Candle flame

“ The candle is not a flame, but a luminous mass, lightish blue in colour, which dances as though borne by an invisible agency, and sometimes it rolls over and over. If you go up to the light it is nothing, for it is a spirit. ”

“ My glance, rather blinded, was first directed toward the flame of the candle. Then I lowered it—and surrendered for ever and for ever!
I beheld two faces in profile, as it were, one side in darkness, the other tinted and glowing like ancient ivory. I honestly confess to you that in all my wanderings—and they have been frequent and many—I never saw such an enchanting picture or two more exquisite faces. One peered forth with hesitant bravery; the other—she who held the candle—with cold, tranquil inquiry. ”

“ Men looking through bars saw a bit of lit candle wick catch the flame, saw the outlines of a hand as the candle fire waxed stronger. Slowly the moth-like flame was lifted until it revealed the body of a man. ”

“ The wick of the candle is simply brought into contact with the flame, and the flame leaps to it, kindles on it, without parting with any of its vigour or heat, and continues to burn, drawing to itself the nourishment which the candle supplies. So let Jesus Christ touch you. Believe in the Light, that you may become a child of the Light. ”

“ Thus fate, playing strange havoc with the affairs of mice and men, held him back a moment when his very presence might have turned the scale, when the flame of that candle in the wind which has been likened unto the life of a man might have been shielded a little longer in the hollow of his hand. ”

“ We know, of course, what the candle is made of and we also know why it burns and in a way how it gives off light and heat because we have examined it closely, but if we could get no nearer a candle flame than a quarter of a mile it is very doubtful if we could ever be able to learn anything about the real source of the flame—that is its greasy wick. ”

“ In old days the wicks were not twisted much, if at all, and so, as the candle melted from them,—they stuck up into the dull, smoky, non-burning part of the flame, and stayed there until they hung over or fell off. ”

“ There was the bedroom candle, and one candle on the dressing-table alight, that was all—sometimes one or other would flare up into a tall, lean, astonished flame for a space. And queer things happened. ”

“ The candle gives forth its manifestation to all the neighbourhood which is illuminated by it. The candle is glorified by the fire, and the two bear witness that they are made for one another by the way in which they fulfil each other’s life. That fulfilment comes by the way in which the inferior substance renders obedience to the superior. The wax acknowledges the subtle flame as its master and yields to its power, and so, like every faithful servant of a noble master, it gives itself most unreservedly up, and its own substance is clothed with a glory that does not belong to itself. ”

“ Oh, you think the wick of the candle may be damp, do you? All right, I'll light the beastly thing in the fire. That won't go out, at all events. Yes, it sputters a bit, but it will keep lighted now. It burns just like any other candle, doesn't it? The fact is, candles are not very good about here. I don't know where they come from, but they have a way of burning low occasionally, with a greenish flame that spits tiny sparks, and I'm often annoyed by their going out of themselves. It cannot be helped, for it will be long before we have electricity in our village. ”

“ The heat of the burning vapor keeps on melting more wax, and that is sucked up too within the flame, and turned into vapor, and burnt, and so on till the was is all used up, and the candle is gone. So the flame, uncle, you see, is the last of the candle, and the candle seems to go through the flame into nothing—although it doesn't, but goes into several things, and isn't it curious, as Professor Faraday said, that the candle should look so splendid and glorious in going away? ”

“ To carry a lighted candle about without any guard against the flame is assuredly not dangerous, but useful and necessary. But if you were to light a fire close to a heap of dry hay, or to take a lighted candle into a room where there had been an escape of gas, What a catastrophe might be the result! ”

“ Any of you who will take the trouble to buy one may measure the wave lengths of a candle flame himself. I hope some of you will be induced to make the experiment for yourselves.
If I put salt on the flame of a spirit lamp, what do I see through this grating? I see merely a sharply defined yellow light, constituting the spectrum of vaporized sodium, while from the candle flame I see an exquisitely colored spectrum, far more beautiful than I showed you on the screen. I see, in fact, a series of spectrums on the two sides with the blue toward the candle flame and the red further out. ”

“ When the wick of your candle shows a bright spark in the midst of the flame, it is a sign that a long absent friend is about to visit you.
When the ribs of your fire grate are more than usual covered with flakes of soot, it is a sign that a stranger is about to visit your habitation. ”

“ For in this case what happens is that the heat, accumulating in great quantity, quickly uses up its nutriment and consumes it all before more is sent up by evaporation. Hence not only is a smaller fire readily put out by a large one, but of itself the candle flame is consumed when inserted in a large blaze just as is the case with any other combustible. ”

“ If it is a candle lamp the candle melts quickly in those hot countries, producing an extra large flame which generally cracks the red glass, and makes so much smoke that the upper aperture becomes blocked and puts the light out when you happen to be at the most crucial point of your work. ”

“ There is the hydrogen burning. There is our philosophical candle. It is a foolish feeble sort of a flame, you may say; but it is so hot that scarcely any common flame gives out so much heat. It goes on burning regularly, and I am now about to put that flame to burn under a certain arrangement, in order that we may examine its results and make use of the information which we may thereby acquire. Inasmuch as the candle produces water, and this gas comes out of the water, let us see what this gives us by the same process of combustion that the candle went through when it burnt in the atmosphere ”

“ The difference between us and the candle is that the burning does not go on as fast in our bodies as in the candle, so there is no flame, and it would take much longer to make the same amount of heat. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You observe a candle is a very different thing from a lamp. With a lamp you take a little oil, fill your vessel, put in a little moss or some cotton prepared by artificial means, and then light the top of the wick. When the flame runs down the cotton to the oil, it gets extinguished, but it goes on burning in the part above. ”

“ From the time that a candle is snuffed till it wants snuffing again, its strength of light scarcely continues the same for a single minute. And that variation which frequently takes place in the height of the flame, is a matter of still more serious consequence. ”

“ Weight one end of the candle with a nail just large enough to hold the candle in the water so that the water comes near its top edge, but does not touch the wick, and then light the candle. It will burn until the last vestige of wick is gone and the flame will not flicker. ”

“ Also we observe that the dark air behind a window at night reflects the light of a candle, just as a dense body would. We should also try the experiment of allowing the sun’s rays to shine through a hole on some dusky blueish flame. For indeed the open rays of the sun, falling on the duller kinds of flame, appear to deaden them, so that they seem more like white smoke than flame. ”

“ This shadow always moved upon one particular wall, returning after short intervals, and causing them extreme terror. They placed the candle, as the most obvious specific, so close to the infested wall, that the flame all but touched it ”

“ Since I had peeped over the edge myself, I understand better the meaning of his stare, that could not see the flame of the candle, but was wide enough to embrace the whole universe, piercing enough to penetrate all the hearts that beat in the darkness. ”

“ she felt a little nervous about this; ‘for it might end, you know,’ said Alice to herself, ‘in my going out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I should be like then?’ And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing. ”

“ Within the window-closed room, a lighted candle is supposed to fill the entire space with light radiated from the flame: the perception is named light, and is thus wise excited. When the axis line is terminated by the flame, the pressure on the nervous fluid is lessened to the degree which promotes the sensation of luminousness, which seems to be the physical appearance of the flame itself. ”

“ A tall candle. It burns hesitatingly and feebly. Gradually the flame grows stronger. The corner in which Someone in Gray stands motionless is always darker than the other corners, and the yellow flame illumines His blunt chin, His tightly closed lips, and His massive, bony face. The upper part of His face is concealed by His cap. He is somewhat taller than an ordinary man. ”

“ On presenting a lighted candle or torch within 18 inches of the hole, it flames up in a column of 18 inches diameter, and four or five feet height, which sometimes burns out within 20 minutes, and at other times has been known to continue three days, and then has been left still burning. The flame is unsteady, of the density of that of burning spirits, and smells like burning pit-coal. ”

“ I caused that, which was already there, to be drained away; and then applying the burning Candle to the surface of the dry Earth at the same point, where the Water burned before; the Fumes took fire, and burn'd very bright and vigorous. The Cone of the Flame ascended a foot and a half from the Superficies of the Earth. The Basis of it was of the Compass of a Mans hat about the brims. ”

“ Candle bombs. These are usually called candle crackers, and are made of glass. They are blown in small bubbles, having a neck about half an inch long, with very slender bores, by means of which a small quantity of water or spirit of wine is introduced. The orifice is then closed. When [276] they are stuck into a candle, the heat converts the water or alcohol into vapour, which breaks the glass with a loud report, extinguishing the flame at the same time. ”