"Dimness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said:—"Taking the astrolabe in hand, and ascertaining the Antarctic Pole, they did not see any star like our Pole Star; but they related that they saw another manner of stars very different from ours, and which they could not clearly discern because of a certain dimness which diffused itself about those stars, and obstructed the view of them." Also the Kachh mariners told Lieutenant Leech that midway to Zanzibar there was a town (?) called Marethee, where the North Pole Star sinks below the horizon, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
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... having done their work, bore no symbol of the storms that might come beneath the firmament; the purple and gold and crimson of nature's gala dress seemed to fling their soft luxury around the beholder, enfolding him, as it were, from all the dust and the dimness and the dullness of this world's working days for evermore. So it was to Diana; and all the miles of that long drive, joggingly pulled along by Prince, she rode in a chariot of the imagination, traversing fields ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
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... with characteristic forgetfulness, he failed to bring it back, Martie, chancing to pass his office one day, determined to go in and get it for herself. She had never been in John's place of business before. She went from the spring warmth and dazzle of the street into the pleasant dimness of the big store that smelled pleasantly of reedy ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
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... indeed the only, seat of maritime power, at that period, cannot be better illustrated than by the fact of Carausius and Allectus holding the title of emperors for ten years from the power afforded them by the naval force of Britain. But the grandeur of the Romans has faded into dimness, and of their magnificence nothing remains but mouldering ruins. Their celebrated haven, situated between Kent and the Isle of Thanet, which for position, extent, and safety, exceeded any which we have ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 574 - Vol. XX, No. 574. Saturday, November 3, 1832 • Various
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... 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. ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
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... very husht, and the Maid to my back; but I did halt now and this time, and make to know how she did be; and surely she whispered very brave to me through the dimness, and once did slip her hand into mine, and I to take off mine armoured glove for a little moment, that I hold her hand, and give her nice assurance. But, in verity, there was terror in mine heart, that did be a terror far beyond the trouble ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
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... Sanitary Officer reported some underground dwellings in 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 ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
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... 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 ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
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... savage. A moment later, his head pushing up to the level of the shoulder of the mountain, he saw his quarry. In the dimness of that early dawn he made out the form of a sleeper huddled in blankets, but it was enough. That must be Riley Sinclair. It could not be another, and all ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
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... again. We are settling down to a routine of double work and to an oppression of gloom. Dead men, dead men, maimed men, the dull gray dread of what may happen next, the impossibility of changing the subject, the monotony of gloom, the consequent dimness of ideals, the overworking of the emotions and the heavy bondage of thought—the days go ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
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... 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 yellow its owner knew to a certainty ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
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... girl!" This command in a hard, low voice pierced her ears. She saw the glint of a gun held before her. Instinctive fear revived her old faculties. The horrible sick weakness, the dimness, the shaking internal collapse all ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
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... on the levee, outside of Simsport on the Red River, waiting for the coming of the regiment on its march down from Alexandria. Column after column passed and still I waited. But suddenly I caught the roll of drums and there came a dimness over my eyes, for I recognized familiar forms. The colonel riding at the head, the little drum major, the colors and each well known face. As they came up I saluted, someone recognized me, and called my name. Instantly the cry, 'Lieutenant Goodell ...
— The Twenty-fifth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion • George P. Bissell
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... a 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" and the possibility that he and the old fellow had much in common. But Bah! He ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
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... 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
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... from Claverhouse, so it is now in my affairs. I am moving in a mist which folds me round like a thin garment; here and there I see the light struggling through, and it seems to me most beautiful even in its dimness; by and by the mist shall altogether pass, and I shall stand in the light, which is the shining of His face. But whether I shall then find myself at Cana of Galilee or in the Garden of Gethsemane, I ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
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... 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 seem to have been of his personal safety. He thought he was perhaps blinded ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
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... dimness which shrouds the origin of chess naturally obscures also its early history. We have seen that chess crossed over from India into Persia, and became known in the latter country by the name of shatranj. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
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... had of late so completely forgotten, was beginning to return and he submitted to it with a sense of satisfaction which he had not anticipated. Though the twilight was coming on, his eyes had become accustomed to the dimness in the room and he saw every change in her pale, expressive face. She leaned back in her chair with eyes ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
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... out. Indeed, it is but a twilight region that is enclosed within the firmament of this great dome, which is actually larger than that of St. Peter's, though not lifted so high from the pavement. But looking at the painted windows, I little cared what dimness there might be elsewhere; for certainly the art of man has never contrived any other beauty and glory at all to ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
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... the voice of the river, a furtive, desolate hoarseness in the dusk. The cows in the far fields had long ago wandered home to be milked, scarcely a bird moved in the high silences, the gnats had hidden themselves away in the deep, rugged bark of the trees, and, through the dimness, the heavy beetles were hurling like stones, and dropping and rising again ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
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... to her faithful nurse, as she lay awake on her bed, deep in the sober dimness of the summer night, "think you that Staneholme will be booted and spurred with the sun, riding through ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
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... thought, that soothing hand caressed me. I never once raised my heavy lids, until there came a resounding crash that seemed to set my very bones vibrating—a metallic, jangling crash, as the fall of heavy chains. I thought that, then, I half opened my eyes, and that in the dimness I had a fleeting glimpse of a figure clad in gossamer silk, with arms covered with barbaric bangles and slim ankles surrounded by gold bands. The girl was gone, even as I told myself that she was an houri, and that I, though a Christian, had been consigned ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
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... get a silver dish, or something of that kind, you will make the experiment still better. And now, just to carry your thoughts forward to the time we shall next meet, let me tell you that it is water which causes the dimness; and when we next meet. I will shew you that we can make it, without difficulty, assume the ...
— The Chemical History Of A Candle • Michael Faraday
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... verdict later, when Susan, bare-armed and bare- shouldered, with softened light striking brassy gleams from her hair, and the perfumed dimness and silence of the great house impressing every sense, paused for a message from Stephen Bocqueraz at the foot of the stairs, or warmed her shining little slipper at the fire, while he watched her from the chair not four ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
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... 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 was ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
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... 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, ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
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... in my hand, and a surreptitious match or two. What I saw, when with a very trembling little hand I had lighted one of the matches, would have been disappointing to most boys, but not to me. The litter and old boards I saw in odd corners about me were full of possibilities, while in the dimness beyond I seemed to perceive a sort of staircase which might lead—I do not think I made any attempt to answer that question even in my own mind, but when, after some hesitation and a sense of great ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
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... herself, more precious than all was that sense of that great love which, she believed, had never suffered the dimness of a moment's doubt. Victor had seen her acting in a way that was impossible for him to understand, but he had quite refused, so Jeannie believed, to let his mind even ask a why or wherefore, still less conjecture ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
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... trust so soft a messenger, New from her sickness, to that northern air: Rest here a while, your lustre to restore, That they may see you as you shone before; For yet the eclipse not wholly past, you wade Through some remains, and dimness of a shade. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
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... during the holidays; his face is like a cloud amid the sunshine, a frown amid smiles; he views the preparations of each departing boy with envy, and, try all he can, he cannot assume a nonchalant or I-don't-care kind of air, nor prevent a lump rising in his throat, and an occasional dimness gathering over his eyes. May be he hides himself away that he may not see the general departure of all his school-fellows, and as their joyous shouts reach him in his hiding-place, he puts his fingers in his ears to shut out the noise which means such ...
— Leslie Ross: - or, Fond of a Lark • Charles Bruce
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... memory uprears — A town that always like a friend appears, And always in the sunrise by the sea. And over it, somehow, there seems to be A downward flash of something new and fierce, That ever strives to clear, but never clears The dimness of a charmed antiquity. ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson
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... it were, into a sort of anagogical half consciousness, laved and carried along on currents of melody that were as sensually delicious as a warm bath. Her awareness of Lindsley on a diagonal from her so that she could see his profile hook into the music-scented dimness, ran under her ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
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... to the church door and found it shut; but to their surprise the big old-fashioned key was in the lock. Nick pushed the door open and they both went in, followed by Billy. The Padre was not to be seen. So far as they could tell in the dimness the church ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
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... to them; that poignant silence was continued throughout long, long minutes, while the two listeners stood there under its mysterious spell; and in its plaintive eloquence—speaking, as it did, of the figure alone in the big, dark library, where dead Wilbur's new silver frame gleamed in the dimness—there was something that ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
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... A curious 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 thirty yards before them, and where it was most straight the abundant ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
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... looking white through the circumfluent blackness, the eyes of them fixed in amaze, if not in terror, upon herself. She advanced towards them, and almost immediately recognized one of them—then another; but what with the dimness, the ghostliness, and the strangeness of it all, felt as if surrounded by the veiling shadows of a dream. But whose was that pallid little face whose eyes were not upon her with the rest? It stared ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
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... 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 my eyes. ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
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... complained to the valiant Raduan, Where underneath the myrtles Alhambra's fountains ran. The Moor was inly moved, and blameless as he was, He took her white hand in his own, and pleaded thus his cause: "Oh lady, dry those star-like eyes—their dimness does me wrong; If my heart be made of flint, at least 'twill keep thy image long. Thou hast uttered cruel words—but I grieve the less for those, Since she who chides her lover, forgives him ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
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... his side again: in silence slipped her hand into his; and following both his look and his thought, she felt her own eyes smart with a sudden bright dimness. ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
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... I couldn't see any way out. I marched in the dimness with the rest, and we managed to make surprisingly little noise. Wohlen's animals were active and ...
