"Ray of light" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Suddenly a ray of light cut through the gloom. In another second, they were in a veritable flood of light. And yet, as they glanced rapidly to right and left, they saw walls of rock. Above them too was a vaulted ceiling. Only before them was light. What ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... subject to the influences of the heavenly bodies, but that besides this there is a constantly progressive change going on, the cause of which is entirely unknown. In each of the magnetic observatories throughout the world an arrangement is at work, by means of which a suspended magnet directs a ray of light on a preparred sheet of paper moved by clockwork. On that paper the never-resting heart of the earth is now tracing, in telegraphic symbols which will one day be interpreted, a record of its pulsations and its flutterings, ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell
... never knew where the time went. This night when he reached the edge of the shrubbery he heard Lawson's well-known footsteps and saw Longstreth's door open, flashing a broad bar of light in the darkness. Lawson crossed the threshold, the door closed, and all was dark again outside. Not a ray of light escaped from ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... the straight walk that led to the back door. Don Alberto was used to night adventures, and saw the ladder distinctly before he came to it. When they had reached it, walking on tip-toe, Tommaso planted his foot firmly against the foot of it, so as to hold it steady, and he pointed to a little ray of light that shone out through the hole in the shutter. Don Alberto nodded and went up very cautiously. It was one of those long ladders used by Italian vine-dressers and had heavy rungs very far apart. Tommaso had wound rags round ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... to pause, or we shall add one more mistake to the sad list of judicial errors. Read this examination over carefully; there is not a reply but which declares this unfortunate man innocent, not a word but which throws out a ray of light. And he is still in prison, ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... and leant out, as though to discover the exact direction followed by the ray of light. Then he came and lay on the sofa ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... a ray of light through the clouds, a sense of consolation, sweet as it was sudden, seemed to pierce the darkness of her bitter thoughts. She knew not whence it came, nor what it might portend, yet it existed, and the source of it seemed near to her. ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... was against me, and although we talked over a dozen things together, no ray of light ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... seemed to me, beyond her years, in her smiling melancholy persistent refusal to afford me the least ray of light. ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... second a spasm shot over her face; then a ray of light seemed to flit across it, ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... round; she moved not, nor heard the clamor; the hand seemed yet to press hers; it still was warm. A ray of light from an opened window discovered the ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... which are preserved in England, one of which, in some respects the most valuable, has fallen into his own possession. This examination, for the first time made, together with the first careful and thorough search for whatever might afford a ray of light in the various periodicals of Handel's time, has enabled the author to correct innumerable errors in previous writers, and trace step by step the rapid succession of opera, anthem, serenata, and oratorio, which filled the years of the composer's manhood. For the general reader, perhaps, M. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... new, and, as yet, not often done on others than the insane, criminal, etc., I thought it might be of interest to you. If I shed even the faintest ray of light on this greatest of all human problems ... I shall be ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... bearing upon the surprised islanders and four very material men were advancing from the ghostly darkness. An electric lantern shot a ray of light athwart the scene. ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... than for any amount of empty praise or empty abuse. Sincere devotion to his studies and an unswerving love of truth ought to furnish the true scholar with an armor impermeable to flattery or abuse, and with a visor that shuts out no ray of light, from whatever quarter it may come. More light, more truth, more facts, more combination of facts, these are his quest. And if in that quest he fails, as many have failed before him, he knows that in the search for truth failures are sometimes ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... mention, as admitting laterally a single ray of light upon Polwarth's character. Juliet had come to feel some desire to be useful in the house beyond her own room, and descrying not only dust, but what she judged disorder in her landlord's little library—for such she chose to consider him—which, ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... having been inhabited for some time. There was a cunningly contrived fireplace made of stones, against which pieces of birch bark were placed in such a position that not a ray of light could get out of the cavern. The bed of black coals between the stones still smoked; a quantity of parched corn lay on a little rocky shelf which jutted out from the wall; a piece of jerked meat and a buckskin ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... mental darkness closed in again and he was as confused as ever. The noise went on, and he could not tell what it was till after a short interval another ray of light dawned upon him and he caught at and shook his companion, who was sharing the sacks, and sleeping so hard that Mark's attempts to rouse him ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... standing open, even by so much as that chink, there seemed to be hope. There was encouragement in seeing a ray of light from within, stealing through the dark stern doorway, and falling in a thread upon the marble floor. She turned back, hardly knowing what she did, but urged on by the love within her, and the trial they had undergone together, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... sweet—clear as a ray of light, sweeter than the smallest silver bell that rang the hour of rest—was that slender voice floating on the odorous and translucent air. Nearer and nearer it came, echoing down the valley, "I know it, I ...
— The Spirit of Christmas • Henry Van Dyke
... sensation produced by the creative power of composition. One evening, as I entered the opera, feeling myself strongly incited and overpowered by my ideas, I put my money again into my pocket, returned to my apartment, locked the door, and, having close drawn all the curtains, that every ray of light might be excluded, I went to bed, abandoning myself entirely to this musical and poetical 'oestrum', and in seven or eight hours rapidly composed the greatest part of an act. I can truly say my love for the Princess of Ferrara ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... of suspense and the sigh was repeated. I went to the door dividing the two rooms and pushed it open. A long thick ray of light at once penetrated the darkness, and I walked into the other room. It was only partially light. But after a minute I could see all the corners. There was ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... the Kaiser, with full knowledge that Austria had consented to renew its conferences with Russia, and that a ray of light had broken through the lowering war clouds, either on his own initiative or yielding to the importunities of his military camarilla, directed the issuance of the ultimatum to Russia and thus blasted the last hope ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... ones who have gone before. Next to faith in God comes patience; I see that more and more, and few possess enough of either to enable them to meet the day of bereavement without dismay. We are constantly getting letters from afflicted souls that can not see one ray of light, and keep reiterating, "I am not reconciled." How fearful it must be to kick thus against the pricks, already sharp enough! I believe fully with you that there is no happiness on earth, as there is none in heaven, to be compared with that of losing all things to possess Christ. ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... Charles did inquire; but not a ray of light did he succeed in letting in upon the mystery. The inquiry might, however, have lasted longer and been more successful, had not lord Herbert just then come home, with the welcome news of the death of Hampden, from a wound received in attacking ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... which the ladies had entered, was full of firs, cypresses, and bay-trees, with here and there a pine, in order and symmetry so meet and excellent as had they been planted by an artist, the best that might be found in that kind; wherethrough, even when the sun was in the zenith, scarce a ray of light might reach the ground, which was all one lawn of the finest turf, pranked with the hyacinth and divers other flowers. Add to which—nor was there aught there more delightsome—a rivulet that, issuing from one of the gorges between two of the hills, descended over ledges of living rock, making, ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... joy of joys! it is morning. The servants will be about in a minute: he can ring, and some one will come to look after him. The thought of being made comfortable gives him strength to endure his pain. He is certain he heard footsteps: they come nearer, and then die away. The ray of light beneath his door is extinguished. It is midnight; some one has turned out the gas; the last servant has gone to bed, and he must lie all night in agony with no one to ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... was a ray of light for the Countess. She was determined to see in me the instrument of the Count's vengeance, and resolved that I should not be allowed to go near the dying man. I augured ill of all this, and earnestly wished for an interview, ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... and Bethlehem no longer beholds her in a situation to command respect, to excite envy, or to purchase attention. Her husband, her children, are no more!—one, one only comfort remains—one friend, one solace in adversity—one ray of light in the dark hour! Amidst universal desertion, RUTH has not forsaken her; but is become her joy in sorrow, her companion in solitude, her prop in decrepit age! Can we wonder that she wishes to discard a name which awakened such recollections, ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... into the far shadows. He could see that beyond her somewhere a ray of light filtered blue, but he halted at the entrance, puzzled at the black roof where all the rock of the mountain was gray and white except where mineral streaks were of reds and russets and moldy greens. ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... weeks and months over this new dilemma and complication of difficulties, till his brain reeled, an accidental ray of light broke upon him in a way not now intelligible, or barely intelligible. Half the extreme breadth intercepted between the circle and oval was 429/100,000 of the radius, and he remembered that the "optical inequality" of ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... that sound! Again and yet again! Darkness is cleft, the stricken silence breaks, And sleep's soft veil is rudely rent in twain, And weary nature all too soon, awakes; Though through the gloom has pierced no ray of light, To hail the dawn and ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand
... the upper part of the house; the lantern disappeared; steps sounded, descending the stairs, and then the door was unbarred and held a cautious inch ajar. The ray of light jumped out at Bard ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... delicate tinge of colour in the velvety cheek; her face was a perfect oval, and her small exquisitely poised head was covered with a wealth of soft, silky, chestnut hair, so dark as to appear black in the shade, but when a ray of light fell upon it, the rippling ringlets revealed the full beauty of their deep rich colour. The eyebrows and long drooping lashes were of the same colour as her hair, and her eyes—well, they were deep hazel; but it was impossible to ascertain this until after repeated ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... was a long hiss, and a ray of light leaped forth from the valley and began to search the sky with a sort of superhuman thoroughness. The women on the lawn ran away to the shelter of the trees. The short, sharp barking of the guns, the deeper rumble of the bombs that were beginning to fall on the town, and the ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... you!" Mr. Redell murmured fervently. "Consul, let us depart and leave Mr. Ricks to himself. Call me up, Cappy, when you see a ray of light. Two heads are better than one, ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... at an intermediate stage of this cosmic process. Like the ray of light which touches both sun and earth, they have contact with God and with matter. They stand midway in creation. They are attracted upwards and downwards. Reason draws them to God; sense chains them to earth. Their ...
— Monophysitism Past and Present - A Study in Christology • A. A. Luce
... elephant's tusk protruding from the muddy wave. A heavy storm was impending; big drops fell in showers from the forest trees as they groaned under the blast, and beneath the gloomy avenue the clayey ground gleamed ghastly white. As the Raja and his son advanced, a faint ray of light, like the line of pure gold streaking the dark surface of the touchstone, caught their eyes, and directed their footsteps towards ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... man after her own heart. Love for her daughter, far more than ambition, was the main-spring of her motive, and surely her gentle schemes were not deserving of a very harsh judgment. She could not be blamed greatly for looking with wistful eyes on the one ray of light falling on ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... found it impossible to hold his little hand out long, for it began to ache and grow stiff; so he pulled it in, and comforted himself with the ray of light that came through the hole, and the thought of the fresh air he now had ...
