"Brighten" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shall echo through the quiet, silent room; When no childish smile shall brighten, and no laughter lift the gloom; When the shadows that fall 'round us in the fire-light's fitful glow Shall be ghosts of those who sat there in the ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... down the sword from the crook, where it had hung untouched ever since the lieutenant's death, and delivered it to the corporal to brighten up;—and having detained Le Fever a single fortnight to equip him, and contract for his passage to Leghorn,—he put the sword into his hand.—If thou art brave, Le Fever, said my uncle Toby, this will not fail thee,—but Fortune, said he (musing a little),—Fortune ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... everything figured out to send you down to Santa Maria with Enrique. But I reckon with the ice broken, he'll have to swim out or drown. Where do your folks live?" I explained that they lived on the San Antonio River, northeast about one hundred and fifty miles. At this I saw my employer's face brighten. "Yes, yes, I see," said he musingly; "that will carry you past the widow McLeod's. You can go, son, and good ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... to be the last, then, of his intercourse with a warmhearted and lovable people. This was to be the end of his friendship with this impetuous and generous girl who had done so much to brighten his life since he had come to St: Louis. Henceforth this house would be shut to him, and all others ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... presented to her this lamented brother living; and he said to Isabel, "Give me your hand, Isabel; for your lovely sake I pardon Claudio. Say you will be mine, and he shall be my brother too." By this time Lord Angelo perceived he was safe; and the duke, observing his eye to brighten up a little, said, "Well, Angelo, look that you love your wife; her worth has obtained your pardon: joy to you, Mariana! Love her, Angelo! I have confessed her, and know her virtue." Angelo remembered, when dressed in a little brief authority, how ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... one thing funny, as some persons believed? Was it indeed really funny at all? Henry, who honestly desired to brighten his life, tried hard to think so, but failed, and relapsed into gloom. He could not see that it was funnier that a female should not yet have completed her toilet than that a male should not. Neither was funny. Nothing, perhaps, was funny. The League of Nations was not funny. Life was ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... deep and frequent sighs, she resumed her narrative. "Daylight began to dawn as if with difficulty, and it was late before its radiance had tinged the watery and tempestuous clouds. I was still kneeling by the gulph in prayer when the cliffs began to brighten, and the beams of the morning sun to strike against me. Then did I rejoice. Then no longer did I think myself of all human beings the most abject and miserable. How different did I feel myself from those, fresh plunged into the abodes of torment, and driven ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... moments that come into the life of man. What chance has the ordinary male—half-grown, except physically—of ever glowing with real chivalry? To him women are easy, common, plentiful, without mystery or lofty radiance. How can the valor of humility brighten his quest? How can he be a lover—who does not realize his poverty, his evil, the vastness of his need? What does it mean to the mere male, this highest of earthly gifts, the glance from a woman which ends his quest of her, the gift of herself? To be great and a man, ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... still, cold sense of death? Oh no; I ask no balm to steep With fragrant tears my bed of sleep: But now, while every pulse is glowing, Now let me breathe the balsam flowing; Now let the rose, with blush of fire, Upon my brow in sweets expire; And bring the nymph whose eye hath power To brighten even death's cold hour. Yes, Cupid! ere my shade retire, To join the blest elysian choir; With wine, and love, and social cheer, I'll make my own ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... you have on your shoulders your beadle's robe, and spend all your time reading your breviary. But I give you warning that if in polishing your chapel utensils you forget how to brighten up my sword, I will make a great fire of your blessed images and will see that ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the chaparral, which during the long dry season has robed the hills in sombre green, begins to brighten with new life; new leaves adorn the ragged red arms of the manzanita, and among them blow thousands of little urn-shaped flowers of rose-color and white. The bright green of one lilac is almost lost in a luxuriance of sky-blue ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... framed motto over her own ample mirror and yanking it down with one single tug began to busy herself adroitly with a snarl in the picture-cord. Like a withe of willow yearning over a brook her slender figure curved to the task. Very scintillatingly the afternoon light seemed to brighten suddenly across her lap. You'll Be a Long Time Dead! glinted the ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... frame, in beauty, and order, and permanence. The soft white sediments of the sea draw themselves, in process of time, into smooth knots of sphered symmetry; burdened and strained under increase of pressure, they pass into a nascent marble; scorched by fervent heat, they brighten and blanch into the snowy rock of Paros and Carrara. The dark drift of the inland river, or stagnant slime of inland pool and lake, divides, or resolves itself as it dries, into layers of its several elements; slowly purifying each by the patient withdrawal of it from the anarchy ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... expounded by so serious a writer as Sankara in his commentary on the Vedanta Sutras, and it also finds mythological expression in numerous popular legends. The Tamil Puranas describe the sixty-four miracles of Siva as his amusements: his laughter and joyous movements brighten all things, and the street minstrels sing "He sports in the world. He sports in the soul."