— The Man Who Played to Lose • Laurence Mark Janifer
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... strong, vigorous man." Dr. H. Gibbons says: "Tobacco impairs digestion, poisons the blood, depresses the vital powers, causes the limbs to tremble, and weakens and otherwise disorders the heart." It is conceded by the medical profession that tobacco causes cancer of the tongue and lips, dimness of vision, deafness, dyspepsia, bronchitis, consumption, heart palpitation, spinal weakness, chronic tonsillitis, paralysis, impotency, apoplexy, and insanity. It is held by some men that tobacco aids ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
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... said Miss Melford softly, with a suspicious dimness in her eyes, and there was a general chorus of ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
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... meant to be friendly, but his expression belied it. He was slightly taller than his father, and his cast of features was altogether different. His cheeks were pale, almost sunken, his eyes were too close together, and they had the dimness of the roue or the habitual dyspeptic. His lips were too full, his chin too receding, ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
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... the 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
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... in, we shall find there Silence, and sudden dimness, and deep prayer, And faces of crowned angels ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
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... A dimness suffused the stars of Arabia; the surrounding heights, that had risen sharp and black in the clear purple air, blended in shadowy and fleeting masses, the huge branches of the cypress tree seemed to stir, and the kneeling pilgrim sank upon the earth ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
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... dark little parlour, which smelt even more of drugs than the shop itself. The window looked out into a dirty back-yard, and was almost concealed with heavy red curtains. As the eyes got accustomed to the dimness, one observed that the floor was covered with very old oil-cloth, and that the articles of furniture were few, only the most indispensable, and all very shabby. Everything seemed to be dusty and musty. The only approach to an ornament was a framed diploma hanging over the mantelpiece, certifying ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
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... even in that dimness I had not failed to recognize the short, erect figure which ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
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... thee I will be pining, Tober Mhuire. Thou art deep and sweet and shining, Tober Mhuire. In the dimness I'll be dying, And my soul for thee is sighing With the blessings on ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie
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... little sparkle red, Afar, drew close. A woman's form grew up Out of the dimness, tall, with queen-like head, And in one hand was fire; in one, a cup. Of aspect grave she was, with eyes upraised, As one whose thoughts perpetually did ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
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... did well remember how, as we knelt in the church at Fierbois in the dimness of the early morn, the Maid had received some message, unheard by those beside her; and gladly did I set forth upon mine errand to seek and bring to ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
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... doubt that I had experienced the ebb of some vitality, for it is the saddest thing about us that this bright spirit with which we are lit from within like lanterns, can suffer dimness. Such frailty makes one fear that extinction is our final destiny, and it saps us with numbness, and we are less than ourselves. Seven nights had I been on pilgrimage, and two of them had I passed in the open. Seven great heights had I climbed: the Forest, Archettes, the Ballon, the Mont Terrible, ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
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... congratulations. I was angry that there was no change in the house. The rooms should have been dismantled, reflecting disorder and death, by their perpetual darkness and disorder. It was not so. No dust had been allowed to gather on the furniture, no wrinkles or stains. No mist on the mirrors, no dimness anywhere. Alice was elegantly dressed, in the deepest mourning. I examined her with a cynical eye; her bombazine was trimmed with crape, and the edge of her collar was beautifully crimped. A mourning brooch fastened it, and ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
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... deck. It was four o'clock of the summer's morning; the sun had not yet reddened the east, but the stars were extinct, or glimmered faint points immeasurably withdrawn in the vast gray of the sky. At that hour there is a hovering dimness over all, but the light on things near at hand is wonderfully keen and clear, and the air has an intense yet delicate freshness that seems to breathe from the remotest spaces of the universe,—a waft from distances beyond the sun. On the land the leaves and grass are soaked with dew; the ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
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... not a stubborn one, and easily adapted itself to the influences with which she was most closely in contact. When she and Redmond presented themselves at Aunt Corwin's cottage that evening her tears were dried, and only a tender dimness of the eyes and a droop of her sweet mouth betrayed that she ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
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... the "pirate," turning on Owen his lusterless sea-green eyes, faded by much grog to a dimness that reminded one of the faint lights set in ships' decks and known as "dead-eyes." "No, but your porthole idea is just the scheme to get at him and get rid of him. I can slip down a rope tonight when all is quiet and the fool passengers are over on the other side looking ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
