"Dimness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... corpse; a kind of glistening leprous scales formed over the hands; a constant tremulousncss pervaded the whole system, while separate small vibrations of the fibres on the back of the hand were plainly visible to the eye. To these symptoms should be added a dimness of sight often so considerable as to prevent the recognition of objects even at a ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... (or any other curious production of Turkey or both Indies), snipes exactly at nine, punch to commence at ten, with argument; difference of opinion is expected to take place about eleven; perfect unanimity, with some haziness and dimness, before twelve.—N.B. My single affection is not so singly wedded to snipes; but the curious and epicurean eye would also take a pleasure in beholding a delicate and well-chosen assortment of teals, ortolans, the unctuous and palate-soothing flesh ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... it is 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 ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... low, Stands like a maiden in the snow; And the old door-slab is half hid Under an alabaster lid. All day it snows: the sheeted post Gleams in the dimness like a ghost; All day the blasted oak has stood A muffled wizard of the wood; Garland and airy cap adorn The sumach and the wayside thorn, And clustering spangles lodge and shine In the dark tresses of ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... boat-house well, the pleasant dimness of it on hot summer days; how the varnished boats lay side by side all down its length, and how the light canoes rested against the walls as it were on shelves. How, when the big doors were opened on to the raft and the slowly moving river without, bright ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... longiores Solus Defectus, quales occisa Caesare Dictatore, & Antoniano Bello, totius Anni Pallore continuo. [Other miracles occurred, and the sun was dimmed for a longer time, for example, at the death of the Dictator Caesar, and the Antonine war, its dimness continued for ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... approached, grew deeper, grew wavy in its outline. Soon forest trees shot up before my eyes, and robed their broad shoulders so freshly, that all the throngs of olives as they rose into view looked sad in their proper dimness. There were even now no houses to see, but only the minarets peered out from the midst of shade into the glowing sky, and bravely touched the sun. There seemed to be here no mere city, but rather a province wide and rich, that bounded the ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... dying has been considerately delineated by Chaucer. Death creeps from the feet upwards to the breast—it creeps up and possesses the arms. But the intellect which dwelled in the heart 'gan fail only when the very heart felt death. Then dimness fell upon the eyes, and the breath faltered. One more look—one more word—and the spirit has forsaken its tenement. Dryden generalizes all this particularity—and therein greatly errs. But the last four flowing verses of the death-scene are in his more inspired manner, and must ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... or screen the girls from sight. I brought up the rear, and so, scuttling through a rabbit warren of little unfurnished, dilapidated rooms, we found a narrow side staircase, and tumbled down it, anyhow, in dust and dimness. Then two more staircases, and we were in a cellar which looked as if it might once have been used as a prison. Up again, and rattling at a chained door. Then out, into light and air, into the midst of a group, which for an ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... swung out into the stream, and the little group on the bank faded swiftly away, I confess to a little dimness of the eyes. I thought of the hardships toward which my uncomplaining partner was headed, and it seemed to me Nature was conspiring ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... which hung over the water! The road which passed the castle joined, beyond these fields, the path which traversed them. It took, I well remember, a certain solemn and mysterious interest from the ruin. The shadow of the archway, the discolorizations of time on all the walls, the dimness of the little thicket which encircled it, the traditions of its immeasurable age, made St. Quentin's Castle a wonderful and awful fabric in the imagination of a child; and long after I last saw its mouldering roughness, I never read of fortresses, or heights, ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... the wicks of the lamps had caught, and I had turned out the electric light. In the dimness of the struggling lamps, and after the bright glow of the electric light, the room and all within it took weird shapes, and all seemed in an instant to change. We waited with our hearts beating. I know mine did, ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... encountered the cook, who had to "do" that part of the housework, and she rose from her knees to wish him so hearty a good-morning, that a lump rose in Tom's throat, there was a dimness in his eyes, and his hand went out involuntarily ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... face, as if there was something in it he wished to look at. I presently saw that it held a miniature of a fair haired, blue—eyed Scandinavian girl; but apparently he could not see it, from the increasing dimness of his eyes, which seemed to distress him greatly. After a still minute, during which no sound was heard but his own heavy breathing, he again began to speak very rapidly, but no one in the room could make out what he said. I listened attentively—it ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... table. She extended her hands toward him, and, taking their cool slightness, he drew her to him. She rested with the fragrance of her cheek against his face, with her hands pressed to his breast. They stood motionless; he closed his eyes, and she was gone. He was confused in the dimness empty except for himself, and fumbled with, his gloves. Susan's wrap lay limply over a chair; the damp bonnet ribbons trailed toward the floor. He looked slowly about, noting every object—a pile of folded yellow papers, ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... 