Hides. John Incites his Countrymen to Harass the Romans. The Roman Camp Surprised and Set on Fire. Mary and the Hebrew Women in the Hands of the Romans. Titus Brings Josephus to See John. John and his Band in Sight of Jerusalem. Misery in Jerusalem During the Siege by Titus. 'Lesbia,' the Roman said, 'I have brought you two more slaves.' The Return of John to ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... neither, that the sun blackens the sky, which fire does not; nor lastly, that the heat of the sun is necessary to the earth, in order to the production of trees and fruits, but that the heat of fire burns and kills them. When he said, too, that the sun was only a stone set on fire, he did not consider that a stone glitters not in the fire, and cannot last long in it without consuming, whereas the sun lasts always, and is ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... men out of the Trent?" How ignominious the pretended humanity of England looked in the light of these questions! And even while Mr. Beecher was speaking, a lurid glow was crimsoning the waters of the Pacific from the flames of a great burning city, set on fire by British ships to avenge a crime committed by some remote inhabitant of the same country,—an act of wholesale barbarity unapproached by any deed which can be laid to the charge of the American Union in the course of this long, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... like robbers and pirates, who are delighted with spoil and plunder, and not with what is given and justly acquired; and they are like malefactors, who covet what is disallowed and forbidden, and despise what is allowed and granted. These violators are altogether averse to consent, and are set on fire by resistance, which if they observe to be not internal, the ardor of their lust is instantly extinguished, as fire is by water thrown upon it. It is well known, that wives do not spontaneously submit themselves to the ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... naval gun, one anti-air craft, and two 3-pounder Hotchkiss guns were left, but they were destroyed before the troops finally embarked. In addition, fifty-six mules, a certain number of carts, mostly stripped of their wheels, and some supplies which were set on fire, were also abandoned. ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... dazzling and eyes of such lustre and young majesty. The lovely baggage had a saucy way of standing with her white jewelled hands in her pockets like a pretty fop, and throwing up her little head like a modish beauty who was of royal blood; and these two tricks alone, he felt, might have set on fire the heart of a man years ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... that is so,' said Livia, 'and I confess what you say cannot be denied, I would that Aurelian could be prevailed upon to recede from a position which he appears to be taking. His whole nature now seems to have been set on fire by this priest Fronto. Superstition has wholly seized and possessed him. His belief is that Rome can never be secure and great till the enemies of the gods, as well as of the state, shall perish; and pushed on by Fronto, so far as can be gathered ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... times in the tinged urine and dried again, did not scintillate when it was set on fire; but when the flame was blown out, the fire ran along the paper for half an inch; which, when the same paper was unimpregnated, it would not do; nor when the same paper was dipped in urine made before he took the nitre, and dried in ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... his main body of troops along the inner edge of the small canal extending from a levee to a tangled swamp. The legendary cotton bales had been blown up or set on fire during the artillery bombardment and protection was furnished only by a raw, unfinished parapet of earth and a double row of log breastworks with red clay tamped between them. It was a motley army that Jackson led. Next to the levee ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... repeatedly attacking, Kosciuszko beating him off. Communications with Warsaw and all the country were impeded. Provisions were almost impossible to procure. Kosciuszko's men went half starved. Burning villages, set on fire by Denisov's soldiers, a countryside laid waste, were the sight the Poles beheld each day, while the homeless peasants crowded into Kosciuszko's camp to tell him their piteous stories. Then Denisov retreated so ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... by mound, bank and ditch was in use in the ninth, tenth, and even in the eleventh centuries, before masonry was general. {13} The mound was crowned with a strong circular house of timber, such as in the Bayeaux tapestry the soldiers are attempting to set on fire. The Court below and the banks beyond the ditches were fenced with palisades and ...
— The Hawarden Visitors' Hand-Book - Revised Edition, 1890 • William Henry Gladstone
... defence of the place, they were both poked out of the way with no ceremony. The children and ladies were got into the little trench which surrounded the silver-house (we were afraid of leaving them in any of the light buildings, lest they should be set on fire), and we made the best disposition we could. There was a pretty good store, in point of amount, of tolerable swords and cutlasses. Those were issued. There were, also, perhaps a score or so of spare muskets. Those were brought out. To my ...
— The Perils of Certain English Prisoners • Charles Dickens
... would accompany it. Ben-hadad had sent Hazael to the prophet to ask him if he should recover, and Elisha had wept on seeing the envoy—"Because I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel; their strongholds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash in pieces their little ones, and rip up their women with child. And Hazael said, But what is thy servant which is but a dog, that ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... front of the house and begged for alms. He found my daughter on the terrace in a lucky moment for himself. He had all sorts of wonderful stories of Tangier and the great mole which was then a building. Resilda was set on fire that day, and though the King and the Parliament might shut their eyes to the sore straits of that town and the gallantry of its defenders, no one was allowed to forget them in the Quarry House. To tell the truth I sometimes envied the obliviousness ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... be sufficient to state, that they broke open upwards of fifty houses in different streets. Many of the plague-stricken joined them, and several half-naked creatures were found dead in the streets on the following morning. Two houses in Blackfriars-lane were set on fire, and the conflagration was with difficulty checked; nor was it until late on the following day that the mob could be entirely dispersed. The originator of the disturbance, Barcroft, after a desperate resistance, was shot through ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... while in bed with her sister Jane in another room, her room having been changed to see if that would put a stop to the affair, she told her sister that she could hear a voice saying to her that the house was to be set on fire that night by a ghost. The voice also said that it had once lived on the earth, but had been dead for some years. The members of the household were called in at once, and told what had been said. They only laughed ...
— The Haunted House - A True Ghost Story • Walter Hubbell
... five hundred slaves that the caravan counted, there were few grown men. That is because, the "Razzia" being finished and the village set on fire, every native above forty is unmercifully massacred and hung to a neighboring tree. Only the young adults of both sexes and the children are intended to furnish the markets. After these men-hunts, hardly ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... paternal mansion at the age of fourteen and fell in love with a fencing-master who made of her a fighter of the very first order. Nothing that the most successful romancer could desire was wanting in her life,—abductions, disguises, duels, convents forced and set on fire: "Don Juan was only a commonplace fop in comparison with the incredible good fortunes of this terrible virago who changed her costume as she did her visage, courted, indifferently and always with the same success, one sex ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... the side toward the fort, and they pushed through a weak place at the end, lighted their torches, and commenced a treacherous assault. Roused from their slumbers, and terrified to the last degree, the air was soon filled with shrieks, and bursting in doors, the houses were set on fire. They were wary enough to guard their loop-hole for escape, but they found themselves outnumbered, and in turn had to fight for their own lives. The blazing huts lighted up the snow in a weird fashion; the shrieks and cries and jargon of the Iroquois ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... thing,—his mother, who was the handsomest woman of her time, and a knowing one, bethought herself of dedicating him to God, so that he might escape the dangers of his childhood and future life; for she had dreamed that the world was set on fire the day he was born. And indeed it was a prophecy! So she asked God to protect him, on condition that Napoleon should restore His holy religion, which was then cast to the ground. Well, that was agreed upon, and we shall ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... by either the crew or passengers seemed to be to escape slaughter; that this deponent narrowly escaped, having received several wounds, none of which, however, are of a serious character; that immediately after the Caroline fell into the hands of the armed force who boarded her she was set on fire, cut loose from the dock, was towed into the current of the river, there abandoned, and soon after descended the Niagara Falls; that this deponent has made vigilant search after the individuals, thirty-three in number, who are known ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... of safety. At times there were even two or three bears in one den. Sometimes the bear would refuse to come out, and on these occasions, which were rare, the hunters would resort to fire. A piece of dry, rotten wood was fastened to a long pole and was set on fire. When this was pushed in on the bear he would give a sniff and a growl and come ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... impudent, and unfeeling men, and in which the men are too bad for any place but Pandaemonium or Norfolk Island. We are surrounded by foreheads of bronze, hearts like the nether millstone, and tongues set on fire of hell. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the side farthest from the enemy, made them more and more unfitted to fulfil their office. The official plan of the battle of Malaga (1704), drawn up immediately after the battle, shows the fire-ship in this position as laid down by Paul Hoste. Finally the use of shells, enabling ships to be set on fire more surely and quickly, and introduced on board at the period of which we are now treating, though the general use did not obtain until much later, was the ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... minds set on fire by this ideal have not all received an equal share of calm from the creative genius—that great and patient temper which is required to impress the ideal on the dumb marble, or to spread it over a page of cold, sober letters, and then entrust ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... the fort and erected strong breastworks, from behind which they could discharge their shots and throw their fire-balls. For nearly three days a terrific contest ensued. The savages finally undermined the palisades to the house of Christie, which was at once set on fire, nearly stifling the garrison with the smoke and heat, for Christie's quarters were close to the block-house. Longer resistance was vain, "the soldiers, pale and haggard, like men who had passed through a fiery furnace, now issued from their scorched ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... into a melancholy moan. While the German and British shrapnel was bursting on the trenches to the North-East of us, there was noticeable a good deal of dark cloud round Ypres, due, as we learnt afterwards, to some buildings having been set on fire during the German attack that morning. With glasses one could see quite clearly the tower of the Cloth Hall, which had not apparently been at all injured. The towers of the Cathedral were also quite plain, but owing to the roof having been blown off, it was very difficult to realise that ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... the spot where the chopped grass and shawl-wool were to be set on fire. This fuel itself appeared underneath—in a little heap lightly laid, and ready for the touch of ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... and met my Lord Chamberlaine upon the walls of the garrison, who owned and spoke to me. I followed him in the crowde of gallants through the Queene's lodgings to chapel; the rooms being all rarely furnished, and escaped hardly being set on fire yesterday. At chapel we had a most excellent and eloquent sermon. By coach to the Yard, and then on board the Swallow in the dock, where our navy chaplain preached a sad sermon, full of nonsense and false Latin; but prayed for ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... closely upon good. This was strongly exemplified with us at this time, as our late successes were speedily followed by melancholy news from Mexico by express, informing us that an insurrection had broke out in that city, that Alvarado was besieged in his quarters, which the natives had set on fire, after killing seven of his men and wounding many; for which reason Alvarado earnestly entreated immediate succour. It is not to be expressed how much this news afflicted us all. In consequence of this distressing intelligence, Cortes countermanded the expeditions ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... fuel in a circle round him. While thus engaged they filled the air with the most fearful sounds to which their throats could give vent, a pandemonium of ear-piercing yells and screams. The pile prepared, it was set on fire. The flames spread rapidly through the dry brush. But by a chance that seemed providential, at that moment a sudden shower sent its rain-drops through the foliage, extinguished the increasing fire, and ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... and put them in. I want the explosion of one ball to scare anyone who may be sleeping there half out of their senses, and make them rush out of the house; which will leave plenty of time for the other ball to set on fire anything that it may light upon. Twenty fires, starting at once at different spots, will create a fearful scare. Many of the guards outside the prison—all of whom are drawn from the slums—will have come from that quarter and, as they have no idea of discipline, will, when they ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... little art in breaking hemp. He soon had the knack of that: his muscles were toughened already. He learned what it was sometimes to eat his dinner in the fields, warming it, maybe, on the coals of a stump set on fire near his brake; to bale his hemp at nightfall and follow the slide or wagon to the barn; there to wait with the negroes till it was weighed on the steelyards; and at last, with muscles stiff and sore, throat husky with dust, to stride ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... matches in the pocket of Guy Fawkes were the direct means by which he intended to set in operation a train of causes which should terminate in the destruction of the house of lords and all its inmates. Those matches, set on fire, would convey a spark to the faggots, and thence to the powder, and means after means, and cause after cause, in the rapid succession of events, would ensue, tending to a final, ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... being great and his mind in a condition of whirling confusion, he did not get far beyond the beginning, which intimated that "Almighty God had blessed His Majesty's arms." The battle raged on. The Orient was set on fire and her destruction assured. When Nelson was informed of the terrible catastrophe to the great French line-of-battle ship, he demanded to be assisted to the deck, whereupon he gave instructions that his only ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... government in his name, and sent notice to him of his appointment, and in the meantime, employed himself in fitting out twelve ships of war for the relief of Malacca, then threatened by the king of Acheen and the Hollanders. At this time nine Dutch ships entered the river of Goa, and set on fire three Portuguese galleons then lying at Marmugam, after which they retired without loss or opposition, because the fort was destitute of men and ammunition. Antonio Tellez arrived immediately after this unfortunate accident, at which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... night for several days and nights. By the same token that[347] two or three were pleased to set their houses on fire, and so effectually sweetened them by burning them down to the ground (as particularly one at Ratcliff, one in Holborn, and one at Westminster, besides two or three that were set on fire; but the fire was happily got out again before it went far enough to burn down the houses); and one citizen's servant, I think it was in Thames Street, carried so much gunpowder into his master's house, for clearing it of the infection, and managed it so ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... might set on fire Ida's woods With a small torch, so what one tells one person Is soon the property of all ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... the engineer, got on the engine and run it on to a side track and ditched it, and brought the engineer up to headquarters, where I had quite a talk with him about squirting steam and throwing lumps of coal at peaceable persons. Then the railroad, bridge was set on fire, and it looked cruel to see the timbers licked up by flames, but when the burning trestle fell into the river below, it was a grand, an awful sight. I came out of the fight alive, but with a lump on my head as big as a hen's egg, so big I couldn't wear my hat, and a firm determination ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... leave this comfortable nestling-place, whence she had long watched and closed the entrance to the James River. Her commander, Tatnall, would have taken her up that stream, but the pilots declared it not possible to float her over the shoals. She was therefore abandoned and set on fire; and early in the morning of May 11 she blew up, leaving the southern water-way to Richmond open to the Union fleet.[13] It was a point of immense possible advantage. Later McClellan intimated that, if he had been left free to act upon his own judgment, he would probably have ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... should have a day's rest, and, as it was Sunday, remained at the camp. While collecting the horses a native woman and child were seen at a distance, in the bed of the river; but on being approached hid themselves in the reeds, and though the grass was set on fire in several places by the blacks, they were not ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... hauing many enemies, and fearing them, asked the Diuell whether he should fly or not: who answered, Non, sta secure, venient inimici tui suauiter, & subdentur tibi. But being surprized, and taken by his aduersaries, and his castle set on fire, expostulating with him that hee had deceiued him in his distresse, returned answere, that he said true, if his speech had been rightly vnderstood: for he aduised, Non sta secure [id est fugias] venient inimici tui suauiter, & subdentur, [id est ignem tibi]. Such were the ...
— A Treatise of Witchcraft • Alexander Roberts
... warriors, {155b} And in a body march to Cattraeth, with noise and eager speed; The effects {155c} of the mead in the hall, and of the beverage of wine. Blades were scattered between the two armies By an illustrious knight, in front of Gododin. Furze was set on fire by the ardent spirit, ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... "None whatever." Never seeking true or high things, caring only for appearances, and, therefore, for inventions, he had left his imagination all undeveloped, and when it represented his own inner condition to him, had repressed it until it was nearly destroyed, and what remained of it was set on fire of hell. [Footnote: One of the best weekly papers in London, evidently as much in ignorance of the man as of the facts of the case, spoke of Dr. MacLeod as having been engaged in "white-washing the murderer for heaven." So far is this from ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... man,' but the picture of the warrior striding into battle with his heavy boots is more graphic than the more generalised description in the Revised Version's text. In any case, the whole accoutrements of the oppressor are heaped into a pile and set on fire; and, as they blaze up, the freed slaves exult in their liberty. The blood-drenched cloaks have been stripped from the corpses and tossed on the heap, and, saturated as they are, they burn. So complete is the victory that even the weapons of the conquered are destroyed. Our conquering King has ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... impetuous waves 70 Should find resistance from so light a thing; These surges ruin, those our