Torch

“ A lighted torch was applied to the fuel, and a tongue of flame, darting from amid the thick cloud of suffocating smoke, licked the grim stone walls, while the spiral staircase, acting like a lofty chimney, fanned the fire till it glowed like a potter's furnace. ”

“ The flaring torch he dashed full at a grisly muzzle that snapped and slavered at his legs. To their nostrils the singe of burned hair wafted. Yelping, the beast swerved back.
But others ran in and in at them; and now the torch was failing. Both of them shouted and struck; and the revolver stabbed the night with fire.
Pandemonium rose in the forest. Cries, howls, long wails and snuffing barks blent with the clicking of ivories, the pad-pad-pad of feet, the crackling of the underbrush. ”

“ Against that thick blanket of mist the penetrating power of the torch's gleam was so effectually blunted that it could do nothing more than throw a pale, weak circle of light a few feet into the depths of a crowding vapour, leaving all beyond and upon either side doubly dark in contrast. ”

“ So, with a little electric torch in one hand and the other held out blindly before me, I crept into the darkness that was, presumably, Vining’s entrance hall.
After a moment I heard the front door close softly behind me, and then I ventured to use the torch.
Have you ever gone into a strange house and tried to make out the lay of the land with a pocket torch? The torch shows up only one tiny spot at a time, and when you have swept it all over one article of furniture and made out its general dimensions, you have forgotten everything else! ”

“ Travers began to walk toward the featureless black mass of the stockade. When after a few steps she looked back over her shoulder, the lagoon, the beach, the canoe, the men she had just left had become already invisible. She was alone bearing up a blazing torch on an earth that was a dumb shadow shifting under her feet. At last she reached firmer ground and the dark length of the palisade untouched as yet by the light of the torch seemed to her immense, intimidating. ”

“ As in the ancient torch-race, which seemed to Lucretius to be the symbol of all life, we press forward torch in hand along the course. Soon from behind comes the runner who will outpace us. All our skill lies in giving into his hand the living torch, bright and unflickering, as we ourselves disappear in the darkness. ”

“ TORCH. To see a bright torch-light at a distance in a dark night, and go toward it, foretells a successful journey; but if you stumble by the way you will experience an accident: to dream of carrying a lighted torch at night, is a sign that some distant friend will pay you a visit. ”

“ Sometimes, as if it crouched beneath a stroke, the flame of the torch would dip and shrink under a current of gas, then leap jocund again when the peril was swept by; sometimes the tinkle of falling water would gladden our ears as with a memory of ancient happiness; and, passing on, in a moment we should be bedewed with spray, and catch a glimpse, in the glare, of a very dropping well of fire. At length, at the turning of a corridor, Gusman called us to a halt. ”

“ The torch of Fortune seemed ever to light him on his way, and never to shine obscurely for him in the momentous affairs of life:—like the fabled light of the Rosicrucian's ever-burning lamp, the halo of that torch appeared constantly to attend upon his steps. ”

“ Suppose a torch enclosed in a cell of earth, in the midst of ten thousand thousand torches that shine at large in a spacious amphitheatre. While it is enclosed, its beams strike only on the walls of its own cell, and it has no communion with those without. But let this cell fall down at once, and the torch that moment has full communion with all those ten thousands; it shines as freely as they do, and receives and gives assistance to all of them, and joins to add glory to that illustrious place. ”

“ Ritter, I agree with you. But then, we are not dismayed; we have the lessons of history to fortify us; for whenever the torch of essential culture has been raised, [She raises the lead-pencil as though it were a torch.] there has unfailingly been the concomitant exactment of a human life. [She stands holding the torch aloft until the little cuckoo-clock over the door at the left cuckoos the half-hour. Ritter looks at it, and Nelly Fell gives it a glance. Florence, too, turns and looks up. Then Mrs. Pampinelli turns her eyes slowly upon it and withers it with a look.] ”

“ The scene becomes continually clearer and brighter; the individual torches and their bearers appear distinctly, and behold! the mass of people separates before our eyes. To right and left they shrink back, as if the multitude feared that advancing train would yet snatch another out of this moving throng, out of the gladsome drift of life into the chill of the grave.
A numerous band of music comes at the head of the procession, lighted by torch-bearers. ”

“ To my considerable satisfaction I discovered that the air remained as pure as above, and there was no sign of the ropes yielding or parting; but the light from my electric torch showed nothing in the wall in the way of steps or break. It was as nature had left it, smooth and unbroken. ”

“ As the Arab finished speaking, we saw a woman approach, bearing a torch. Obedient to Wimpai's command, she moved towards one of the rocky passages, and motioned to us to follow. We advanced in single file behind our strange guide, and soon found ourselves in another of the great fissures, which seemed to traverse the heart of the volcano in all directions. Before us, by the light of the flaring torch, we saw a wide stream flowing between lava walls, the lofty top of these meeting far above our heads, and supporting long crystal prisms of a yellowish hue, which hung down in thousands. ”

“ So it was that by torch-light gathered fully a hundred of the little people, prepared to battle the Evil One in his hidden fast-hold. With the coming of night they began marching in ragged columns into the foot-hills beneath the fulgent lunar rays. ”

“ Even as if one should inclose a torch within a Lantern of cut-stone, or the like obscure and dark matter, where its light would remain as quenched and buried, without ability to extend it self abroad for the obstacle that hinders it. ”

“ As night draws on, the single figures melt into the dusk, until only an obscure stir and coming and going of black clusters is visible upon the loch. A little longer, and the first torch is kindled and begins to flit rapidly across the ice in a ring of yellow reflection, and this is followed by another and another, until the whole field is full of skimming lights. ”

“ A hurried altercation in low tones, a subdued word of command, [Pg 64] and a dozen men, their rifles and entrenching tools slung over their shoulders, applied themselves to the back of our car, and slowly it slithered out of the mud. The column broke into file to allow us to pass, my companion went on ahead with a tiny electric torch to show the way, and with infinite caution we nudged slowly along the rank, the faint light of the torch bringing face after face out of the darkness into chiaroscuro, faces young and fresh and ruddy. ”

“ To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. ”

“ His eyes sought the end of the hall, saw the turn at the end, saw the light which seemed to come from the end; and then in an instant he was running down the damp passageway, his pulse pounding at his temples, until he could hardly gasp enough breath as he ran. Finally he reached the turn in the corridor where the light was brighter, and he swung around to stare at the source of the light, a huge, burning, smoky torch which hung from the wall. ”

“ But their steps were staggering and unequal, for the solid earth was again shaken, the buildings and the columns were seen tottering and bending by the light of the torches, the crash of falling masses blended with the roar of the earthquake, part of the frieze of the temple was dashed into the midst of the group of slaves, who were flying on before their mistress, and one among them was struck down.
"Stop!" said the voice of Flavia; "let us not leave any one we can save. Hold the torch here!" ”

“ Lighting two of the largest torches she fixed them slantingwise in crevices of the rock, so that their flame shone over the mouth of the shaft, down which she threw, first, a bundle of unlit torches, and, lastly, one on fire. This torch did not go out, as she half expected that it would, for presently, looking down the pit, she saw a spark of light shining a hundred and fifty feet or more beneath her. ”

“ The idea of this torch is to have the light above the heads of the campers. The trouble with a fire upon the ground is that while the flames give light they also hide part of the crowd, and the smoke is always in someone's face. This elevated torch is a brand new idea for this purpose. ”

“ But it's all right now that you are here. Light a torch, and we shall look at the Pope's treasure." I took a torch out of the box and lit it; she laid it so that the lighted end projected well beyond the shelf of rock and gave a fine if fitful, light to all around. We found water about three feet deep at its worst; in the glare of the torch and because of its crystal purity, it did not look even so much. We stooped down to examine the box, which was only one of several lying in front of a great heap of something, all dark with rust and age, which filled up a whole corner of the cave. ”

“ A torch of one’s own!—that is a possession worth having, whether it be a flaming beacon on the hilltop or a tiny taper in the window. We can not tell how far a little candle throws its beams, nor who is laying his course by its flickering light. ”

“ To trust that slight and fragile bark
Upon a stream so fierce, so dark;
Such sullen waves, the torch's glare
Fell wholly unreflected there.
'Twas but a moment; on they went
Over the grave-like element ”

“ The torch makes a flame that will cut through two inches of solid steel in less than a minute and pierce a twelve-inch piece of the hardest steel in less than ten minutes—a task that would take a saw almost twenty hours to accomplish.
When the soul burns with the heat of great enthusiasm, it will burn through obstacles that are entirely insuperable to ordinary efforts. ”

“ But once the wind begins to blow with a velocity that bespeaks the readvent of the tornado, he throws off inhibition and goes out in the open, holds up the torch that shall light the whole world, and with his megaphone from the top of Helicon shouts: "This way to the revolution." ”

“ Upon the earth appear’d, weeping, they bore
Brave Hector out; and on the fun’ral pile
Laying the glorious dead, applied the torch. ”

“ There are no words but the lilt up and down of the boys' tenor voices.
Then, as if they had finished the task of gathering up the wreaths and sweeping the petals, they stand in groups of two before the pillars where the torches have been placed. They lift the torches from the brackets. They hold them aloft between them, one torch to each two boys. Their figures are cut against the curtain like the simple, triangular design on the base of a vase or frieze—the boys' heads on a level, the torches above them. ”

“ We have four torches left. Only when we hear the sound of rapids dare we light one of them."
He emphasized his words by putting out the torch that was burning, and instantly they were plunged in total darkness.
This marked the commencement of a period in which all trace of time was lost. Huddled together on the few remaining rugs, they drifted on and on with the current, alternately asleep and awake.
At certain intervals a torch was lit for a few moments while they ate the pitiful scraps of food that Guy distributed with rigorous impartiality. ”

“ The torch-bearers! The long race of those who have borne, and still carry the torches, passing them on from hand to hand, runs before us. A little ship puts out from Seleucia, bearing a man who had caught the fire in a blinding blaze of light on the road to Damascus. Paul crosses the sea and then threads his way through the cities of Cyprus and Asia Minor, passes over the blue Ægean to answer the call from Macedonia. We see the light quicken, flicker and glow to a steady blaze in centre after centre of life, till at last the torch-bearer reaches his goal in Rome. ”

“ When attempting to change the stub of burning brushwood from one hand to the other and at the same time not drop his rifle, the remnants of the torch fell from his grasp into the rapid flowing waters and he was left in utter darkness. ”

“ These torches, we know, came from the Faubourg St. Antoine. The torch was placed in a species of lantern of paving-stones closed on three sides to protect it from the wind, and arranged so that the entire light should fall on the flag. The street and the barricade remained plunged in darkness, and nothing was visible save the red flag formidably illumined, as if by an enormous dark-lantern. This light added a strange and terrible purple to the scarlet of the flag. ”

“ But a torch is a torch, no matter where you put it, and sometimes the lights streaming from cheerful home [296] windows make better guides for the benighted traveller than the street lamp, whose sole purpose is to give itself to the public."
"I hadn't thought about it that way," said Mary slowly, looking out of the window in order to keep her face averted. ”

“ Man's battle with darkness really began with the torch, which was lighted at the fire in the cave or in the wigwam and kept burning for purposes of illumination. A burning stick was the first lamp (Fig. 2) . The first improvement in the torch was made when slivers or splinters of resinous or oily wood were tied together and burned. We may regard this as a lamp which is all [30] wick. This invention resulted in a fuller and clearer light, and one that would burn longer than the single stick. A further improvement came when a long piece of wax or fatty substance was wrapped about with leaves. ”