There would be a blaze and a confusion, in which timid men would doubt whether the constitution would be burned to tinder or only illuminated; but that blaze and that confusion would be dear to Mr. Daubney if he could stand as the centre figure, the great pyrotechnist who did it all, red from head to foot with the glare of the squibs with which his own hands were filling all the spaces.
"Phineas Redux". Book by Anthony Trollope, Ch. 34, 1873.