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... we 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, ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
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... inside the carriage, but she could see a white figure, which in the dimness had neither face nor definite shape; and there was a perfume as of aromatic amulets grown ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
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... great weight on (it is well, you know, to be heedful, but not over-anxious, as respects one's personal health),—another business, then, was to consult his family physician. About what, for Heaven's sake? Why, it is rather difficult to describe the symptoms. A mere dimness of sight and dizziness of brain, was it?—or disagreeable choking, or stifling, or gurgling, or bubbling, in the region of the thorax, as the anatomists say?—or was it a pretty severe throbbing and kicking of the heart, rather creditable ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
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... Mr. Buggins!" responded the tailor cheerfully, as he turned out into the cool sweet dimness of the hawthorn-hedged lane in which the 'Mother Huff' stood—"I make bold to say that church or no church, Miss Vancourt's bein' at her own 'ouse 'ull be a gain an' a blessing ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
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... very precise about this either; indeed, the great difficulty I have throughout in considering what are the Eugenist's proposals is that they do not seem to know themselves. Some philosophic attitude which I cannot myself connect with human reason seems to make them actually proud of the dimness of their definitions and the uncompleteness of their plans. The Eugenic optimism seems to partake generally of the nature of that dazzled and confused confidence, so common in private theatricals, that it will be all ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
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... saw something moving in the trees between himself and the spot where the ship had come down. He couldn't see quite what it was, there in the dimness under the hanging, grasslike red strands from the trees, but ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
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... stream as clear when we think of the water itself; we speak of it as transparent with reference to the ease with which we see the pebbles at the bottom. Clear is also said of that which comes to the senses without dimness, dulness, obstruction, or obscurity, so that there is no uncertainty as to its exact form, character, or meaning, with something of the brightness or brilliancy implied in the primary meaning of the word clear; as, the outlines of the ship were clear against ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
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... could see masts and spars, sails spread to catch the faint breeze, gleaming brass-work about the decks. A vessel, surely; yet,—what was that? The fog lifted for a moment, or else his eyes grew better used to the dimness, and he saw a strange thing. On the prow of the vessel, which now was seen to be a schooner, stood a figure; a statue, was it? Surely it was a statue of bronze, like the Soldiers' Monument, leaning against the ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
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... a broken man who shut the door behind them and turned back, fingering his grey chin. There must have been a dimness in his eyes and a quiver to his ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
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... kind, spacious old house. And presently there would be Nelly's children. Please God he would live to deck the Tree for the delight of Nelly's children! It was the thought of the golden heads of the little lads and lasses yet to be dancing about the Tree that brought the dimness to his eyes, the look of happy ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
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... intellect, he apprehended truths quickly and truly as a man; then, again, through the warm haze of undisciplined tenderness, or the raw mists of that sensitive pride in which objects, small in themselves, loom large with undetected outlines, he fell back into the passionate dimness of a child's reasoning. He was intensely ambitious; Quixotic in the point of honour; dauntless in peril: but morbidly trembling at the very shadow of disgrace, as a foal, destined to be the war-horse and trample down levelled steel, starts in its tranquil pastures at the rustling of ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
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... rewards snatched away in the same instant—at once the heart withered, and the right arm snapped; look upon the piteous children, delicately nurtured, whose soft eyes, now large with wonder at their parents' grief, must soon be set in the dimness of famine; and, far more than all this, look forward to the length of sorrow beyond—to the hardest labour of life, now to be undergone either in all the severity of unexpected and inexperienced trial, or else, more bitter still, to be begun again, and endured for the second time, amidst the ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
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... two he came to the top of the slope and the beginning of the second tableland. A grey dimness was taking the place of the dark, and it had suddenly grown bitterly cold. Dawn in such high latitudes is not a thing of violent changes, but of slow and subtle gradations of light, of sudden, coy flushes of colour, of thin winds and bright fleeting hazes. He lay for a minute ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
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... from the dimness. Mrs. Hardin's voice was audible, saying, "There, I told you so, foolhead." The captain once ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
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... Miraculous Chapel. It is probably 800 years old, and it may be older. There is 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 ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
