column quotes

It quickly swelled into the shape of a gigantic question mark, the middle of which was a vivid crimson, and as this thunderhead-like column billowed upward through the sky, she could see a red ball of fire at its core.

- Hiroyuki Agawa
  Of the atomic explosion, Hiroshima. Haru no shiro (Citadel in Spring, translated by Lawrence Rogers), ch.9.

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups, That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in.

-William Cowper
  The Task, bk.4,'The Winter Evening', l.34^9.

La quinta columna. The fifth column.

- Emilio Mola
  Speech, Oct. Of the rebel sympathizers within Madrid who would help the four columns of nationalist rebels besieging it. Quoted in Hugh Thomas TheSpanish Civil War (1961), ch.4, p.317.