safety bring. Th' oppress'd vessel doth the charge abide, Only because assail'd on every side; So men with rage and passion set on fire, Trembling for haste, impeach their ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... were marked by the most atrocious ferocity and vandalism. The city was given up to indiscriminate pillage, attended by outrages of every kind, and in the end was set on fire by Morgan's orders and burned to the ground, much of its great wealth being utterly consumed through the ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... was made sensible of these things, I caused Friday to gather those horrid remains, and lay them together upon a heap, which I ordered to be set on fire, and burnt them to ashes: My man, however, still retained the nature of a cannibal, having a hankering stomach after some of the flesh; but such an extreme abhorrence did I express at the least appearance of it, that he durst not but ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... of the first Scipio Africanus, shut in the city by land and by sea, and, in 146, captured and destroyed it. Its defenders fought from street to street, and from house to house. Only a tenth part of the inhabitants were left alive. These were sold into slavery. Carthage was set on fire, and almost entirely consumed. The fire burned for seventeen days. The remains of the Carthaginian wall, when excavated in recent times, "were found to be covered with a layer of ashes from four to five feet deep, filled with half-charred ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... happened that little Frank was with his father after dinner, who fell asleep over his wine, heedless of the child, who crawled to the fire; and, as good fortune would have it, Esmond was sent by his mistress for the boy just as the poor little screaming urchin's coat was set on fire by a log; when Esmond, rushing forward, tore the dress off the infant, so that his own hands were burned more than the child's, who was frightened rather than hurt by this accident. But certainly 'twas providential that a resolute person should have come in at that instant, or the child ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... part of a branch of a tree. This is also characteristic of the Lias; for when the shales are deeply impregnated with bitumen and pyrites, they undergo a slow combustion when heaped up with faggots and set on fire; and in the cliffs of the Yorkshire coast, after rainy weather, they sometimes spontaneously ignite, and continue to burn for several months. 10. As we passed through the works, on our way to the clay, we observed a sort ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... holde, and bursts in his face that toucheth him. So swelled Zadoch, and was readie to burst out of his skinne, and shoote his bowels like chaine-shot full at Zacharies face for bringing him such balefull tidings, his eies glared and burnt bliewe like brimstone and aqua vito set on fire in an egshell, his verie nose lightned glow-wormes, his teeth crasht and grated together, like the ioynts of a high building cracking and rocking like a cradle, when as a tempest takes her full but against his broad side. He swore, he curst, and said, these be ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... set on fire.] The 11. of Ianuary when we had vnladen the Amsterdam we set her on fier, letting her burne, taking her men in ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... that lay on the road jumped up suddenly, almost under the horse's feet, the horse shied, and knocked the dogcart against a wall. On the homeward way we observed a house burning, opposite the place where the horse shied, and found that a farmer had been evicted, and his cottage set on fire. This unhappy person, it seems, was in debt to all his tradesmen, not to his landlord only. The fire-raising, however, was an excessively barbaric method of getting him to leave the parish, and the ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... front completely battered in, and the valuable stock literally scattered in the road and scrambled for. Mr. Morris Banks, the druggist, had his stock of bottles of drugs smashed to atoms. A curious circumstance saved these premises from being set on fire. The mob had collected combustibles for the purpose, but in breaking indiscriminately the bottles in the shop, they had inadvertently smashed some containing a quantity of very powerful acids. These, ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... in by the Indians and taken in triumph to Charleston. In 1712 in New York occurred an outbreak that occasioned greater excitement than any uprising that had preceded it in the colonies. Early in the morning of April 7 some slaves of the Carmantee and Pappa tribes who had suffered ill-usage, set on fire the house of Peter van Tilburgh, and, armed with guns and knives, killed and wounded several persons who came to extinguish the flames. They fled, however, when the Governor ordered the cannon to be fired to alarm the town, and they got away ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... whizzing of balls, which were sometimes coming half a dozen at once. There was not a portion of the work which was not taken in reverse from mortars. * * * During Friday, the officers' barracks were three times set on fire by the shells and three times put out under the most ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... fleet of store ships loaded with wine, corn, and provisions of all sorts for the use of the Armada. Everything of value that could be conveniently moved was transferred to the English ships, then the Spanish vessels were set on fire, their cables cut, and were left to drift in an entangled mass of flame. Drake took a number of prisoners, and sent a messenger on shore proposing to exchange them for such English seamen as were prisoners in Spain. The ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... uncertain; but it seems to me probable that it was of wood. For the tomb contained a layer of ashes in which all the objects put in the grave with the dead man were found; and, assuming that the roof was of wood, it is possible that the roof was set on fire at the time when the tomb was robbed and that the ashes came from this fire. The explanation which the excavator gives of these ashes, that the body and the offerings were burned in the closed grave, hardly ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various
... time be steered over its squares, or even over the courtyards of dwelling-houses, and brought to earth for the landing of its crew?... Iron weights could be hurled to wreck ships at sea, or they could be set on fire by fireballs and bombs; nor ships alone, but houses, fortresses, and cities could be thus destroyed, with the certainty that the airship could come to no harm as the missiles could be hurled ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... emulate eache other in carrying it into Practice; and as the wise Magians kept theire Eyes steadfastlie fixed on the Star, and followed it righte on, through rough and smoothe, soe we, with this bright Beacon, which indeed is set on Fire of Heaven, shall pass on through the peacefull Studdies, surmounted Adversities, and victorious Agonies of Life, ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... Dalrymple, who gave it from the memory of a lady. The incident was transferred to the border from the North of Scotland. Edom o' Gordon was Sir Adam Gordon of Auchindown, Lieutenant-Depute for Queen Mary in the North in 1571. He sent Captain Ker with soldiers against the Castle of Towie, which was set on fire, and the Lady of Towie, with twenty-six other persons, "was cruelly brint to the death." Other forms of the ballad ascribe the deed, with incidents of greater cruelty, to Captain Carr, ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... to be correct. Then during the battle which followed another German machine was set on fire; so that a total of three were destroyed, and another of the six engaged in the raid sent back damaged, and one of ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... then dogged the uncle as he had dogged the nephew. I don't presume to say that there was cause and effect in what happened that night, but it was what is called "a curious coincidence" that that night one of Richard Avenel's ricks was set on fire; and that that day he had called Mr. Sprott an incendiary. Mr. Sprott was a man of very high spirit and did not forgive an insult easily. His nature was inflammatory, and so was that of the lucifers which he always carried about him, with his ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... one gentleman was set on fire because he committed a man for machine-breaking. He ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... Alum, and two Ounces of Brandy; melt all these in an Earthen Pan over hot Coals, and dip therein a piece of new Canvas, and instantly sprinkle thereon the Powders of Nutmegs, Cloves, Coriander and Anise-seeds: This Canvas set on fire, and let it burn hanging in the Cask fastened at the end with the wooden Bung, so that no Smoke ...
— The London and Country Brewer • Anonymous
... enrage me, and appear Foolish as thou art old. Talk not to me Of Gods who have taken thought for this dead man! Say, was it for his benefits to them They hid his corse, and honoured him so highly, Who came to set on fire their pillared shrines, With all the riches of their offerings, And to make nothing of their land and laws? Or, hast thou seen them honouring villany? That cannot be. Long time the cause of this Hath come to me in secret ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... attempted destruction of the works at Harper's Ferry, by the Federal officer in command there. This was on the 19th of April, and on the next day reinforcements were thrown into Fortress Monroe; and the navy-yard at Norfolk, with the shipping, set on fire and abandoned. ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... Regulators treated delinquents in those days. They were shot. Whether Audubon did any of the shooting or not, he does not say. But he aided and abetted, and his Spanish blood must have tingled in his veins. Then the cabin was set on fire, and the travellers proceeded on ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... and Glory, there came out of one corner of the square (which, like so many such squares, was at once crowded and quiet) a sudden and silent line of horsemen. Their dress was of a dull blue, plain and prosaic enough, but the sun set on fire the brass and steel of their helmets; and their helmets were carved like the helmets of the Romans. I had seen them by twos and threes often enough before. I had seen plenty of them in pictures toiling through the snows of Friedland or roaring round the squares at Waterloo. ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton |