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... wounded her leg against a sewing-machine, and by lay advice applied a handful of chopped wet tobacco to it, from which procedure, strange to say, serious nicotin-poisoning ensued. The pupils were dilated, there were dimness of vision, confusion of thought, and extreme prostration. The pulse was scarcely apparent, the skin was white and wet with clammy perspiration. Happily, strychnin was given in time to effect recovery, and without early medical assistance she would undoubtedly have succumbed. There are ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
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... opinion which my friends and intimates have formed concerning me. [11] And now if my age is still to be prolonged, [12] I know that I cannot escape paying [13] the penalty of old age, in increasing dimness of sight and dulness of hearing. I shall find myself slower to learn new lessons, and apter to forget the lessons I have learnt. And if to these be added the consciousness of failing powers, the sting of self-reproach, ...
— The Apology • Xenophon
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... dear Violet," replied a gentle, trainante voice from the fire-lit dimness near the velvet-curtained hearth. "Of course I am always glad to see Mr. Vawdrey when your papa asks him. Where did ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
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... and tall and very military. Sergeant Bellews was not. So he snorted, upon receipt of the message. He was at work on a vacuum cleaner at the moment—a Mahon-modified machine with a flickering yellow standby light that wavered between brightness and dimness with much more than appropriate frequency. The Rehabilitation Shop was where Mahon-modified machines were brought back to usefulness when somebody messed them up. Two or three machines—an electric ironer, for one—operated slowly ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
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... the fact that he repeatedly represents his greatest characters, when at the point of death, as relieving their overcharged minds by prophecy. Such prophecy is the result of the light of imagination, cleared of all distorting dimness by the vanishing of earthly hopes and desires, cast upon the facts of experience. Such prophecy is the perfect working of ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
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... splendid twilight come down over the wild Canadian forest—slowly delaying; creeping up the low mountains; halting from hour to hour in the glades below; shade after shade in the glorious sky of the west gradually merging into the dimness of the oncoming dusk; the moments passing so slowly, the day fading so elusively, until, at last, when even the low moon has hung out its silver sign in the west and the stars are pricking through, it ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
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... feet plant themselves afresh and artlessly stumble forward again—the first began long ago, far off, and yet glimmers at me there as out of a thin golden haze, with all the charm, for imagination and memory, of pressing pursuit rewarded, of distinctness in the dimness, of the flush of life in the grey, of the wonder of consciousness in everything; everything having naturally been all the while but the abject little matter of course. Partly doubtless as the effect of a life, now getting ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
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... much interested in this sunny, shabby room. The carpet might be old, beyond spoiling, as its owner described it, but it was a feast of soft, harmonious colours all the same, and although faded, its very dimness of hue was a charm. The curtains which hung at the long windows were of a queer, Persian-looking fabric; and on the mantelpiece were a dozen little bits of pottery of a greeny-blue tint which harmonized ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
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... souls to serve Brahman's purpose, and would not it be better served by living gladly in the phenomenal world than by passing beyond it? But such an idea has rarely satisfied Indian thinkers. If, on the other hand, Maya is an evil or at least an imperfection, if it is like rust on a blade or dimness in a mirror, if, so to speak, the edges of Brahman are weak and break into fragments which are prevented by their own feebleness from realizing the unity of the whole, then the mind wonders uneasily if, in spite of all assurances ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
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... the songs, the songs of our own land, You warbling ladies in white. Dimness conceals the hunger in our faces, This wall of faces risen out of the night, These eyes that keep their memories of the places ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
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... mountain-side. At the best, they could not reach home before ten o'clock. The road went to and fro—sometimes open, to give a view of the Campagna and the Sabine Mountains, and Soracte swimming in a lustrous dimness on the horizon; sometimes shut in closely by trees, that made it almost black in spite of the moon. For the moon was low and gave but little light, being but a crescent as yet. There was a shooting star now and then, breaking ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
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... quizzical indifference and their stinging resentment. We also say, "Vanity of vanities," and bow our heads murmuring "Ilicet," and stretch out our hands to "turn down an empty glass," but all this in twilight moods when a dimness as of dying rests upon the soul. There are a few with whom it is always morning, and others who remember something of the radiance of the young day even in the heart of midnight. These disprove the postulates of sameness and satiety, these are not smitten ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
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... with gold struck upon his vision from just within the door. He paused, as if in response to a military command, while a pair of gray eyes met his with a flash. The cabin room was ill lighted; but the crepuscular dimness did not seem to hinder his sight. Beyond the girl's figure, a pair of slender swords hung crossed aslant on the wall opposite ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
