"Penumbra" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... considerable dimensions. Some have been seen whose size was five times that of the earth. They are generally surrounded by an aureola known as the penumbra, and sensibly less luminous than the other portions of the orb. From this penumbra, first observed by Galileo, many apparently singular deductions have been made: namely, 'The sun is a dark body, surrounded at a certain distance by an atmosphere which may be compared to that of the earth, when the latter is charged with ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... he is. He uses the French language (and little else is French about him) in the manner of the more recent artists in words, retaining the precision of phrase and the measured judgments which are traditional in French literature, yet managing to envelop everything in a penumbra of emotional suggestion. Each expression of an idea is complete in itself; yet these expressions are often varied and constantly metaphorical, so that we are led to feel that much in that idea has remained ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... friend who, for some microscopic penumbra of heresy, was charged, in the words of his accuser, with 'as near an approach to the sin against the Holy Ghost as is practicable to human infirmity.' Similarly, on one view, the feeble potencies of philological turpitude seem to have exhibited their most consummate realization ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... Manasseh, who had cooked the dinner, also served it; noiselessly, wearing white gloves because his master abominated the sight of a black hand at meals. These gloves had a fascination for Dicky. They attracted his eyes as might the intervolved play of two large white moths in the penumbra beyond the candle-light, between his father's back and the dark sideboard; but he fought against the attraction because he knew that to be aware of a servant was an offence against good manners ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... size and as to number. Sun-spots were first noticed in the beginning of the seventeenth century, shortly after the invention of the telescope. Their general appearance is shown in Fig. 13, in which the dark central nucleus appears in sharp contrast with the lighter margin or penumbra. Fig. 16 shows a small spot developing out of one of the pores or interstices between ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... peace would be thenceforth arraigned, and all acts of violence, pillage, etc., would come under the common laws affecting those crimes. In short, insurgency ceased to be a valid plea; if it existed in fact, officially it had become a dead letter. Those who still lingered in the penumbra between belligerence and brigandage were thenceforth treated as common outlaws whose acts bore no political significance whatever. The notorious "General" San Miguel, for a long time the terror of Rizal Province, was given no quarter, ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... people downstairs, and I tried to keep it upon that topic. The sombre reds and blacks of the room troubled, me; even with seven candles the place was merely dim. The one in the alcove flared in a draught, and the fire-flickering kept the shadows and penumbra perpetually shifting and stirring. Casting about for a remedy, I recalled the candles I had seen in the passage, and, with a slight effort, walked out into the moonlight, carrying a candle and leaving the door open, and presently ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... but a ray of the light of life promised to all who, to any extent, follow Christ? It is only the absolutely selfish who are in the black shadow. The honest atheist is in the penumbra, and in his twilight sees a little bit of the true sun, though he calls it ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... effectively, by a trial at some assizes which happened to fix the public attention.]), we really were such constructively by the place we assumed. If we did not submit to the deep shadow of eclipse, we entered at least the skirts of its penumbra. And the analogy of theatres was valid against us,—where no man can complain of the annoyances incident to the pit or gallery, having his instant remedy in paying the higher price of the boxes. But the ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... obtained possession of the bridges of the Danube, entered Vienna. He established himself in the imperial palace of Schonbrunn. The Austrian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire—which was its shadowy penumbra—seemed to vanish ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... has not received a final answer. Greece is fighting for an empire over Turks. Ireland is fighting the British Empire to obtain the right to do what she wants in the world. The business penumbra of the United States has begun to cover Mexico. Five or six constituents of old Russian have cut free. But France has become imperial and would impose a ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... to the heavenly bodies, was that of the irregularly shaped spots on the sun, with the dark central umbra and the less dark, but more extensive, penumbra surrounding it, sometimes with several umbrae in one penumbra. He has left us many drawings of these spots, and he fixed their period of rotation as ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... imposes a limit and bias upon our expression. The reality of experience can never be quite rendered through these media. The greatest mastery of technique will therefore come short of perfect adequacy and exhaustiveness; there must always remain a penumbra and fringe of suggestion if the most explicit representation is to communicate a truth. When there is real profundity, — when the living core of things is most firmly grasped, — there will accordingly be a ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... your peril, Nat," cried she. "I will defend him, I say, madam, against every shadow, every penumbra of ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... upon a young man's darling subject—himself. Either she now had enough fixed points for securing the periphery of his circle or else she preferred to leave some portion of his area (now ascertained approximately) within a poetic penumbra. Or perhaps she wished some other middle-aged connoisseur to share her admiration and confirm her judgment. ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... methods are, it is to be feared, but poorly adapted for the painting of holiday crowds, which require the scene-painter's brush, and lend themselves reluctantly to nuances. The colours have not that dubiety so dear to the artist of the penumbra; the sands are as yellow as the benches are red; and the niggers are quite as black as they are burnt-corked. The love-making, too, is devoid of subtlety. When you see—as I saw last Bank Holiday on Ramsgate beach—Edwin and Angelina ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... of real interest is, therefore, the historical question. Those of us who did not foresee this war until we were in the very penumbra of the tragedy cannot complain that our Christian neighbours did not foresee and prevent it. Those of us who feel that the participation of our country is just and necessary may, with no strain of imagination, conceive the men of other countries ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... which excite their sensuality. This is why the bog of debauchery engulfs so many men of a naturally good nature. In this sense, cold natures are better off; they can cover themselves with the glory of a "virtue" the resplendent rays of which become lost in a penumbra of defects and weaknesses from which these natures suffer ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... which all things are held together. One is the celestial, the outermost, embracing all the rest,—the Supreme God himself, [Footnote: Here crops out the Pantheism—the non-detachment or semi-detachment of God from nature—which casts a penumbra around monotheism and the approaches to it, almost always, except under Hebrew and Christian auspices.] who governs and keeps in their places the other spheres. In this are fixed those stars which ever roll in an ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... interior, that it is more than a little difficult to mark their precise significance. Often they are mere fragments of themes, mere patches of harmonic color, evasive and intangible, designed almost wholly to translate phases of that psychic penumbra in which the characters and the action of the drama are enwrapped. They have a common kinship in their dim and muted loveliness, their grave reticence, the deep and immitigable sadness with which, even ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... country, and unable, as Christians, to believe in the divinity of the Tuatha De Danan and their predecessors, they rationalised all the pre-Milesian record. But the disappearance of the gods does not yet bring us within the penumbra of history. After the death of the sons of Milesius we find a long roll of kings. These were all topical heroes, founders of nations, and believed, by the tribes and tribal confederacies which they founded, to have been ...
— Early Bardic Literature, Ireland • Standish O'Grady
... despair, a darkness that may verily be felt. Fools talk of Atheism as the outcome of foul life and vicious thought. They, in their shallow heartlessness, their brainless stupidity, cannot even dimly imagine the anguish of the mere penumbra of the eclipse of faith, much less the horror of that great darkness in which the orphaned soul cries out into the infinite emptiness: "Is it a Devil who has made this world? Are we the sentient toys of an Almighty Power, who sports with our agony, and whose peals of awful mocking laughter echo ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... intervening objects where they shielded the otherwise exposed surface of some object. Thus the center of explosion was located with considerable accuracy. In a number of cases these "shadows" also gave an indication of the height of burst of the bomb and occasionally a distinct penumbra was found which enabled observers to calculate the diameter of the ball of fire at the instant it was exerting the maximum charring or ...
— The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki • United States
... dress, Morphew the suit of ceremony—accentuated the younger man's advantage in natural and acquired graces; otherwise, they presented the contrast of character and insignificance. Rolfe had a shaven chin, a weathered complexion, thick brown hair; the penumbra of middle-age had touched his countenance, softening here and there a line which told of temperament in excess. At this moment his manner inclined to a bluff jocularity, due in some measure to the bottle ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... darkness; night; midnight; dead of night, witching hour of night, witching time of night; blind man's holiday; darkness visible, darkness that can be felt; palpable obscure; Erebus [Lat.]; the jaws of darkness [Midsummer Night's Dream]; sablevested night [Milton]. shade, shadow, umbra, penumbra; sciagraphy^. obscuration; occultation, adumbration, obumbration^; obtenebration^, offuscation^, caligation^; extinction; eclipse, total eclipse; gathering of the clouds. shading; distribution of shade; chiaroscuro ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Gulf Stream, which runs along the north-west coast, and the swiftness of which is often diminished by the north and north-east winds. The chain of shoals which encircles the island and which appears on our maps like a penumbra, is fortunately broken on several points, and those interruptions afford free access to the shore. In the south-east part the proximity of the lofty primitive mountains renders the coast more precipitous. ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... were the spots. No explanation could be given of the faculae, bright streaks, which appear on the sun's surface from time to time; but his theory accounted for the existence of the black nuclei of the spots, and for the existence of the penumbrae about these. The penumbra of a spot was formed by the thinner parts of the atmosphere about the vacancy which surrounded ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... have used to write upon almost surpasses imagination, ranging from mountain walls to the ivory shoulders of Rider Haggard's heroine in his "Mr. Meeson's Will." Such unusual, if actual, writing materials belong, perhaps, rather to the penumbra than to the background of the book; but, as a final survey of our subject, running back to the time when there were no books and men must rely upon their memories, we may quote what Lane says of the sources from which the Kuran was derived after the death ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... stage, too, gradually reveals new performers; the gaze of manhood is turned on new figures; the limelight of human interest throws up the coming forces of activity and intellect; while those who yesterday shone supreme, slowly pass into the penumbra that heralds eclipse. And who bulk big enough to arrest the eternal march, delay their own progress from light to darkness, or stay the eager young feet tramping outward of the dayspring to take their ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... of Change, for it is adapted to solids and to concepts, it resembles the cinematograph film. Then he has tried to show us that in Perception there is really much more than we think, for our intellect carves out what is of practical interest, while the penumbra or vague fringes of perceptions which have no bearing on action are neglected. By his advocacy of a real psychological Time, in opposition to the physical abstraction which bears the name, he again brought out the inadequacy of intellect to grasp ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn |
