"Dampness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and incoherent, as the sand of the desert. A snow-storm on a mountain-summit is very different from a snow-storm on the plain, on account of the different degrees of moisture in the atmosphere. At great heights, there is never dampness enough to allow the fine snow-crystals to coalesce and form what are called "snow-flakes." I have even stood on the summit of the Jungfrau when a frozen cloud filled the air with ice-needles, while I could see the same cloud pouring down sheet of rain upon Lauterbrunnen below. I remember ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... medicine, like the domain of technical science, still lies untouched. All questions as to how the time of labor is best divided, what is the best method of nourishment, with what, in what shape, and when it is best to clothe one's self, to shoe one's self, to counteract dampness and cold, how best to wash one's self, to feed the children, to swaddle them, and so on, in just those conditions in which the working- people find themselves,—all these questions have ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... the lower region of the air was sensibly clearer. The atmosphere threw off that chilly dampness which is felt after the passage of a great meteor. The storm did not seem to have gone farther to the west. It appeared to have exhausted itself. Could it have passed away in electric sheets, as is sometimes the case with regard to the typhoons of ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... the edge of the water where he had built himself a kiosk, examined the joinery of his house,—had it sprung? had the walls settled, the panels cracked? or he would come in fretting about a sick hen, and complaining to his sister, who was nagging the servant as she set the table, of the dampness which was coming out in spots upon the plaster. The barometer was Rogron's most useful bit of property. He consulted it at all hours, tapped it familiarly like a friend, saying: "Vile weather!" to which ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... to prove that lightning was an electrical discharge. The sagacity of Franklin's scientific inquiries is well illustrated by his notes on colds and their causes. He maintains that influenzas usually classed as colds do not arise, as a rule, from either cold or dampness. He points out that savages and sailors, who are often wet, do not catch cold, and that the disease called a cold is not taken by swimming. He maintains that people who live in the forest, in open barns, or with open windows, do not catch cold, and that the ...
— Four American Leaders • Charles William Eliot
... age had now settled upon it; all over it bore melancholy sears of the masoned-up pockets that had once trenched it in various directions. Some parts of it were slightly mildewed from dampness; on one side several of the buttons were gone, and others were broken or cracked; while, alas! my many mad endeavours to rub it black on the decks had now imparted to the whole garment an exceedingly ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... walls reverberated yet with the thunderous echo. Gebhr, Chamis, and the Bedouins could not at once descry what had happened, as on the previous night rain had fallen, and owing to the dampness of the weather the smoke veiled everything in the narrow ravine. Only when the smoke abated, did they shout with joy, and wanted to rush towards the boy, but in vain, as no power could force the ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... "Musty and shut up enough, ain't it? Down here in the dampness, and 'specially in the spring, it don't take any time for a house to get musty if it ain't aired out regular. Mr. Langley died only three months ago, but we've been candidatin' ever since and the candidates have been boarded round. There's been enough of 'em, too; we're awful hard to suit, ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... tying a cord to her, they lowered her into the garden. But no sooner did she reach the ground than they let go the rope. It happened that just at that time the ogre came out to look at his garden, and having caught cold from the dampness of the ground, he gave such a tremendous sneeze, with such a noise and explosion, that Violet screamed out with terror, "Oh, mother, help me!" Thereupon the ogre looked round and seeing the beautiful maiden behind him, he received her with the greatest care and affection; and treating her ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... the Universe hundreds of years before the time has come. You by your overweening pride and folly have doomed our beloved planet—the most perfect planet in the Galaxy in its grateful warmth and wonderful dampness and fogginess—and our entire race to certain destruction. Therefore you, fool and dolt that you are, shall die—for too long already have you ruled." He flicked a finger and the body of the monarch shuddered as though an intolerable ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... for all this, the stone stood. In everything, of course, Old Plain Talk was seconded by Old Prudence; who, one day going to the grave-yard, in great-coat and over-shoes—for, though it was a sunshiny morning, he thought that, owing to heavy dews, dampness might lurk in the ground—long stood before the stone, sharply leaning over on his staff, spectacles on nose, spelling out the epitaph word by word; and, afterwards meeting Old Plain Talk in the street, gave a great rap with his stick, and said: 'Friend, Plain Talk, ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... his fine cambric handkerchief, and furtively wiped a slight dampness from his forehead. "I wish to God she had been ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... pitiless uncompromising eyes and wooden gestures, as if twelve centuries had not passed over them, and they were nightmares only dreamed last night, and rooted in a sick man's memory. For those gaunt and solemn forms there is no change of life or end of days. No fever touches them; no dampness of the wind and rain loosens their firm cement. They stare with senseless faces in bitter mockery of men who live and die and moulder away beneath. Their poor old guardian told us it was a weary life. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... was a trace of dampness, but nothing like what might have been expected in what was really a tunnel. Fred had to admire the excellence of the construction work. The descent, as he knew from what he had seen outside, must really be very sharp. But it was managed here with turns and zigzags so that the grade was never ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine
... f'r an ocean, but havin' taken th' Philippeens, which ar-re a blamed nuisance, an th' Sandwich Islands, that're about as vallyable as a toy balloon to a horse-shoer, we've got to grab a lot iv th' surroundin' dampness to protect thim. That's wan reason why we're sure to have war. Another reason is that th' Japs want to sind their little forty-five-year-old childher to be iddycated in th' San Francisco public schools. A third reason why it looks like war to Hogan an' th' ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... questions that sprang to his lips, Lester explained to him that owing to the dampness of the place, the fire Halloran had kindled had quickly gone out, thus saving the young man from being burned to death. He told him, too, why death had not come to him through starvation, as had been intended, and that it had taken him all that time to force apart the links of the ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... that did happen yesterday: the great mirror in the hall being badly broken, and the family arms hanging over the fire-place thrown down, so that it was burned by the coals kindled on the hearth, on account of the dampness; which were looked upon as ill signs by most people. Grindall, a thoughtless youth, told his sister of the burning of the arms, and that nothing was left save the head of the raven in the crest, at which she grew very pale, and said it was strange, indeed, and, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Holman, that's what I call wilful,' said Holdsworth, as she gave them to him. 'No, I won't thank you' (his looks were thanking her all the time). 'My little bit of dampness annoyed you, because you thought I had got wet in your service; so you were determined to make me as uncomfortable as you were yourself. It was ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... position due south, and its evidences of columns and arches, that it is an old cell or anchorite's cave of equal, if not superior age, to the neighbouring abbey. The interior would make a good picture, as the dampness of the rock is favourable to green vegetation in sportive lines and patches on the warm colours and the shadows of the rock. It is an artist's dream. Time, during the lapse of centuries, has made sad havoc with the entrance. Originally it had a level cutting running into ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... her brother made themselves, ready—as ready as they could in the best of their old-fashioned garments, which had hung on pegs, or been laid away in trunks, so long that the dampness and mouldy smell of the past was on them,—made themselves ready, in their faded bettermost, to go to church. They descended the staircase together,—gaunt, sallow Hepzibah, and pale, emaciated, age-stricken Clifford! They pulled open the front door, and stepped ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... it," said the Whale. "Glad to have been able to do you a little favor. You see," he added in a low voice, "Mr. Jonah was never satisfied when he was my guest. He was always complaining about the dampness. So when you came along and I had a chance to put him aboard the Ark I was tickled to death. In fact, I was so glad to get rid of my passenger that I made up this little poem," and then the ...