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... huddled negroes. In these squalid alleys, where the lamps burned at longer distances, the more primitive forms of life appeared to swarm like distorted images under the transparent civilization of the town. The sound of banjo strumming came faintly from the dimness beyond, while at their feet the Problem of the South sprawled innocently amid tomato cans and ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
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... uncarpeted, and their footsteps sounded with hollow echoes under the roof. It was all but dark by this time; Mr. Hood found matches on the table and lit the lamp, which illuminated the bare whitewashed walls and sloping ceiling with a dreary dimness. There was no carpet on the floor, which creaked as they moved here and there. When her father was on the point of drawing down the ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
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... sadly descends The autumn-evening. The field Strewn with its dank yellow drifts Of wither'd leaves, and the elms, Fade into dimness apace, 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, Through the gathering darkness, arise ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
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... had not emerged all evening, but now, as the sex given to things of the spirit while the men warred against base things material, they took command and cried, "Oh, let's!" In the dimness the men were rather solemn and foolish, but the goodwives quivered and adored as they sat about the table. They laughed, "Now, you be good or I'll tell!" when the men took ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
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... promptly responded to, for in another minute we saw scores of armed men running hard in our direction. So we ran too, for the koppie. As soon as they understood what we were after, which they did not at first, owing to the dimness of the light, they did their best to get there before us. But we had the start of them, and with the exception of one unfortunate man who stumbled and fell, we were well on to the koppie before they arrived. This man they captured, and ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
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... the last thing I wished, but would not say so. Without a word I went forward with her to the penthouse, and took down the three loose timbers again. The dim chamber seemed very still, and across its dimness the shafts of sunlight—which came through the chinks in the rough timbering of walls and roofs—shifted and glanced as if alive, as the ship swayed. One golden ray lit on the still face of the old king, and it was almost as if he smiled as we stood ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
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... his corner, looked curiously—as well as the dimness of the carriage would let him—with the keen eyes of a man accustomed to weigh and observe, at his companion, who, with his hands in his pockets and his hat pulled down over his brows, appeared to be half asleep. He was a very handsome man, that was certain—face dark and clear cut, complexion ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
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... paused and wiped her eyes. Not that she was weeping, but over and above her short-sightedness she was troubled with a dimness of vision, which afflicted her more at some times than others. As she was in the habit of endeavouring to counteract the evils of a too constantly laborious and sedentary life, and of an anxious and desponding temperament, ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
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... mournful Johnson too, that he guided his difficult confused existence wisely; led it well, like a right-valiant man? That waste chaos of Authorship by trade; that waste chaos of Scepticism in religion and politics, in life-theory and life-practice; in his poverty, in his dust and dimness, with the sick body and the rusty coat: he made it do for him, like a brave man. Not wholly without a loadstar in the Eternal; he had still a loadstar, as the brave all need to have: with his eye set on that, he would change his course for nothing in these ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
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... browns and warm greys beyond the brightly lit table, the various distinguished faces, strongly illuminated, interested and keen, above the black and white of evening dress, the alert menservants with their heavier, clean-shaved faces indistinctly seen in the dimness behind. Then this was coloured emotionally for me by my aching sense of loss and sacrifice, and by the chance trend of our talk to the breaches and unrealities of the civilised scheme. We seemed a little transitory ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
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... the leaf ghosts that had all day long been flitting in, were darkening with the sunset and filling the room with twilight dimness. Deep in a crimson couch and haloed with the last brightness, lay the long, white outlines of a reclining figure. A handful of Japan lilies burned against the pure drapery, and another handful of tea violets lay crushed in the fleecy handkerchief on the floor. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
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... wanted her; but people said that personally she was quite virtuous, and even the girls in the house could not discover anything against her. She was tall, stout and affable, and her complexion, which had become pale in the dimness of her house, the shutters of which were scarcely ever opened, shone as if it had been varnished. She had a fringe of curly, false hair, which gave her a juvenile look, that contrasted strongly with the ripeness of her figure. She was always smiling and cheerful, and was ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
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... darkness, but darkness 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 sky. . ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
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... were sweated with the dawn; Yet through their dimness, shriveled drawn, The aigret of one princess-feather, One monk's-hood tuft with oilets wan, I glimpsed, dead in the ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