— Harper's Young People, March 2, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... originating many miles away, but let us remember how clearly the eye can see a bright lamp at the same distance as it sheds a sister beam. Thus far no substance has been discovered with a mechanical responsiveness to so feeble a ray of light; in the world of nature and art the coherer stands alone. The electric waves employed by Marconi are about four feet long, or have a frequency of about 250,000,000 per second. Such undulations pass readily through brick ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... who his deliverer was, but he thanked him and took his hand. He was led along evil-smelling passages into which no ray of light penetrated, but which were evidently familiar to his guide. There were turnings, now to right, now to left, an opening and shutting of doors, and finally entrance into a wider space where the air was ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... a false report," he exclaimed,—a ray of light flashing from his clouded eyes,—"you could not look me in the face and speak in that tone unless you were innocent! Why did you not ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... sir, to the sogdollager. I first began to reason about such a man as this Mr. Dodge, who has thrust himself and his ignorance together into the village, lately, as an expounder of truth, and a ray of light to the blind. Well, sir, I said to myself, if this man be the man I know him to be as a man, can he be any ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... grace of humor. To see the odd, whimsical, startling side of the incident or experience trains one to see the interplay of life, to catch a ray of light from all things, and to moderate our tendency to permit our tragedies to ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... storage batteries on the vessel occupied by the boys generated a ray of light that pierced the darkness of the undersea world with ease. Sharply outlined in the circle of flame the lads clearly saw the form of a submarine vessel similar in many respects to their own. There was the same sharp prow, the same tapering stern with conning tower, keel, port lights, and every ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... low, creaking sound, which was repeated at short intervals, accompanied by a sliding, shuffling noise. It sounded in the direction of the opening by which the ladder led up from below. Looking there, he saw a ray of light, faint and flickering, yet visible enough in that deep darkness; and as the grating, shuffling sounds succeeded one another at regular intervals, even so did the faint, flickering ray of ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... thought may be the whisper of an angel, every beautiful prospect may be but the glint of the wing, every ray of light and heat but the waving of the robes of those higher spiritual intelligences which rush hither and thither on God's service, whose faces see God in Heaven. Such a belief is just as sound, and far more philosophical than any of the guesses I have read so far, ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... water a brilliant flash of pink flame leapt up from the eastern fort on the Hillsea Lines, followed by a sharp crash which shook the atmosphere. A thin ray of light fell from the clouds, then came a quick succession of flashes moving in the direction of the great fort on Portsdown, until two rose in quick succession from Portsdown itself, and almost at the same moment another from Hurst Castle, and yet ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... beholder with wonder and amazement? The mind thus contemplating such astonishing operations, cannot well avoid looking beyond these results to their divine Author. Therefore let every mind that perceives one ray of light from nature's mysterious transactions, and is capable of receiving the least enjoyment therefrom, pursue the path still inviting onward in the pursuit. Every new acquisition will bring an additional satisfaction, and assist in the next attempt, ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... third, with the disappearance and probable suicide of his mother. The dead man's sister cries out: "Everything that was his is sacred to us, but the one living being who meant more to him than all of us is driven out of our home." The one ray of light offered is that the sister sees through the man who has been courting her and sends him packing. It is noticeable in this play, as in others written by Schnitzler, that the attitude of the women is more sensible and tolerant ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... treatment, of Rembrandt, for the work of Cruikshank, be it observed, distinctly shows in its results that he studied both Hogarth and Rembrandt. The effect the artist has produced is wonderful; the ray of light thrown through the gloom upon the figure of Darrell as he stands against the wall, sword in hand, is capitally managed, "while the intricacies of the tile-work, and the mysterious twinkling of light among the beams are excellently felt and rendered."[87] ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... took up the manuscript, and then sorrowfully, reverently, and in fear and trembling, she burnt it sheet after sheet, until the whole was consumed. As each leaf was licked up by the fire, it seemed to her that "a fresh ray of light and peace" transfused the soul ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... and his men were fairly on their feet. In the profound darkness not a figure could be distinguished; and there was a brief trampling and yelling, during which no one was hurt. Lances and bows were useless in a room fifteen feet by ten, without a ray of light. The Indians threw down their long weapons, drew their knives, groped hither and thither, struck out at random, and cut each other. Nevertheless, they were masters of the ground. Meyer and his people, crouching in corners, could not see and dared not fire. Sweeny, awakened by a kneading of Apache ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... are fine. A mile away, a grove-plumed promontory juts far into the lake and glasses its palace in the blue depths; in midstream a boat is cutting the shining surface and leaving a long track behind, like a ray of light; the mountains beyond are veiled in a dreamy purple haze; far in the opposite direction a tumbled mass of domes and verdant slopes and valleys bars the lake, and here indeed does distance lend enchantment to the view—for on this broad canvas, sun and clouds ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... yourselves during this discussion the high wall of freezing, glaucous, streaming ice touched by a pallid ray of light, and that string of human beings glued to it in echelon, with ill-omened rumblings rising from the yawning depth, together with the curses of the guides and their threats to detach and abandon the ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... decided later that the Tabasco was not a good prize. A ray of light is cast on Blauvelt's latter end by an item in an enumeration of English buccaneers in 1663 found among the Rawlinson manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, "Captain Blewfield, belonging to Cape Gratia de Dios [Gracia a Dios, Nicaragua], living among the Indians, a barque, 50 men, 3 guns." ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... the speaker, since no ray of light penetrated into the passage. He stretched out a groping hand, and, although he was conscious of an odd revulsion, touched the shoulder of the man in front of him and maintained that unpleasant contact whilst they walked on and on through apparently endless passages, extensive as a catacomb. ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... for him to sit in while the wedding-torches were lighted; but, unluckily, no one saw that there was a crack in the door. Then the wedding was held with great pomp, but as the train came from the church, and passed with the torches before the hall, a very small ray of light fell upon the prince. In a moment he disappeared, and when his wife came in and looked for him, she found only a white dove; and it said to her, 'Seven years must I fly up and down over the face of the earth, but every now and then I will ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... extinguished his torch, when, bold as they were, and well accustomed to subterranean regions, a sensation of awe crept over them. Their first impulse was to feel for the wall, for in vain their eyes sought a ray of light, as in vain, also, their ears listened for the ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... that by agreement between us an' in honor to departed, the quotations on whiskey in this yere camp, from now on, will be two drinks for two bits, instead of one as previous. We don't want to onsettle trade, an' we don't believe this will. We makes it as a ray of light in the darkness an' gloom ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... be if the town were lost, he decided to make the attempt. Slowly he crawled across the room and down the narrow, twisted staircase. He was trembling from head to foot, and his breath seemed to come in great gasps. What if Oscar heard him? His door was ajar, and the lamp threw a ray of light on the landing outside; but Oscar was deep in his plans, and did not notice the black shadow that moved slowly across ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... the temple lies like a gash on the face of the cliff, and on one day of the year the ray of light from the rising sun falls through it clean as a shot arrow. The black-robed guardian has been expecting us, he stands waiting, holding his staff of office, and admits us to the interior. It is very dark, and even ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... circle. With her came love, joy, hope, and happiness. Her lovely presence gave fresh impulse to every one greeting her arrival. Lady Rosamond felt a ray of light shed upon her as she caressed her true and constant friend. Maude was happier, if possible, in the love of Geoffrey Seymour when listening to the sweet silvery voice of this peerless woman. Fanny was overjoyed on the arrival of Mary Douglas. She alone could ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... towards working out the problem of figures set for me on my slate. I was then in my ninth year; and I can remember, to this day, with perfect distinctness, how utterly discouraged I became, as day by day went by, and still I had not found a correct result to any one of my sums, nor gained a single ray of light on the subject. Strange as it may seem, I remained for several months in simple addition before I knew how to sum up figures, and then the meaning of addition flashed, in a sudden thought upon my ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... opening, through which they were drawn off, leaving the old channels dry. Imagine one of the narrow, crooked streets in the old part of Boston, spanned by a continuous stone archway from the summits of the buildings on either hand; then close with solid masonry every window and loop-hole by which a ray of light could struggle in, and you have for proportions and sinuosity not a bad semblance of these tunnels, which constitute four fifths of the extent of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... had sat and pondered many an hour over stories his favorite companion had related to him. What curious and subtle processes had the queer fellow not been watching in the closely guarded quiet of the room where the stranger had spent his days; the strange thing cowering in its darkness; the ray of light piercing the cloud one day and seeming lost again the next; the struggles the imprisoned thing made to come forth— to cry out that it was but immured, not wholly conquered, and that some hour would ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... There was a feeble ray of light in his mind, as the thought of selling out his entire interest in the business, at a most desperate sacrifice, grew more and more distinct. One or two members of the Board of Direction had, during the evening's discussion, expressed strong doubts as to the truth of the charge brought against ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... the Indians filed out of the lodge, and one, a tall old man, fantastically attired in skins, entered the medicine lodge alone, carefully closing the entrance after him to exclude any ray of light. ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... were born under better conditions than those of Sodom; they grew up under more favorable surroundings; hence, they were more responsible; hence, they are to receive greater punishment at the judgment. Apply to your own case, reader: for every added ray of light, for every added opportunity, there will be that much added punishment for your sins. And that is just; that is right. The opportunities that wealth brings, the light that education and culture bring, will but add to the punishment at the judgment. The most highly educated, the most ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... those unnamed Egyptian engineers, whose works prove their knowledge of many fundamentals of mine engineering six thousand eight hundred years ago. If I have contributed one sentence to the accumulated knowledge of a thousand generations of engineers or have thrown one new ray of light on the work, I ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... When I say to you God is infinitely good, and wise, and happy, you cannot understand that, and neither can I; but one thing about it I can understand, and this I will tell you. Just as every joyous ray of light and heat comes to us from the sun, so all wisdom, all goodness, all beauty, all joy, flow forth from God, and are His, alone. Our very souls would go out of existence like the flames of a lamp when the oil is spent, if, for the least fraction of a second, He ceased to give us life. This truth ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... With every bulletin from across the sea the uncertainty deepened. Every hour they waited for news of a great victory for the fleet. The second day of the war a rumour of such a victory had come across the wires and had raised hopes for a day which next day were dashed to despair. One ray of light, thin but marvellously bright, came from Belgium. For these six breathless days that gallant little people had barred the way against the onrushing multitudes of Germany's military hosts. The story of the defence of Liege was to the Allies like a big drink ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... rode off to Crummyn, where all was darkness, except, indeed, one small ray of light that glanced from the lower windows of the cloister—for it was standing at that time. He dismounted, tied his horse to a tree, and knocked at the window, through which he had a glimpse of an old woman, in nun's garments, ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... months past sat meeting after meeting a victim to the baneful consequences of wandering thoughts, scarcely being able to recollect myself so much as to ask excuse of Him who sees in secret. In these times of deepest desertion I am selfish enough to feel a longing desire for a ray of light or a smile from the countenance of Him, under whose banner I have many times sat with the greatest delight in days that ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... the basis for the construction of the parabolic reflector. A ray of light from the focus is reflected from such a reflector in a direction parallel to the axis of ...