— The Cruise of the Noah's Ark • David Cory
... enough occupied in repairing to some extent the ravages of the brief storm. A length of the corral had succumbed to the flood, many valuable tools in the blacksmith shop were in danger of rust from the dampness, and Arthur and his wife had been completely washed out. All three men worked hard setting things to rights. The twilight caught them before their work ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... standing in the middle of a room whose walls were hung with the remains of what had been chintz, covered with a pattern of loose clusters of moss rosebuds. The dampness had rotted it until, in some places, it had fallen away in strips from its fastenings. A quaint, embroidered couch stood in one corner, and as Betty looked at it, a mouse crept from under the tattered valance, stared at her in alarm and ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... fire, that no smoke shall ascend among the leaves, which are slowly stirred with the hand until perfectly dry. The tea is then poured into chests, and, when transported, placed in boxes enclosing leaden canisters, and papered to keep out the dampness. In curing the finest kinds of tea, such as Powchong, Pekoe, etc., not more than ten to twenty leaves are fired in the pan at one time, and only a few pounds rolled at once in the trays. As soon as cured, these fine ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... fireplace, nor any light but what comes over the door, or through a hole of about eight inches square. It is neither paved nor boarded; and the rough bricks appear both on the sides and top, being neither wainscotted nor plastered; what adds to the dampness and stench of the place, is its being built over the common sewer, and adjoining to the sink and dunghill where all the nastiness of the prison is cast. In this miserable place the poor wretch was kept by the ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... who should seek repose on the bosom of such a mythology is as one who seeks to pillow himself on the many-tinted clouds of evening; soft and beautiful as they are, there is nothing real to them but their dampness and coldness. ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... much warmer on the Mansarowar side of the ridge than on the other, and, probably owing to dampness, the air seemed quite thick to breathe, instead of being crisp and light, as it was along the shores of the Devil's Lake. Indeed, when I recall the Mansarowar, I cannot help thinking that it is the home, not only of the gods, but also ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... fishing the night previous, caught eighty-three splendid cod in the space of two hours. It was idle sport, however, for no one would take his fish as a gift, and they were thrown on the shore to rot. The difficulty is not in catching but in curing them. Owing to the dampness of the climate they cannot be hung up on poles to dry slowly, like the stock-fish of the Lofodens, but must be first salted and then laid on the rocks to dry, whence the term klip (cliff) fish, by which ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... the mallet. Any blacksmith can beat out such pins, and if you can afford the extra weight, they are better than those of ash. Also, if you can afford the weight, it is well to carry a strip of water-proof or oilcloth for the floor of the tent to keep out dampness. All these things appertaining to the tent should be tolled up in it, and the tent itself carried in a light-weight receptacle, with a running noose like ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... the subscription is; and for seven, we get a 'Galignani,' or are promised to get it. We pay for our villa ten scudi the month, so that altogether it is not ruinous. The air is as fresh as English air, without English dampness and transition; yes, and we have English lanes with bowery tops of trees, and brambles and blackberries, and not a wall anywhere, except the ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... was dark as night. He could not see his own hands, and the dampness and musty odor, often noticeable in old cellars, added much to his discomfort. He found that the cell was made of strong three inch slats, securely bolted to thick timbers. These strips, or slats, were about three inches apart. The door was made in the same manner, and was fastened with a padlock. ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey
... loosened and thrown into a heap upon the fore part of the raft. They were damp and troublesome to light; but the very dampness made the smoke more dense, and ere long a tall column of dusky fumes was rising straight upward in the air. If darkness should come on before the brig was completely out of view, the flames, we hoped might still be visible. But the hours passed on; ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... and cajoled; but Sam would not be either coaxed or cajoled, for he was very grumpy indeed; and the reason was, that he had had the lawn to mow that morning, and there had been no dew, and the consequence was, the grass, instead of being easy to cut from its crispness and dampness, was very limp and wiry, so that poor Sam had a very hard and unsatisfactory job, and the effect of it all was that he was as limp and wiry as the grass had been. It was of no use to say, "Do, Sam," or "Do, please, Sam," ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... was setting like a huge bonfire in the sky, tinting the clouds with hues of gold and of blood. Dampness and silence were breathed from the forest, while at its outskirts dark human figures bustled about noisily. One of them, short and lean, in a broad-brimmed straw hat, played the accordion; another ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... paper consist of but a single sheet. 4. The use of a moderately stiff tooth-brush, clean water and castile soap will keep the teeth white and in good condition. Tooth-powders are injurious. 5. Nickel-plating should not be exposed to dampness, and must be kept bright by wiping ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... had wiped the dampness from his sword and taken it apart and put the pieces into their leathern case again, the man with the star ordered some of his people to carry the two halves of the ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... as though her long period of mourning ended when Peter Junior, pallid in his blue uniform, his hair darkened and matted with the dampness caused by weakness and pain, was borne in between the white columns of his father's house. When the news reached him that his son was lying wounded in a southern hospital, the Elder had, for the first time in many, many years, ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... house well, went in, followed by Mathieu. The central passage, which was fairly broad, ended in a glass door, which admitted one to a kind of courtyard, where a sickly conifer stood on a round patch of grass, which the dampness rotted. On the right of the passage was the office, whither Madame Broquette, at the request of her customers, summoned the nurses, who waited in a neighboring room, which was simply furnished with a greasy deal table in the centre. The furniture of the ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... and by a thin skewer of wood its interior surface is exposed. Placed on wire-netting trays in series the fish are smoked or desiccated in a furnace heated, preferably, with black or red mangrove wood, and finally exposed to the sun to eliminate dampness which may have been absorbed on removal from the smoke-house. When the fish leave the smoke-house they have shrunk to small dimensions, and resemble pieces of smoked buffalo hide, more or less curled and crumpled. In this condition they are sent away ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... couple of leaves, and over them a piece of deer's skin tied round with a cord. They keep it in the most dry part of the hut, and from time to time suspend it over the fire to counteract the effects of dampness. ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... courses' at dinner. As we Americans were sorely tried under such circumstances, it was decided in the Basingstoke mansion to have a hall stove, which, after a prolonged search, was found in London and duly installed as a presiding deity to defy the dampness that pervades all those ivy-covered habitations, as well as the neuralgia that wrings their possessors. What a blessing it proved, more than any one thing making the old English house seem like an American home! The delightful summer heat we in America enjoy in the coldest weather is quite ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... on a wooden mouthpiece. In a recess of the above ring is the diaphragm, M, which is provided on its outer edge with an India rubber band and is held in position by the two clamps, a and a{1}. The diaphragm is cut out of finely fibered firwood and is well lacquered to preserve it against dampness. On it there are two carbon beams, b, and in the perforations of the latter are the journals of the carbon rollers, k. The alterations in contact take place in the touching points. The cross piece, f, that runs straight across the carbon rollers serves as ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various
... "by order" in this man's army, but that is no reason why we should not sing—just because we are not ordered to do so. Singing can clip more kilos off a hike, take more lead out of a pack, drive more dampness out of the clothing than anything else. Also, it is good for the lungs. What is good for the lungs is good for the heart. And lungs and hearts in good condition are the best possible aids to the "guts" ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... back an order from Cardinal Altieri which would set everything right; but it would scarcely be possible to cover the distance and return in less than ten days, at the very least, during which time it was only too probable that the musician would fall ill from lack of food and from the possible dampness and closeness of ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... inundation. It is a low, marshy, heavily-timbered tract, which has been partially drained and laid out as a public park, the so-called English Garden—spot beloved of the people for its welcome shades, where artificial waterfalls, from the "Isar rolling rapidly," add chill to the natural dampness; where unwilling streamlets creep slowly through tortuous channels toward a stagnant pond, and pestiferous miasma, rising like incense at the going down of the sun, broods over the meadows until his rising again. It was in one of the streets bordering this ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... nodded at Graham, arose, got his coat and hat, and stepped into the court. The dusk was already thick there. Dampness and melancholy seemed to exude from the walls of the old house. He paused and gazed at one of the foot-prints in the soft earth by the fountain. Shreds of plaster adhered to the edges, testimony that the detective had made his cast from this print. He ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... of man. Of course, they did not suffer with hunger: provisions of the finest kind were ever in their cabin. But the buffaloes provided them with more than food. From time to time, as they needed moccasins for their feet, his skin supplied them; and when at night they felt the dampness of the weather, his hide was the blanket in which they wrapped themselves ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip
... herself brushing past the latest trim parlour-maid, and out once more in the keen, sweet, young dampness. She strode briskly down the deserted street. Her fine bronze eyebrows were drawn down to where they met. "Good Lord! Damn!"—Cecil swore very prettily and modernly—"What rotten taste! Not frankness, whatever it might seem outwardly; not frankness, but devious excuses! ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... would. Marne must have a home and a master somewhere and habit would send him to them. So he ceased to push at his neck and try to direct him, and the horse continued a slow and peaceful progress down the stream in the shadow of small trees. The night was darker than those just before it, and the dampness of the air indicated possible flurries of rain. Cannon still rumbled on the horizon like the thunder of ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... a sincerity was in her voice, that again chill touched me. The clammy dampness of my garments hung on my limbs as a reminder of the Thing, real or unreal, that twice had made Its presence felt beyond denial. Wild as her words might be, their incredible suggestion was matched by my experience. I sought with my eyes for her, before answering. The room was dark, yet the darker ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... letter to George Morton advising him as to his preparations for the voyage over, says: "Be careful to have a very good bread-room to keep your biscuit in." This was to keep them from dampness. Winthrop gives us the memorandum of his order for the ship-bread for his voyage in 1630. He says: "Agreed with Keene of Southwark, baker, for 20,000 of Biscuit, 15,000 of brown, and 5,000 of white." Captain Beecher minutes: "10 M. of bread for the ship ARBELLA." Beecher's memorandum ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... ear, and as the echo dies away it becomes mingled with the rush of the escaping wine, cascading down the pile and finding its way across the sloping sides of the floor to the narrow gutter in the centre. The dampness of the floor and the shattered fragments of glass strewn about show the frequency of this kind of accident. The spilt wine, which flows along the gutter into reservoirs, is usually thrown away, though there is a story current to the effect that ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... and they looked so inviting we decided to rest a while and get warm also. But much to our disgust we found that our mattresses were wet and all of our blankets more or less wet, too. It was impossible to dry one thing in the awful dampness, so we folded the blankets with the dry part on top as well as we could, and then "crawled in." We hated to get up for dinner, but as we were guests, we felt that we must do so, but for that meal we waited in vain—not one morsel of dinner was prepared ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... the brief enchantment of "Two True Hearts" into the foggy dampness of Market Street, at twilight, eagerly grasping the suggestion of ice-cream sodas, because it meant a few minutes more with her friends. Perhaps, sipping the frothy confection, Emeline would see some of the young actresses going by, just from the theatre, buttoned ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... rival, and has no disagreeable period of melting snow. The town is sheltered by the foothills, except to the southeast, where it lies open to the great plains; and, being situated where they meet the mountains, it enjoys the openness and free supply of fresh air of the seashore, without its dampness. The name is somewhat of a misnomer, as the nearest springs are those of Manitou, about five ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... the corners, examining everything, emboldened by the fact that no one paid the slightest attention to her. The walls behind the huge canvas decorations were dirty, with their plaster broken off, and covered with sticky dampness. The floors, the moldings, the shabby furniture and decorations, that seemed to her like beggarly rags, were thick with dust and filth. The odor of mastic, cosmetics, and burnt hair, floating ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... to meditate upon the means of avoiding still severer punishment. He soon arose from his bed, much strengthened by the short rest he had had. With an iron bar that he had forced from his bed he hammered into the wall until the stones, around which the mortar had become loosened owing to the dampness of the cell, fell at his feet. He piled them together in the centre of his ceil, and then hastened to barricade the second door he had attempted to force. The lower part of it was still held on by the lock; over the opening at the top he ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... dry moss, or very dry sand, with wich the box should be filled up; the parasitic orchides or epyphites, with green bulbs, can be sent in wooden boxes, pierced with little holes, and kept dry; all the old leaves should be taken off, as, in their decay, they cause dampness, and the roots wrapped in dry moss or cloth. The same means may be used for the pulpy plants, such as the cactus: any dry flexible substance, not subject to dampnes, as hairwool etc. may be used to pack them. These pulpy plants, if large, should be separated from the others, so that they may not ...
— Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846 • Various
... said, "but she weathered it through." And seating himself on the steps, he looked up again to the night-enshrouded Pass. The air was cooler; a light wind, drawing down from the divide, brought a hint of dampness; it was raining somewhere, far off. "My doubts are all right," he added, "and I am going to stay here as long as you ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... known, I reproached myself for so gross a piece of stupidity, and hastened after the bo'sun, who had disappeared over the top of the bank. I saw his back as he passed into the wood, and ran until I was up with him; for, suddenly, as it were, I found that a sense of chilly dampness had come among the trees; though a while before the place had been full of the warmth of the sun. This, I put to the account of evening, which was drawing on apace; and also, it must be borne in mind, that there were but ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... stooping under the weight of his bag, and picking up a grey turkey's wing from the ledge, Abel began brushing out the valve of the mill, in which the meal had grown heavy from dampness. ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... with the dampness and dews of night, an ancient and wide-spread myth identified her with the Goddess of Water. Moreover, in spite of the expostulations of the learned, the common people the world over persist in attributing to her a marked influence on the rains. Whether ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... cavernous cleft, under an overhanging cliff, on whose face 50 feet from the base, are painted some ancient pictures or hieroglyphics, of great interest to the curious. They are placed in a horizontal line from east to west, representing men, plants and animals. The paintings, though protected from dampness and storms, are in great part destroyed, marred by portions of the rock becoming detached ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... country, the heat of the sun is very great; and for even one week's work, or when a ship is going to be launched, it is necessary to erect a shelter for the workmen. This is made in a short time, with poles, bamboo, and palm-leaves. In the shipyards there is much waste; and, as the wood rots from dampness here, the soldiers take it at night to use in their houses, and relieve their misery. This cannot be called a theft, as it is done by menials who came hither at your Majesty's expense and are engaged ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... have been, now I come to think of it, a dismal old house, suggestive of rats and dampness and mould, that Reydon Hall, with its scantily furnished rooms and its unused attics and its empty barns and stables, with a general air of decay all over the place, inside and out. It had a dark, heavy roof and whitewashed walls, and was externally anything but a showy place, standing, as it ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... from the bulbs at digging or cleaning time, and a cool, damp place for keeping them is best. Some of them will sprout in storage, which, of course, is not to be desired, but it is better to lose the few that will grow too soon by dampness than the many that will be kept from growing at all by drying. The ideal place for storing bulblets is a root cellar, or underground room not connected with any building, which is securely closed after the stock is put in, and not opened till spring. Here it is kept fresh and moist and perfectly ...
— The Gladiolus - A Practical Treatise on the Culture of the Gladiolus (2nd Edition) • Matthew Crawford
... might evaporate the ghost at its first appearance, and he was felicitating himself upon the ingenuity of his plan, when he remembered what his father had told him—how that no fire could withstand the lady's extremely contagious dampness. And then he bethought him of steam-pipes. These, he remembered, could lie hundreds of feet deep in water, and still retain sufficient heat to drive the water away in vapor; and as a result of this thought the haunted room was heated by steam to a withering degree, and the ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... the pale bodies of the beeches seemed to melt into the cloudy atmosphere. There was no wind among the trees, and the pervading dampness had robbed the yellowed leaves of their silken rustle. They fluttered softly, hanging limp from the drooping branches as if attached by invisible threads. As he went on a deep bluish smoke issued ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... is, we can't exactly tell. But I should say he has been letting himself in for constant exposure to extreme heat by day, and to swampy dampness by night; not taking proper food; living in a whirl of excited imagination with no rational companionship to form an outlet; and, on the top of all this, contracted some malarial germ, which has put up his temperature ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... where Misfortune and Guilt Their children have gathered, their city have built; Where Hunger and Vice, like twin beasts of prey, Have hunted their victims to gloom and despair; Raise the rich, dainty dress, and the fine broidered skirt, Pick your delicate way through the dampness and dirt, Grope through the dark dens, climb the rickety stair To the garret, where wretches, the young and the old, Half-starved, and half-naked, lie crouched from the cold. See those skeleton limbs, and those frost-bitten feet, All bleeding and bruised by the stones ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... the ripened ovum comes, each month, a week of special physical drain, when work must be lightened and vigorous exercise curtailed, when exposure to cold or dampness may ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall
... National State Bank, the architect estimated that it could not be made fire-proof in the ordinary style for less than $6,000, and while hesitating as to the expense and seeking to provide some remedy against the dampness incident to iron beams, Mr. Fowler learned from the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN that Edwin May, of Indianapolis, the well-known architect of our county jail, had taken letters patent on a fire-proof lath for ceilings ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... The Terpsichore was going off Malta for intelligence, and to look out for the Colossus, with the victuallers. As I could satisfy the Admiral on both those points, I despatched her immediately for Naples. We have now a fine Siroc wind, attended with all its usual close dampness; but, as it wafts us down the Mediterranean, we readily put up with its disagreeable attendants, without the risk of hanging ourselves. I intend to part with the Minotaur and Audacious to-day, agreeably ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... have a singular taste. The neighbourhood is, I dare say, detestable, and the dampness of the walls, the smell of new paint, and a hundred other things, would be hard to bear. Notwithstanding, if you choose the new house, we will take it; but the rooms in the other tenement are so large ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... passage yet was good; the wind, 'tis true, Was somewhat high, but that was nothing new, No more than usual equinoxes blew. The sun, already from the Scales declined, Gave little hopes of better days behind, But change, from bad to worse, of weather and of wind. Nor need they fear the dampness of the sky Should flag their wings, and hinder them to fly 'Twas only water thrown on sails too dry. 510 But, least of all, philosophy presumes Of truth in dreams, from melancholy fumes: Perhaps the Martin, housed in holy ground, Might think of ghosts that walk their midnight ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... used as a temporary filling, or as a matter of economy. It may be rendered impervious to air and dampness, but it corrodes in most mouths, unless it comes in contact with food in chewing, and then it rapidly wears away; it does not become hard by packing or under pressure, and that it forms a kind of a union with the tooth is ridiculous." ...
— Tin Foil and Its Combinations for Filling Teeth • Henry L. Ambler
... pressure. This was entirely satisfactory to Bottazzi, who then says: 'I desire again to affirm that with her invisible limbs Eusapia feels the forms of objects and their consistency, feels heat and cold, hardness and softness, dampness and dryness neither more nor less than if she were touching and feeling with the hands imprisoned in ours. She feels with other hands, but perceives with the same brain with which she uses ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... Queen Victoria ever spent much time at Brighton. In King William's case it was explained that the dampness of the Pavilion did not suit him; and as to Queen Victoria, it was said that she disliked the fact that buildings had been erected so as to cut off the view of the sea. It is quite likely, however, ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... The dampness is very good to smell, And the path is soft to tread, And beyond the fall it winds up and on, While little streamlets thread Their own meandering way down the hill Each singing its own ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... into the parlor and greeted Mrs. Bruce, who after a few moments was called out of the room, leaving the two men together. The Bishop sat in a deep, easy chair before the open fire. There was just enough dampness in the early spring of the year to make an ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... her dowager eyes. It was obvious that she worshipped him. She was so absorbed in his heroism that she had no thought even for his dampness. As Carl's eyes met hers she seemed to him to grow younger. And there came into his mind all the rumour that had vaguely reached him coupling their names together; and also his early dreams of love and passion and a marriage ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... olive-greens, dissolve verdigris in the rinsing water—fawn and browns should be rinsed in pure water. Dip the silks up and down in the rinsing water: take them out of it without wringing, and dry them in the shade. Fold them up while damp: let them remain to have the dampness strike through all parts of them alike, then put them in a mangler—if you have not one, iron them on the wrong side, with an iron only just hot enough to smooth them. A little isinglass or gum arabic, dissolved in the rinsing water of gauze shawls and ribbons, is good to stiffen them. ...
— The American Housewife • Anonymous
... hearth is life more or less enduring. In like manner, the destruction of mineral bodies is indefinitely retarded, because in their case combustion is nominal, latent, or imperceptible. In like manner, again, vegetables, which are constantly revived by combinations producing dampness, live indefinitely; in fact, we still possess certain vegetables which existed before the period of the last cataclysm. But each time that nature has perfected an organism and then, for some unknown reason, ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... scouting about on hands and knees in the dampness of the rhododendrons. Suddenly he reached his long arm in among the shrubs and picked up a little reed stick. On the end of it was a small ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... and coops where caged larks and linnets pipe cheery snatches of song; and on beyond, between the eaves, which bend toward one another like gossips who would swap whispered confidences, is a strip of sky. Below are smells of age and dampness. And there is a rich, nutritious garlicky smell too; and against a jog in the wall a frowsy but picturesque rag-picker is asleep on a pile of sacks, with a big sleek cat asleep on his breast. I do not guarantee the rag-picker. He and his ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... surrounded by hills of the height of a many-storied house; all are covered with bushes; sometimes the ascent is steep, sometimes gradual. The first ravine leads into a second, wilder and narrower, thence into a succession of nine or ten. Cold and dampness cling to you when you walk through them; you climb one of the hills and find yourself surrounded by a network of forking and ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... the placers; but necessary expenses reduced their net income to small wages. Ryan gives this account of an interview with a returning miner: "He readily entered into conversation and informed us that he had passed the summer at the mines where the excessive heat during the day, and the dampness of the ground where the gold washing is performed, together with privation and fatigue, had brought on fever and ague which nearly proved fatal to him. He had frequently given an ounce of gold for the visit of a medical man, and on several occasions had paid ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... Pageant was as beautiful as the most exacting young person could desire. There was no moon, but there seemed to be an extra bright scattering of stars to make up for it. A soft, cool ocean breeze stirred the air, there was no dampness, and everybody pronounced the evening as perfect as if specially made for ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... water sounded loud and clear through the silence; it was running from a leaden pipe into a wooden tank, mildewed and green with mould, that stood in the middle of the room. The stone-walls around, once painted white, were now also stained and splotched with great blotches of green and russet dampness. The only light that lit the place came in through a small, narrow, slatted window close to the ceiling, and opposite the doorway which he had entered. It was all ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... weak, very weak; but he had no real pain, although he noticed an uncomfortable smarting sensation in several parts of his body. He also felt icy cold, and all wet, and as though wrapped up in bandages. He thought that this dampness came from the blood which he had lost; and he shivered at the dreadful thought of this red liquid which had come from his veins and covered his bed. The idea of seeing this terrible spectacle again so upset him that he kept his eyes closed with all his strength, as ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... shattering or mangling, and required only antiseptic bandaging and care. All abdominal operations that were attempted in the field resulted in death, and none were performed after the first day, as the great heat and dampness, together with the difficulty of giving the patients proper nursing and care, ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... missed you when you came aboard," said he, "and yet in your usual get-up I don't see how I could very well. You look as if you had just stepped out of a band-box, except for the dampness, of course." ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... then, when Jim, the two-handed, mounting the trunk of a prostrate maple near by, had severed it thrice with easy and familiar stroke, and, rolling the logs in front of the shanty, had kindled a fire, which, getting the better of the dampness, soon cast a bright glow over all, shedding warmth and light even into the dingy stable, I consented to unsling my knapsack and accept the situation. The rain had ceased, and the sun shone out behind the woods. We had trout sufficient for present needs; and ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... murmured the guilty one, interrogatively. "In the heels, said you? What a very odd place for dampness to accumulate. Now, personally, I find my heels are dry and smooth and hard, like—like a china nest-egg, don't you know; but damp heels, it doesn't sound right, and it must feel very uncomfortable. I ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... the house, who lived in a dark cavernous hole on the first floor, was slowly dying of a consumption, the sufferings of which were imbittered by the chill dampness of his abode. His hollow voice and hacking cough, however, could not veil the grateful accent with which he uttered any allusion to Madame Ossoli. He was so close a prisoner to his narrow, windowless chamber, that when I inquired for Madame Ossoli he was often obliged to call his little daughter, ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... with the sweat of anguish, and he tried to wipe off this dampness, but failed. He could not ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... flowers or grass there was not a trace; the trees, however, stood green and fresh, in spite of the heat of the atmosphere and the total lack of rain. This luxuriance may partly be owing to the coolness and dampness which reigns during the night in tropical countries, quickening and renewing the whole face ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... not had better success in the rearing of your larv, but you should not despair. It is possible that the choice of an improper food-plant may have as much to do with failures as the coldness and dampness of the English climate. I lost many thousands of Atlas caterpillars before I found out the proper tree to keep them on in a domesticated state; and when I did attain partial success, I could not keep them for more than one generation, till I found ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... git in out'n all this wind an' rain," he said in his rough voice. "A power o' dampness in ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... and Mountains, a few rational Brutes that dwell in Caves and Holes of the Rocks, and a parcel of Hares and Deers, which they live tollerably on, while they have Light enough to hunt them. And to talk of mending our Climate, where nothing but a general Conflagration can dry the Land, or purge the Dampness of our unelastick Air, is as absurd as the Philosophers Sun-dial in the Grave. Ah, Tom, I was always a very Atmospherical Creature; and often have the Rains of Ireland sunk my Spirits, and made ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... mingling light, Of which yon earth is one, is wide diffused A Spirit of activity and life, That knows no term, cessation, or decay; That fades not when the lamp of earthly life, 150 Extinguished in the dampness of the grave, Awhile there slumbers, more than when the babe In the dim newness of its being feels The impulses of sublunary things, And all is wonder to unpractised sense: 155 But, active, steadfast, and eternal, still Guides the fierce whirlwind, in the tempest roars, Cheers in the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... while she went in. The rain continued to stream down on him and he shivered in the dampness and stamped his feet on the flags. It seemed to him that a long time elapsed before the door opened and she reappeared. He glanced into the house for a glimpse of Anna, but obtained none; yet the mere sense of her nearness had ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... I rowed along the coast toward Olal with some natives. A dull rain drenched us, followed by glaring sunshine that stewed us in heavy dampness. Like the ruins of a giant wall, black lava blocks lay here and there along the coast. The surf foamed white in the crevasses, and the forest rose, sallow and greenish-yellow, above the high bank. Here and ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... hillsides, making the water dark and quiet where they hang. I confess that in these excursions Theodore looks after the boat and I after the scenery. Mr. Sloane avoids the water—on account of the dampness, he says; because he's ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... Switzerland, for instance, being an illustration of the very minimum of result for human labor. Like the lace-workers of Germany, the fabric must often grow in the dark almost, basements being chosen that dampness may make the thread follow more perfectly the will of the worker, whose day is never less than fifteen hours long, whose food seldom goes beyond black bread with occasional milk or cabbage soup, and whose average of life seldom exceeds forty years. There ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... a little higher, so that Andrii could hold himself erect. He gazed with curiosity at the earthen walls. Here and there, as in the catacombs at Kief, were niches in the walls; and in some places coffins were standing. Sometimes they came across human bones which had become softened with the dampness and were crumbling into dust. It was evident that pious folk had taken refuge here from the storms, sorrows, and seductions of the world. It was extremely damp in some places; indeed there was water under their feet at intervals. ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... floor is uneven, unit may easily be made level by inserting shims under the 4 shipping lugs. These lugs also keep the jacket 1/2" off the floor, protecting it from wet floors and dampness. ...
— Installation and Operation Instructions For Custom Mark III CP Series Oil Fired Unit • Anonymous
... "Everybody knows that I first went to Germany for the baths, and I can say what is true,—that the dampness here disagrees ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... space He could not in it find a place; So, patiently, he turned about,— Stood half-way in, and half-way out, And those extremely heavy showers Descended through nine hundred hours And more; and, darling, at their close Most frozen was his honest nose; And never could it lose again The dampness of that ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... than in houses intended for constant family living. Chairs and sofas should be without elaborate upholstery and hangings, and cushions can be appropriately made of some well-coloured cotton or linen material which wind, and sun, and dampness cannot spoil, and of which the freshness can always be restored by laundering. These are general rules, appropriate to all summer cottages, and to these it may be added, that a house which is to be closed for six or eight ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... the Gallery of the Kings! How I wish Mr. Beresford and Francesca were with us! What do you suppose was her real reason for staying away? Some petty disagreement with our young minister, I am sure. Do you think the dampness is taking the curl out of our hair? Do you suppose our gowns will be torn to ribbons before the Marchioness sees them? Do you believe we shall look as well as anybody? Privately, I think we must look better than anybody; but I always think that on my way ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... is the writing of the Senior? Did the Senior bury it in the ground? No! he could not have buried it, as dampness and worms would have destroyed it. Did he hide it in the walls? No! he knew that fire might destroy the walls. Where did he hide it?' Thus asked Hersh, and his wife Freida pondered over his words and then pointed at the bookcase where the Senior's old books were preserved, ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... April we were refreshed by a shower of rain, and in a few days the grass sprang from the ground several inches high. There was an unpleasant dampness in the air, and, although the rainy season would not commence until June, showers would occasionally fall among the mountains throughout the month of May. I accordingly purchased a number of large tanned ox-hides, ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... floors fallen in. To preserve the pupils from the risks which the occupation of these buildings hourly presents, it is necessary to give lessons in rooms which are very unhealthy on account of their small dimensions and dampness. In the drawing-class the papers and models in the portfolios ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... garden border, which is still full of silvery bunches of bloom, and will be all winter. The violets are still in bloom. Even the trees here never get black as they do in New England, for the trunks and branches are always covered with green moss. That is the dampness. Of course, we never have the dry invigorating cold that makes a New England winter so wonderful. I don't say that one is more beautiful than the other, only that each is different in its charm. After all, Life, wherever one sees it, is, if one has eyes, a wonderful ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... for Eastern Point. There was considerable swell, though not much wind. The shore being familiar to me, I was rowing along leisurely, recognizing one well-known cliff after another, as they came in sight, and was between Kettle Island and the main, when a slight dampness in the air caused me to turn my face to the eastward, and I saw coming in from the sea, preceded by an advance guard of feathery mist, a dense bank of fog. It swept in, blotting out sea, shore, everything but the view a few feet around the boat. Fortunately knowing the place, and guided by the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... many days in a solid state, which was not the case at Ega, when the baskets in which it is contained were well wrapped in leaves. Six degrees further westward, namely, at the foot of the Andes, the dampness of the climate of the Amazonian forest region appears to reach its acme, for Poeppig found at Chinchao that the most refined sugar, in a few days, dissolved into syrup, and the best gunpowder became liquid, even when enclosed in canisters. At St. Paulo refined sugar kept pretty well ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... bills. A dry cellar must be secured at all costs, for the air from it permeates the whole house. Where this is damp, it leads not alone to disease among the inmates, but to the disintegration of the house itself, through what is called "dry rot," but is paradoxically the result of dampness. Edgar Allan Poe, in his weird story, "The Fall of the House of Usher," has given a mystical interpretation of the dissolution of an old homestead which really has a scientific explanation that might ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... her work!—to give life and strength; to soothe pain, change sorrow to joy; to sit beside the dying, and talk of the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world; to wipe the dampness of death from their brows, listen to their last words, and, when the spirit had flown, to close the sightless eyes, and cut from the pale brow a lock of hair for a fond mother far away, thinking ever ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... bones of antediluvian monsters, but are made more profitable by being quarried into millstones. There is something here that brings part of Wales to the remembrance of the few who have seen those dreary slate-villages—dark, damp, but naked, for moss and weeds do not thrive on this dampness as they do on the decay of other stones—which dot the moorlands of Wales. The fences are slate; the gateposts are slate; the stiles are of slate; the very "sticks" up which the climbing roses are trained are of slate; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... hung there in the air, not moving. His lean, dark face remained expressionless, but tears welled up in his eyes and spilled over, spreading their dampness over ...
— The Measure of a Man • Randall Garrett
... few water-loving trees and bushes on the shelving ground around. Here I have been nearly every morning lately, for it suits the mood I am in, and I like the narrow footpath to it through the rye, and I like its solitary dampness in a place where everything is parched, and when I am lying on the grass and look down I can see the reeds glistening greenly in the water, and when I look up I can see the rye-fringe brushing the ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... and other complaints. Among these sufferers are the Spanish bishop, Dr. Diego Munoiz Torrero, Doru. Ant. Pinho, and J. Ant. Cansado, these latter being already declared innocent by the commissioners. In one of these cells a complete inundation has occurred more than once, leaving a continual dampness, and causing a consequent deterioration of health. Besides this dreadful state, sir, the governor has ordered the windows to be closed, to shut out the few spans of light of the heavens, and the fresh air, the only remaining part of it being from the fissures of the door, whereto the prisoners ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... and silence which prevailed, and the vault-like chill and dampness, harmonized so fully with the unnatural spectacle which he had just witnessed, and the grim expectation of something untoward still to come, that Robert was prepared to reconsider his views of the earlier portion of the evening as to his fitness for ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... enthusiasm as hers." As he spoke, his eyes were turned full towards Sibyl's face, but he met no answering glance; Sibyl was occupied in spreading out the folds of her skirt to counteract any possible injury from the dampness. "He does not doubt her sincerity in the least," thought Aunt Faith; "perhaps, after all, his influence will be strong enough to cure her one fault, the one blemish of her character, the tendency towards worldliness which I have noticed ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... to the time of poor Winterborne's death, and related the precise circumstances amid which his fatal illness had come upon him, particularizing the dampness of the shelter to which he had betaken himself, his concealment from her of the hardships that he was undergoing, all that he had put up with, all that he had done for her in his scrupulous considerateness. The retrospect brought her to tears ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... been allowed a voice in the Council, certain it is he never would have chosen this place in which to make the town, for he pointed out to me that the land lay so low that when the river was at its height the dampness must be great, and, therefore, exceeding unhealthful, while there was back of it such an extent of forest, as made it most difficult to defend, in case the savages came ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis
... generally to be found about the store, who, he surmised, would have heard by this time what had happened at the Somasco mill. Still, he was hungry and weary, and stopped a moment when he caught a blink of light between the trees. The bush behind him was very black and still, the dampness of the dew was on his dusty garments, and he shivered a little in the faint cold breeze that came down from the snow. Then more lights twinkled into brightness, a cheerful murmur of voices and a burst of laughter came out of the shadows, and the glow that broke out from the windows ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... was beautiful, and the number of trees which were in full flower perfumed the air; yet even this could hardly dissipate the effects of the gloomy dampness of the forest. Moreover, the many dead trunks that stand like skeletons, never fail to give to these primeval woods a character of solemnity, absent in those of countries long civilized. Shortly after sunset ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... thus producing the uniformity of size we find in such places; while, on the other hand, in those sections of ancient aspect containing very old trees both standing and fallen, we find no traces of fire, nor from the extreme dampness of the ground can we see any possibility of ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... up again; now breaking through the bramble out into the open on the edge of the bluff that skirts the lake; then bounding back again, like a rabbit running to covert. He inhaled with delight the dampness that rose from the ground and from the vegetation about him. In the spring, and in the early summer there is something so hopeful, so suggestive of awakening life in that fragrant moisture, that it seems ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... for the first time. They were standing in a long, low room, the walls of which reeked with dampness and gave out a noxious odour. A single electric light provided a faint, almost unnatural light. Selim raised a lighted lantern as he led Chase through the squat door. Behind Genevra were enormous casks, a dozen or more, reaching almost to the ceiling. A number of ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... attached to it, and gently blows the sand, but it sticks together, and does not easily move away, this is a proof that the animal has climbed the tree the same morning, for otherwise the sand would have been dried up by the heat of the sun, and, not being held together by dampness, would have been readily swept away before his breath. Having by this examination of signs, which an unskilled European in vain strains his eyes to detect, convinced himself that the opossum is in some hole of the tree, the native pulls his hatchet from his girdle and, cutting ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... place an unsavoury odour, an odour of freshly washed flesh, disgusted him and a chill ran over his skin: the dampness of the walls seemed to add weight to his clothing, which hung more heavily on his shoulders. He went straight to the glass separating the spectators from the corpses, and with his pale face against it, looked. Facing him appeared rows of grey slabs, ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... that she had left the night far behind; yet here it was, and the rain. Her pretty blue dress was wet through, and the dampness had taken the life out of her garden hat, so that its broad rim flapped about her face in a very uncomfortable way. Little rivulets trickled down from it upon her neck and shoulders, and her wet curls clung closely; but they could not keep her warm. She got up and tried to ...
— Baby Pitcher's Trials - Little Pitcher Stories • Mrs. May
... Refugio Plutonean treasures, and who had swallowed it in a single gulp. It was in very bad case. The furrows of its red-tiled roof looked as if they were the results of age and decrepitude. Its best room had a musty smell; there was the dampness of deliquescence in its slow decay, but the Spanish Californians were sensible architects, and its massive walls and partitions defied the earthquake thrill, and all the year round kept ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... business on hand and she had been downtown to buy eggs for the picnic, with the usual result. She had never yet succeeded in bringing home an unbroken dozen, nor did she ever hope to; but she was really out of temper at the extraordinary dampness of the paper bag, to which her two hands adhered stickily. She walked slowly upward, holding the eggs far in front of her like a votive offering to the culinary gods, unconscious of the betraying yellow streaks that beaded her ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... looking at in an Easterly Haur, but the Visible is absolute wretchedness, and people wonder why they were born. The visitation begins with a sort of characterless haze, waxing more and more wetly obscure, till you know not whether it be rain, snow, or sleet, that drenches your clothes in dampness, till you feel it in your skin, then in your flesh, then in your bones, then in your marrow, and then in your mind. Your blinking eyes have it too—and so, shut it as you will, has your moping mouth. ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... are still built in the old Indian style, without windows, the open door furnishes the only means by which light is admitted to the interior, although when closed the fire on the hearth helps to make amends for the deficiency. On the other hand, no precautions are taken to guard against cold, dampness, or sudden drafts. During the greater part of the year whole families sleep outside upon the ground, rolled up in an old blanket. The Cherokee is careless of exposure and utterly indifferent to the simplest rules of hygiene. He will walk all day in a pouring ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... from top to bottom with the splashes of the passing vehicles. On the brass rods in the windows were displayed three grey rags left by customers who had died in the hospital. And inside it was more pitiable still; the dampness of the clothes hung up at the ceiling to dry had loosed all the wallpaper; the Pompadour chintz hung in strips like cobwebs covered with dust; the big stove, broken and in holes from the rough use of the poker, looked in its corner like ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... old friend, I grow prosy, and you tire; Fill the glasses while I bend To prod up the failing fire.... You are restless:—I presume There's a dampness in the room.— Much of warmth our nature begs, ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... like a thin, party-coloured snake, red, blue, and brown, trailing slowly through the depth of leaves, creeping round inaccessible heights, crawling over ridges, moving always in dampness and shadow, by rivulets and waterfalls, crags and chasms, gorges and shaggy steeps. In glimpses only, through jagged boughs and flickering leaves, did this wild primeval world reveal itself, with its dark green mountains, flecked with the morning mist, and its distant ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... with water as we walked up through the town to the albergo, where Donna Anna received us. There was no blazing fire or warm room as there would have been in an English inn, only semidarkness and dampness. The damp had patched the painting on the ceiling and disfigured the whitewashed walls, on which were hung a few pictures—a lithograph of the Madonna di Custonaci, a cheap Crucifixion, a reproduction of the design for the monument to Vittorio Emmanuele in Rome, three shiny chromolithographs ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... illuminated by a single lamp, which gave no information as to the name. They were the only passengers who alighted, and the train rolled on for Portsmouth, leaving them with their trunks upon the dark and narrow platform. It was a black night with a bitter wind which carried with it a suspicion of dampness, which might have been rain, or might have been the drift of the neighbouring ocean. Kate was numb with the cold, and even her gaunt companion stamped his feet and shivered as ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... snow's gone and the sun shines, the cot can be rolled out, I told the doctor," Mrs. Mundy tucked the covering closely around the shrinking figure, "but chill and dampness ain't friends to feeble folks, and there's plenty of fresh air without going outdoors. It's hard to make even smart folks like doctors get more 'n one idea at a time in their heads, and in remembering benefits, they forget dangers. Are you ready, ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... pass away, and prevent the attacks of mold and rust. Later on, if things do not shape themselves according to my hopes, these dangers will be of little import. These sheets may then mildew with the dampness of this land, or fly away to sea with the shrewd breezes that sweep over our coast, for all I shall care. At any rate they ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... Nature to test endurance on the part of animal and vegetable life? Leaves fall from evergreen trees almost as completely as from the deciduous, and even the jungle is thickly strewn, while every slight hollow is filled with brittle debris where usually leaves are limp with dampness and mould. The jungle has lost, too, its rich, moist odours. Whiffs of the pleasant earthy smell, telling of the decay of clean vegetable refuse, do issue in the early morning and after sundown; but while the sun is searching out all the privacies of the ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... Architecture.—The Romans,[162] unlike the Greeks, did not always build in marble. Ordinarily they used the stone that they found in the country, binding this together with an indestructible mortar which has resisted even dampness for eighteen hundred years. Their monuments have not the wonderful grace of the Greek monuments, but they are large, strong, and solid—like the Roman power. The soil of the empire is still covered with their debris. We are astonished to find monuments almost intact as remote ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... almost to the point of combustion, curling up the long dry shingles, and starting aromatic tears from the green pine beams, Tommy led Johnson into one of the larger openings, and with a sense of satisfaction threw himself panting upon its rocky floor. Here and there the grateful dampness was condensed in quiet pools of water, or in a monotonous and soothing drip from the rocks above. Without lay ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... accustomed to rough country life and to making wading expeditions for trout in the little rivers, or rushing in after the waves down by the seashore, that, after giving their garments a thorough good wring, they soon forgot all about the dampness in the interest of searching for the entrance to the secret passage ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... peals of laughter from the patio; the pretty girls were sallying forth on a foraging expedition in search of a warming-pan to heat the beds of the three great ladies, who feared dampness. In twenty minutes they came back, and we arrived in the patio in time to see the triumphal entrance of four or five charming creatures, bearing among them a long-handled brass vessel which had probably ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... miserable booth, whose broken thatch has to be supplemented by the dense foliage of the ginkgo tree overshadowing it. In front of this hut runs a brawling stream, while the rocks all around are hung with heavy curtains of ivy, which add to the gloom and dampness of the place. ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... I hear it now—wild voices in the night, A rush of feet, a dog's harsh bark, a torch's flaring light, And wandering gusts of dampness, and round us far and nigh, A throbbing boom of water like a pulse-beat in ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... as I say, I cast about the deck of the brig for some nook that would shelter me from the dampness while I did my best to sleep away into forgetfulness my hunger and my thirst; but was troubled all the while that I was making my round of investigation by a haunting feeling that I had been on that same deck only a little while before. Growing stronger ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... ain't a pew in th' whole place, an' here in broad daylight you couldn't see a hymn-book if you tried. I wonder what they'd say, Professor, to a bid for puttin' in a dynamo for 'em an' lightin' this dark old hole with electricity? An' it 'u'd take off a lot o' this chill an' dampness if they'd have a steam-heater put in at th' same time. It's enough t' give all hands rheumatism th' way cold creeps strike up your legs." But at this point Young's observations were cut short peremptorily by the hand that one of the guards laid across his mouth; which hint that it was desirable ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... had been stacked along a stick set in two crotches, and covered with a mat to keep the dampness off. Annawan's feet, and his son's head, opposite, almost ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... heap of filthy straw in one corner constituted its sole furnishing. Through a grating in the door came the flickering light of a lamp burning in the corridor, while outer air was admitted by a small iron-barred opening in one of the side walls some six feet above the floor. The place reeked with dampness, and, in spite of these openings, its air was foul and stifling. A few minutes after Ridge entered it, and as he sat in dumb despair, vainly striving to realize his unhappy situation, a soldier brought him a bowl of bean porridge ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... blankets, which were spread upon the floor of the only comfortable room in the house, at intervals during the night the large form of the black stole softly in and bent over me to see if I were well covered up, and he as noiselessly piled live-oak sticks upon the dying embers to dry up the dampness which rose from ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... sides until it is all covered excepting the top opening. This is to keep all dampness away from the ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... importance. A troop of women are coming down to the fountain with copper vessels on their heads. You smile instinctively. Here is movement and life. Enter! You are struck with a sensation of coldness, dampness, and darkness. The streets are narrow flights of steps, which every now and then plunge beneath low arches. The houses are closed, and seem to have been deserted for a century. Not a human being at the doors, or at the windows. The streets, ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... There are no weather stains on the walls: there is no dampness in air or earth, by which they could be induced; the heat of the sun scorches away all lichens, and mosses and moldy vegetation. No thatch or stone crop on the roof unites the building with surrounding ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... at their masters, ran on both sides of them. Myriads of gnats hovered in the air and pursued the hunters, covering their backs, eyes, and hands. The air was fragrant with the grass and with the dampness of the forest. Olenin continually looked round at the ox-cart in which Maryanka sat urging on the ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... that it will endure our severest winters is without doubt, and if we recall its habitats, which are in alpine regions, its hardiness in a low temperature need not be further questioned. Still, partly from its downy nature, and partly from the dampness of our winters, this climate causes it to rot. There are, however, simple and most efficient remedies, which shall ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... have little patience,' he says, 'with the common objection to direct radiation, that it brings no fresh air. Fresh air can be had for the asking under a small stove or radiator standing in a room as well as under a large stove or boiler standing in the cellar; neither does the dampness or dryness of the atmosphere depend primarily upon the mode of warming it, while, as for the appearance of steam pipes, if they are not beautiful as usually seen, it only proves that art is not wisely applied to iron work, and that ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... and mother said it hadn't been long, and asked him the nicest ever to come again. She walked in the sunlight with him and pointed out the chestnuts. She asked what he thought of a line of trees to shade the road, and they discussed whether the pleasure they would give in summer would pay for the dampness they would hold in winter. They wandered around the yard and into the garden. She sent me to bring a knife, trowel, and paper, so when he started for home, he was carrying a load of cuttings, ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... provided; but, in its absence, the ordinary coarse salt is put into small canvas bags, and suspended from trees, that the cattle may satisfy their saline cravings by licking the moisture, which, from the nightly dews and the natural dampness of the salt, exudes through the pores ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro |
