Tallow candle

“ The blazing logs in the fire-place furnished ample light during the winter evenings. The inventive genius of man has since produced the kerosene lamp, gas, acetylene, electricity, and other illuminants, but none of these can furnish the bright welcome of the pine knots blazing about the old-fashioned back-log. If any other artificial light was required, the tallow dip was the only alternative. This dip was a tallow candle, in use before moulds were introduced. A kettle was placed over the coals with five or six inches of water in the bottom. ”

“ As Great Hedge was in the country, though not many miles outside the city of Tarrington, there were country things in the attic, such as a spinning wheel, two of them, in fact, candlesticks, candle-moulds and so on. You all know that a candlestick is something in which to stick a candle so one may carry it around. In the olden days, before we had electric lights, gas or even kerosene lamps, the people used to read and work by means of candles.
A candle is a stick of tallow, wax or something like that, with a string, or wick, in the middle, just as rock candy has a string in the middle. ”

“ Of this they make candles, which are never greasy to the touch nor melt with lying in the hottest weather; neither does the snuff of these ever offend the smell, like that of a tallow candle; but, instead of being disagreeable, if an accident puts a candle out, it yields a pleasant fragrancy to all that are in the room; insomuch that nice people often put them out on purpose to have the incense of the expiring snuff. The melting of these berries is said to have been first found out by a surgeon in New England, who performed wonderful things with a salve made of them. ”

“ As the air comes to the candle it moves upwards by the force of the current which the heat of the candle produces, and it so cools all the sides of the wax, tallow, or fuel, as to keep the edge much cooler than the part within; the part within melts by the flame that runs down the wick as far as it can go before it is extinguished, but the part on the outside does not melt. ”

“ Why, there’s tallow enough in that candle on the table to last a fen cottager three weeks.”
“I don’t see why a candle shouldn’t burn out as fast in England as here.”
“They would make that candle into ever so many rush-lights.”
“What’s a rush-light?”
“They take a bulrush, and take the skin off from each side down to the white pith, leaving a little strip of skin on the edge to stiffen it, and make it stand up,—that is for a wick; then they dip it a few times in melted tallow, and make a light of it; but it’s a little, miserable light.” ”

“ A mirror at the end of the corridor caught and threw back the reflection of my candle.
The man looked up as I approached. He was wearing a soft black felt hat and a black overcoat and on his arm hung an umbrella streaming with rain. His candlestick stood on the floor at his feet. It had apparently just been extinguished, for my nostrils sniffed the odour of burning tallow.
"You have a light?" the stranger said in German in a curiously breathless voice. "I have just come upstairs and the wind blew out my candle and I could not get the door open. Perhaps you could ..." ”

“ Tallow candles, to be good, should be made of equal parts of bullock’s and sheep’s fat; which is discoverable by their being of a firm texture, a good white colour, and not an obnoxious smell. When made of hog’s fat, they gutter, emit an ill smell, and a thick black smoke. If alum or pulverized marble has been mingled with the tallow, for the purpose of giving a white appearance and a hard consistence, the wicks burn with a dead light, and the alum spits or emits slight explosions from the wick as it burns. ”

“ Very strong large oil lamps can at times yield a light of 60 candle power, while the large arc lamps which flash out on the street corners are said to furnish 1200 times as much light as a single candle. Naturally all candles do not give the same amount of light, nor are all candles alike in size. The candles which decorate our tea tables are of wax, while those which serve for general use are of paraffin and tallow. ”

“ The Candle. Candles were originally made by dipping a wick into melting tallow, withdrawing it, allowing the adhered tallow to harden, and repeating the dipping until a satisfactory thickness was obtained. The more modern method consists in pouring a fatty preparation into a mold, at the center of which a wick has been placed.
The wick, when lighted, burns for a brief interval with a faint, uncertain light; almost immediately, however, the intensity [149] of the light increases and the illumination remains good as long as the candle lasts. ”

“ Thus far the only light available was obtained from candles made from the fat of the animals, and it was not the kind of illuminating material they had been used to. When people knew nothing better than tallow candles, that light was satisfactory, but when petroleum was once used tallow candles were entirely unsuitable and too primitive. ”

“ A Brass Mold to cast Candles, in which a man may make 500. dozen in a day, and adde an Ingredient to the tallow which will make it cheaper, and yet so that the Candles shall look whiter and last longer.
[A Candle-mold.] This invention seems to include some recipe to whiten the tallow. When the idea of improving candle-moulds suggested itself, the Marquis had probably been over some manufactory, and on seeing the customary mode of candle-making, the present suggestion may have occurred to him. ”

“ The pointed end of one blade was used to prick up the wick if it did not stand straight or was too tightly twisted. The three legs kept the snuffers, which were sooty on the under side from being stuck into the candle flame, away from the table or the tray where they were usually kept.
The candles of to-day do not often need to be snuffed, because as their wicks, which are carefully twisted, are burned free of the tallow, wax or paraffin, they bend a little in the effort to untwist. This bending thrusts the used-up end sidewise into the hot, outer flame and there it is quite burned up. ”

“ The remains of the candle were used in various ways to benefit man and beast. Sometimes a cross was branded with them upon the animals on Christmas morning; in Sweden the plough was smeared with 260the tallow, when used for the first time in spring. Or again the tallow was given to the fowls; and, lastly, in Denmark the ends were preserved and burnt in thundery weather to protect the house from lightning.{30} There is an analogy here with the use of the Christmas log, and also of the candles of the Purification (see Chapter XVI.) . ”

“ These candles, and those of wax or spermaceti, may be kept a long time without injury, if they are covered with paper within the box, to prevent them from becoming discoloured, which they will soon be, if much exposed to the air; but tallow candles of all kinds should never be kept more than six months, as, when old, they are very apt to gutter. ”

“ Wax candles are always made by this process.
Substitute for Candles.--A strip of cotton, 1 1/2 foot long, drenched in grease, and wound spirally round a wand, will burn for half an hour. A lump of beeswax, with a tatter of an old handkerchief run through it, makes a candle on an emergency.
Materials for Candles.--Tallow.--Mutton-suet mixed with ox-tallow is the best material for candles. Tallow should never be melted over a hot fire: it is best to melt it by putting the pot in hot sand. To procure fat, see "Greasing Leather," p. ”

“ The wind moans without; ancient evils are at large and wandering in torment. The rain shrieks across the window. For a moment, for just a moment, the sentinel candle is shaken, and burns blue with terror. The shadows leap out instantly. The little flame recovers, and merely looks at its foe the darkness, and back to its own place goes the old enemy of light and man. The candle for me, tiny, mortal, warm, and brave, a golden lily on a silver stem! ”

“ It owes its lustre at night-time to the very flame shining upon it. The flame shines in darkness, but the light which the diamond has is as nothing until the flame shine upon it, when it is brilliant again. The candle alone shines by itself, and for itself, or for those who have arranged the materials. Now, let us look a little at the form of the flame as you see it under the glass shade. It is steady and equal; and its general form is that which is represented in the diagram, varying with atmospheric disturbances, and also varying according to the size of the candle. ”

“ 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. ”

“ First and brightest to the eye are the dozen candles, scattered about regardless of expense, and kept well snuffed by the miller, who walks round the room at intervals of five minutes, snuffers in hand, and nips each wick with great precision, and with something of an executioner’s grim look upon his face as he closes the snuffers upon the neck of the candle. ”

“ Section 11 An oil lamp (or candelabra) that has two mouths (or candles) can be used for two people, providing that they are lighting one candle per person every night. If they plan to add candles each night they should not both use wicks in one bowl (or one candelabra) , for then it will not be possible to tell from their lights how many candles are supposed to be lit on any given day (Magen Avraham, comment 2) . ”

“ So the star-like candle for me. No other light follows so intimately an author's most ghostly suggestion. We sit, the candle and I, in the midst of the shades we are conquering, and sometimes look up from the lucent page to contemplate the dark hosts of the enemy with a smile before they overwhelm us; as they will, of course. Like me, the candle is mortal ”

“ 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 wax 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. ”

“ You know that the flames on these burning wicks in candles made of bees-wax, stearin, or spermaceti, do not run down to the wax or other matter, and melt it all away, but keep to their own right place. They are fenced off from the fluid below, and do not encroach on the cup at the sides. I cannot imagine a more beautiful example than the condition of adjustment under which a candle makes one part subserve to the other to the very end of its action. A combustible thing like that, burning away gradually, never being intruded upon by the flame, is a very beautiful sight ”

“ A long and pointed tongue of fire extended itself from the flame of the candle. Monsieur Roger placed close to this tongue of fire the tapering and open end of the tube in which the water had finished boiling. The air, forced out of the blowpipe and thrust upon the flame of the candle, bore to this flame a considerable quantity of oxygen, which increased the combustion and produced a temperature high enough to soften and melt the open extremity of the tube, and so seal it hermetically. ”

“ Paraffin, and almost all patent candles, fill the air with burnt smoke, and this, to many people, is insufferable.
Sperm candles are preferable to any others for general use at the piano and for bed-rooms. And candles need not be an expensive item when a house is well fitted with gas, as much music practising may be done by daylight and gaslight; while in bed-rooms we ought not to require much length of candlelight.
There is no need of more than one candle to be carried about, and that is for the person who turns off the gas to go upstairs with. ”

“ The candle in its silver case, hinged against the wall, swings back and forth with dizzy motion, throwing moving distorted shadows over everything, and making the night like a sickly day. You long for darkness, and, when at last the light grows dim, until only a red spark remains and the smoke that adds its mite to your misery, long for its return. ”

“ The band removed these candles from the bamboo cases, set them up, lighted them; the candlesticks were huge bronze affairs with pricked ends. Now the wine flowed freely.
Another hour. One of the maudlin women brought a flaring candle and set it in a pricket-socket under the swinging captive, so that the smoky flame of it ran up the back of his legs. ”

“ Finding that candles would burn very well in air in which plants had grown a long time, and having had some reason to think that there was something attending vegetation which restored air that had been injured by respiration, I thought it was possible that the same process might also restore the air that had been injured by the burning of candles.
“Accordingly, on the 17th of August 1771, I put a sprig of mint into a quantity of air in which a wax candle had burned out, and found that on the 27th of the same month another candle burned perfectly well in it. ”