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... 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 ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
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... scarce touch, Scarce touch, remember, Jules! For are not such 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 ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
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... personal tradition the flame of resentment appeared to have been reduced by time to the palest ashes—for whom indeed the story of the great schism was now but a legend only needing a little less dimness to make it romantic—Miss Wenham had promptly responded by a letter fragrant with the hope that old threads might be taken up. It was a relationship that they must puzzle out together, and she had earnestly sounded the other ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
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... us to imagine the aspects of the universe to the ancients and the impressions it produced in them, all seemed so different then, in the dimness of crude observation, from the present appearance in the light of astronomic science. Anaximander held that the earth was of cylindrical form, suspended in the middle of the universe and surrounded by envelopes of water, air, and fire, as by the coats of an onion, but that the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
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... begun to grow less distinct. It seemed as if the light surrounding him had faded, though everywhere else in the cabin it still gleamed with its accustomed brilliance. And as this light around him began to blur into a russet dimness, forming a sort of screen between him and visibility, the definition of his outlines began to ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
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... form that met my touch felt lithe and elastic, like a kitten's limbs. There was just light enough to see the child, perched on the edge of the bed, her soft blue dressing-gown trailing over the white night-dress, while her black and long-fringed eyes shone through the dimness of morning. She yielded gladly to my grasp, and I could fondle again the silken hair, the velvety brunette cheek, the plump, childish shoulders. Yet sleep still half held me, and when my cherub appeared ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
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... had gone well and hopefully, and the enthusiasm of the moment had brought a flush to the cheek and a dimness to the eye of many a weather-beaten tar among the little crew. But enthusiasm is fleeting in these practical days, and the sound of the last cheer had scarcely died away upon the summer breeze ere the scene ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
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... come up, 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 condensing ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
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... do a thing of so much importance, contrary to his will, against his advice? The whole world around her, the solid walls, and the sky that shone in through the great window, swam in Lucy's eyes. She drew her breath hard like a hunted creature; there was a singing in her ears, and a dimness in her sight. Lady Randolph's voice asking with a certain satisfaction, yet sympathy, "What is the matter? I hope it is not anything very bad," seemed to come to her from a distance as from a different world; and when she added, after a moment, soothingly, "You must not ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
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... the room, and through its dimness the little portrait on the wall was visible, no longer shrouded in somber weeds, but in its brightness and simplicity gazing down upon the two loving ones beneath it, and seeming to share in ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
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... The dimness of the hall had not covered Klussman's large pallor. The emotions of the Swiss passed over the outside of his countenance, in bulk like himself. His lady often compared him to a noble young bullock or other ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
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... face toward his, and through the dimness of sight from his straining efforts, he saw her try to smile, as she obeyed him to the letter, and without a sound. "O, brave girl!" he thought, and threw the ground behind ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
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... shrubbery, with high timber interspersed; but ledges of friable volcanic rocks advance in places beyond this shade, crowning the heights like irregular battlements. Their surface is bare, and anything moving on them might become visible to a watchful eye, notwithstanding the dimness of the moonlight. ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
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... headaches, dimness of sight, and intolerable pains in her ears, she attributed all that though to megrims. Do not, however, conceal anything from me, Herve; ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
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... 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 ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
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... another. Perennial in freshness, theme followed theme; what joy, what gladness; what merriment, what madness! John Steele, in the main, kept his attention directed toward the stage; once or twice he glanced quickly aside and upward; now in the dimness, however, the people in the boxes conveyed only a vague shadowy impression. How long was the act; how short? It came to a sudden end; after applause and bravos, men again got up and walked out; he, too, left his seat and strolled toward ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
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... 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 ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
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... 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 he ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