[434] He is supposed to dance in the Golden Hall of the temple at Chidambaram and something of the old legends of the Satarudriya hangs about such popular titles as the Deceiver and the ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... with a lighted candle in his hand, and a smile upon his countenance, which was still partially red from the effects of my petulance. I sulked and sobbed, and he fondled and soothed until I began to brighten. He seized the propitious moment, placed three hats upon the carpet, and a shilling under each; the shillings, he told me, were England, France, and Spain. 'Hey, presto, cockolorum!' cried the doctor, and, lo! on uncovering the shillings, ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... bedchamber, was panelled of oak, was handsomely furnished, and its long windows, which occupied almost the entirety of one wall, afforded the same view of terrace and garden that Evander had already seen. Much had been newly done, so Evander could see, to brighten and cheer the place. A bowl of royal roses stood on the buffet, and Evander smiled at the delicate defiance. In the alcove of the window-seat a number of books were piled, books that had patently been newly dusted, and Evander, glancing ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... kicked it into a blaze, and poured out for him a stiff glass of applejack. I had faith in that applejack, for it had been born in the moonlit courtyard years ago. It roused him, for I saw something of his old-time self brighten within him; he even made an attempt at a careless smile—the reminiscent smile ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... word you have said," answered Clara, whose face was beginning to brighten under a new idea, and the bonds were becoming very precious to her. "But is there nothing I can do in ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... compound that has been spilled on it, and also any grease or dirt. If any grease is on the case, wipe off with rag soaked in gasoline. Unless the case is clean, the paint will not dry. Brush the sides and end with a wire brush; also brighten the name plate. Then coat the case with good asphaltum paint. Any good turpentine asphaltum is excellent for this purpose. If it is too thick, thin it with turpentine, but be sure to mix well before using, as it does not mix readily. Use ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... off rather dissatisfied, towel in hand, to pass their landlord's wife and receive a nod and smile. Then he went on towards the place which he had visited before; and now, one by one, the cold-looking peaks began to turn rosy and brighten, the scene changing so rapidly to orange and gold that Saxe forgot his dissatisfied feelings, and at last stopped to look round in admiration, then in dismay, and at last in something approaching rage; for not a dozen yards behind him was the heavy, stolid face of Pierre, his mouth looking ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... to brighten now, and the room was red and pleasant-looking; still I knew he couldn't see me plainly, and I waited a minute, and lingered round, pretending I was doing something, which I wasn't; I hated to break the old way of things; and then I took the tongs and blew a coal and ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... brighten every path By sin and sorrow trod; For loving hearts to usher in The commonwealth ...
— Poems • Frances E. W. Harper
... mission and her love. All that heartbreak through which he had gone had been due to his own misconception, and in that misconception he had drawn into himself and had stopped writing to her. Even his occasional letters had for two years ceased to brighten her heart-strangling isolation—and she was still waiting.... She had sent no word of appeal until the moment had come of which she had promised to inform him. Sally, abandoned and alone, had been fighting her way up—that she might ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... the tarpaulin was not put down over the opening, and consequently there were a few vivid pencils of light to brighten our prison. ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... that had reflected the rushing of the storm, the sliding of the keel above, the face of many a drowning mariner. Careless of all that, at the moment, she held it up now to the light to see if further furbishing could brighten it, and as she did so was hastily checked. She had caught sight of a dark face just framed and mirrored, the sad eyes raised and resting on her own, luminous no more, but heavy, and longing, and dull with a weight of woe. At the same moment, Paula, who had by no ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... not very beautiful, only strong and stanch and steadfast—the same in all times, through all seasons—ever the same, ever green. The spring cannot brighten them, the summer cannot scorch them, the autumn cannot wither them, the winter cannot ...
— Evergreens - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... And the book would be stood on the shelf in the English country house where Sally Duggan's Life of Father Damien in verse would join it one of these days. There were ten or twelve little volumes already. Strolling in at dusk, Sandra would open the books and her eyes would brighten (but not at the print), and subsiding into the arm-chair she would suck back again the soul of the moment; or, for sometimes she was restless, would pull out book after book and swing across the whole space of her life like an acrobat from bar ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... York! It was to help pay for his education in music that she first came to us, she said. And it was the news that he had been chosen for the choir school that accounts for the new happiness which we saw brighten her day by day. Now she comes again for the same small wage, but with other need, no doubt: the expenses of it all, a rose-bush for his breast. She told me this calmly as though it caused her no grief. It was not my privilege, ...
— A Cathedral Singer • James Lane Allen
... the young engineer to brighten up, as the idea of action had aroused the miners from ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... when they were out upon the road, "that girl ought to have something besides 'The Frozen Pirate' and 'Foxe's Martyrs' to brighten her up,—books and flowers, and other things. Do you think she'd ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... a tone of lofty lamentation, "I don't know as I can ever, ever make you understand I just wanted to give you a good time. I seen you was in mourning, and I thinks, 'Maybe you could brighten her ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... every one takes it for granted that they are sterling: indeed, there are some societies in which, no matter how gloomy and churlish the conversation may have become, you have but to mention bakers for voices to brighten suddenly and for a good influence to pervade every one. I say this is known for a fact, but not usually explained; the explanation is, that bakers are always up early in the morning and can watch the dawn, and that in this ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... good number of excellent and very useful souls with whom I am acquainted, who never take a cheerful view of life, are always fault-finding, hole-picking, worry-discovering, eminently good in their place as febrifuges, but not calculated to brighten ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... custom at our house which we call raking up the fire. That is to say, the last half hour before bedtime, we draw in, shoulder to shoulder, around the last brands and embers of our hearth, which we prick up and brighten, and dispose for a few farewell flickers and glimmers. This is a grand time for discussion. Then we talk over parties, if the young people have been out of an evening,—a book, if we have been reading one; we discuss and analyze characters,—give our views on all subjects, aesthetic, ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Braithwaite, Bertier, Colonel Sykes and Guest appeared. They looked more depressed than I felt. I had to work like a beaver before I could brighten them up. "I'm not dead yet," I felt inclined to tell them, "no, not by long chalks." What I did say to one or two of them was this:—"My credit with Government is exhausted; clearly I can't screw men or munitions out of them. The new Commander will start fresh with a good balance ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... indeed attempted last autumn towards removing the ivy from the walls, but the result was unsatisfactory and they are putting it back. Any one could have told them beforehand that the mere removal of the ivy would not brighten Oxford up, unless at the same time one cleared the stones of the old inscriptions, put in steel fire-escapes, and in fact brought the ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... hung out at the risk of their necks. The serving men ran out on the hall-door steps. The village roues emerged in haste from their public houses. The whole scene round and along from top to bottom, was grinning and agape. Nature seemed to brighten up at sight of them; and the sun himself came out all in his ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Sabbath-school teacher. But she is now a young lady, and she comes out into the world. We soon see that she has so come out, as we begin to miss her from places and from employments her presence used to brighten; and, very unwillingly, we overhear men and women with her name on their lips in a way that makes us fear for her soul, till many, oh, in a single ministry, how many, who promised well at the gate and ran safely past ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... of the day being over, I sat down upon my doorstep, pipe in hand, to rest awhile in the cool of the evening. Death is not more still than is this Virginian land in the hour when the sun has sunk away, and it is black beneath the trees, and the stars brighten slowly and softly, one by one. The birds that sing all day have hushed, and the horned owls, the monster frogs, and that strange and ominous fowl (if fowl it be, and not, as some assert, a spirit damned) which we English call the whippoorwill, are yet silent. Later the wolf will howl and the ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... he determined that the advance should be as small as possible; and, so long as he continued to doubt his recovery, lived in an upper room, and grudged himself all but necessaries. But so soon as he began to perceive a change for the better, he felt justified in spending more freely, to speed and brighten his return to health, and trusted in the future to lend a help to mankind, as mankind, out of its treasury, had lent a help ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of you, Joe, and if you can help me I'll let you know. I didn't realize that I was acting any way strange. I must brighten up a bit. I guess we've both been working too hard. We need some amusement. Let's go to a moving picture show to-night, and see how they run things here, and what sort of films they have. We may even see one of ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... commend him, and he can be nowhere a stranger. All approach with delight, and all are delighted to linger, If to the outward shape correspond but a courteous spirit. I can assure thee, in her the youth has found him a maiden, Who, in the days to come, his life shall gloriously brighten, Standing with womanly strength in every necessity by him. Surely the soul must be pure that inhabits a body so perfect, And of a happy old age such vigorous ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... on the shore—the twins' provisioning having fortunately been ample—and Mr. Birket proved himself an agreeable companion. Joan said to Nancy afterwards that the practice of the law seemed to brighten people's brains wonderfully. He smoked a cigar, told them stories, and made them laugh. At half-past eight he fetched his papers from the Temple and they went indoors to get ready for breakfast. "I think," he said, as they crossed the lawn, "we had ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... the slaves was sometimes hard and bitter, especially when they were in charge of a cruel overseer on a large plantation. But it was not always so. For it is pleasant to think that when they had good masters, there were many things to cheer and brighten their lives. We know that household slaves often lived in the most ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... ready, and everything fit for the use of guests; there will probably be many of them."[137] It is evident that Caesar has passed on in a good-humor, and has left behind him glad tidings, such as should ever brighten the feet of ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... not true. You do love me. I have seen that for days; although you may have striven to conceal your affection for me, it has been evident to every one, and more especially to the man who loves you. Why, then, deny what has been patent to all on-lookers? Have I not seen your face brighten when I approached you? Have I not seen a welcoming smile on your lips, that could ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... sordid or debasing nature. Newton says that one final effect of the comets is to recruit the seas and the planets by a condensation of the vapors and exhalations therein; and so even the erratic flashes of an imagination really healthful and vigorous deepen our knowledge and brighten our lights; they recruit our seas and our stars. Of such flashes my new friend was as innocent as the sternest matter-of-fact person could desire. Fancies he had in profusion, and very bad ones; but of imagination not a scintilla! His mind ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... grey light of early dawn glimmered in the east, the sky began to brighten, and in the glowing splendor of the blushing morning rose solemnly in giant majesty the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... CROSS, when I mentioned to him the depressing circumstances attendant upon delivery of speech; "CURZON's a clever youth. When he's been with me a month or two, he'll brighten up considerably. Great advantage for a young man to have such guidance, coming into almost daily contact with a person like his present Chief. The fact is, TOBY, I am really responsible for the state of the House to-night. The country, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, July 2, 1892 • Various
... and sat round it, boiled their porridge, and mixed their small beer, sour and thick as we are told it was, with water to make it go further, and each contributed some word of edification to the general stock, brought forward some homely illustration which might serve to brighten the next sermon when it should be preached, or told a pleasant tale, thought out during the day—a story with a moral. Of the five left behind at Canterbury it is to be observed that no one of them was qualified as yet to preach in the vernacular. ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... to find Zilla in the room. She wore a black streaky gown which she had tried to brighten with a girdle of crimson ribbon. The ribbon had been torn and patiently mended. He noted this carefully, because he did not wish to look at her shoulders. One shoulder was lower than the other; one ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... be a great pleasure to me to keep a journal for you if I were well enough, but I am not. I have my sick headache now once a week, and it makes me really ill for about three days. Towards night of the third day I begin to brighten up and to eat a morsel, but hardly recover my strength before I have another pull-down, just as I had got to this point the door-bell rang, and lo! a beautiful May-basket hanging on the latch for "Annie," full of pretty and good things. I can hardly ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... and fed and petted him less. Sometimes the horse was exhausted and about to give out, but in order to revive him all she had to do was to make a little of him, talk coaxingly and pet him; and instantly his eye would brighten, animation would come back to him, and he would do his best to travel. But this kind of usage was telling on the horse and he was growing poorer all the time. Still she was exacting and demanded as much from him as ever. After awhile, he could not begin to travel as he once did, for he ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... recover. Carl's health and strength were on the final ebb—the long, slow ebb that made of his last years one dismal tragedy, which only his superb devotion to his wife and his immitigable optimism could brighten. In July, 1820, they decided to take a tour. They met with great success, but he found his weakness almost unbearable. At Hanover, he and Caroline were both prostrated, and could not join in the concert ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... vault of heaven broaden and brighten with the sunrise behind, and the waste beneath presently to show lines and patches and enclosures as they approached Boston harbour. And his heart sank as each mile was passed, and as presently against the clear sky there ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... so. Later in the morning she came to Olive with the timid yet startling proposal that they would do what they could to brighten up the long-neglected front room. Olive was mystified and troubled, but consented, and thereupon the mother's ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... little, heavy, iron-stone wash-bowl, combed her hair, and freshened the collar and ruffles in her sleeves preparatory to going down for the evening meal. Then, with a swift thought, she searched through her suit-case for every available article wherewith to brighten that forlorn room. ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... Resplendent they shine from a height, Their rays to her beauty resign Their brilliant light with delight. Her hair is a soft raven black, Her tresses are bound with gold thread, They fall in long folds down her back, And add charm to her beautiful head. Her eyelashes brighten her face, Two rainbows less brilliant and fair, Her eyes full of mercy and grace, With nought but two, suns can compare. The eyelids with arrows concealed, Gaily shoot their rays into the heart They open, lo! beauty revealed, Pierces through like a glittering dart. Her cheeks ...
— Apu Ollantay - A Drama of the Time of the Incas • Sir Clements R. Markham
... us, for they do not deceive themselves. Every traveller who has seen the faces of a household suddenly grow pale, in a Southern city, when some street tumult struck to their hearts the fear of insurrection,—every one who has seen the heavy negro face brighten unguardedly at the name of John Brown, though a thousand miles away from Harper's Ferry,—has penetrated the final secret of the military weakness which saved Washington for us and lost the war ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... have seen flakes of fire flying upwards from the dim bush, and wondered what they were. They were bunches of burning grass being thrown on spears to fall in the thatch of the hospital roof. Presently something could be seen on this roof that shone like a star. It grew dim, then suddenly began to brighten and to increase till the star-like spot was a flame, and a hoarse cry passed from man to man of: 'O God! the hospital ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... you about myself. I think if anybody can brighten me up, it is you. I feel such a languaw—such a want of spirit; and I get palaa, and that is ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... later years the brightness of the vision waned, often it almost faded from view; but there always remained a gleam towards which Elizabeth's soul ever looked. And one day the vision began to brighten, slowly and imperceptibly, like the coming of the dawn, but as surely and steadily, until at last its glory filled her whole life and made it beautiful and noble, meet for the use of Him who is the ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... the great door open and welcomed them to the hotel office, a large living-room, with a wide brick and rubble fireplace in one corner, dimly lighted by a log fitfully blazing, fed by scant draughts, so deeply was it choked by the pile of ashes from the logs that had served to brighten the busy room the night before. It is important to note this fireplace, for long afterward, when I went forth to gather impressions at first hand, and there heard Mr. Stuffer and his guests warm to the discussion ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... given us brains to make of our country a brawny one, and we have used our talent to corrupt what was once equality into the unequal factions of power and poverty. The gods have given us genius to soften the crudities of the early century and to brighten our homes and our lives, and instead the inventions and the creations but serve to gild the mansions of the monopolist and to gird the iron more tightly on the wrist of the toiler. We are avaricious, we are vulgar, and we are base. We have lost the dignity of Nature ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... upon the inability of {119} the Recollets to cover the mission field with any degree of completeness. Conscious that their resources were unequal to the task, they invoked the aid of the Jesuits, and in this appeal were strongly supported by Champlain. Once more the horizon seemed to brighten, for the Jesuits had greater resources and influence than any other order in the Roman Catholic Church, and their establishment at Quebec meant much besides a mere increase in the population. The year 1626 saw Champlain again at his post, working ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... survey of that night, much deformed with knot and tangle, for the Spinner cared nothing at all about them. She suffered each to wind heedlessly away; she minded not that they were ugly; she spared no strand of gold or silver from her skein of human happiness to brighten the grey fabric of them. So it seemed to Will, and his temper chimed with the rough night. The wind howled and growled down the chimney, uttered many a sudden yell and ghostly moan, struck with claws invisible at the glowing heart of the peat ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... trial and temptation she had been true, and kept her resolution still unbroken; seldom now did the warning bell sound in her ear, and seldom did the flower's fragrance cease to float about her, or the fairy light to brighten all whereon it fell. ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... in spring-time Dropt from Winter's icy hand, Came to cheer, to teach, to brighten— God's commissioned, shining band; Came with hands and hearts o'erflowing To ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the distance of many centuries! What rapture thrilled through the patriarch's veins, when he spake of the coming of Shiloh, "unto whom the gathering of the people should be;" and how did his languid eyes brighten with new lustre in the dying hour, when he exclaimed, "I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord!" In what strains of holy joy did the "sweet singer of Israel" declare, "My heart is inditing a good matter; I speak of the things which I have made touching the King; ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... faces of those automata, the public, whose brains he is to wind up, are grinning at him; the critics whose good-will he must enlist, stare at him through the spectacles of envy; he is haunted by the gloomy face of the publisher, which it is his task to brighten. He sees the jurymen sitting round the black table in the centre of which lies a Bible; he hears the sound of the opening of prison doors behind which free-thinkers are suffering for the crime of having thought bold thoughts ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... extend to you. I have cut this note rather short, but I have just heard the door shut, and I am quite sure that my wife has gone down to tell the good news in the village, and I really cannot deny myself the pleasure of telling some of the people myself, and seeing their faces brighten up at the news." ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... prize essays of Oxford and Cambridge. There is no elaborate imitation of classical antiquity, no scrupulous purity, none of the ceremonial cleanness which characterises the diction of our academical Pharisees. The author does not attempt to polish and brighten his composition into the Ciceronian gloss and brilliancy. He does not in short sacrifice sense and spirit to pedantic refinements. The nature of his subject compelled him to ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... roadside slender trees of the hornbeam tribe are planted at intervals, and where these are wanting, tall flagstaffs take their place, to guide the wayfarer when six feet of snow cover the ground. Wild-flowers in plenty brighten the edges of the road—stonecrops, cornflowers, purple 'lady's fingers,' and many others; but wedged as we are in our not too comfortable caleche, to get out and pluck them ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... unmanly softness and equally unmanly hardness common among your subjects. Those for whom death ends all utterly and for ever will of necessity, at least as soon as the training of years and of generations has rendered their thought consistent, dread death with intensest fear, and love to brighten and sweeten life with every possible enjoyment. Animal enjoyment becomes the most precious, since it is the keenest. Higher pleasures lose half their value, when the distinction between the two is reduced to the distinction between the sensations of higher ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... the audience sat silent, with glazed eyes. It was difficult to get a laugh out of them. The mud of the trenches was still on them. They stank of the trenches, and the stench was in their souls. Presently they began to brighten up. Life came back into their eyes. They laughed!... Later, from this audience of soldiers there were yells of laughter, though the effect of shells arriving at unexpected moments, in untoward circumstances, was a favorite theme of the jesters. Many of the ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... was a treat for those poor Poles and Jews, who have so little to brighten their dull lives, to see such a picture as that before their doors! The frosty morning air made Rataplan's great black limbs and the beautiful curves of his back and sides gleam and shimmer with every gambade. As for me, the rattle ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... seem truer that "blessings brighten as they take their flight" than when the potato went off the market or soaring prices put it out of reach in the winter of 1917. "How shall I plan my meals without it?" was the housewife's cry. "How shall I enjoy my meals without it?" said all the ...
— Everyday Foods in War Time • Mary Swartz Rose
... and thus he seemed given to me to make up in some sort for him whom I had lost. Almost daily did I look out for his usual hour of coming to me, and watch his tall slender form walking rapidly across the hill in front of my window; with the assurance that he was coming to cheer and brighten, to rouse and stir me, to call me up to some height of feeling, or down to some depth of thought. His lively spirit, responding instantaneously to every impulse of Nature and Art; his generous ardor in behalf of whatever is noble and true; his scorn ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... She tried to brighten her perceptions, and felt again, and took out the little articles her pocket contained, her empty purse, her pocket-handkerchief, and such little things, but it was ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... those houses, and it made me most melancholy, for I have never seen such want and misery. There were starving children, a woman dying of grief, and a drunken man. Truly as I saw this scene I longed to be a king for a few moments, that I might send a ray of happiness to brighten this gloomy house, and dry the ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... thunder was heard on the left, and a star, gliding from the heavens amid the darkness, rushed through space followed by a long train of light; we saw the star,' says AEneas, 'suspended for a moment above the roof, brighten our home with its fires, then, tracing out a brilliant course, disappear in the forests of Ida; then a long train of flame illuminated us, and the place around reeked with the smell of sulphur. Overcome by these startling portents, my father ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... when he was to look Pantagruel in the face. Pantagruel began to chafe like a lion: {211} he turned first on one side, then on the other: he listened and groaned, and groaned and listened, and was in the utmost cogitabundity of cogitation. His countenance began to brighten, when, at the end of an hour, the reader ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... long time talking to wounded men—Australians, New Zealanders and native Indians. Both the former like to meet someone who knows their native country, and the natives brighten up when they are greeted in Hindustani. On returning to Imbros, got good news about the Lancashire Territorials who have gained 180 yards of ground without incurring any loss to speak of. They are real good chaps. They suffer only from the regular ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... fixed his eyes upon a spot on the carpet and shook his head. Then looking up at Newman with a gaze that seemed to brighten and expand, "Monsieur knows what Paris is. She is dangerous to beauty, ...
— The American • Henry James
... Israel had kissed her on the eyelids to awaken her, and she had opened them and gazed up at him as he stooped above her, she looked puzzled for an instant, being still in the mists of sleep, and only when she had closed her eyes again, and put out her hand to touch him, did her face brighten with recognition and her lips utter his name. "My father," ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... not to be in half mourning now. I like to see young people in colors. And then there is that gold-and-white brocade, Ruth, that you wore at the drawing-room last year. It is a beautiful dress, but rather too quiet. Could not you brighten it up with a few cherry-colored bows about it, or a sash? I always think a sash is so becoming. If you were to bring it down, I dare say I could suggest something. And you must be well dressed, for though he only ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... well. Justice is the master of a red-skin. Why should they brighten their tomahawks and sharpen their knives against each other? Are not the pale faces thicker than the swallows ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... after his going, that he was becoming as 'great a horseman as John Wesley'; and he lost weight during that summer. He lost a good deal his first week, and in this manner. The Bishop of Nagpur was due to visit us, and all who had subscribed their religion officially as 'C. of E.' were commanded to brighten belts and buttons for a service parade on Wednesday at 6 ak. emma. The parade was held, every one arriving, of course, considerably before the hour. The Divisional General was there, and many generals and colonels; in fact, every Anglican of note, except Thorpe, who sent word, about ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... on large, white leaves, the Fairies learned to imitate the lovely colors, and with tiny brushes to brighten the blush on the anemone's cheek, to deepen the blue of the violet's eye, and add new light ...
— Flower Fables • Louisa May Alcott
... it not also enough for her?—She said it was. She dared not say how dear it would have been to her if her husband could have some reputation, which would in some sort be reflected upon herself, and brighten her life, and give her ease and comfort: inward joys are beautiful: but a little ray of light from without shining in from time to time is sweet, and does so much good!... But she never said anything, because she was timid: and besides, she knew that even if he wished to make a reputation ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... hurry, my friend. God never is. Things will brighten in that direction. I don't say the war will be ended on the battlefield. Sometimes I think it won't. God does things in big ways. Surely the history of the last few months has taught us that. With Him nothing is impossible. People say that Kaiserdom stands more firmly than ever. ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... tragic usage; but yet in him fate is seldom the invisible spirit of the whole composition, the fundamental thought of the tragic world. We have seen that this idea may be exhibited under severer or milder aspects; that the midnight terrors of destiny may, in the courses of a whole trilogy, brighten into indications of a wise and beneficent Providence. Euripides, however, has drawn it down from the region of the infinite; and with him inevitable necessity not unfrequently degenerates into the caprice of chance. Accordingly, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... Margaret is going to be much the same," said Mrs. MacDonald. "It's no wonder they took to each other. When poor little Margaret has forgotten how ill a world she lived in, I think she'll brighten many a life by her ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... to her from attempts of this sort. She might brighten up for a while, but the dark dread, and the terrible gnawing at her heart, the sinking and despairing in her soul, ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... the flocks of Phoebus ever began life as a more ungainly duckling than Ibsen did. The ingenuity of biographers has done its best to brighten up the dreary record of his childhood with anecdotes, yet the sum of them all is but a dismal story. The only talent which was supposed to lurk in the napkin was that for painting. A little while before he left school, he was found to have been working hard with water-colors. ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... an apple falls to the ground. Whatever the faults of the Analogy, that work, under GOD, saved the Church. However "depressing to the soul" (p. 293.) of Mr. Pattison, it is nevertheless a book which will invigorate Faith, and brighten Hope, and comfort Charity herself,—long after the spot where he and I shall sleep has been forgotten: long after our very names will be ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... knows all that better than you can tell her? What is the good of telling her? She has been looking all day for you to come and cheer us up and brighten us a little, and now that you have come you are as dismal as—I don't know what. You have been having too easy times lately, and can't ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... are the art rooms, containing paintings and photographs of the Canyon; on the walls hang paintings of southwest scenery from the brushes of noted American artists, including some of Thomas Moran's masterpieces. Yellow hangings and electric lights brighten the dark tones ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... this worst state of things, their situation was seen by many and disseminated through the country, so as to occasion a general dissatisfaction, which even seized the minds of reasonable men, who, if not infected with the contagion, must have foreseen that the prospect must brighten, and that great advantages to the people must necessarily arise. It has, accordingly, so happened. The planters, being more generally sellers than buyers, have felt the benefit of their presence in the most vital part about them, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... how it was in him to brighten her lonely life, almost every hour of it—and promised himself that she should not be a loser by her kindness to Mr. Nobody of Nowhere. He remembered her love of fun, and pretty poetry, and little French songs, and droll chat—and nice cheerful meals tete-a-tete—and he was good at ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... which the many must be good enough to grant: and very few heroes, indeed, ever saw their equal; though, if any hereabouts object, I will not be so cruel or unreasonable as to hope they will admit it. At first, full of soft light, gentle and alluring, they brighten up to blaze upon you lustrously, and fascinate the gazer's dazzled glance: there are depths in them that tell of the unfathomable soul, heights in them that speak of the spirit's aspirations. It is gentleness and purity, no less than sensibility ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... aluminum has other advantages besides its lightness. If any food containing a weak acid, like vinegar and water, is put into a copper kettle, some of the copper dissolves and goes into the food; acid does not affect aluminum except to brighten it if it has been discolored by an alkali like soda. "Tin" dishes, so called, are only iron with a coating of tin. The tin soon wears off, and the iron rusts; aluminum does not rust in moisture. A strong alkali will destroy it, but no alkali in common use in the kitchen is strong enough to do ...
— Diggers in the Earth • Eva March Tappan
... himself with splendid courage at the most brawny opponent he could single out. A short sharp conflict ensued, Fatteh Khan with his disabled arm using his sword, while his opponent, with an Affghan knife in one hand, was busy trying to induce the glow on his matchlock to brighten up, that the gun might definitely settle the issue. In the course of the skirmishing between the two men a curious accident, however, occurred. The tribesman, as was usual in those days, was carrying under his arm ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... those wonderful months I find that the fanciful sprite whose province it is to tint imperishably the choice pictures that shall brighten the last grey days, has selected for my gallery not those hours when the footlights stretched between us, though one would suppose them beyond all doubt the most brilliant, but quaint, unexpected bits, sudden, ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... biographer, not in the least disturbed by the disagreeable suggestions of this circumstance, proudly says, "His face reflected the purity of his soul." If so, one is moved to think that the inward light must indeed have been powerfully piercing, if it could brighten a countenance unwashed for half a century. There is a story about Abbot Theodosius who prayed for water that his monks might drink. In response to his petition a stream burst from the rocks, but the foolish monks, overcome by a pitiful weakness ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... stand this house any longer. After all, I've got my own life to live. I'm going to get a job before long. In the meantime I'm going to see my friends. And what's more, I'm going to have them here to the house—- just as often as they'll come! Let's brighten things up a little!" ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole |
