"Dimness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... great dim room which half a dozen candles barely lighted; and perhaps it was the first time that she had really asked herself how long her present mode of existence was to continue, how long she was to lie half-hidden, as it were, in the sombrely respectable dimness of the Macomer establishment, how long she was to remain unmarried. Knowing the customs of her own people in regard to marriage, as she did, it was certainly strange that she should not have heard of any ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... but in figure she was much slimmer, and her light-coloured dress, which was unfashionable in make, was pretty and became her. She was, in fact, only twenty-two years old. There were no lines of deep thought on her pure white forehead when she removed her hat; and no dimness from much reading of books in her clear hazel eyes, which seemed to Fan the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen, so much sweet sympathy did they show, and so much confidence did they inspire. In colour she was very rich, her skin being of that tender brown one occasionally ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... they arrived at what seemed to Bradley to be an ordinary small hut. Outside the hut was what he took for a curiously shaped log of wood. The inside of the hut was in shadow, but as his eyes became accustomed to the dimness, he saw something in one corner. It was a weird-looking ...
— Divinity • William Morrison
... mere pretty things for God knows what fraction of a farthing. On the stalls where you'd have cheap clocks and crockery and Austrian glass, they had stacks of violets and carnations—violetas y claveles...." Then a chill and a dimness passed over the bright spectacle and a sunset flamed up half across the sky as though light had been driven out of the gates by the sword and had scaled the heaven that it might storm the city from above. The lanes became little runnels of darkness and night slowly silted up the broader ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... no trouble," said Mrs. Porter. The doctor spun round, startled. In the dimness of the studio he had not perceived her. "Mr. Winfield's servant has injured his knee very superficially. There is practically nothing wrong with him. I have made ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... tread without speck or spot upon the well-scoured pavement of a public street; men-at-arms grasp weapons and hold bridles with hands as carefully tended as any idle fine gentleman's, and there is neither fleck nor breath of dimness on the mirror-like steel of their armour; the very flowers, the roses and lilies that strew the way, are the perfection of fresh-cut hothouse blossoms; and when birds and beasts chance to be necessary ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... either," I admitted honestly, looking at her, as she stood in the frame of the long window, the ruffles of her muslin dressing-gown blowing gently in the breeze which had sprung up in the garden. Beyond her there was a pale dimness, and the fresh, moist smell of the dew on ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... my hand to the conclusive work. After I said all that I could say, and all had been overborne (I remember my actions and words as well as it had been yesterday), I turned round hesitatingly, and looked up to Heaven for direction; but there was a dimness come over my eyes that I could not see. The appearance was as if there had been a veil drawn over me, so nigh that I put up my hand to feel it; and then Gil-Martin (as this great sovereign was pleased to have himself called) frowned, and asked me what I was grasping at. I knew not what to ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... unrelieved. Near at hand, immediately below the bounding walls, rose up the dark swelling outlines that he knew to be the woods of the park, crowding up against the very castle walls themselves; and beyond, dimness after dimness, to meet the ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... feeling found an answer in Dieppe. He pressed her for no more promises, he urged her to no more demonstration of affection towards him. But their eyes met, their glances conquered the dimness of the candle's light and spoke to one another. Rain beat and wind howled outside. Dieppe heard nothing but an outspoken confession that left honour safe and inviolate, and yet told him the sweetest thing that he could hear—a thing so sweet that for the instant its sadness was forgotten. ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... consoling, but, alas, It wipes no dimness from the glass Where I am flattening my poor nose, In hope to see beyond my toes, Though I accept my pedigree, Yet where, pray tell me, is the key That should unlock a private door To the Great Mystery, such no more? Each offers his, but one nor all Are much persuasive ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... refused to leave. He saw them on board the ship and took an affectionate farewell of his old friends. Before parting, the Captain insisted on his accepting a small loan which he said he could return to Nassau whenever he felt like it. There was a suspicious dimness in his eyes as he crushed Paul's hand in his own, while Betsy cried outright as she heartily kissed him good-bye. When the weather became mild again, Paul engaged a small fishing craft and went down the coast to the vicinity of the wreck but his efforts were in vain. His armour by that time ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... speechlessly into the caf beyond. A lady from Paris, all red velvet and white ostrich-tips, smoothed her cheek with her kid glove meditatively, and glanced about in search of her fate of the dark and silent hours. And then—Valentine and Julian were in the comparative dimness of Shaftesbury Avenue—a huge red cross on a black background started out of the gloom above a playhouse. ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... that score. He did not hear their remarks; but that he ascribed to the deafening effect of the experiment. Things about him seemed curiously dark and faint, but his mind explained that on the obvious but mistaken idea that the explosion had engendered a huge volume of dark smoke. Through the dimness the figures of Lidgett and the boys moved, as faint and silent as ghosts. Plattner's face still tingled with the stinging heat of the flash. He, was, he says, "all muddled." His first definite thoughts ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... me, and which I thought must be somehow connected with my breakfast. But it would not go down, and I could do nothing but gaze hard as through a mist at the little delicate woman who was holding so tightly to my hands. There was a dimness and an unreality about everything. Things seemed to be going on in a way I did not understand, and I quite started at last as somebody seemed to say, "Good-bye," and I found myself in the little boat and on the ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... Spitalfields as being perhaps the worst specimens of human habitation which we should find, and he offered to be my guide. I entered a cellar-like room in a basement, which, till one's eyes got used to the dimness, seemed pitch-dark. I felt, rather than saw, the presence of a woman, and, when we began to talk, I discerned by her voice that she was not a Londoner. "No, sir," she replied, "I come from Wantage, in Berkshire." Having always heard of Wantage as a kind of Earthly Paradise, where the Church, ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... Tschudi says that they cannot live. Numerous trials have been made with these unhappy feline barometers, and the creatures have been found to die in frightful convulsions. The symptoms of the puna are giddiness, dimness of sight and hearing, headache, fainting-fits, blood from mouth, eyes, nose, lips, and a feeling like sea-sickness. Nothing but time cures it. It begins to be felt severely at from 12,000 to 13,000 feet above the sea. M. Hermann Schlagintweit, who has had a great deal of mountain experience ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... mastery over the arts of theatrical writing since we met with him last. There is nothing of the lyrical triviality of the verse in The Feast at Solhoug about the trenchant prose of The Vikings, and the crepuscular dimness of Lady Inger is exchanged for a perfect lucidity and directness. Whatever we may think about the theatrical propriety of the conductor of the vikings, there is no question at all as to what it is ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... strange dimness came o'er me; I lay down to sleep on the snow. 'Twas ill done, and with store of wolves hard by. Had I loved thee as thou dost deserve, I had shown more manhood. But oh, sweet love, the drowsiness that did crawl o'er me desolate, and benumb me, was more ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... continued its rhythmic murmur, something oppressed him and stretched out, and the strange face was before him. Prince Andrew collected all his strength in an effort to recover his senses, he moved a little, and suddenly there was a ringing in his ears, a dimness in his eyes, and like a man plunged into water he lost consciousness. When he came to himself, Natasha, that same living Natasha whom of all people he most longed to love with this new pure divine love that ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... In the dimness of the landing I could not see him very well, but there was something in his voice that surprised me. I knew he was of abstemious habit or I should have thought he had been drinking. I led the way into my sitting room and ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... in that way, and thither was Mademoiselle accustomed to repair of an afternoon to keep her voice in practice, as she explained. The Prince usually followed her there, and I have seen him more than once seated in the dimness of the farthest corner of the balcony, staring before him as a man lost in thought, or as one rapt out of himself into some sentimental ecstasy at the sounds of that divine music. Here we felt, more or less, that we were in Liberty ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... and at the first glance we can hardly believe he is right, for we plunge into a long narrow passage arched overhead so that it is simply neither more nor less than a tunnel. There are three of these, and the light only comes in from the ends or from some holes far overhead. In this dimness we see caverns or recesses on each side, quite open, with no glass, and these are the shops. There is a curious glare from some of them where the owners have a fire for cooking food or for heating their forges. Butchers and shoemakers abound, and the smell of raw leather is revolting. ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... of our Shepherd is very just and reasonable, and I dare say will hardly ever fail such as observe it. The Dimness of the Stars and other heavenly Bodies, is one of the surest Signs of very rainy Weather. It is likewise to be observed that when the Stars look bigger than usual, and are pale and dull and without Rays, this undoubtedly indicates that the Clouds are condensing into Rain, which will very soon fall; ...
— The Shepherd of Banbury's Rules to Judge of the Changes of the Weather, Grounded on Forty Years' Experience • John Claridge
... Piazzetta did not show so grim as his wont is, and the winged lion on the other might have been a winged lamb, so mild and gentle he looked by the tender light of the storm. The towers of the island churches loomed faint and far away in the dimness; the sailors in the rigging of the ships that lay in the Basin, wrought like phantoms among the shrouds; the gondolas stole in and out of the opaque distance, more noiselessly and dreamily than ever; and a silence almost palpable, lay upon ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... in the digestive tract is the evolution of life: new life is sent to the remotest cell as by an electric charge. The nutrient vessels of the eye tone down in size, and there is polish, sparkle where there was only dimness; and on the face the venus clouds, black and red, begin to disappear; the toning of the veins condenses the skin, and thereby the ruddy arteries are uncovered, and a color that has life appears; the pimples, the hillocks, even have a brighter look as they slowly shrink from sight. ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... All I had expected was permission to stop, and a direction as to how to find the bunk house. Then a more or less dull evening, and a return the following day to collect on my "dare." I stepped into the dimness of the hallway; and immediately after ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... dimness of early times, we find that many of the ancients preferred green gems to all other stones. The emerald was thought to have many virtues. It kept evil spirits at a distance, it restored failing sight, it could unearth mysteries, and when it turned ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... feel that exhilaration that thrills in one's hair and quivers down his back bone when he knows that every inch of canvas is drawing and the vessel cleaving through the waves at her utmost speed. There was no darkness, no dimness, no obscurity there. All was brightness, every object was vividly defined. Every prostrate Kanaka; every coil of rope; every calabash of poi; every puppy; every seam in the flooring; every bolthead; every object; however minute, showed sharp and distinct in its every outline; and the shadow of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... them no longer, then slowly she turned. Pierre had not moved from his chair. He was gripping the arms as before. She stood with her back to the light, thankful for the dimness that ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... and the dimness of coming eventide had already spread over the water, but there was no rain. In fact, it had turned too cold for that. A fine baffling mist was falling, however, and this was ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, he saw that he was right. It was a small planetoid, perhaps a mile or so in diameter. Almost ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova
... Its dimness and shadowed coloured light suited Brandon to-day. He wanted to be where no one could see him, where he could gather together the resistance with which to meet the world. He paced up and down, his hands behind his back; he fancied that the ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... forester but nature—spreading right, left, and behind, away and away, till lost in the far horizon. Down a short space in front, a green undulating haugh between, roll the waters of the Tweed, with a bright clear radiance to which the brightest burnished silver is but as dimness and dross. On its opposite bank is a green huge mound—all that now remains of the mighty old Roxburgh Castle, aforetime the military key of Scotland, and within whose once towering precincts oft assembled the royalty, and chivalry, and beauty of both kingdoms. At a little ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the main Columbia views, rising at every turn, solitary, majestic, awe-inspiring, the ruling spirit of the landscape. But, like mountains everywhere, it varies greatly in impressiveness and apparent height at different times and seasons, not alone from differences as to the dimness or transparency of the air. Clear, or arrayed in clouds, it changes both in size and general expression. Now it looms up to an immense height and seems to draw near in tremendous grandeur and beauty, holding the eyes of every ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... dimness came over the professor's eyes, as he paused for a moment or two upon the top of a rock, to gaze before him. But there was nothing visible, for the defile at the bottom curved and zigzagged so that they could not see ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... of the depths that Blake could take rod readings, he plunged over into the stream, with a curtly cheerful command for Ashton to prepare to follow. Too dejected even to resist, the younger man silently obeyed. When Blake signaled to him through the dimness, he held the rod on the last turning-point of the previous day, and lowered himself from the shelf down ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... combat and confusion of the night, with the dimness streaked with tumult, and the water gashed with fire, that horse and this dog might have gone on for ever, bewailing the nature of the sons of men, unless a special fortune had put power into their mouths. One of the fire-ships, as scandal did declare, was that very ancient tub indeed—that ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... a line of broad mullioned windows, their round, thick glass in circles of lead, gleaming like opals when the full light was within, but now cold and ghostly in the dimness of the fog-laden night. These windows were some twenty feet from the ground, and Jim's keen eyes regarded them with special interest. Further along and somewhat lower were the smaller windows, evidently ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... that dinner was a trial of patience, and I was thankful when it was over. In the old-fashioned way, we left the men to their smoke, and wandered through the drawing-room into a big domed palm-house, which in its fragrant dimness, with the giant palms reaching to the very roof, looked much more inviting than the drawing-room with its glaring ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... back to the villa. The place was cool and dusky, the blinds were drawn, to keep out the light and noise, and the little party wandered through the high saloons, where precious marbles and the gleam of gilding and satin made reflections in the rich dimness. Here and there the cicerone, in slippers, with Neapolitan familiarity, threw open a shutter to show off a picture on a tapestry. He strolled in front with Percival Theory and his wife, while this lady, drooping ...
— Georgina's Reasons • Henry James
... his eyes became accustomed to the dimness. Two windows of unequal size opened on to a narrow, interior courtyard, where only a greenish light descended, as at the bottom of a well; and to read there, in the middle of the day, it would be necessary to have a candle. Measuring about fifteen feet by twelve, the room ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... flame until his mother, stepping lightly, brought a glass shade and set it over the silver stick. Small moths flew in and out, and like a distant ground swell came the noise of the fevered town. The house itself was quiet after the turmoil of the day; large halls and stair in dimness, the ill or wounded quiet or at least not loudly complaining. Now and then a door softly opened or closed; a woman's figure or that of some coloured servant passed from dimness to dimness. They passed and ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... cover all the land, and all the sea! O I cannot see in the dimness whether you smile or frown upon me; O vapour, a look, a word! O well-beloved! O you dear ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... subject. In perusing them, the uninitiated student is mortified at seeing so much powerful thought distorted, as he thinks, into such fantastic forms: the principles of reasoning, on which they rest, are apparently not those of common logic; a dimness and doubt overhangs their conclusions; scarcely anything is proved in a convincing manner. But this is no strange quality in such writings. To an exoteric reader the philosophy of Kant almost always appears to invert the common maxim; its end and aim ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... comparatively short time. The title of the story was "His Wife's Deceased Sister"; and when I read it to Hypatia she was delighted with it, and at times was so affected by its pathos that her uncontrollable emotion caused a sympathetic dimness in my eyes, which prevented my seeing the words I had written. When the reading was ended, and my wife had dried her eyes, she turned to me and said, "This story will make your fortune. There has been nothing so pathetic since ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... flowers. Round and round the barge is poled, and in the coloured light all that is gaudy and tawdry is toned, and becomes only oriental and impressive; and the white shrine in the centre reflected in the calm coloured water appears in its alternating dimness, and shining more like a fairy creation than ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... before us, and to keep high above the mists that cling to the low levels, the great vision which will make us glad. Brethren, I believe that one great source of the weakness of average Christianity amongst us to-day is the dimness into which so many of us have let the hope of the glory of God pass in our hearts. So I beg you to lay to heart this first commandment, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... low, Stands like a maiden in the snow; And the old door-slab is half hid Under an alabaster lid. All day it snows: the sheeted post Gleams in the dimness like a ghost; All day the blasted oak has stood A muffled wizard of the wood; Garland and airy cap adorn The sumach and the wayside thorn, And clustering spangles lodge and shine In the dark tresses ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... a deep breath. His eyes were on her face, trying to read it in the dimness. Then, "I am not a cub ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... it with a trembling hand, for a strange feeling of dread had seized possession of his heart, and he could scarcely bring himself to look upon it. He summoned up courage, however; but at the first glance his hand fell down by his side, and a dimness came over his eyes, for the word "POLE STAR" was engraven on the handle. He would have fallen to the ground had not Bolton ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... no record to help hypothesis with regard to its antiquity, for since the pilgrimage originated it appears to have been an object of veneration, and the commencement of the pilgrimage is lost in the dimness of the past. Like the statue of the Virgin at Le Puy, it is as black as ebony, but this is the effect of age, and the smoke of incense and candles. The antiquity of the image is, moreover, proved by the artistic treatment. The Child is crowned and rests upon the Virgin's ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... architectural character, and in the flickering light of a street lamp it looked a little as though it had gone down in the world. The greater then was my surprise to enter a hall paved in black and white marble and in its dimness appearing of palatial proportions. Mr. Blunt did not turn up the small solitary gas-jet, but led the way across the black and white pavement past the end of the staircase, past a door of gleaming dark wood with a heavy bronze handle. It gave access to his rooms he said; but he took us ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... pounding with alarm at the strangeness and the irrationality of the whole proceeding. He held the statuette out stiffly, it seemed fairly to leap in his hands, as if tugging with an ecstatic longing to reach the dark place ahead. The rocks closed completely overhead; the dimness changed to stygian darkness. I got out my flashlight, sent the beam ahead. But Jake was pressing on through the darkness, directly in the center ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... self-mortification the business of life? Christ spake truly when He said, "Men love darkness rather than light." We fill the service of the Author of Light with gloom. The hermit thought he could best serve God in the chill and dimness of a cave; and the anchorite's cave has been the type of our shadowy, vault-like churches, and of the worshippers' experience ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... orbs of gold unnumber'd lie, 10 While through their ranks in silver pride The nether crescent seems to glide! The slumbering breeze forgets to breathe, The lake is smooth and clear beneath, Where once again the spangled show Descends to meet our eyes below. The grounds which on the right aspire, In dimness from the view retire: The left presents a place of graves, Whose wall the silent water laves. 20 That steeple guides thy doubtful sight, Among the livid gleams of night. There pass, with melancholy state, By all the solemn heaps ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... another pause. The casting vote on this momentous question was to be given by Victor Amadeus. He had recovered his strength in a wonderful manner, for his face had lost its pallor, his eyes their dimness, and his whole countenance beamed ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... Earth and Heaven and Sea were all mixed and mingled together. There was neither Light nor Darkness then, but only a Dimness. This was Chaos. And from Chaos came forth Night and Erebus. From Night was born Aether, the Upper Air, and from Night and Erebus ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... persons who had seen both the comet of that year and the comet of 1843. They all agreed in saying that the resemblance between the two comets was very close. Like the comet of 1843, that of 1880 had a singularly long tail, and both comets were remarkable for the smallness and dimness of their heads. One observer told me that at times the head of the comet of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... in such inquiries as the present, our enemies may be of much more use to us than our friends. They may, they generally do, exaggerate our faults, but the exaggeration gives them a relief and depth of colouring which may enable the accusation to force its way through the dimness and heavy-sightedness of our self-deception. Examine yourself, then, with respect to those accusations which others bring against you in moments of anger and excitement; place yourself in the situation of the injured party, and ask yourself whether you would not attach tho blame of ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... In the dimness above Stradella and Ortensia looked at each other, though they could hardly see one ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... man, intently on the watch, scanned the country from right to left, searching through the dimness for any moving thing; but all was motionless beneath, while overhead the stars moved slowly through the heavens, as the night ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... it had all the quietude of a provincial town. On each side of the street loomed mansions, girls' schools, black and silent, and dining places, from the kitchens of which lights still streamed. There was not, however, a single shop to throw the glare of its frontage across the dimness. To Henri and Helene the loneliness was pregnant with intense charm. He had not ventured to offer her his arm. Jeanne walked between them in the middle of the road, which was gravelled like a walk in some park. At last the houses came to an end, and then on each side were walls, ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... quickness incredible, the wriggling movement of two blanket-shrouded serpentine shapes round the hide-house—in and out among the grass tussocks and the low herbage, now hidden for a moment by friendly gum shadows in the dimness, now dark moving blurrs upon the lesser ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... gallery. The sight of that dense sea of heads, from either extremity of the balcony, reminded us of one of Martin's grand, gloomy pictures, and the resemblance was further increased by the semi-oriental appearance of the hall, with its long, light pillars dropping from the centre, as well as by the dimness of its illumination, the lamps, many and bright as they were, being lost in the immense area of ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... omens, and the hazard of the voyage. For while he was making the circuit of the temples, having seated himself in that of Vesta, when he attempted to rise, the skirt of his robe stuck fast; and he was instantly seized with such a dimness in his eyes, that he could not see a yard before him. In Achaia, he attempted to make a cut through the Isthmus [580]; and, having made a speech encouraging his pretorians to set about the work, on a signal given by sound of trumpet, he ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... in that dimness I had not failed to recognize the short, erect figure which rode ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... haste. Her white dress made her conspicuous in the dimness. Her cloak had fallen from her, and ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... loud against it cry, See they don't entertain it inwardly; Sin, like to pitch, will to the fingers cleave, Look to it then, let none himself deceive; 'Tis catching; make resistances afresh, Abhor the garment spotted by the flesh. Some at the dimness of the candle puff, Who yet can daub their fingers ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... door and locked it, from a sudden dread that she might oversleep herself and some one would come in and see the letter on the writing-desk. She had not solved the problem even by the time she got into bed; the fire opposite the foot was burning down, but there was a red glow penetrating the dimness. She had forgotten to draw the blind, and she saw the clear stars shining peacefully in the sky. She looked and looked at them and they led her thoughts away from the problem once more. She seemed to be lying in Victoria Park, looking up with ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... fondled him. "Yes, little dog," murmured the man. His eyes, sad as those of the animal, quested the dimness. ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... on, the supper, the table gleaming with the white lights of silver and the rainbow lustre of glass, the golden points of candles in the old candelabra, the fruity and spicy odors of cake and wine, were all as a dimness and vagueness of ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... are following walked slowly across the house-top to a tower built over the northwest corner of the palace. Had he been a stranger, he might have bestowed a glance upon the structure as he drew nigh it, and seen all the dimness permitted—a darkened mass, low, latticed, pillared, and domed. He entered, passing under a half-raised curtain. The interior was all darkness, except that on four sides there were arched openings like doorways, through which the sky, lighted with stars, was visible. In one ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... threaded with the security of one to whom every winding and turn was known. It was dim and dark there, but sufficient light filtered in through cracks and cleverly-contrived apertures to render it easy to move about; and when the eye grew used to the dimness, everything could be ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... of raising a presumption in the mind of the falsehood of Arianism and Socinianism, and thus of preparing the mind for a docile reception of the great idea itself—I admit and value the testimonies from the writings of the early Fathers. But alas! the increasing dimness, ending in the final want of the idea of this all-truths- including truth of the Tetractys eternally manifested in the Triad; —this, this is the ground and cause of all the main heresies from Semi-Arianism, recalled by Dr. Samuel Clarke, to the last setting ray of departing faith ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... translucency, and from behind it came the murmur and the endless chinking of cash, where Fortune, a bedraggled, trade-fallen goddess, split hairs with coolies for poverty or zero. Nothing was altered in these teeming galleries, except that turbid daylight had imperceptibly given place to this other dimness, in which lanterns swung like tethered fire-balloons. Life went on, mysteriously, without ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... now it would be launched, and soon afterwards he should commence his voyage. He should see Aurora once more only. He should see her, but he should not say farewell; she would not know that he was going till he had actually departed. As he thought thus a dimness came before his eyes; his hand trembled, and he could not work. He put down the chisel, and ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... breathing it, one tasted the flavour of brine. All was calm, and the rain had ceased; overhead the clouds, without form or colour, seemed to conceal that latent light that could not be explained; the eye could see clearly, yet one was still conscious of the night; this dimness was all of an ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... of the civil wars, and of the death of the two young princes. No place, no name is now noted: and all is seen through the dimness of ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... autumn-evening. The field Strewn with its dank yellow drifts Of wither'd leaves, and the elms, Fade into dimness apace, 5 Silent;—hardly a shout From a few boys late at their play! The lights come out in the street, In the school-room windows;—but cold, Solemn, unlighted, austere, 10 Through the gathering darkness, arise The chapel-walls, in whose bound ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... off Aunt Jane, only to be frustrated and to lose my character besides! It would be a stroke too much from fate, I told myself rebelliously, as I crossed the broad gallery and plunged into the cool dimness of the lobby in the wake of the bellboys who, discerning a helpless prey, had swooped en masse ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... the opening and shutting of distant doors, that told of scenes of animation and interest from which we were excluded? How doleful sounded the tick of the clock, and how dismal was the darkness as sunshine faded from the window, leaving only a square of dusky dimness in place ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... just in the middle of the bad place that dread came to him. What if anything had happened to her? It was dusk here, and never had the weeds seemed so thick, dimness so dismal, the tendrils of the vines so gin-like. Then he lost his way—he who was so sure of his way always! The hunter's instinct had been crossed, and for a time he went hither and thither helpless as a ship without ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... light at last in the dimness of the depression which had possessed him. Quite how much he really believed, or even if he were capable of real reasonable belief at this stage of his career, it is not easy to say. It is possible he ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... second floor, stumbling, terribly afraid of what he might find. Reaching the top, his heart thudding, he squinted into the dimness. ...
— Small World • William F. Nolan
... Lucretian philosopher looking down from the cliff on the wild sea; we yawn over the wailings of Werter and Raphael, but we ponder gravely over the last chapters of the Heir of Redclyffe, and feel a curious sensation in the throat—perhaps the slightest dimness of vision—when we read in The Newcomes how that noble old soldier crowned the chivalry of a stainless life, dying in the Gray ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... last I saw nothing but a substance as jelly. Then the ladder was ascended again... [here the MS. is illegible] ...for one instance I saw a Form, shaped in dimness before me, which I will not farther describe. But the symbol of this form may be seen in ancient sculptures, and in paintings which survived beneath the lava, too foul to be spoken of... as a horrible and unspeakable shape, neither man nor beast, was changed ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... the sad little company that stand out against the far-off dimness of the past, in that long watch upon the beach, the low-voiced, sweet-tempered Quaker lady comes nearest and is the most real to us. The sailors had chosen a life of peril years ago; her husband, with all his suspicious bigotry, had, when pushed to extremes, an admirable ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... the music of pageantry, cloth-of-gold and scarlet vestments; pendant jewels and multicolored dimness shouldering upward to be lost in vaulted stone. It was music which awaited the accompaniment of whispers, thousands of awed, ritualistic sibilants which would carry no knowable meaning and only one avowed purpose. Soft music, soft, soft; not soft as to volume, ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn
... Thanks to the dimness, to his uniform, and to his swift entrance, Peyton had not been recognized by Major Colden until he had given his name. That name had on the major the effect of an apparition, and he stepped back into the dark corner of the hall, drawing his cloak yet closer about him. This ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... are one or two cataracts several feet high, and the perpetual sound of their fall, and the coolness they spread around, are exquisite luxuries—in the heat of day, or in the dimness of evening. There are two or three Cafes constructed somewhat differently from those just described: a low gallery divides the platform from the tide; fountains play on the floor, which is furnished with very plain sofas and cushions; and music and dancing always abound, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... until he stood beneath the limes that overhung the churchyard gate and wondered if he should go inside to the service. The bells were clanging an agitated final appeal to the worshippers; and Mark, unable to resist, allowed himself to flow toward the cool dimness within. There with a thrill he recognized the visible signs of his childhood's religion, and now after so many years he perceived with new eyes an unfamiliar beauty in the crossings and genuflexions, in the pictures and images. ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... filled with sombre shadows; the motionless air was heavy with a musty, choking odor. In the dimness a few tattered hangings were visible on the walls; a rope, with bits of crumbling evergreen clinging to it, trailed from above one of the low windows. The panelled double door of the ballroom was shut; no sound ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... consisting essentially of a thin glass vessel containing a thermometer and a volatile liquid, such as ether, may be used. The vessel is gradually cooled through the evaporation of the liquid, accelerated by forcing air through a tube until a haze or dimness, due to condensation from the surrounding air, first appears upon the brighter outer surface of the glass. The temperature at which the haze first appears is the dew-point. Several trials should be made for this temperature determination, ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner
... warm, her eyes had the tender glow of joy expectant, her voice was soft with the promise of coming surrender. Their hands met and clasped as she stood to welcome him in the red, seductive dimness of the little throne room. His tall frame quivered; his lean, powerful, young face betrayed the hunger of his heart; his voice turned husky. It was not as he had planned. Her beauty—her mere presence—swept ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... born from the physical conditions of the service. It was always the ship, bound on any possible errand in the service of the nation, that has been the stage for the exercise of seamen's primitive virtues. The dimness of great distances and the obscurity of lives protected them from the nation's admiring gaze. Those scattered distant ships' companies seemed to the eyes of the earth only one degree removed (on the right side, I suppose) from the other ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... profession of love? Her whole soul was possessed by the fact that a fuller life was opening before her: she was a neophyte about to enter on a higher grade of initiation. She was going to have room for the energies which stirred uneasily under the dimness and pressure of her own ignorance and the petty ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... The dimness of the light her candle emitted made her turn to it with alarm; but there was no danger of its sudden extinction; it had yet some hours to burn; and that she might not have any greater difficulty in distinguishing the writing than what its ancient date might occasion, she hastily ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... a grassed mound she sat on, in a kind of plain, and she heard the creaking of bushes about her where no wind breathed on her cheek. The dimness was not the part darkness of a summer night, but a shadow where no sun had ever shone, a barren gloom that was lugubrious and uneasy. A dozen feet from her all was blurred and not to be distinguished, but it seemed to her that many people moved round about her, and now and ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... past the fateful garden wall and the terrace above to the next terrace, where stood a pretty creeper-covered summer-house. It was a warm night, and very still and airless. Kitty sat down on the step in the doorway of the summer-house, and staring before her into the dimness, tried to grasp all that had happened, and what it would mean to them. She thought of their lazy mornings, when they lay in bed till the spirit moved them to get up; of the other mornings when they ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... Alphonsus' Church, near Canal Street. Up the steps and through plain brown doors we went into the church, which was cool, quiet, and empty, save for a busy charwoman with humorous Irish face. Under the altar canopy wavered a small candle spark, and high overhead, in the dimness, were orange and scarlet gleams from a stained window. A crystal chandelier hanging in the aisle caught pale yellow tinctures of light. No Catholic church, wherever you find it, is long empty; a man and a girl entered just as we went ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... Scheldt scarce three weeks ago—and spreading it wide waved it with all the energy of which I was capable. How long the minutes seemed then! If she gave me the go-by, my last chance would go with her. Even as I raised myself to wave, my head reeled, and a dimness clouded ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... shown in successive height, one behind another, instead of the mere tops and flanks of masses, as in the plains; and the forms of multitudes of them continually defined against the clear sky, near and above, or against white clouds entangled among their branches, instead of being confused in dimness of distance. ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... ray of the setting sun slanting through the memorial window on her bronze gold hair gave her the look of Saint Cecilia sitting there in the dimness of the church. Billy sidled into a back seat still chewing and watched her. He could almost see a halo in yellow gold sun dust circling above her hair. Then a sudden revulsion came with the thought of "that guy Judas" ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... did not speak for a few moments; then he left, promising to send some one to care for the sick woman that night. He drove home very fast, and a strange dimness came into his eyes every now and then, as ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... death. They knew me from the dawn of time: if Hermes beats his rainbow wings, If Angus shakes his locks of light, or golden-haired Apollo sings, It matters not the name, the land; my joy in all the gods abides: Even in the cricket in the grass some dimness of me smiles and hides. For joy of me the day star glows, and in delight and wild desire The peacock twilight rays aloft its plumes and blooms of shadowy fire, Where in the vastness too I burn through summer nights and ages long, And with the fiery footed Watchers ...
— The Nuts of Knowledge - Lyrical Poems New and Old • George William Russell
... Used to be tended, flower-like, every feature, As if one's breath would fray the lily of a creature? 145 A soft and easy life these ladies lead! Whiteness in us were wonderful indeed. Oh, save that brow its virgin dimness, Keep that foot its lady primness, Let those ankles never swerve 150 From their exquisite reserve, Yet have to trip along the streets like me, All but naked to the knee! How will she ever grant her Jules a bliss So startling as her real first infant kiss? ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... inspection plate B-36. He grabbed the hand-hold by the plate before he swirled past, loosened the plate, lifted it only enough to be sure that the room was empty, and then pushed it off, pulled himself through, and emerged into the whining dimness of Compressor Room 9, next to the machine shop. The low whine assaulting his ears was that created by the air compressors that fed the jets that drove the waters ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... There was no answer to her call. She tried to get up. After some effort she rose to a sitting, posture, and, reaching out, she felt something, a human body, on the ground beside her. She could now begin to see a little through the dimness. Franz lay beside her, motionless. She put out her hand and touched his face; something warm and wet covered it. Her heart seemed to stop beating—Blood?—Oh, what had happened? Franz was wounded and unconscious. Where was the coachman? She called him, but no answer came. She still sat there on ...
— The Dead Are Silent - 1907 • Arthur Schnitzler
... mysterious, for the wild cheering which had brought him down from his room had given way to a solemn exaltation of triumph. If he had had a hat on his head, he would have pulled it off, hearing the school song sung that way. He felt a tug at his heart and again the dimness covered his eyes because he should be fated to have no active part in ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... 'scape the queen of funerals. Ever new My after fame shall grow, while pontiffs climb With silent maids the Capitolian height. "Born," men will say, "where Aufidus is loud, Where Daunus, scant of streams, beneath him bow'd The rustic tribes, from dimness he wax'd bright, First of his race to wed the Aeolian lay To notes of Italy." Put glory on, My own Melpomene, by genius won, And crown me of ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... woman, and he never allowed a speck of dust on the chairs, or a withered leaf on the geraniums. He never would let me touch her flowers, but I was set to polish the pewter and copper,—indeed, my mother had taught me that,—and he watched jealously lest any dimness come on them. I sometimes wondered at all this, as he had so lately counted these matters of adornment and prettiness and such as less than nothing, and vanity, as the preacher has it. But I think his great grief ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... Here, the ground being level, he could walk more quickly and with greater comfort than in the one little precipitous street of Weircombe, and he paced up and down, looking at the rising and falling hollows of the sea with wistful eyes that in their growing age and dimness had an intensely pathetic expression,—the expression one sometimes sees in the eyes of a dog who knows that its master is leaving it for ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... ourselves by feeling, and in a few minutes Were at Prospect Point, that jutting bit of turf on the precipice's edge where the trees draw back and allow in daytime a wide view of the city and surrounding country, and we both stood breathless there in the dimness, in front of a sight bewilderingly grand enough to of itself take ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... for Miss Radford nibbled her lips with suppressed mirth. The underplay of meaning was not the only subtleness of the speech, for the tone in which it had been uttered was rich in interrogation, as though its author, while realizing the pony's dimness of perception, half believed the animal had noticed Miss Radford's ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... dimness I couldn't tell which way to look; but I suppose in the thickest midnight he would have known where he was. He jumped from the trap and took the old horse by the bridle. I made out that he was guiding us into a long village street edged by houses in ...
— Coming Home - 1916 • Edith Wharton |