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... thanksgiving. Yet it was a little different. The words came with a certain power. It was as if he who prayed saw the face of Him whom he addressed, a living Person whom he knew and had proved, and not an awful unknown Being hidden in light unapproachable, or in dimness or darkness. He was speaking to One whose promise had been given, and many times made good unto those who trusted Him. And to him who was asking, evidently the promise was ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
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... of the great landmarks of the Bible. It denotes the boundary line of the long ages of dimness and indefiniteness about two things—assurance of salvation in this life, and certainty of immediate blessedness in the life to come. "To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise!" There is nothing like it in all the Scriptures. It is as though great gates, long closed, were suddenly ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
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... a strange thing, changing the aspect of my vision. It appeared to me, in that dreamy dimness, whereof the judgment inquireth not and reason hath no power to rebuke it, that while I was still speaking unto those great ones, the several greetings I had poured forth in my fervour,—being as it were flowing lava from the volcano of my heart,—became embodied into mighty cubes of crystal; and ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
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... steep narrowness of the white-railed staircase mounting into gruesome little corners of shadows, while the miniature drawing-rooms illumined only from the street seemed to await an explanation of dimness and chairs ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
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... convenient wall that was white-washed for the purpose of transmitting it. This reflector was not an eminent success, but it rendered darkness visible. At the time we write of, however, the sun having set, the kitchen was lighted by a smoky oil-lamp of classic form and dimness. Here she found Sally busy ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
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... have shown you every tenderness, but by your pretence you keep it at sword's length from you. You have been torturing me in this way now for three days.... Look kindly at you! Why, every time I look at you, you see my eyes shine through a tear-filled dimness... ...
— Hadda Padda • Godmunder Kamban
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... to rock, from leaf to leaf, from wave to wave,—glowing, or flashing, or scintillating, according to what it strikes, or in its holier moods, absorbing and enfolding all things in the deep fulness of its repose, and then again losing itself in bewilderment, and doubt, and dimness; or perishing and passing away, entangled in drifting mist, or melted into melancholy air, but still,—kindling, or declining, sparkling or still, it is the living light, which breathes in its deepest, most entranced rest, which ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
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... cirrocumulus; mackerel sky, mare's tale, dirty sky; curl cloud; frost smoke; thunderhead. [Science of clouds] nephelognosy[obs3]; nephograph[obs3], nephology[obs3]. effervescence, fermentation; bubbling &c. v. nebula; cloudliness &c. (opacity) 426[obs3]; nebulosity &c. (dimness) 422. V. bubble, boil, foam, froth, mantle, sparkle, guggle[obs3], gurgle; effervesce, ferment, fizzle. Adj. bubbling &c. v.; frothy, nappy[obs3], effervescent, sparkling, mousseux[French: frothy], up. cloudy &c. n.; thunderheaded[obs3]; vaporous, nebulous, overcast. Phr. "the lowring element ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
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... easy nor quick job. Ellen worked at it patiently, and finished it well by the end of the half-hour, though with a burning cheek still; and a dimness over her eyes frequently obliged her to stop till she could clear them. It was done, and she carried it ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
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... and Betty were still sitting, for even the fashionable world kept comparatively early hours, and it was not yet eleven o'clock. The parlor where they sat was nearly dark, one candle out and the other shaded so as to produce the dimness which Mr. Belamour still preferred, and they were sitting on either side of the open window, Betty listening to her companion's reminiscences of the evenings enlivened by poor Aurelia, and of the many traits of her goodness, sweet temper, ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
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... draw; velvet shoes 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 to the composition of the picture, they are represented ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
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... sight of your old name again was like a resurrection. It had passed away into the dimness of a dead friend. We shall be most joyful to see you here next week,—if I understand you right—for your note dated the 10th arrived only yesterday, Friday the 16th. Suppose I name Thursday next. If that ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
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... lessened, these are still as bright, Albeit too dazzling for a dotard's sight; And those must wait till ev'ry charm is gone, To please the paltry heart that pleases none;— That dull cold sensualist, whose sickly eye In envious dimness passed thy portrait by; Who racked his little spirit to combine Its hate of Freedom's loveliness, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
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... departure and prolonged absence keenly. She had not—to put it euphemistically—many friends. Her remedy was successful. Impossible, on such a ride, to cherish minor or major pangs. She rode into the smoky dimness of pine-woods where the sunlight burned in flecks and out again across the little open mountain meadows, jeweled with white and gold, blue and coral-colored flowers, a stained-glass window scattered across the ground. From these glades ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
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