"pluck a brand from the burning"是什么意思？

Surely if they had been zealous to pluck a brand from the burning, here was a noble opportunity. (W.Gunnyon)

句中的"pluck a brand from the burning"是什么意思？

My comments:

A brand is a piece of burning wood in the fire.

If you want to pick a piece of burning wood from the fire with your hand, you risk your hand getting burned also.

Hence, the idea is this, if you want to do something noble, like saving somebody from suffering (supposing the burning wood is suffering in the fire), you shouldn’t mind taking all the noble risks involved.

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She's fair game!

Longevity has its place.

lose three stone是什么意思？

vintage mother

down the road

take sth in stride

Sour puss 酸猫？

in double time

out of the bottle

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give my right arm

sit sb down

hitch one's wagon to a star

fighting without fighting

on the back of

the buck stops there?

bargain for jobs

Go to Zhang Xin's column

本文仅代表作者本人观点，与本网立场无关。欢迎大家讨论学术问题，尊重他人，禁止人身攻击和发布一切违反国家现行法律法规的内容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin（张欣） has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.