Burning

“ And concerning this flame I was not overmuch astonished in my Reason; for it had seemed to me as I drew anigh, that the fire and the sound should be made by the roaring and whistling of a burning gas that did issue forth among the rocks. ”

“ Flames of fire flashed above, like the evening clouds of heaven, and blazed like hundreds of fiery pools on high; and the earth with the habitation of men, giants and gods, burned as burning mountains on all sides. ”

“ While there was no wind, yet a hundred fires originating at different points quickly grew into sheets of towering flame and spread to adjacent buildings, burning with demoniacal fierceness as if possessed by some unseen mysterious power, pouring forth red hot smoke until the prostrate city was melted into ruin by the intense heat of a veritable hell. ”

“ Upon this heterogeneous mass of humanity the fire rained down almost as we imagine it to have fallen upon the doomed cities of the plain, and the hot breath of the flames scorched the exposed cheek and crisped even eyebrows and hair. Sparks, flakes, cinders, pieces of roof, and fiery pebbles seemed to fill the air, and often cries and shrieks announced that furniture and bedding which had been dragged thither, and even the clothing of women and children, were burning. ”

“ I have often noticed, in burning a pile of dead leaves, that the mass that seems burned through will, if turned over with the rake, burst into fresh flame. Down under the mound, smothered by weight and closeness, were many fragments that needed only air and freedom to burst into golden blaze. ”

“ A fire was represented as burning underneath, and out of it the head and shoulders of a man appeared—the open mouthed, staring expression on the face conveying the indescribable and ghastly agony which the sufferer was undergoing. ”

“ It was the greatest force in nature. It was fire. On one hand, I seemed cool and calculated the chances; on the other, I had flashes in my brain, and kept crying out crazily, in a voice like a whisper: “Fire! Fire! Fire!”
But presently the wall of fire rolled by and took the roar with it. Dense billows of smoke followed, and hid everything in opaque darkness. I heard the hiss of failing sparks and the crackle of burning wood, and occasionally the crash of a failing branch. It was intolerably hot, but I could stand the heat better than the air. ”

“ So remarkable is its liking for fire, that we might imagine it to be the Avis incendiaria of the ancients; it has been known to pluck the burning wick from a lamp and swallow it, or to draw small live coals from the hearth for this purpose, without any apparent ill effect, and so to delight in smoke as to take every opportunity of throwing a scrap of rag, wood, or paper into the grate, for the pleasure of seeing the light clouds ascend as it is consumed by the flames. ”

“ We might define the burning as an Act springing from the Reason-Principle: then the warming and lighting and other effects of fire will be its Acts and we still have found no foothold for its quality. ”

“ burning are the drops
That wounded love will shed—like to the dew
Falling from off the poison tree, the blight
Still following the touch;—ah! other tears
Soften and bless—but these destroy the heart. ”

“ Burning accompanied by a blaze and intense heat is a rapid process; burning unaccompanied by fire and appreciable heat is a slow, gradual process, requiring days, weeks, and even long years for its completion. ”

“ Burning brands are blown sixty feet and more over the tops of the highest trees and the heads of the men who are fighting the fire. Before they can check the blaze of the fire nearest them, one beyond them has already been started. ”

“ What a distance to fall, through burning leaves and smoke, like a white bird shot dead with a poisoned arrow, swift and straight into that sea of flame below! How cruel imagination was to turn that desolate ash-heap, in spite of feathery foliage and embroidery of creepers, into roaring leaping flames again—to bring those dead savages back, men, women, and children—even the little ones I had played with—to set them yelling around me: “Burn! ”

“ You cannot, moreover, separate the brightness of fire from the virtue of burning which it possesses; but God, who wished to attract His servant by a wonderful sight, set a fire in the burning bush, which displayed all the brilliancy of flame while its devouring property was dormant. ”

“ The operation of burning is performed by setting fire to the most eastern part of the tract, whence the wind regularly blows; it spreads in long and succeeding volumes, frequently making the traveller recede, and effacing the path through which he has been accustomed to journey. ”

“ An ebbing tide of fire, the evil powers
In fear and anger here are paramount,
Rending the bosom of the fertile earth,
And spreading desolation. Black as night,
And terrible, as if the grave had sent
Its own dark atmosphere to upper air,
The heavy vapours rise; from out the smoke
Break the red volumes of the central flame,
And lava floods and burning showers descend,
Parching the soil to barrenness. ”

“ So the people were accustomed, on some spring morning when there was a good breeze blowing, to set it on fire. The fire would run rapidly over the plains, burning up every thing in its way that was above the ground. ”

“ Henceforth the sticking of the finger into flame means a burn. Being burned is a mere physical change, like the burning of a stick of wood, if it is not perceived as a consequence of some other action. ”

“ A similar nuisance of suffocating smoke sometimes proceeds from the burners, but this is when they are leaky or when there is a deficiency of draught through the black-house, or when the doors of the burning chambers do not shut closely, and when there is much wind blowing past them. ”

“ So in a modern city if all the gas were turned off simultaneously at all the burners but one, the flame would no doubt blaze at that one burner with a fierceness such as no single burner could shew when all are burning at the same time. The analogy may help us to understand the process of reasoning which leads the peasantry to insist on the extinction of all common fires when the need-fire is about to be kindled. ”

“ Fire--General remarks; to obtain fire from the sun (burning-glasses, reflectors) ; by conversion of motion into heat (flint and steel, guns, lucifers, fire-sticks) ; by chemical means (spontaneous combustion) ; tinder; tinder-boxes; fuel; small fuel for lighting the fire; to kindle a spark into a flame; camp fires Burning down trees; hollows in wood; fire-beacons; prairie on fire; first obliterate cache marks; leave an enduring mark; heating power of fuels; blacksmithery; wet clothes, to dry; tent, to warm ”

“ The Burning of Men and Animals in the Fires IN THE POPULAR customs connected with the fire-festivals of Europe there are certain features which appear to point to a former practice of human sacrifice. We have seen reasons for believing that in Europe living persons have often acted as representatives of the tree-spirit and corn-spirit and have suffered death as such. ”

“ This fear, the horror of being burned, which is so powerful in men, accounts for the fact that in all times the wonder and curiosity of the public have been excited by those who are capable of handling burning coals or red-hot iron with impunity, or of touching molten metal, and by those who are proof against flames or burning water or oil. ”

“ They will be universal torments, every part of the creature being tormented in that flame. When one is cast into a fiery furnace, the fire makes its way into the very bowels, and leaves no member untouched: what part then can have ease when the damned swim in a lake of fire burning with brimstone? ”

“ "It was what should have been a bright summer day, but the smoke from the burning world filled the sky, through which the sun shone murkily, a dull and lifeless orb, blood-red and ominous. ”

“ But that darkness was licked up by the fierce flames, which at intervals forked forth from the sooty flues, and illuminated every lofty rope in the rigging, as with the famed Greek fire. The burning ship drove on, as if remorselessly commissioned to some vengeful deed. ”

“ As iron, white from the hot furnaces, Sizzles, when speedily we've plunged its glow Down the cold water. Further, if a cloud More dry receive the fire, 'twill suddenly Kindle to flame and burn with monstrous sound, As if a flame with whirl of winds should range Along the laurel-tressed mountains far, Upburning with its vast assault those trees; Nor is there aught that in the crackling flame Consumes with sound more terrible to man Than Delphic laurel of Apollo lord. ”

“ The flames leap from house to house; the burning cinders fly in all directions, and the fire kindles at many and distant points; so that in less than half an hour, a large district is often wrapt in flames. ”

“ They are more or less fire-proof, slow-burning, or briskly combustible, like the dwellings they have devastated. But the modern tendency is to a type where flames do not destroy, nor moth corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal. ”

“ Every one is summoned from far and near; indeed, the people come themselves when they see smoke, and all hands set to work felling trees towards the fire in order to make an open space round the flaming woods, or beating with long poles the dry burning mass which spreads the fire. ”

“ though alarmed, it is not confounded: but as a lively flame and burning torch, it forces its way upwards, and securely passes through all. ”

“ ‘What a fuss about an omelette!’ he had exclaimed when he heard of the burning. How abominably unjust to persecute a man for such an airy trifle as that!{199} ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,’ was his attitude now. ”

“ The audience, panting, all in a heat, gesticulates and howls. All the faces are as red as if a fire were burning within their bodies. They crowd each other, hustle each other to get out—the men without hats, the women without mantles! ”

“ The Ignis Fatuus is a Vapour shining without heat, and is there not the same difference between this Vapour and Flame, as between rotten Wood shining without heat and burning Coals of Fire? ”

“ The breath of this creature is so hot and fiery, from the great natural heat within, that burning lamps and sparks of fire, smoke and a flame, are said to go out of his mouth, even such as one would think sufficient to set coals on fire, v. ”

“ The veriest chechaquos rose up to defend the name of Daylight from such insult. And through it all, on moccasined feet, moved Daylight, hell-roaring Burning Daylight, over-spilling with good nature and camaraderie, howling his he-wolf howl and claiming the night as his, bending men's arms down on the bars, performing feats of strength, his bronzed face flushed with drink, his black eyes flashing, clad in overalls and blanket coat, his ear-flaps dangling and his gauntleted mittens swinging from the cord across the shoulders. ”

“ The leaping of the flame from side to side, the capricious ignition far and near, and rapid race of the yellow darting flames, the roar of the fire in the woods, the kindling of great trees as if they were torches, and the flare-up of small ones, shrivelled, burnt, and gone in a minute, and the lowering smoke, which seems to make the wood a burning prison—all these are enough to make the stoutest heart stand still. But the prairie-fire is worse, from its overwhelming speed, which paralyses the imagination, and delays or precludes all rational attempts to escape. ”

“ Back again went the trolley, along the asphalted road past the Queen Anne villas with their terraced gardens, past bicycles, carriages, wagons, and always clouds of dust; out into the open country, with rolling meadow and upland on either side, simmering in the heat of the summer afternoon, to which the morning heat was as nothing; Elizabeth sitting upright, shading her eyes from the glare, with aching head and burning eyes, and throbbing brain that refused to take in the reality of what she had done. ”

“ The custom of burning a beneficent god is too foreign to later modes of thought to escape misinterpretation. ”

“ Another method of eating burning coals employs small balls of burned cotton in a dish of burning alcohol. ”

“ For just as the fragments of the so-called Death are stuck in the fields to make the crops grow, so the charred embers of the figure burned in the spring bonfires are sometimes laid on the fields in the belief that they will keep vermin from the crop. ”

“ But, swift as the firemen speed to the scene, the flame is swifter still. Borne on the wings of the wind, it leaps from street to street. It is no longer a wind but a tempest, and a tempest of flame. The track of the devouring element broadens and dives toward the heart of the city. Men, women, and children rush frantically to get out of the path of destruction. Down go miles of stately [145] houses and blocks of business. The reservoirs of grain, the vast hotels, and the spires of churches appear for a moment through the glare, then melt away into ashes. The whole world is in flames! ”

“ 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. ”

“ Blinded by smoke and flame, made frantic by the red death that was sweeping the forest, confused, terror-stricken, weakened by gas and fumes, the poor beasts had finally crowded together and perished under the onrushing wave of fire. ”

“ Among bleak hills of mounded slag they walked,
'Neath sullen evening skies that seemed to sag
O'er-burdened by the belching smoke, and lie
Upon their aching foreheads, dense and dank,
Till both felt youth within them fail and flag--
Even as the flame which shot a fiery rag
A fluttering moment through the murky sky
Above the black blast-furnaces, then sank
Again beneath the iron bell close-bound--
And it was all that they could do to drag
Themselves along, 'neath that dead-weight of smoke,
Over the cinder-blasted, barren ground. ”