OCR Text |
Show Phrases and Their Use. How is it that the phrase "well alight" Is used in all descriptions of disastrous fires; in the news items, In the underlines of illustrations, in the very report of the firemen to headquarters? head-quarters? Whence this suggestion of satisfaction? Does It come from some sympathy with the energy of fire, Buch as St. Francis of Assisi confessed con-fessed when he would not deprive the "jocund fire" of Its prey his shirt? 'Chasfte water," "Jocund fire" what a poet was that saint, by the way. But "well alight" seems rather to have more obscure reference to some un-8aintly un-8aintly pleasure in tyranny, expressed also by the common phrase "a good whipping," "a good ducking." The latter savage Journalese is applied to Ill-fed and ill-clad little boys when they go through the ice. Well-fed ikaters "sustain Immersion." London Chronicle. |