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 ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Church, near Canal Street. Up the steps and through plain brown doors we went into the church, which was cool, quiet, and empty, save for a busy charwoman with humorous Irish face. Under the altar canopy wavered a small candle spark, and high overhead, in the dimness, were orange and scarlet gleams from a stained window. A crystal chandelier hanging in the aisle caught pale yellow tinctures of light. No Catholic church, wherever you find it, is long empty; a man and a girl entered just as we went out. At each side of the front steps ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... young man in lay dress had apparently been addressing them when he and they had been overwhelmed by the same fate. He lay now, like Punch in his booth, with his head and two limp arms hanging over the ledge of the pulpit. It was a nightmare, the grey, dusty church, the rows of agonized figures, the dimness and silence of it all. We moved about with hushed whispers, walking upon ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... day unto his kind resort, And Phoebus your father, with his streames red, Adorns the morrow, consuming the sort* *crowd Of misty cloudes, that would overlade True humble heartes with their mistihead.* *dimness, mistiness New comfort adaws,* when your eyen clear *dawns, awakens Disclose and spread, my life's ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... usual Mrs. J. F. Smith (who abides in all lodging houses) tucked into the frame of the mirror. Will Mrs. Smith please call Stockton 6771, it said. A carpeted stair with a fine old mahogany balustrade rose into the dimness. Aubrey, who was thoroughly familiar with lodgings, knew instinctively that the fourth, ninth, tenth, and fourteenth steps would be creakers. A soft musk sweetened the warm, torpid air: he divined that someone was toasting marshmallows over a gas ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... his glasses and wiped them, but the dimness was in his eyes; and after a minute, during which he recovered his old calmness, and hushed the holy chime, muffling the Folge Fond Bells, he said gayly ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... possible, procured—neither of which suggestions, as will shortly appear, were followed. I urged the necessity of this measure more particularly, because Mrs. A—— was daily getting thinner and weaker; she also complained of great pain in the head and back, and of an increasing dimness of sight, which made her fear she should become blind; but the mother-in-law of my patient being, unfortunately, of opinion that pregnancy in the latter would not again occur during the continuance of lactation, recommended ...
— Remarks on the Subject of Lactation • Edward Morton
... proved how feebly words essay To fix one spark of beauty's heavenly ray? Who doth not feel, until his failing sight Faints into dimness with its own delight, His changing cheek, his sinking heart, confess The ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... production of Turkey or both Indies), snipes exactly at nine, punch to commence at ten, with argument; difference of opinion is expected to take place about eleven; perfect unanimity, with some haziness and dimness, before twelve. N. B.—My single affection is not so singly wedded to snipes; but the curious and epicurean eye would also take a pleasure in beholding a delicate and well-chosen assortment of teals, ortolans, the unctuous and palate-soothing flesh, of geese wild and tame, nightingales' ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... Karl, [For instance, The Life of his Highness Prince Charles of &c., with &c. &c. (London, 1746); one of the most distracted Blotches ever published under the name of Book;—wakening thoughts of a public dimness very considerable indeed, to which this could offer itself as lamp!] as well as tar-burning and TE-DEUM-ing on an extensive scale. For it had sent the Cause of Liberty bounding up again to the top of things, this of crossing the Rhine, in such fashion. And, in effect, the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... 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
... While through their ranks in silver pride The nether crescent seems to glide! The slumbering breeze forgets to breathe, The lake is smooth and clear beneath, Where once again the spangled show Descends to meet our eyes below. The grounds which on the right aspire, In dimness from the view retire: The left presents a place of graves, Whose wall the silent water laves. 20 That steeple guides thy doubtful sight, Among the livid gleams of night. There pass, with melancholy state, By all the solemn heaps of fate, And think, as softly-sad you tread Above the ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... bush to the left of the path, and, stooping, disappeared into a dim, green tunnel, so artfully contrived that even without its curtain of creepers it suggested no more than a chance gap in the undergrowth. The tunnel zigzagged twice at a sharp angle, and then, quite suddenly, the dimness changed to warm sunlight, and we emerged at his heels upon a prospect that well ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... some astonishment, for in his anxiety to be gone and in the dimness of the corner where they had sat, he had not realized that Josephine was any more remarkable in her appearance than most of the extremely young women who annually make their entrance into society, with the average stock ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... after destroying our friends. The mist by this time was all blowing clear, though wisps of it clung along the hedgerows in unreal rolling folds. The day above was breaking in the sultry blue summer dimness. We could see, I suppose, for a quarter of a ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... given to tears, but there was now a sort of choking in her throat, and a sort of dimness in her eyes which made her rather hurriedly settle down on the floor in her own particular nook beside her mother's couch, where her face could not be seen. There was a silence. Presently the mother spoke, stroking back the wavy, auburn hair with ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... of candle 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 daring, I finally crept up those steps, I remember very well my sensation at finding myself in front ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... listlessly, with a curious buzzing in his ears and a certain dimness of sight which was quite disconcerting; and when a cab was summoned he was glad enough to let a respectfully sympathetic porter lend him ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... exaggerated the distances between the willow beds and islands out towards Chaumont. But poor Mari' Anto did not look at the view when, worn out with retracing the steps of her grief, she leant both elbows on the balustrade and gazed into the dimness. Her life appeared before her, waste and desolate, at an age when it is difficult to make a fresh start. A faint sound of voices rose from Mousseaux, a group of two or three small houses on the embankment; the chain of a boat creaked as the night breeze rose. How easy it would ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... as, with folded arms, he stood there gazing. Ah! who shall say what he did think? for, from the hour that voices had said, in the dying chamber, "she is gone," it had been all a dreary mist, a heavy "dimness of anguish." He had heard voices around him; he had had questions asked, and answered them; they had asked him when he would have the funeral, and where they should lay her; and he had answered, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... it with a trembling hand, for a strange feeling of dread had seized possession of his heart, and he could scarcely bring himself to look upon it. He summoned up courage, however, but at the first glance his hand fell down by his side, and a dimness came over his eyes, for the word "Pole Star" was engraven on the handle. He would have fallen to the ground had not Bolton ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... tried, but speech failed her. With large, fixed eyes she continued to stare at the blank space where once the little bridge had stood. What had happened was too awful for her comprehension. Then in the drear dimness of the room a hideous ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... 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 The chapel-walls, in whose bound ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... apple, and when the doctor came after dark, he found the room in all the dimness of shaded lamplight, and the golden girl asleep with that golden ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... nearest to me at that particular moment, to myself and all concerned therein, was to accept what I was offered, and not wear out my temper in grumbling. My boy, Lao Chang (an I-pien), the brick, expressed to me his regrets, and something like real sympathy shone out from his eyes in the dimness. ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... taste of the stuff, and, two or three times, to poison myself, so that I broke out all over blotches, and once lost the use of my left arm, and got a dizziness in the head, and a rheumatic twist in my knee, a hardness of hearing, and a dimness of sight, and the trembles; all of which I certainly believe to have been caused by my putting something else into this blessed drink besides the good New England rum. Stick ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... awhile in the dimness of the cavern, he saw at length the beautiful Giant-Maiden, resting her head wearily on her hands and gazing at the great jars of mead which stood before her on a ledge as though she ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... 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
... clouds, will sometimes pierce through the interstices of the dark masses, and dart for a moment the intensity of his light upon the earth, the mind of Mazereau would flash in all its youthful grandeur and power from the dimness that was darkening ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... was fast fading. The gold was dying away from the edges of the clouds. The long lines of surf mingled together in a blur of tangled whiteness. She looked for a moment into the gathering dimness, and she felt a menace in it; she heard a menace in the cry of the tides. And within herself she seemed to ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... staring a moment at me on my sack of grain, and a grunt when his purchase was set in his hands, each black-haired desert figure turned away, the bare feet moving silent, and the copper body, stark naked except the breech-clout, receding to dimness in the thorn-bush. But I lay incurious at this new vision of what our wide continent holds in fee under the single title United States, until breakfast came. This helped me, and I livened somewhat at finding the driver and the breakfast man ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... in the Hotel Lotus, Madame Beaumont preserved the state of a queen whose loneliness was of position only. She breakfasted at ten, a cool, sweet, leisurely, delicate being who glowed softly in the dimness like a jasmine flower in ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... day that there seemed little inducement to repent and be saved, if going to heaven would entail associating with foreigners for all eternity. Until two years ago she was a healthy, sturdy woman, scarcely feeling the weight of her seventy years. A slight dimness of eyesight caused her to raise her charges for dressmaking on the plea, peculiar to Chinese logic, that old age made her movements slower and more uncertain, and whereas three days were once sufficient ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... is not so good as it was," he whispered. "There's a dimness before my face, lad! Can you see anything up there?" he asked, staring ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... Saint-Sernin, so that I took my departure and went in search of the cathedral. It was scarcely worth find- ing, and struck me as an odd, dislocated fragment. The front consists only of a portal, beside which a tall brick tower, of a later period, has been erected. The nave was wrapped in dimness, with a few scattered lamps. I could only distinguish an immense vault, like a high cavern, without aisles. Here and there in the gloom was a kneeling figure; the whole place was mysterious and lop-sided. The choir was curtained ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... 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 she wore jet ear-rings. She looked handsome, composed, and ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... count's voice faltered, and there was a dimness in his eyes, round which the black circles had deepened—"but it is an honor ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... 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, ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. with an annular eclipse of the Sun, but seemingly without sufficient warrant. The actual record is to the effect that about the time of the great warrior's death there was an extraordinary dimness of the Sun. Whatever it was that was noticed, clearly it could not have been an annular eclipse, because no such eclipse then happened. Johnson suggests that Arago confused the record of some meteorological ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... busy as usual with his commentary upon the Book of Job. At another table by the window Johnny Whitelamb bent over a map, with his back to the light. He glanced up as she entered: she could not well read his eyes for the shadow, and perhaps for some dimness in her own: but he rose, gathered his papers together, and slipped ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... must think rightly, also. You must not look out upon the world, from the darkened corners of your soul, or the hue is transferred to all things which your glance falls upon. Take the torch of truth and heavenly charity to chase away the dimness within you, then powerful changes will be wrought in your vision. You will begin to regard your fellow man with new feelings of interest. I am a plain and blunt old man, Alfred, but you know that my only desire is for your good; so bear with my ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... a deep breath. His eyes were on her face, trying to read it in the dimness. Then, "I am not a cub boy, ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... 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
... These are not 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
... without reference to anything to be seen through it; we speak of a 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 ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... another penny was even unimaginable. Shargar's shilling was likewise spent. So Robert could but go on pocketing instead of eating all that he dared, watching anxiously for opportunity of evading the eyes of his grandmother. On her dimness of sight, however, he depended too confidently after all; for either she was not so blind as he thought she was, or she made up for the defect of her vision by the keenness of her observation. She saw enough to cause her considerable annoyance, though it suggested ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... 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 has come!' swept down the line, and with one mighty ...
— The Twenty-fifth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion • George P. Bissell
... of the narrator's cigar waxed, a pin-point of light in a world of dimness and mystery. Subdued breathing made our silence rhythmic. When I found my voice, it was hardly more than ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the Lord's Supper. The thought embodied in it ought to be present in the minds of all who partake of that rite. It converts what is primarily a memorial into a prophecy. It bids us hope as well as, and because we, remember. The light behind us is cast forward on to the dimness before. So the Apostle Paul, in his solitary reference to the Communion—which, indeed, is an entirely incidental one, and evoked simply by the corruptions in the Corinthian Church, emphasises this ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... waiting, the faintest zephyr now at last dallied with my light flag for a minute, and the anchor was instantly raised. A schooner, also outward bound, soon gently burst its way through the cloudy barrier, and I tried to follow her, but she too melted into dimness, and left me in a noiseless, sightless vacancy, except when the distant gong of the light-ship told that they also had ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... dark as a cave, for the moon was yet two hours below the horizon. Somehow the trail turned to the right along that tremendous cliff. We thought we could make out its direction, the dimness of its glimmering; but equally well, after we had looked a moment, we could imagine it one way or another, to right and left. I went ahead to investigate. The trail to left proved to be the faint reflection of a clump of "old man" at least five hundred ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... made the darkest places bright and the dullest eyes clear. We live in the evening of time! We grope in the gray dusk, carrying each our poor little taper of selfish and painful wisdom, holding it up to the great models and to the dim idea, and seeing nothing but overwhelming greatness and dimness. The days of illumination are gone! But do you know I fancy—I fancy"—and he grew suddenly almost familiar in this visionary fervour—"I fancy the light of that time rests upon us here for an hour! I have never seen the David so grand, the Perseus so fair! Even the inferior productions ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... succeeded. This proved however to be a second passage, which evidently ascended. It terminated like the former; though something approaching to a ray, we could not tell whence, shed a very doubtful twilight in the space. By degrees, our eyes grew somewhat accustomed to this dimness, and we perceived that there was no direct passage leading us further; but that it was possible to climb one side of the cavern to a low arch at top, which promised a more easy path, from whence we now discovered that this light proceeded. With considerable difficulty we scrambled up, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... have lost trace of the animal; for I could neither hear their footsteps nor the sound of their voices. I made no attempt at flight, but stood waiting its approach, with my sword uplifted to smite it. Loss of blood had brought a dimness over my eyes, which, added to the darkness of the wood, made me that I had rather to grope and listen for the animal, than perceive it, as it might attempt to spring upon me. I would rather have met ten enemies than, in darkness, and in my then fainting state, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... 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 straight on into the dark, as if it had no ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... as the mass were unarmed, I inferred that they had made similar dispositions. Fear, anguish, cowardice, despair, disgust, were the predominant expressions of the upturned faces. The gaunt trees, towering from the current, cast a solemn shadow upon the moving throng, and as the evening dimness was falling around them, it almost seemed that they were engulfed in some cataract. I reined my horse close to the side of a team, that I might not be borne backward by the crowd; but some of the lawless fugitives seized him ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... Joe went up, and was startled by a groan. He had to stand a few seconds, to let the darkness grow into light, ere he could see; and, when he could discern outlines in the dimness, there was given to him the picture of Uncle John, lying helpless amid and upon the nubbins that had been ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... flame until his mother, stepping lightly, brought a glass shade and set it over the silver stick. Small moths flew in and out, and like a distant ground swell came the noise of the fevered town. The house itself was quiet after the turmoil of the day; large halls and stair in dimness, the ill or wounded quiet or at least not loudly complaining. Now and then a door softly opened or closed; a woman's figure or that of some coloured servant passed from dimness to dimness. They passed and the whole was quiet again. Mother and son spoke low. "I will ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... lay for some time breathing quick, and passed away so gently, that when we thought she was gone, James, in his old-fashioned way, held the mirror to her face. After a long pause, one small spot of dimness was breathed out; it vanished away, and never returned, leaving the blank clear darkness of the mirror without a stain. "What is our life? it is even a vapour, which appeareth for a little ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... his approach in the dimness of the February twilight, turned with a start to greet the Squire. He looked, to her eyes, lankier and thinner and queerer than ever. But it was a distinguished queerness. Elizabeth had forgotten that the brow and eyes were so fine, ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... want of mental energy, and of the sympathetic appeals of the child on the mother, so powerfully produce on the secreted nutriment, while the mother wakes in a state of clammy exhaustion, with giddiness, dimness of sight, nausea, loss of appetite, and a dull aching pain through the back and between the shoulders. In fact, she wakes languid and unrefreshed from her sleep, with febrile symptoms and hectic ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... 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 things, ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... shadow on the day, Her smile no longer cheers; A dimness on the stars of night, Like ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... little Retem bush only a few feet high, and flung themselves down and tried to hide, at least, their heads, from those 'sunbeams like swords,' even beneath its ragged shade. And my text tells of a great rock, with blue dimness in its shadow, with haply a fern or two in the moist places of its crevices, where there is rest, and a man can lie down and be cool, while all outside is burning sun, and burning ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... O, Lihue, she is gone! Sniff the sweet scent of the grass, The sweet scent of the wild vines That are twisted by Waikoloa, By the winds of Waiopua, My flower! As if a mote were in my eye. The pupil of my eye is troubled. Dimness covers my eyes. ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... sun lay behind me, there scarce in the dimness I say what I sought for, yet trembled to find; But it came forth to find me, until the sleek slimness Of the summer-clad woman made ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... lamp caught fire and the bottle came uncorked with the facility of thought. Still, he had some curiosity about the appearance of his visitor, and tried in vain to turn the light into his face; either he handled the lamp clumsily, or there was a dimness over his eyes; but he could make out little more than a shadow at table with him. He stared and stared at this shadow, as he wiped out the glasses, and began to feel cold and strange about the heart. The silence weighed upon ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... night, when the wall was filmed with shadow save for the faint flickering of a rushlight that made great rounds of light upon the dimness, then he saw all his life at Cloom passing in a shadow show across the wall, crawling like the flies.... He was never delirious; physically his fine and sane constitution was recovering well from a nasty blow—it was merely as though all his mind ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... Stars still blazed brightly, and the moon, hidden from us by western cliffs, shone in pale reflection upon the rocky heights to the east, which rose, dimly white, up from the impenetrable shadows of the canon. Silence,—cold, ghastly dimness, in which loomed huge forms,—the biting frostiness of the air, wrought upon our feelings as we shouldered our packs and started with slow pace to climb up ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... before which the crowd had so mysteriously disintegrated opened very softly, and through the aperture stole forth a woman's figure. . . . For a swift moment the light from within rested on yellow hair and gleaming blue satin; then the door closed and the figure became part of the stealing dimness which was neither night nor morning. But April, who stood in her path, had ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... flesh and blood?" I had not sunk so far into reverie as to imagine that they were the actual spectres of the unhappy tenants of those beds on the night before, all of whom were now, doubtless, in the grave; but the silence, the distance, the dimness perplexed me, and I left the question to be settled by the event. At a gesture from the central figure they all stood up—and a man loaded with fetters was brought forward in front of their line. I now found that a trial was going on: the group were the judges, the man was the presumed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... them immortal life though touched by death. They knew me from the dawn of time: if Hermes beats his rainbow wings, If Angus shakes his locks of light, or golden-haired Apollo sings, It matters not the name, the land; my joy in all the gods abides: Even in the cricket in the grass some dimness of me smiles and hides. For joy of me the day star glows, and in delight and wild desire The peacock twilight rays aloft its plumes and blooms of shadowy fire, Where in the vastness too I burn through summer ...
— The Nuts of Knowledge - Lyrical Poems New and Old • George William Russell
... why, I cannot remember, and I am glad to put her out of my mind, for I want to think of the strange poet whom we heard reciting verses, under the aspen, in which one of the apes had taken refuge. Through the dimness of the years I can see his fair hair floating about his shoulders, his blue eyes and his thin nose. Didn't somebody once describe him as a sort of sensual Christ? He, too, was after the commercant's wife. ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... and last." She ceas'd from further talk, and then began "Ave Maria" singing, and with that song Vanish'd, as heavy substance through deep wave. Mine eye, that far as it was capable, Pursued her, when in dimness she was lost, Turn'd to the mark where greater want impell'd, And bent on Beatrice all its gaze. But she as light'ning beam'd upon my looks: So that the sight sustain'd it not at first. Whence I to ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... waiting until late in the morning for Michel who did not come, Hepburn and I loaded ourselves with the bedding and, accompanied by Mr. Hood, set out for the pines. Mr. Hood was much affected with dimness of sight, giddiness, and other symptoms of extreme debility, which caused us to move very slowly and to make ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... is a rich supply of Fog, objects that are at a distance, say of three feet, are appreciably dimmer than those at the distance of two feet eleven inches; and the result is that by careful and constant experimental observation of comparative dimness and clearness, we are enabled to infer with great exactness the configuration of ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott
... shape around him, clinging to him with tender breasts, as he floated onward, lost in delight, yet keenly sensitive to every impression. Swiftly the current bore him out of the pool, into a hollow in the cliff. Here a dimness of slumber shadowed his eyes, while he felt the pressure ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... to 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
... at the table, staring, as one transfixed. She was gazing at the open door. Nick leaned swiftly forward and took her hand. So much Olga saw in the dimness before the thunder with a ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... best when its new queen saw it. The sky was cloudless. The sea was almost calm. The island rose, clear outlined, from the blue water. There are some islands, as there are some complexions, which are best looked at in a light which is not too clear, which require a dimness, a little mist, to make them beautiful. Salissa—Phillips would have said the same of Salissa's mistress—was at its loveliest on a clear May morning. The island appeared first as a flattened cone, intensely green. Then, as the steamer drew nearer, the ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... scrambled through, and we rode nearly abreast through a broken country, that mixture of bog and firm ground which occurs frequently in newly cleared land, and over which nothing but the most powerful sinews can make way. We had now left every one behind us, were struggling on through the dimness of a hazy day, sinking into twilight. Suddenly my mysterious rival turned his horse full upon me, and to my utter amazement discharged a pistol at my head. The discharge was so close that I escaped only by the swerving of my horse ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... the travellers, who climbed upwards over the rounded masses, stopping from time to time where the ice curved over, leaving spaces between it and its rocky bed, down which Saxe gazed into a deep blue dimness, and listened to the murmuring roar of many waters coursing ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... were I to be a bride at morn, Ere the chimes rang out I'd say, "Not roses red, but goldenrod Strew in my path today! And let it brighten the dusky aisle, And flame on the altar-stair, Till the glory and light of the fields shall flood The solemn dimness there." ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... The dimness of evening had grown rapidly through the room while they talked and now the light from the door was far less than the glow of the fire. The yellow flicker picked out a dozen pelts stretching as rugs on the ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... the rest of the family at our hotel, sallied forth in quest of adventures. "We went to the cathedral," he writes, "and while standing near the entrance, or about midway in the nave, we saw a female figure approaching through the dimness and distance, far away in the region of the high altar; as it drew nearer its air reminded me of Una, whom we had left at home. Finally, it came close to us, and proved to be Una herself; she had come, immediately after we left the hotel, with Miss Shepard, ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... climbed to the 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 ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... when we have looked on the dead face of one who has made a part of our own lives. For when men want to impress us with the effect of a new and wonderfully vivid light, do they not let it fall on the most familiar objects, that we may measure its intensity by remembering the former dimness? ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... found! The spire was isolated from the church, and was entirely of wood, save for a stone stump. Great beams crossed and recrossed one another, in an ever-narrowing pyramid, for about two hundred feet. Up in the dimness and final darkness near the apex was security ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... closer and closer. She had thought she heard them so often without hearing them. Before she came down the stairs to dinner, she had turned into the private chapel to say her night-prayers, praying for her beloved ones, and for all the world; and as she knelt there in the dimness she had been almost certain she heard Mustapha come. Now, sitting by the drawing-room fire, the river of prayer went flowing through her heart, half articulate, broken into by the effort of listening that might become something tense ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... him. Kazan, the one-eyed leader, glared from him into the dimness of the night, whining softly. A low, mourning wind swept through the spruce tops, and from Jan's throat there burst sobbingly words which he had heard beside this same grave more than seventeen years before, when Williams' choking voice had risen ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... close-walking the other side of me, And I in the middle as with companions, and as holding the hands of companions, I fled forth to the hiding receiving night that talks not, Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness, To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... that as it has happened on the hills when I was fleeing 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 ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... WEAK EYES. Dimness of sight, arising from weakness or inflammation, is best relieved by frequent washing of the eyes with cold water. If this do not succeed, the following solution may be applied. Dissolve four grains each of the sugar of lead and crude sal-ammoniac, in ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterwards did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... 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
... Notre Dame. He crossed one of the bridges and stood a moment in the empty place before the great cathedral; then he went in beneath the grossly-imaged portals. He wandered some distance up the nave and sat down in the splendid dimness. He sat a long time; he heard far-away bells chiming off, at long intervals, to the rest of the world. He was very tired; this was the best place he could be in. He said no prayers; he had no prayers to say. He ...
— The American • Henry James
... for an answer, exchanging, sitting on his feet, the profane talk of the bazaar with the gatekeeper of the Christians. Stephen was in chapel. There was no service; he had half an hour to rest in and he rested there. He was speculating, in the grateful dimness, about the dogma—he had never quite accepted it, though Colquhoun had—of the intercessory power of the souls of saints. A converted Brahmin, an old man, had died the day before. Arnold luxuriated in the humility of thinking that he ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... you, James Redfield?" David Gillespie asked, peering at him in the night's dimness. "This is the man that helped me to get you a lock of that scoundrel's hair," ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... no 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 ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... fitly be compared; but the pomp of the Venetian fisher-boat is like neither. The sail seems dyed in its fullness by the sunshine, as the rainbow dyes a cloud; the rich stains upon it fade and reappear, as its folds swell or fall; worn with the Adrian storms, its rough woof has a kind of noble dimness upon it, and its colors seem as grave, inherent, and free from vanity as the spots of the leopard, ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... very dark, as dimness after bright sunlight in the eyes. She spoke to him with her brows, afraid to ask out loud why he had done this, though there could ...
— Step IV • Rosel George Brown
... of the lamp blinded him, and his eyes had to become adjusted to the dimness as he turned his back on the lamp. But when the person was ten feet away he recognised in a moment the face of Bauer, as he came walking slowly ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... how long she sat there after the stones had been lifted away, holding in her lap those shreds of torn white doeskin. Still caught together, though in tatters, by long strings of shells and beads, they shone, a ghostly film of white from out the dimness. A breath, and the whole would have crumbled into dust. Yet the beads, she noticed, were still perfect as when strung by slim brown fingers centuries before. Only half believing it was not all of it a dream, she lifted them strand after strand. ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr
... so long as this between the place of her farewell to the mottled stilt-legged birds and subsequent sleeping, and the place where she left her hat and shoes and stockings! In the dimness and chill of the falling mist, it seemed to lengthen and lengthen to an altogether incomprehensible extent. Time and again she stopped and scanned the ground immediately before her, certain she should see there those so lightly discarded and now so earnestly desired ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... feature of the entertainment was a series of pictures called 'Then and Now,' each illustrating the change in woman's condition during the last fifty years. And after this, upon the dimness there shone out, one after another, the names of noble women like Mary Lyon, Maria Mitchell, Emma Willard, and many others who have passed away. Upon the shadows and the silence broke Mme. Sterling's voice ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... event and shew the perfectly cheerful contented young commercial clerk running somewhat too fast to catch the bus one morning, and feeling dazed all day long over the office work, and going home in a sort of dimness, and then at his very doorstep, recovering as it were, his ancestral consciousness. I think it was the sight of his wife and the tones of her voice that suddenly announced to him with the sound of a trumpet that he had nothing to do with ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... 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 Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... light-coloured dress, which was unfashionable in make, was pretty and became her. She was, in fact, only twenty-two years old. There were no lines of deep thought on her pure white forehead when she removed her hat; and no dimness from much reading of books in her clear hazel eyes, which seemed to Fan the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen, so much sweet sympathy did they show, and so much confidence did they inspire. In colour she was very rich, her ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... consisting essentially of a thin glass vessel containing a thermometer and a volatile liquid, such as ether, may be used. The vessel is gradually cooled through the evaporation of the liquid, accelerated by forcing air through a tube until a haze or dimness, due to condensation from the surrounding air, first appears upon the brighter outer surface of the glass. The temperature at which the haze first appears is the dew-point. Several trials should be made for this temperature determination, using the average temperature ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner
... self-mortification the business of life? Christ spake truly when He said, "Men love darkness rather than light." We fill the service of the Author of Light with gloom. The hermit thought he could best serve God in the chill and dimness of a cave; and the anchorite's cave has been the type of our shadowy, vault-like churches, and of the ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... both the comet of that year and the comet of 1843. They all agreed in saying that the resemblance between the two comets was very close. Like the comet of 1843, that of 1880 had a singularly long tail, and both comets were remarkable for the smallness and dimness of their heads. One observer told me that at times the head of the comet of 1880 could barely ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... nor will to persevere even through the first, and, rising from the instrument, she walked across the room, stretching her arms in a feverish despair. She had not eaten for many hours, and out of the vacuity of the stomach a dimness rose into her eyes. Pressing her eyes with her hand, ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... answering. The evening dimness among the trees, which obscured his face, made his silence ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... even in that dimness I had not failed to recognize the short, erect figure which rode ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... have descended between him and the sun,—there was greyness everywhere, and dimness, and uncertainty—in his mind, in his eyesight—and sometimes the vagueness was in his speech. He had noticed that—for, sometimes the word he meant to use was not the word he uttered. It had occurred a number of times, making ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... rosy muslin, bouffant and billowy, a pink flower in her hair, and Celia's pink-and-white cameo at her whiter throat Ailsa Paige descended the carpeted stairs and came into the mellow dimness of the front parlour, where there was much rosewood, and a French carpet, and glinting prisms on the chandeliers,—and a young man, standing, dark against a bar of sunshine in ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... Coroner, Orlando, the Young Doctor and the others had accustomed themselves to the dimness, they saw at the end of the chamber—for such, in effect, it had been made with its trappings and decorations—a figure seated upon the ground. Near by the figure, on either hand, there were standards bearing ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... atmosphere bright; and it is worth an effort to bring clear before us, and to keep high above the mists that cling to the low levels, the great vision which will make us glad. Brethren, I believe that one great source of the weakness of average Christianity amongst us to-day is the dimness into which so many of us have let the hope of the glory of God pass in our hearts. So I beg you to lay to heart this first commandment, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren |
