Blue flame

“ When the flame leaps from the glowing wood, it is the word of the fire. The power has come near.
Blue is the color of the sky, the dwelling place of Tira ́ wahut, the circle of powers which watch over man. As a man paints the blue stick he sings. ”

“ The tale I have heard told, as a child, of a blue flame being seen leaving the churchyard and travelling down the lanes or roads to a certain door, and there waiting and returning accompanied by another flame, which appeared simultaneously with a death occurring in the house, is doubtless a distortion of a fact that such a flame as the Jack-o'-lantern does occasionally appear in graveyards. ”

“ So the Holy Ghost hovers among the flames, from the red to the blue and the black to the yellow, putting brand to brand and flame to flame, as the wind changes, and life travels in flame from the unseen to the unseen, men will never know how or why. ”

“ We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee;
And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky,
Has awakened in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.
A weariness comes from those dreamers, dew-dabbled, the lily and rose ”

“ With a good blowpipe the air projects the entire flame, forming a horizontal, blue cone of flame, which converges to a point at about an inch from the wick, with a larger, longer, and more luminous flame enveloping it, and terminating to a point beyond that of the blue flame. ”

“ Thus pure hydrogen gas will burn with a blue flame, in which many of the rays of light are wanting.
The flame of an oil lamp contains most of the rays which are wanting in the sunlight. Alcohol mixed with water, when heated or burned, affords a flame with no other rays but yellow. The following salts, if finely powdered, and introduced into the exterior flame of a candle, or into the wick of a spirit lamp, will communicate to the flame their peculiar colors ”

“ He loved to peer in at the dancing flicker of small blue flames that played above the ruddy mound of coals in the firebox—tenuous, airy little flames that were as blue as violets and hovered up and down in the ascending gases. ”

“ I Blue Squills
How many million Aprils came
Before I ever knew
How white a cherry bough could be,
A bed of squills, how blue!
And many a dancing April
When life is done with me,
Will lift the blue flame of the flower
And the white flame of the tree.
Oh burn me with your beauty, then,
Oh hurt me, tree and flower,
Lest in the end death try to take
Even this glistening hour.
O shaken flowers, O shimmering trees,
O sunlit white and blue,
Wound me, that I, through endless sleep,
May bear the scar of you. ”

“ If, however, we look at a candle flame through a bit of cobalt blue glass, which transmits only the red and blue rays, the flame may appear violet surrounded by blue, or blue surrounded by violet, according as we have accommodated the eye for different distances. Red surfaces always appear nearer than violet surfaces situated in the same plane, because the eye has to be accommodated more for the red than for the violet, and consequently we imagine them to be nearer. ”

“ Now it is lighted, and from the central mass rises the blue-throated flame, while round the edge, leaving the fuel black and charred, curl those greedy red tongues of fire, to each of which the wise men give its separate name—the Black, the Terrible, and so on. ”

“ That in many cases the light evolved by artificial means is derived from the combustible [12] body, is obvious, if we recollect that the colour of the light emitted during the process of combustion varies, and that this variation usually depends not upon the medium which supports the process of combustion, but upon the combustible body itself. Hence the colour of the flame of certain combustibles, even of the purest kind may be tinged by the admixture of various substances.
The flame of a common candle is far from being of an uniform colour. The lowest part is always blue ”

“ If we look at an ordinary flame through plates of glass colored blue with cobalt, we observe that with a certain thickness of glass the flame presents a purple color, as the glass transmits the extreme red rays, and the highly-refrangible blue and violet rays, while it intercepts the rays of intermediate refrangibility. ”

“ It represents the spinal column of man, at the top of which is flickering a little blue and red flame. As the lamp of the ancients was fed and kept burning by the purest of olive oil, so man is transmitting within himself and cleansing in the laver of purification the life essences, which, when turned upward, provide fuel for the ever burning lamp within himself. ”

“ All flaming Bodies, as Oil, Tallow, Wax, Wood, fossil Coals, Pitch, Sulphur, by flaming waste and vanish into burning Smoke, which Smoke, if the Flame be put out, is very thick and visible, and sometimes smells strongly, but in the Flame loses its smell by burning, and according to the nature of the Smoke the Flame is of several Colours, as that of Sulphur blue, that of Copper open'd with sublimate green, that of Tallow yellow, that of Camphire white. Smoke passing through Flame cannot but grow red hot, and red hot Smoke can have no other appearance than that of Flame. ”

“ THE twilight's inner flame grows blue and deep,
And in my Lesbos, over leagues of sea,
The temples glimmer moonwise in the trees.
Twilight has veiled the little flower face
Here on my heart, but still the night is kind
And leaves her warm sweet weight against my breast
Am I that Sappho who would run at dusk
Along the surges creeping up the shore
When tides came in to ease the hungry beach,
And running, running, till the night was black,
Would fall forespent upon the chilly sand
And quiver with the winds from off the sea? ”

“ But now are the days when heather-bloom is seen,
Remember these, and let the rustling wind
Bring you the fragrance of the starved Campine.
IV
Draw your chair to mine
And stretch your hands to the hearth',
That I may see between your fingers
Shine
The ancient flame;
And look upon the fire
Quietly, with your eyes
That have no fear of any light,
So that for me they be the same,
Yet franker when the blaze leaps higher
Making them as from deep within you, bright.
Ah, how fair still is our life and fain! ”

“ High, still, white flames, like sacrificial flames, like altar flames, high in the sky, the lofty sky, the wide sky; the wide expanse full of white flame, still, white, ascending, purifying flames, refined and clear, over the whole wide expanse, the wide refining expanse. . . . Once more she asked the pale shades, who swarmed about between the flames, hand in hand, who swayed continually to and fro between the flames:
“Spirits in the white flames, pure white, in the white flames, where shall I find the Jewel for Emeralda?” ”

“ She watched it, only half conscious, in her utter weariness, and seeing dimly the hollow-eyed face of the man who stooped above the blaze. Now it grew quickly, and increased to a sharp-pointed pyramid of red flame. The bright sparks showered up, crackling and snapping, and when she followed their flight she saw the darkly nodding tops of the evergreens above her. ”

“ As he gazed, they were flung open on silent hinges, and a host, clothed in spotless white, entered their portals, welcomed with swelling anthems and seraphic songs. Then the toppling precipice began to reel and stagger beneath his feet—a fierce bright flame burst from amidst the night below, more brilliant than the sun's intensest ray. It drank up the darkness, and filled the gulf with liquid fire. It flashed through his eye-balls like a glance of lightning. He felt his foothold totter on the eve of its awful rush of destruction, and turned to flee, but started aside with a wild cry. ”

“ When I look at a flame, whether of fire or candle, I see that the colour is a rather pale yellow, with a reddish tinge about its upper forks, and side wings often of a bluish white—no scarlet anywhere. The nearest approach to red is in the coals, not in the flame. ”

“ The blueish light which characterises the inferior part of the flame, s, is produced by a current of cold air, which, passing from below upwards, hinders the combustion from taking place at the bottom of the flame, at the same temperature that exists in the parts of the flame not immediately subject to this influence. ”

“ A little curl of smoke, a tiny flame struggles for a moment for life. The slightest breath of air falls upon it—a gleam, scarcely larger than a fire-fly among the tangled leaves, and in an instant a lurid flame leaps forth—is kindled into a furnace-like glare, and directly a wandering hill of flame is sweeping resistlessly over the prairie. ”

“ From this forth the fire did not cease to burn, filling the wide fireplace with a bright blaze, with tongues of flame that seemed to die away from time to time, only to burn up more brightly than ever when fresh fuel fed them. The fire grew larger, the heap of ashes rose higher and higher—a thick bed of blackened leaves among which ran millions of sparks. ”

“ Fire in the sky, fire on the sea, fire on the ships, fire in the flowers, fire in the trees of the forest; fire in the Poinsetta bushes which flash their red flames from every yard and jungle.
In the tropical lands flowers do not burst into blossom; they burst into flame. Great bushes of flaming Poinsetta, as large as American lilac bushes, burst into flame over night in Manila. ”

“ As the tide of fire sweeps along, there is a general level, but the flame is broken up into distinct tongues and waves; and when it meets with some ancient and lofty clump of trees, it rushes up to the topmost point, and this burning spire towers far above the sea of fire beneath. In some places there may be a calm, and the tongues shoot straight up; at other places, the flames are agitated by a fierce tempest, and they are bent at right angles to their original direction. ”

“ Men in a sort of ecstasy threw on more of the heavy, resinous wood, that almost exploded into flame. Rocks cracked and exploded like guns. Everybody drew back from that roaring tree of flame, which rose ever higher and higher, its dark smoke and its sparks unfolding into heaven. ”

“ Now, as to the shape or form of the flame. It concerns us much to know about the condition which the matter of the candle finally assumes at the top of the wick where you have such beauty and brightness as nothing Fig. 2. but combustion or flame can produce. You have the glittering beauty of gold and silver, and the still higher lustre of jewels, like the ruby and diamond; but none of these rival the brilliancy and beauty of flame. What diamond can shine like flame? It owes its lustre at night-time to the very flame shining upon it. ”

“ Rising into the air with showers of sparks, and rolling one above the other, were sheets of flame, lighting the atmosphere for miles round, and driving clouds of smoke in the direction where he stood. The shouts grew louder as new voices swelled the rear, and he could hear the cry of Fire mingled with the ringing of an alarm-bell, the fall of heavy bodies, and the crackling of flames as they twined round some new obstacle, and shot aloft as though refreshed by food. ”

“ How the sparks mount and twinkle and disappear like tropical fire-flies, and all the leaves murmur, and clap their hands! Some of the sparks do not go out: we see them flaming in the sky when the flame of the fire has died down. ”

“ To bring about the combustion of the candle it is necessary to apply heat to the wick, but afterwards the heat which is liberated is more than sufficient to sustain the action.
We have now arrived at a tolerably clear conception of Flame; it is merely volatile combustible matter heated to whiteness. Fire is simply a convenient word which we make use of to denote the extrication of light and heat during combustion, and the ancient notion that it is one of the primordial constituents of the material world is no longer tenable. ”

“ In the frantic hurry and agitation of the moment, it never struck me that I might let out the flame instead of letting in the air. I struck at the skylight, and battered in the cracked, loosened glass at a blow. The fire leaped out like a wild beast from its lair. ”

“ The hoarse roar of the coming flame stills the air, causing a dull sound, sometimes increasing and sometimes diminishing in intensity as the conflagration sweeps on or recedes. Occasionally a glimpse can be caught of a clump of trees surrounded by a belt of fire, but as yet untouched by the flames; then a narrow streak of fire curls round the stems, and in another instant the whole becomes one mass of gold-coloured fire; then up rises the column of smoke driven here and there by the breeze. It takes a thousand fantastic forms, spreads itself out, diminishes in an instant ”

“ Far away in the great west, from the palpitating flame in which the sun had set, spread a vast cloud of deepening crimson that slowly broadened, through the air and over the hills, clothing peak after peak with rose-gold, its misty glow shimmering over the whole earth, till every crag, every tree-top, every eagle’s wing, was transcended with the light. ”

“ We get another proof of this fact if we look at the edges of the Sun, where we see great red flames shooting up to enormous heights. Perhaps we ought not to call them flames, because in our earthly fire-grates a flame means that something is being burnt, generally the gas from the coal which is being burnt up in the air. The solar flames do not represent anything burning; they glow like the filament of an electric lamp, but we have no better word to describe them than "flames." ”

“ Even this might be some loss to a poor man. And not only are all these things and a hundred times as many more to be thought of, but all this wood has been soaked in the salts of the sea, and when it burns the flames are of all sorts of strange and beautiful and ghostly colors— white and red and green and blue and yellow and violet. ”

“ Now I tell you what: let us change ourselves into two flames and let the flame that burns up the other be victor. I’ll be a red flame and do you be a white one.”
“Oh, no,” the seer interrupted. “You be the white flame and I’ll be the red one.”
The king agreed to this. So they went back to the road that led to the bridge, turned themselves into flames, and began burning each other mercilessly. ”