"Fading" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for me, you see, and she's making the most of it, fiddling and listening to the fiddlers. Well, it's a considerable change from New Hampshire." He looked at her dreamily, as if making an intense effort to detach himself from his dream, and situate her in the fading past. "Remember the bungalow? And Nick—ah, how's Nick?" he brought ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... eyes at the turning of the handle, but now opened them again, curious to watch the aspect of the fading world. She had determined to do this a week ago: she would at least miss nothing of ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... and fresh air with dust I'll take the dust every time. I'd feel like a funeral to live in a house where the curtains and shades were down every day, summer and winter, to keep the sunshine out of the rooms and prevent the jade-green and china-blue and old-rose of the rugs from fading. ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... explanations of the mother, showing the necessity of labor to obtain all crops, so often imperilled by the uncertainties of climate,—all these things made up a charming scene of innocent, childlike happiness amid the fading colors of ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... my heart to a flower, Though I know it is fading away, Though I know it will live but an hour And leave me ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... Majesty made some observations to M. David, with all possible delicacy. They were attentively noted by this admirable artist, who, with a bow, promised the Emperor to profit by his advice. Their Majesties' visit was long, and lasted until the fading light warned the Emperor that it was time to return. M. David escorted him to the door of his studio; and there, stopping short, the Emperor took off his hat, and, by a most graceful bow, testified to the honor he felt for such distinguished talent. The Empress added ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... was out of sight, fading round a bend of the hills into a dark, dotted blur that was woods. Then he dropped on all fours, and breathed one great, big, long, deep breath. That dot was the one of the Brothers that had been ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... together with his own determination to do the work thoroughly, prolonged DeGolyer's absence. Nearly three months had passed. Evening was come, and from a distant hill-top the returning traveler saw the steeple of Ulmata's church—a black mark on the fading blush of lingering twilight. A chilly darkness crept out of the valley. Hungry dogs barked in the dreary village. DeGolyer could see but a single light. It burned in the priest's house—a dark age, and as of yore, with all the light held by the church. The weary man liberated his ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... dethroned in heaven and goes forgotten and outcast even among men, one's eyes no longer dazzled by its power find something very wistful in the faces of fallen gods suppliant to be remembered, something almost tearfully beautiful, like a long warm summer twilight fading gently away after some day memorable in the story of earthly wars. Between what Zeus, for instance, has been once and the half-remembered tale he is today there lies a space so great that there is no change of fortune known to man whereby we may measure the height down ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... friendship, and the less they believed in it the more eloquently they declaimed as to its ardor and eternity. Each one thought to himself, "I will enjoy and profit by the fruit of this friendship, I will yield up the blossoms only." The blossoms, alas! were artificial, without odor and already fading, though at the first glance ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... which he kept written up as long as his strength remained, he evidently retained consciousness almost to the last. So exhausted was he that death must have come to him as a merciful release from the pain of living. His last entries, although giving evidence of fading faculties, are almost cheerful. He jocularly alludes to himself as Micawber, waiting for something to turn up. But it is evident that he had given up hope, and was waiting for death's approach, calm and resigned, without fear, like a good and ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... I came through the valley I could see, As I came through the valley, fair and far, As drowning men look up and see a star, The fading shore of my lost Used-to-be; And like an arrow in my heart I heard The last sad notes of Hope's expiring bird, As ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... lightening in the appearance of the place; the setting sun sent a red glow among the trees, and then they passed out of the forest into a lovely, dreamy, open country, stretching for miles and miles towards where a range of hills ran right across their course, beyond which, pale orange by the fading light, another range of greater height appeared. Soon after they passed the mouth of a clear stream, and at the end of another mile the boat was turned suddenly off to their right into a little river of the clearest water, which ran meandering ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... it was believed. Egmont renewing the charge at the head of his victorious Belgian troopers, fell dead with a musket-ball through his heart. The shattered German and Walloon cavalry, now pricked forward by the lances of their companions, under the passionate commands of Mayenne and Aumale, now fading back before the furious charges of the Huguenots, were completely ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... making inroads and undermining her constitution, and the numerous miscarriages of her early years as mistress contributed to her physical ruin. For years she had kept herself up by artificial means, and had hidden her loss of flesh and fading beauty by all sorts of dress contrivances, rouges, and powders. She died in 1764, at the age ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... almost out of sight, and anything under 800 feet seems low. Towards the end of August the heights are capped with purple, although the distant moors, however brilliant they may appear when close at hand, generally assume more delicate shades, fading into greys and ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... round his neck, and, with a true lover-like feeling, thought that it warmed the heart which mortification had chilled; but the fancy was evanescent, and he again turned to watch the fading ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... received—he seemed one who in life had studied hard but whose feeble frame sunk beneath the weight of the mere exertion of life—the spark of intelligence burned with uncommon strength within him but that of life seemed ever on the eve of fading[95]—At present I shall not describe any other of this groupe but with deep attention try to recall in my memory some of the words of Diotima—they were words of fire but their path is ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... seen of our Indian tribes has awakened an earnest anxiety to know more concerning them, and, if possible, to embody some of their fast-fading characteristics and traditions in our popular literature. My own personal opportunities of observing them must, necessarily, be few and casual; but I would gladly avail myself of any information derived from others who have been enabled to mingle among them, and ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... dark. A heavy gale tossed the water and whirled the sand. Can any one hear across the water, or are we to spend the October night in the timber? The Lord had provided for His work. A dark figure appeared on the bluff against the fading light. "Di tapi'o?" is the call across (Who are you?). "Ho-washte" (I am Good Voice) is the reply. The figure, like the man of Macedonia; the reply, "a voice crying in the wilderness." The man was Good Bird. He had come out, expecting his wife, and ...
— American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 3, March, 1896 • Various
... meet his death alone. He must have retained his consciousness almost to the last. So exhausted was he, that death must have been only like a release from the trouble of living. His last entries, though giving evidences of fading faculties, are almost cheerful. He jocularly alludes to himself as Micawber, waiting for something to turn up. It is evident that he had given up hope, and waited for death's approach in a calm and resigned frame of mind, without fear, like a good ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... cap contained nothing. He did not dare extend this vista by so much as one inch. But in the air sounded that magic soul-stirring whistle of wings, now gaining in volume until it seemed overhead; now fading until Bobby thought surely the ducks must have become ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... reprisals that had given the Agsan Valley its reputation as "the country of terror," and as a consequence leave little opportunity for the recognition of new warriors. Thus it is that at the present day the ancient system is fast fading away, and it is only a matter of years before the warrior chief will be a ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... ago. More than two years ago! That is a long time for one in the full glow of her glorious youth. More than two years ago! And in the joy and delight of living, what charm has the memory—the daily fading memory—of the absent for such as she? Think of it, oh, fool, not yet free from the shackles of the last illusion! Think of circumstances, of surroundings, of temperament, above all, of such a temperament as hers! Is your mature knowledge of life to go for nothing ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... clearly the sharp clang of a horse's hoofs on the hard-packed snow, loud at first, but fading rapidly away. The wind, increasing suddenly, shook the house furiously ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... hath its | pleasures, but | fading are | they as the | flowers; Sin hath its | sorrows, and | sadly we | turn'd from those | bowers; Bright were the | angels be | -hind with their | falchions of | heavenly | flame! Dark was the | desolate | desert be ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... her pillow,—the wreck and remnant only of what was once so beautiful. During all these years, when the interests and pleasures of life have been slowly dropping, leaf by leaf, and passing away like fading flowers, Lillie has learned to do much thinking. It sometimes seems to take a stab, a thrust, a wound, to open in some hearts the capacity of deep feeling and deep thought. There are things taught by suffering that can be taught in no other way. By suffering sometimes ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... die," was content to occupy himself with the most ephemeral of all hackwork. His own polemical writings may be justly described in the words he himself uses of a book by one of his opponents, as calculated "to gain a short, contemptible, and soon-fading reward, not to stir the constancy and solid firmness of any wise man ... but to catch the worthless approbation of an ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... village dwellings and gregarious habits of the females who ply their rural labors in bands among the rich fields of the Lowlands, or for the unwholesome backroom and weary task-work of the city seamstress. The sunlight was fading from the higher hill-tops of Skye and Glenelg as we bade farewell to the lonely shieling and the hospitable ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... truth of Shakspere's, nor are they drawn so sharply. One reads their plays with pleasure and remembers here and there a passage of fine poetry, or a noble or lovely trait. But their characters, as wholes, leave a fading impression. Who, even after a single reading or representation, ever forgets Falstaff, or ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... landscape again. The whole building was growing quiet. Footsteps were fading away down the halls. Doors clicked faintly here and there. Somebody was singing softly in the basement laboratory, and the sunset sky was exquisitely lovely above the quiet ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... an end to all conference between the parties. Some gunpowder, which the conspirators had provided for their defence, proving damp, they had placed nearly two pounds in a pan near the fire to dry; and a person incautiously raking together the fading embers, a spark flew into the pan, ignited the powder, which blew up with a great explosion, shattered the house, and severely maimed Catesby, Rookewood, and Grant; but the most remarkable circumstance ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... old bull stood with lowered head, watching his mates—the cows he had known, the calves he had fathered, the bulls he had mastered—as they shambled on at a rapid pace through the fading light. He could not follow, for before his nose leaped the merciless fanged terror that would not let him go. Three hundredweight more than half a ton he weighed; he had lived a long, strong life, full of fight and struggle, and ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... an easily imagined, matter-of-fact daylight possibility, had been growing gradually a thing of the dark, unknown, fantastic. A faint remnant of the fading light remained in the west, vanishing as they looked at it. High above the treetops a pale moon hung high; there seemed nothing to connect them with civilization but that iron track ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... streamed across the faded hangings and the panelled walls, flooding the place with brightness. It seemed hardly possible that it had been unused for so many years. Lisbeth had worked in it so faithfully week by week that, beyond the fading of the curtains and the rugs which lay about the polished floor, there was nothing to indicate that it had been unoccupied for ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... having so short a lease, Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend? Shall worms, inheritors of this excess, Eat up thy charge? ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... just then, the stars fading out behind a thick veil of clouds; and creeping nearer to the doctor I sat down beside where he knelt, listening to the incessant talking of ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... particulars, however. His genial and expansive smile and the unobtrusive manner of his fading away are there vaguely associated with Cheshire Puss, of joyful memory, whose disappearance, like his, began with the end ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... not merely by impression, the impression will be articulated into words. It could be a terrible thing, but it won't be, because in the upper civilizations everything like sentimentality (I was going to say sentiment) will presently get materialized out of people along with the already fading spiritualities; and so when a man is called who doesn't wish to talk he will be like those visitors you mention: "not chosen"—and will be frankly damned and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... better to understand why all this would happen after you do the following experiments, the first of which will show that light helps the chemical change called bleaching or fading. ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... understand, you that have lived a bachelor, how great, how exquisite a pleasure there is, in being really beloved! It is impossible, that the most beauteous face in nature should raise in me such pleasing ideas, as when I look upon that excellent woman. That fading in her countenance is chiefly caused by her watching with me, in my fever. This was followed by a fit of sickness, which had like to have carried her off last winter. I tell you sincerely, I have so many ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... wonderingly upon the impressive scene. Each flash appeared to light up the mountains for miles around, their crests lying dark and forbidding, piled tier upon tier, the blue, menacing flashes hovering about them momentarily, then fading ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... Here is a jar of air. I place it over a candle, and it burns very nicely in it at first, shewing that what I have said about it is true; but there will soon be a change. See how the flame is drawing upwards, presently fading, and at last going out. And going out, why? Not because it wants air merely, for the jar is as full now as it was before; but it wants pure, fresh air. The jar is full of air, partly changed, partly not changed; but it does not contain ...
— The Chemical History Of A Candle • Michael Faraday
... spend my boyhood among the Indians for nothing. Good-bye!" and a moment later he disappeared in the fading moonlight. ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler
... in thought, to Neptune's bounds I stray, To take my farewell of the parting day: Far in the deep the sun his glory hides, A streak of gold the sea and sky divides; The purple clouds their amber linings show, And edged with flame rolls every wave below; Here pensive I behold the fading light, And o'er the distant billows ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... against the fading sky, I watch three mowers mowing, as I lie: With brawny arms they ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... describe the condition of the patient whose blood is low and deprived of the richness, warmth, and bloom, it once possessed when it kindled admiration and enthusiasm in others, is but to give a picture of a numerous class of female invalids. It is sad to see beauty fading, vigor waning, and Bright's disease or consumption slowly wasting the blood and consuming the vital cells, until the spirit can no longer dwell in its earthly abode and death ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... hat to wear," remarked the woman, "for that would keep the sun from fading the colors of your face. I have some patches and scraps put away, and if you will wait two or three days I'll make you a lovely hat that will match the rest ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... murmured poor Esther, the flush of hope fading as suddenly as it had arisen, as with meek sad eyes she glanced at the reflection of her features in the small oval glass suspended above the mantel-piece—"I almost doubt, Susy, dear, if he would recognize me; even if old feelings and old ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... Ah fading joy! how quickly art thou past! Yet we thy ruin haste. As if the cares of human life were few, We seek out new: And follow fate, which ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... crooked, and cumbered with bowlders which have tumbled from somewhere and lodged in the most extraordinary groupings, became my favorite walk of a morning. There was a footpath in it, well-trodden at first, but gradually fading out as it became more like a ladder than a path, and I soon discovered that no other city feet than mine were likely to scale a certain rough slope which seemed the end of the ravine. With the aid of the tough ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... such a long, long time to wait, papa," she said—the eager, joyous expression fading away from her face, and the pale, wearied look coming ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... o'er the fading traces Of lost divinities; or seek to hold Their serious converse 'mid Earth's green waste-places, Or by her lonely fountains, as ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... benign looks were cast upon me from the golden vapours, and I seemed to catch glimpses of faint forms moving, amongst them, which were once so dear; and even thought my ears affected by well-known voices, long silent upon earth. When the warm hues of the sky were gradually fading, and the distant thickets began to assume a deeper and more melancholy blue, I fancied a shape like Thisbe {133} shot swiftly along; and, sometimes halting afar off, cast an affectionate look upon her old master, that seemed ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... proud of the possession of his normal and theological diplomas, and now ready for service, was sent by the A. M. A. to this prosperous village in the beautiful Teche country. When Mr. H. arrived in the fading twilight of a June evening, and looked over the situation—a rude, unfinished edifice, a scattered congregation, and a membership that had diminished almost to the vanishing point—for the first time he began to have serious doubts whether after all he had not mistaken his calling. After much searching, ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 2, June, 1898 • Various
... earthly, material, modern, the distant purr of a high-powered automobile on the trail away to their right. Starr turned his face that way, listening as the horse listened. It seemed to Helen May as though he had become again earthy and material and modern, with the desert love song but the fading memory of a dream. He listened, and she received the impression that something more than idle curiosity held him intent upon ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... with mouths agape as the machine flew over the tree-tops, its light diminishing to a pin-point, its clamour sinking to the quiet hum of a bee, and then fading away altogether. In a minute ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... her finger, and bend her head listening, listening, listening, till she heard the sound of the galloping hoofs come nearer and nearer, passing and fading away. ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... frothing over with late blossoms, and wreathed with laurel-looking vines; and, luxuriantly lacing the border of the pave that turned the further corner of the house, blue, white and crimson, pink and violet, went fading in perspective as my gaze followed the gesture of ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... colors of the sunset were just fading from the sky when they reached the farm-yard gate. Dromas had gone in before them with the oxen, and Melas himself was waiting to let them in ...
— The Spartan Twins • Lucy (Fitch) Perkins
... did it on purpose," and even with his hatred and malice was mingled a gleam of admiration at the cleverness that had outwitted him. He hurried on towards the cliff path, but the sunset light was already fading into dusk, and he had to choose his footing more carefully. When he reached the point where the rope began, Marie had already gone down and was leaning on the rock beside her father. Had he been near he might have noticed a strange expression in her ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... hand, Confess my heart to him, and all night long Pray for him while he slept, or through the lattice Watch while he read, and see the holy thoughts Swell in his big deep eyes!—Alas! that dream Is wilder than the one that's fading even now! ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... the lesson, my friend, which humanity teaches itself from the larva. Even so do I, methinks, feed in life's autumn upon the fading foliage of Hope, and, still feeding and weaving, turn it at last into a little grave. A neat image that, which, by the by, I stole from Drummond of Hawthornden. Do you recollect his verse?—but of course I should be provoked if ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... of Mr. Bean, one of the Americans, was found a note-book in which had been penciled some sentences which admit us, in flesh and spirit, as it were, to the presence of these men during their last hours of life, and to the grisly horrors which their fading vision looked upon and their failing consciousness ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... at hand he was buried without one. One night, late, two soldiers lay dying in a ward. A man came in with a coffin on his shoulder, and stood trying to make up his mind which of these two poor fellows would be likely to need it first. Both of them begged for it with their fading eyes—they were past talking. Then one of them protruded a wasted hand from his blankets and made a feeble beckoning sign with the fingers, to signify, "Be a good fellow; put it under my bed, please." The man did it, and left. The lucky soldier painfully ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... O, fading branches of decaying bayes, Who now will water your dry-wither'd armes? Or where is he that sung the lovely layes Of simple shepheards in their countrey-farmes? Ah! he is dead, the cause of all our harmes: And with him dide my joy and sweete delight; The cleare ...
— The Affectionate Shepherd • Richard Barnfield
... first two novels Yester and Li, a Story of Longing (1904) and Ingeborg (1905). With unutterable tenderness and richness of tone he depicts in each of these two novels the love-longing of a solitary nature, the substance of which is trembling yearning, and the fulfilment of which is a fading dream. A solitary figure is the hero of the third novel, The Fool (1909), as well. It is a young clergyman who settles in a small Franconian town with the sole purpose of doing good. He visits those who are weary and heavy-laden; with pathetic faith in the goodness of humanity he sees in every ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... air to herself as she moved about the room. "Poor Fan," she said, "how barbarous of me to treat her in that way—to say that I almost hated her! No wonder she refused to forgive me; but her resentment will not last long. And she does not know—she does not know." And then suddenly, all the colour fading from her cheeks again, she burst into a passion of weeping, violent as a tropical storm when the air has been overcharged with electricity. It was quickly over, and she dressed herself, and went down to her solitary dinner. After sitting for a few ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... most chemically active rays are those situated at the blue end of the solar spectrum; and although all the rays absorbed by a sensitive colored body affect its change, it is doubtless the blue rays which are the chief cause of the fading of colors. Experiments are on record, indeed, which ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... their voices fading into the distance and peered forth. They were walking slowly down the path, away from me. I stirred cautiously, straightened my stiffened legs, rose painfully, and then carefully made my way farther into the forest, through which I plunged headlong, eager to escape the sight ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... already giving tokens of spent force, are points which in the present paper will be touched only incidentally, for the writer's purpose is rather irenic than polemical, and he is more concerned to remove misapprehensions and allay fears than to seek the fading leaf of a ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... west. In a third direction you saw the vapory steeples of Constance, apparently sinking in the waters which almost surrounded them; and far away you distinguish the little coast villages, like fading constellations, glimmering fainter and fainter, till land and lake and sky were blended ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... vigor that told of the riot of blood within him. Thus they continued, until in the shadow of the mountains—just now draped in their most delicate coloring, the pink that accompanies sunbeams streaming through fading haze—she pulled Pat down and gave herself over to the beauty of the scene. The horse, also appreciative, came to a ready stop and turned his eyes out over the desert ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... Rover was conducting sheep to Stamford market, as was his duty every week; therefore in the fading daylight she went along, immersed in her own sad thoughts. Her walk at that hour was entirely aimless. She had only gone forth because of the irritation she felt at her aunt's constant complaints. So entirely engrossed was she by her own ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... a face by that box for tinder, Glowing forth in fits from the dark, And fading again, as the linten cinder Kindles to red at the flinty spark, Or goes ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... is a short, swift reign, I know, But love, thy spirit still pervading, New violet tufts again shall blow, Then fade away as thou art fading; ...
— The Royal Guide to Wax Flower Modelling • Emma Peachey
... stranger,—a tall, weathered, sinewy man with a mass of white beard and hair that flowed over his chest and shoulders,—who hewed a passage through the battling legion with a club that few men could have lifted. After the fight this stranger stood long before the fallen Kamiole and looked into his fading eyes. As the prince hastened to the dying tyrant, his princess followed with a calabash of water; for in those times women accompanied their husbands and brothers to the field, waiting at a little ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... charming spectacle, and especially at that day, viewed from the top of the towers of Notre-Dame, in the fresh light of a summer dawn. The day might have been in July. The sky was perfectly serene. Some tardy stars were fading away at various points, and there was a very brilliant one in the east, in the brightest part of the heavens. The sun was about to appear; Paris was beginning to move. A very white and very pure light brought out vividly ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... which she was not born. Faint she grew, and ever fainter, As she murmured, 'O that he Were once more that landscape painter Which did win my heart from me!' So she drooped and drooped before him, Fading slowly from his side: Three fair children first she bore him, Then before her time she died. Weeping, weeping late and early, Walking up and pacing down, Deeply mourned the Lord of Burleigh, Burleigh House by Stamford town. And he came to look upon ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... green hills of Wyre The train ran, changing sky and shire, And far behind, a fading crest, Low in the forsaken west Sank the high-reared head of Clee, My hand lay empty on my knee. Aching on my knee it lay: That morning half a shire away So many an honest fellow's fist Had well-nigh wrung it from the wrist. Hand, said I, since now we part From fields and men ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... the apartment, and the aromatic and rose-imbued odours that filled it. I trod on, and my step sank into, a yielding carpet, which seemed to be elastic under my feet, and which glowed with a thousand never fading, though mimic flowers. The apartment was not crowded, though I saw candelabra, vases, and side-tables of the purest marble, supported upon massive gilt pedestals. In all this there was nothing singular—it was the work of the upholsterer; but the beautiful arrangement ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... hot lard. One kettleful, however, would have salt stirred through it, then be allowed to cool, and be cut out in long bars, which were laid high and dry to age. Old soap was much better for washing fine prints, lawns, ginghams and so on—in fact whatever needed cleansing without fading. ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... full bloom. Against this sky of flaming sunset-clouds, hundreds of ships, anchored in the bay, lit their lesser crimson lights; while, now and then, a battleship which was signaling to another ship, flashed its message of light against the fading glow of ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... of his second week in London MacMaster had begun the notes for his study of Hugh Treffinger and his work. When his researches led him occasionally to visit the studios of Treffinger's friends and erstwhile disciples, he found their Treffinger manner fading as the ring of Treffinger's personality died out in them. One by one they were stealing back into the fold of national British art; the hand that had wound them up was still. MacMaster despaired of them and confined himself more and more exclusively ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... down, looking out upon the richly-wooded landscape that glowed in the grand and melancholy light which was every moment fading. The corners of the room were already dark; all was growing dim, and the gloom was insensibly toning my mind, already prepared for what was sinister. I was waiting alone for his arrival, which soon took place. The door communicating with the front room opened, and the tall figure of Mr. ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... misleads us among the ages as sadly as Archbishop Usher. The profoundest of laymen and the most learned of clerics are equally at sea in locating creation. That successive phases of animate existence were rising and fading with the oscillations of the earth's inclination to its orbit never occurred to him to whom "all was light." To probe the stars was to him a simpler process than to anatomize the globe ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... wind in the mainsail suddenly takes a winter force, and we begin to talk of laying up the boat. Hitherto we have kept a silent compact and ignored all change in the season. We have watched the blue afternoons shortening, fading through lilac into grey, and let pass their scarcely perceptible warnings. One afternoon a few kittiwakes appeared. A week later the swallows fell to stringing themselves like beads along the coastguard's ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... formerly, when heavy-hearted, she had been able, with the help of some well-chosen volume, to transfer the seat of consciousness to the organ of pure reason. Of late, it was not to be denied, literature had seemed a fading light, and even after she had reminded herself that her uncle's library was provided with a complete set of those authors which no gentleman's collection should be without, she sat motionless and empty-handed, ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... and the hills and valleys of the countryside. First three out of ten had been stricken, then four, then five. The course of the disease, once started, was invariably the same: first illness, weakness, loss of energy and interest, then gradually a fading away of intelligent responses, leaving thousands of creatures walking blank-faced and idiot-like about the streets and countryside. Ultimately even the ability to take food was lost, and after an interval of a week or so, ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... the croupier permitted a slight shade of disappointment to flash over his face, fading into an expression of apology for taking the stakes. When the bank lost, the lips parted slowly, showing the teeth, in a half smile. Such delicate outward consideration for the feelings of his victims seemed a part of his education, an index ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... rise, And shine with a thousand changing dyes, Till lessening far through ether driven, It mingles with the hues of heaven: As, at the glimpse of morning pale, The lance-fly spreads his silken sail, And gleams with blendings soft and bright, Till lost in the shades of fading night; So rose from earth the lovely Fay— So vanished, far ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws, And burn the long-liv'd phoenix, in her blood; Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets, And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time, To the wide world and all her fading sweets; But I forbid thee one most heinous crime: O! carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow, Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen; Him in thy course untainted do allow For beauty's pattern to succeeding men. Yet, do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong, ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... as any plates can very well be. Whenever I look at these triumphs of art over the beauties of nature, with all their weary dabs of crimson, green, blue, and yellow, I think of wretched, anaemic girls fading their youth away in some dismal attic over a publisher's, toiling through the whole edition tint by tint, and being mocked the while by Mr. Miller's alliterative erotics. And they are erotics! In ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... look; From the dust of ages Lift this little book, Turn the tattered pages, Read me, do not let me die! Search the fading letters, finding Steadfast in the broken binding All that once ...
— Second April • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... them off; he liked the warmth and friendliness of their little bodies pressed close to him; there was something pleasantly hypnotic in the feeling of small hands tugging at him. Suddenly he became conscious of a change in the children's faces; the gladness was fading out and in its place was creeping ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... too, had filled the brooks, and their waters were gurgling down deep, shadowy dells, mingling their touching music with the sad, sighing wind. There were pleasant memories entwined in that departing summer; and it now seemed as if all nature was joining in a requiem to its fading beauties. ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... no," the constant Silvio cries, "For thee a never-fading wreath I'll twine; Though bright the rose, its bloom too swiftly flies, No emblem meet for love so true ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... beyond a doubt, and they gradually drew closer to inspect the beast they had brought down. He was at least four feet long, and correspondingly tall and heavy, with a powerful tail and a rather small head. His colour was of a tawny tint, fading out to a dirty white between the limbs. The tip of the ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... the golden youth of Imperial Rome. The ceiling, supported by eight slender marble columns, was richly frescoed with scenes from Ariosto's poems, some of the figures being still warm with colour and instinct with life—and on the walls were the fading remains of other pictures, the freshest among them being a laughing Cupid poised on a knot of honeysuckle, and shooting his arrow at random into the sky. Ordinarily speaking, the huge room was bare and comfortless to ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... inexpressibly captivating. The mellow dubious light that prevailed just served to tinge with illusive colors the softened features of the scenery. The deceived but delighted eye sought vainly to discern, in the broad masses of shade, the separating line between the land and water, or to distinguish the fading objects that seemed sinking into chaos. Now did the busy fancy supply the feebleness of vision, producing with industrious craft a fairy creation of her own. Under her plastic wand the barren rocks frowned upon the watery ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... flower, no sooner blown but blasted, Soft silken Primrose fading timelesslie; Summer's chief honour, if thou hadst outlasted Bleak winter's force that made ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... the charms which she would wish to find in a son-in-law, was anxious to shake off the Bragton alliance; but Arabella, as she said so often both to herself and to her mother, was sick of the dust of the battle and conscious of fading strength. She would make this one more attempt, but must make it with great care. When last in town this young lord had whispered a word or two to her, which then had set her hoping for a couple of days; and now, ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... it! What a magnificent edifice does it seem! When compared with it, how utterly insignificant and contemptible do all the works of man's hands appear! Then watch the sun sink with rays of glory in the west; the bright rich tinge glowing for a time, and gradually fading away before the obscurity of night; the stars coming forth and shining with a splendour unknown in northern climes; and then the moon, a mass of liquid flame, rising out of the dark sea, and casting across it a broad ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... stood with his hat on one side of his head, as though for a sixpence he would fight all creation. Wondering at the change, I happened to look toward the house, and there it stood in the light of the fading day, like a poor old woman without a veil to hide her wrinkles! Every window looked ashamed of itself, and on the ground lay the dear old vine, ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... become a monstrous struggle. The huge white globes became purple-white, purple with a reddish glow, flickered, flickered faster and faster, fluttered between light and extinction, ceased to flicker and became mere fading specks of glowing red in a vast obscurity. In ten seconds the extinction was accomplished, and there was only this roaring darkness, a black monstrosity that had suddenly swallowed up those glittering myriads ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... hurrying through the wet night, hurling startled questions at one another, but the powder smoke which hung sluggishly in the dark night air was sufficient answer. It floated in thin blue layers beneath the electric lights, gradually fading and melting as the life ebbed from the mangled body ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... to retrace the resemblance Of comrades, in friendship and mischief allied; [3] How welcome to me your ne'er fading remembrance, [i] Which rests in the ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... be found for the choice of the word "day," in the accordance of its phenomena with some, at least, of the processes which Moses describes—the dawn, the light slowly increasing to the perfect day, and then fading away gradually into night—these do seem aptly to represent the first scanty appearance, the gradual increase, and the vast development of plants, of the reptiles and of the mammalia, and in the case of the first two ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland
... to the land, until a towering line of cliffs rose for more than a thousand feet right above their heads. It was a stern and sombre coast, unbroken by any bays or inland glimpses, and gloomy and terrible in the fading light. The great oily swell broke into spouts of foam at the cliff-foot, and all along the face of the precipice they could see innumerable sea- fowl ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... remind him at ten o'clock that music must not longer trouble the sleep of the mid-watch officers. On this occasion, with appearances so against him, perplexed but not convinced, after looking for a few moments he went below and sought communion with his beloved instrument; nor did the fading of the phantasm interrupt his fiddling. When announced, he listened absently, and continued his aria unmoved by such trivialities. Cape Flyaway, as counterfeits like this are called, had lasted so long and looked so plausible that the order was given to raise steam; and when ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... another cigarette. It struck him as a great pity such a pile should be touched: so much of the past was buried there that it was like desecrating, like digging up a grave. Since the years were letting it down so gently why jostle the elbow of slow-fingering time? The fading afternoon was exquisitely pure; the place was empty; he heard nothing but the cries of several children, which sounded sweet, who were playing on the flatness of the very old tombs. He knew this would inevitably be one of the topics at dinner, the restoration of the ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... mode of travelling, but a new road was to be opened; the secret history, the fugitive pamphlet, the obsolete satire, the ancient comedy—such were the many curious volumes whose dust was to be cleared away, to cast a new radiance on the fading colours of a moveable picture of manners; the wittiest ever exhibited to mankind. This new mode of research, even at this moment, is imperfectly comprehended, still ridiculed even by those who could never have understood ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... heart, When, fading slowly down the past, Fond memories depart, And each that leaves it seems the last; Long after all the rest are flown, Returns a solitary tone,— The after-echo of departed years,— And touches all the ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... that time of waiting, marked by the flowering and the fading of the sea lavender. The colour was seared ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... When her own work in twins she would express. His all-resembling pencil did outpass The magic imagery of looking-glass. Nor was his life less perfect than his art. Nor was his hand less erring than his heart. There was no false or fading color there, The figures ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... a grand thing, Jack. How does it go?— "With a pistol clenched in his failing hand, And the film of death o'er his fading eyes, He saw the sun go down ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... night and morn, With the burden of an honor Unto which she was not born. Faint she grew, and ever fainter, As she murmur'd, "O, that he Were once more that landscape-painter, Which did win my heart from me!" So she droop'd and droop'd before him, Fading slowly from his side: Three fair children first she bore him, Then before her time she died. Weeping, weeping late and early, Walking up and pacing down, Deeply mourn'd the Lord of Burleigh, Burleigh-house by Stamford-town. ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... laying by the lady's name, A living woman re-became. Of her, that from the public eye They do enclose and fortify, Now, lying scattered as they fell, An indiscreeter tale they tell: Of that more soft and secret her Whose daylong fortresses they were, By fading warmth, by lingering print, These ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... neighbourhood of Lisson Grove, or farther on towards the Harrow Road. Always he preferred to say good-bye to her at some point in the Outer Circle, with its peaceful vista of fine trees and stately houses, watching her little fawn-like figure fading away into ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... went over again the skirmish of the past night, and how the robbers had been beaten off. Next he began to wonder whether the band would stop at the end of the ravine long, and soon after, having surfeited himself with gazing at the fading light in the sky and the blackening rocks that had so lately been glistening as if of gold, he began to yawn and think that he should much like to lie down and sleep off this weariness which seemed to be coming over him ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... death to such as thou, dear Eva! neither darkness nor shadow of death; only such a bright fading as when the morning star fades in the golden dawn. Thine is the victory without the battle,—the crown without ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... on with the crowd past the Government building and the Liberal Arts hall to the basin. On the viaduct, over behind the Statue of the Republic, they stopped to look over that never-fading picture there presented to view. Over the peristyle were written some of the sayings of great men. Fanny read one that heightened the scene into a thrill of thankfulness and patriotism: "We here highly resolve that government of the people, ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... into the other, while Brazilian and Indian songs followed each other. Anything more national, more completely imbued with tropical coloring and character, than this evening scene on the lake, can hardly be conceived. When we reached the landing, the gold and rose-colored clouds were fading into soft masses of white and ashen gray, and moonlight was taking the place of sunset. As we went up the green slope to the sitio, a dance on the grass was proposed, and the Indian girls formed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... good, and she says that she prays every day, not that her life may be lengthened, but that she may die before I am gone. I am superstitious enough to feel that the prayer may have its answer, now that I see her drooping and fading away without perceptible disease. The only time I ever witnessed the rite of confirmation was when the hands of the good bishop rested upon her head, and no wonder if I have half taken up arms in defense of this "laying-on of hands," out of the abundance ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... beautiful and the grotesque, the world of fancy and of fact, all the strange diversities that enter into "such stuff as dreams are made of," running and frisking together, and interchanging their functions and properties; so that the whole seems confused, flitting, shadowy, and indistinct, as fading away in the remoteness and fascination of moonlight. The very scene is laid in a veritable dream-land, called Athens indeed, but only because Athens was the greatest beehive of beautiful visions then known; or rather it is laid in an ideal forest near an ideal Athens,—a ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... was very kind—I thought the race of young men who are polite and attentive to old fading ones had passed away with ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... lay, with a heaving breast, On the field of the dying and dead; His cheek was pale and his lips compressed, And the fading light from the distant west Shone ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... Bengal, added to the intense warmth of the atmosphere, combine to force a vegetation so rich and luxuriant, that imagination can picture nothing more wondrous and charming; every level spot is enamelled with verdure, forests of never-fading bloom cover mountain and valley; flowers of the brightest hues grow in profusion over the plains, and delicate climbing plants, rooted in the shelving rocks, hang in huge festoons down the ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... time hath to silver turned; O time too swift, O swiftness never ceasing! His youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurned, But spurned in vain; youth waneth by encreasing. Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen. Duty, faith, love, are roots, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... don't grow old so quickly nowadays," he said. "You are 57 years old, Roger. Ann is 53." He leaned back in his chair, his gaunt smile fading. "The Dictator has not been without opposition. You, his parents, opposed him at the very start, and he cast you off. People wiser than the crowds were able to rebuff his powerful personal appeal, to see through the robe of glory he had wrapped around himself. He ...
— Infinite Intruder • Alan Edward Nourse
... this Association. Two of the finest military bands alternated in rendering popular and classical music; and few who were present will ever forget the striking scene, where, amid the flower-bordered lawns, under sunset skies slowly fading through the long twilight into the gayly lighted evening, hundreds of ladies and gentlemen, some in bright military uniforms, some with the insignia of rank, and some with only the stamp of Nature's ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... far other thoughts than those of Xavier; and it was not for these fading honours that the Divine Providence had conducted him ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... millstone; souls, that once believed in God, heaven, good, and had faith and hope in immortality, now worshipping commercial success and its exponent, money, and living and dying with their eager but fading eyes fixed ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various |