— An Elementary Course in Synthetic Projective Geometry • Lehmer, Derrick Norman
... speedily found myself descending into the gloomy pit, with my seven loaves and pitcher of water beside me. Almost before I reached the bottom the stone was rolled into its place above my head, and I was left to my fate. A feeble ray of light shone into the cavern through some chink, and when I had the courage to look about me I could see that I was in a vast vault, bestrewn with bones and bodies of the dead. I even fancied that I heard the expiring sighs of those who, like myself, had come into this dismal place ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... begun; the men-at-arms drew back in shame, and many tried to hide their faces, lest they should be known again. The tide of human beings divided before the swiftly riding women, as the cloud-bank splits before the northwest wind in winter, and the white mare sped like a ray of light between long wavering lines of rough ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... resist the influence of so much faith and strong hopefulness, so that she was somewhat comforted, as it were, in spite of herself. Time flew by, and upwards of three years elapsed without anything happening at Ratinga Island to throw a single ray of light on the fate of ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... houses, and to assemble at once the rest of his men and escort him back to Plessis, so as to give the idea in the town that he himself would not sup with Cornelius. Next, he told the miser to close his windows with the utmost care, that no single ray of light should escape from the house, and then he departed with much pomp for Plessis along the embankment; but there he secretly left his escort, and returned by a door in the ramparts to the house of the torconnier. All these precautions were so well taken ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac
... had he any feeling for the young lady except interest, a deep, earnest interest, after all the stirring impressions he had received through her. She had a wonderful power over him. Her words seemed to shed a ray of light over much which he had hitherto overlooked. He had, like the rest of us, the germs of doubt in his heart, and he was still so young and fresh that his aspirations were but loosely covered, and had not yet had time to wither entirely in his heart. When, ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... that morning and would take up matters at once. Nine o'clock was set for the hearing, which would take place in the quartermaster's office. Consultations were being held among the two factions, and the only ray of light was the reported frigidity of the special officer. He was such a superior personage that ordinary mortals felt a chill radiating from his person on their slightest approach. His credentials were from the War Department ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... looked at Blake. He knew that the man was dead. Kazan was sniffing about the sailor's head with stiffened spines. And then a ray of light flashed for an instant through the window. It was the sun— the second time that Pelliter had seen it in four months. A cry of joy welled up from his heart. But it was stopped midway. On the floor close beside Blake something ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... one morning and found himself in total darkness. Not a ray of light came from the outside world, and, of course, not an object in the room could be seen. He rubbed his eyes and sat up to make sure that he was not dreaming. Then he called loudly for someone to come and open a window for him, but no one came. He got up and groped his way to the iron ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... end of the street, the darkness was as it were divided by a ray of light, that neither flickered nor wavered. What a picture it brought at once before her!—the pale, lame grandchild of old Jenny Oram, watching by the dying bed of the only creature that had ever loved her—her poor deaf ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... what a ray of light is?" said he. "Who can prove that it may not be curved, under certain conditions, or refracted in some places in a way that is not possible elsewhere? I tell you there is something extraordinary about this Spy Rock. It is a seat of power—Nature's ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... out in the wall of the Needle, dug in its very crust, turned round and round the pyramid, encircling it like the spiral of a tobogganslide. Each hurrying the other, they clattered down the treads, taking two or three at a bound. Here and there, a ray of light trickled through a fissure; and Beautrelet carried away the vision of the fishing-smacks hovering a few dozen fathoms off, and ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... after taking a few hours' rest, Jules entered his wife's room, obeying mechanically his invariable custom of not leaving the house without a word to her. Clemence was sleeping. A ray of light passing through a chink in the upper blind of a window fell across the face of the dejected woman. Already suffering had impaired her forehead and the freshness of her lips. A lover's eye could not fail to notice the appearance of dark blotches, and a ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... on my account, and had waited for me in vain for nearly an hour. I assured them that I had been there on the minute and had been in the office, and that there was no one there. Mystery! By way of clinching it I said that the office was dark as the tomb. Then a ray of light struck the German, and he said: "Oh, I see, you came at half past six, Belgian time! Of course von der Lancken expected you at half past six, German time!!!" When he asked me when I would call I felt inclined to set eleven in the morning and then wander ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... wafers, and cathedrals. He made noises to frighten the ghosts and music to charm them; he fasted when he was hungry and he feasted when he was not; he believed everything unreasonable; he humbled himself; he crawled in the dust; he shut the doors and windows; and excluded every ray of light from his soul; and he delayed not a day to repair the walls of his own prison; and from the garden of the human heart they plucked and trampled into the bloody dust the flowers and blossoms; they denounced man as totally depraved; they made reason blasphemy; they made pity a crime; ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... daemons, having made many efforts, gnashed their teeth at him, because he rather mocked at them, than they at him. But neither then did the Lord forget Antony's wrestling, but appeared to help him. For, looking up, he saw the roof as it were opened and a ray of light coming down towards him. The daemons suddenly became invisible, and the pain of his body forthwith ceased, and the building became quite whole. But Antony, feeling the succour, and getting his breath again, and freed from pain, questioned ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... solid stone walls, with not a window or aperture through which a ray of light could be ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... note throws a single ray of light on the much debated question of the cause of the rise of sap in plants I must leave to botanists to decide. I cannot hope that it does, for Julius Sachs, than whom no one appears to have more carefully considered the subject, says, at page 677 of the recently published ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... Every hint, every ray of light, which tends, in the most distant manner, to illustrate an obscure passage in the history of our country, cannot we presume, while it affords great pleasure and satisfaction to the student attentively employed in such researches, be deemed either insignificant or uninteresting ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various
... camera is focused upon the sitter, who "sits" as usual, and the forms appear upon the plate when developed. In obtaining thought-photographs, no camera at all is used; the plates (or films) are carefully wrapped in opaque black paper and sealed up, so as to prevent the slightest ray of light from reaching the plates. These plates (or films) are then placed against the forehead, where they are held for from five minutes to half an hour, or longer, according to the patience of the experimenter and the degree of his psychic power. An intense effort is made to impress upon ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... or gateway into another summer land, perhaps a short cut to the tropics, and so got itself into trouble. How my eye was delighted also with the redbird that alighted for a moment on a dry branch above the lake, just where a ray of light from the setting sun fell full upon it! A mere crimson point, and yet how it offset that ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... sermon was a preacher, a writ a lawyer, a pill a doctor, a sail a sailor, a sword a soldier, a button a tailor, a nail a carpenter, a hammer a blacksmith, a trowel a stone mason, a pebble a geologist, a flower a botanist, a ray of light an astronomer, and even a word gave him ample suggestion to build ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... up her reproachful theme. Her voice was quieter now, but amid the harmonious sounds of wind and river he still heard it distinctly. The clear enunciation of her words seemed to pierce through the baffling noises of the night as a ray of light pierces through darkness, albeit that there was excitement in her tones, and her speech was, ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... still living. As we agreed, I have spared no efforts to discover them. I have written to several persons in England who have an agency for making special researches. I have had advertisements inserted in twenty different newspapers, English, Irish, and Scotch. Not the least ray of light has been thrown upon this mystery, and I have to confess that all the information which I have succeeded in procuring has rather tended to deepen ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... the Heavens, and Time should be destroyed; but, it had been next to light, in comparison with what it was now. The darkness was so profound, that looking into it was painful and oppressive—like looking, without a ray of light, into a dense black bandage put as close before the eyes as it could be, without touching them. I doubled the look-out, and John and I stood in the bow side-by-side, never leaving it all night. Yet I should no more have known that he was near me ...
— The Wreck of the Golden Mary • Charles Dickens
... the Spaniard is broken, And to you in its stead is given, To lead and redeem a nation, This ray of light from heaven." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... that Mark was half startled. Then together they went on tiptoe in the direction of the sound, the lantern being carefully screened, and then only just a ray of light allowed ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... on living, when life must be passed in this manner. I generally answered to myself, that I did not think I could possibly bear it beyond a year. When, however, not more than half that duration of time had elapsed, a small ray of light broke in upon my gloom. I was reading, accidentally, Marmontel's "Memoires," and came to the passage which relates his father's death, the distressed position of the family, and the sudden inspiration by ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... a ray of light passes out of one medium into another of different density, it is bent out of its course, and is said to be refracted. We must, however, except those rays which fall in a direction perpendicular to the surface of the refracting ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... "Believe me, I have little conceit in my fame, such as it is." And, crossing to the windows, he loosed the heavy velvet hangings and let them fall together, drawing their edges close so that no ray of light might escape. ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... of Newton seemed irretrievably condemned, was, on the contrary, beginning quite a new life. A little later—in 1808—he might have witnessed the discovery made by Malus of polarization by reflexion, and would have been able to note, no doubt with stupefaction, that under certain conditions a ray of light loses the property of ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... threatened. It seems, therefore, that in the same degree as the living principle diverges from the body's centre into the outstanding members, in that degree is the life weakened in intensity; and just as, according to physical laws, the ray of light becomes less and less intense by the square of the distance from the central source, so the vital ray, or vis, loses momentum in the same ratio as it diverges from the common central ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... and first glancing cautiously round to see if any one listened—"Take heed, my young friend, for those who fall on these boards seldom rise again—Seest thou that," he added, in a still lower voice, pointing to some dark crimson stains on the floor, on which a ray of light, shot through a small aperture, and traversing the general gloom of the apartment, fell with mottled radiance—"Seest thou that, youth?—walk warily, for men have ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... hear a sound, not even the drawing of a breath, and yet I knew that my companion sat open-eyed, within a few feet of me, in the same state of nervous tension in which I was myself. The shutters cut off the least ray of light, and we ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... Then, left to himself, Mr. Petherick put on his hat and took a stroll in the lane. It was a perfect summer's evening, warm and star-lit; yet its peace failed to penetrate his tortured soul. A glow-worm twinkled in the grass under the hedge, but no ray of light pierced the impenetrable gloom within. He returned to his room, and, after sitting for a while at the open window, looking down on the sluggish waters of the tranquil river, he threw himself on his knees beside his bed. One by one he prayed for each of his ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... down he noticed a ray of light in a dark corner of his room, and on examining the panelling, found that a crevice existed through which he could see perfectly into his sister's room. There she still lay slumbering peacefully, and it suddenly struck ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous
... and I saw the sweet smiling lips move. Though no sound emanated from them, yet I knew they framed the one word "Come!" whilst the hand slowly, gracefully moved, pointing upward toward the cross. A ray of light revealed a healed wound extending the entire length of the palm. Soon this invitation was repeated, and so great became my desire to hide (because of my unworthiness) beneath the cross that I must at this time have slipped off the bed, for when once ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... immortals, for often from a distance she had seen the curtain of the sanctuary pushed aside, and the statue of Serapis with the Kalathos on his head, and a figure of Cerberus at his feet, visible in the half-light of the holy of holies; and a ray of light, flashing through the darkness as by a miracle, would fall upon his brow and kiss his lips when his goodness was sung by the priests in hymns of praise. At other times the tapers by the side of the god would be lighted or ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... "Gratefully direct thy mind To God, through whom to this first star we come." Me seem'd as if a cloud had cover'd us, Translucent, solid, firm, and polish'd bright, Like adamant, which the sun's beam had smit Within itself the ever-during pearl Receiv'd us, as the wave a ray of light Receives, and rests unbroken. If I then Was of corporeal frame, and it transcend Our weaker thought, how one dimension thus Another could endure, which needs must be If body enter body, how much more Must the desire inflame us to behold That essence, ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... in for a few minutes, was under the impression that she very often called on the old blind priest, and often mentioned her little attempts to cheer him up with great complacence, especially to her Roman Catholic friends, as if she were a constant ray of light in his darkness. She had not seen him since her return from Cairo, but her ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... they were alone. When he was in bed she would bring the steaming milk, making him drink it with maternal caresses, smoothing the pillows; after which she would carefully close the windows and doors so that no ray of light ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and at the last ray of light the mortar suddenly became an ogre, who threw Dschemila on his back, and carried her off into a desert place, distant a whole month's journey from her native town. Here he shut her into a castle, and told her ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... physician would be similarly raised. Upon these questions leading scientific men all over the world were devoting their energies. Research had shown that putrefaction was only another form of organized life, and Tyndall had shown that in the moving particles of fine dust discovered by a ray of light in a dark room the germs of low forms of life, which would cause putrefaction, were ever present, and ready to spring into life when a favorable "nidus" for the development of the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... made until midnight, when the forest woman reined in and directed a ray of light against a ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... sampans and junks, with the lonely figure of a white man sitting despondent among the naked rowers, eager to get his letters from home. It was his only eagerness, but very dull and listless at that. At night, the islands loomed large and mysterious in the darkness, while now and then a single ray of light from some light house, gleaming from some lost, mysterious island of the southern seas, beamed with a curious constancy. There were dangerous rocks, sunken reefs. And always the soft wind blew, the soft, enervating wind of ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... wind shouted far above Ben Kelham's head, it chuckled like a laughing child at his elbow, and buffeted his sad face gently until it saw a ray of light spring up in the steady eyes; then it ran laughing away—you could hear it distinctly on all sides of you—like water singing in ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... been contended by some that the medium which conveys the impression of light through transparent, bodies, is necessarily more dense within the body than without; but according to this theory the converse is true. A ray of light is a mechanical impulse, propagated through an elastic medium, and, like a wave in water, tends to the side of least resistance. Within a refracting body the ether is rarefied, not only by the proximity of the atoms of the body (or its density), but also ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... fatal circle, in which the devourer and the devoured, the exploiter and the exploited, lead an eternal dance, can we not perceive a ray of light? ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... visit a dark, deep chasm in the bank, a very gloomy spot. This demon-titled cavity has never felt the influence of a ray of light. A massive cliff rises above it, and a narrow stream, bearing the horrible name of Bloody Run, pours over this cliff into the chasm. To most minds there is a strange fascination about the terrible and mysterious, ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... is gone! Ah, perfect stillness Rules upon the barren strand. Perfect stillness, grave-like stillness Rules my heart with heavy hand. Came he then to vanish only Through the mist, a ray of light? Soon he flies, a sea-gull lonely, Far away into the night! What is left me of this lover? But a flower in the dark: In my loneliness to hover Like ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... cloth over one of the open ports caused me to face about suddenly, while every creak of the vessel seemed the echo of a human voice. A blanket in the form of a roll lay on the divan where I had found Captain Paradilla, and for a moment, as I stared at it, dimly visible in a ray of light, I imagined this was his motionless figure. Indeed, I was so strung up, it required all my reserve of courage to persevere, and traverse the black deck. My mind was fixed on a great chest in the Captain's stateroom, which, finding locked, I had not disturbed on my ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... St. James has told us, but He "is not a tempter of evils." All that comes from Him is good, a ray of light, a pledge of love. "But every man is tempted by his own concupiscence.... Blessed is he that endureth temptation, for when he hath been proved he shall receive the crown of life, which God hath promised to ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... in front of the ray of light and followed his comrades, and an instant later young Bradshaw heard them sliding over the cliff's edge and the pebbles clattering to the beach below. Young Bradshaw stood quite still. In his heart was much fear—fear of ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... straighten out the tangle of His providences. Evidently he intends these vicissitudes that still follow no definite rule, so that man may recognize his own ignorance and impotence. In one word, reason as you may from all that you can see, and your reason will throw no ray of light on God's future dealings. And there again, having brought us face to face with a dense, impenetrable cloud, ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... the Sculpture of a Dream. Ilaria is dressed as she was in life. But she never lay so on her pillow! nor so, in her grave. Those straight folds, straightly laid as a snowdrift, are impossible; known by the Master to be so—chiseled with a hand as steady as an iron beam, and as true as a ray of light—in defiance of your law of Gravity to the Earth. That law prevailed on her shroud, and prevails on her dust: but not on herself, nor on the Vision ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... course of the camp he paced, whistling lightly through his teeth, and every ray of light he passed glinted on the barrel of his pistol. Sheer defiance it was, but it succeeded. At the stables he turned about and ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... barbarian realm, the most heterogeneous, the most rudimentary of alliances. The exact manner of its union, its laws, its extent, and its origin are all involved in the darkness which everywhere covers the history of Indian Oregon,—a darkness into which our legend casts but a ray of light that makes the shadows seem the denser. It gives us, however, a glimpse of the diverse and squalid tribes that made up the confederacy. This included the "Canoe Indians" of the Sound and of the Oregon sea-coast, whose flat heads, greasy squat bodies, and crooked legs were in ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... to do the novel here for you," he added. "You wouldn't think there was a ray of light in it from this kind of telling. A man who spends five months of his best hours of life in telling a story, can't do it over in ten minutes and drive a machine at ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... ever thought of that? To them it seemed that death ended all that was reality, and began all that was visionary. But whether early education is to blame, certain it is that many people do come to this state. They seem stoneblind to the future. Not one ray of light gets an entrance into their spirits from the great and eternal world, on whose confines they every moment live. They think, fear, hope, rejoice, plan, and purpose; but always about this world,—never about the other! ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... indeed thou must be, if around thee Thou no ray of light and joy canst throw,— If no silken cord of love hath bound thee To some little world ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... brother should abide on the peak, and one in a cave midway down the mountain, and one on the slopes where the palms and orange-trees are rooted among the white-flowered sweet-scented broom. And each of these had a great trumpet of bark, and when the first ray of light streamed out of the east in the new day, the brother of the peak cried through his trumpet ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... we caught a ray of light amid the encircling gloom. The editor hadn't stated what his circulation was twenty months ago! We recalled how Irvin Cobb once told us that the attendance at his musical comedy had doubled the previous evening—the usher had brought his sister. Doubtless the new ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... Where many a verdant creeper grew And o'er the mouth its tendrils threw. Thence issued crane, and swan, and drake, And trooping birds that love the lake. The Vanars rushed within to cool Their fevered lips in spring or pool. Vast was the cavern dark and dread, Where not a ray of light was shed; Yet not the more their eyesight failed, Their courage sank or valour quailed. On through the gloom the Vanars pressed With hunger, thirst, and toil distressed, Poor helpless wanderers, sad, forlorn, With wasted faces wan and worn. At length, when life seemed lost for aye, They ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... pains. A pimple forms in the eye-ball, and causes an itching, pricking pain, as though needles were continually piercing it. The temporary loss of sight is occasioned by the impossibility of opening the eye-lids for a single moment, the smallest ray of light being absolutely insupportable. The only relief is a poultice of snow, but as that melts away the tortures return. With the exception of twenty men and the guides, who knew how to guard against the calamity, the whole division were struck blind three leagues distant from the nearest human habitation. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... simultaneously the air does not become de-oxygenised, but when you put the violet ray first it does, and it remains so until the orange ray is applied. The effect that Hilderman imagined, and succeeded in producing, was a ray of light which should so alter the relative density of the air as to act as a telescope. He's done it, and it's one of the finest achievements of science. However, I have a piece of wonderful ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... devoted his life to defend, the more urgently was he forbidden to turn his face away from it in its affliction. He knew that thousands of human souls, nigh to perishing, were daily turning towards him as their only hope on earth, and he was resolved, so long as he could dispense a single ray of light, that his countenance should never be averted. It is difficult to contemplate his character, at this period, without being infected with a perhaps dangerous enthusiasm. It is not an easy task coldly ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... sufferings of the miserable wretches he saw only a lurid alternative—his own. In them, toiling along, wearily, dejectedly, beneath the chain or yoke, he saw himself, toiling, grinding, at some sordid and utterly repellent form of labour, for a miserable pittance; no ray of light, no redeeming rest or enjoyment to sweeten life until that life should end. In them, cowering, writhing, beneath the driver's brutal lash, he saw himself, ever lashed and stung by the torturing consciousness of what might have ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... his confidence. This fact held a subtle solace for him, for it meant that Bernard, who was as open as the day, was content to be in the dark, and satisfied that it held nothing of an evil nature. This unquestioning faith on Bernard's part was Tommy's one ray of light. He knew instinctively that Bernard was not a man to compromise with evil. He carried his banner that all might see. He was not ashamed to confess his Master before all men, and Tommy mutely admired ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... A ray of light from the window glinted on the holy Book of books that the girl treasured. She opened it. A line read at random comforted her. Clasping the volume in her hands, she knelt in prayer, ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... burned, and her heart throbbed faster as she went to the window, to open the blinds, feeling that her reputation was at stake, and that the first ray of light would kindle the faggots. Not a speck of dust, from the ceiling down, would escape Miss Strong's eagle eyes, and oh, how she would talk about it! Well, it was done; she threw them open, and turned around in the ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... be helped. In the terrible nebulous welter in which his people found themselves, it was not unnatural that each man should grope towards his separate ray of light. The Russian, too, was equally bewildered, and perhaps all this profusion of theories came in both from the same lack of tangibilities. Both peoples ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... one ray of light, or hope, or comfort came in the thick darkness. Sometimes I was tempted to drown my troubles in drink, but I remembered my father's death, and refrained from doing so. Again I was tempted to seek forgetfulness in what ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... found that he still held the ice-axe that had been his companion all day. It was stretched right out above him as far as he could reach, and, as he moved it, to his intense joy he could see a pale ray of light, one which increased as he moved the axe again, telling him that, though he was buried, the head of the axe was above ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... strife. No ancient escutcheon he claim'd, Crimson'd with rapine and blood; He titles and baubles disdain'd, Yet his pedigree traced from the flood. Ennobled by all that is bright In the wreath of terrestrial fame, Genius her pure ray of light Spreads a ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... friend of mankind must look forwards to the termination of this painful suspense, and eagerly as the inquiring mind would hail every ray of light that might assist its view into futurity, it is much to be lamented that the writers on each side of this momentous question still keep far aloof from each other. Their mutual arguments do not meet with a candid examination. The question ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... man fears to lose life or honour for the love of God. What a grand thing this would be to him who is more bound than those beneath him to regard the honour of our Lord!—for it is kings whom the crowd must follow. To make one step in the propagation of the faith, and to give one ray of light to heretics, I would forfeit a thousand kingdoms. And with good reason: for it is another thing altogether to gain a kingdom that shall never end, because one drop of the water of that kingdom, if the soul but tastes it, renders the things ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... miraculous confirmation of his mystic relationship to the lover of Beatrice and the lover of Laura. And, in the knowledge of what he was to this poor, tormented young wife; in the consciousness of being the only ray of light in this close-shuttered prison—nay, rather bedlam-like existence; in the sense of how completely the happiness of Louise d'Albany depended upon him, whatever there was of generous and dutiful in the selfish and self-willed nature of Alfieri must have ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... did not reply. She was wondering drearily what she could find to say when the dreaded interview came about; shrinking from the thought of adding to the mother's pain, feeling a paralysing sense of defeat; yet, at this very moment of humiliation, a ray of light illumined the darkness and showed the reason of ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... into the river. The gun was discharged harmlessly into the air. The beach sloped away sharply, and the force of his rush carried them both into three feet of water. They went under. Imbrie dropped his gun, and clung to Stonor with the desperate, instinctive grip of the non-swimmer. Like a ray of light the thought flashed through Stonor's brain: "I have him on ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... share of these drawbacks to life in the East, but during the siege they were a perfect pest, and for the short time I was laid up I fully realized the suffering which our sick and wounded soldiers had to endure. At night the inside of my tent was black with flies. At the first ray of light or the smallest shake to the ropes, they were all astir, and for the rest of the day there was no peace; it was even difficult to eat without swallowing one or more of the loathsome insects. I had to brush them away with ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... come to them as a ray of light in the dark—my news," he said. "And now, thank you ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... beyond the river. A fresh breeze was moving the trees, and making the whole a dazzling mass of shifting light and shadow. He sat so still that a glorious violet and red king-fisher perched quite close, and, dashing into the water, came forth with a fish, and fled like a ray of light along the winding of the river. A colony of little shell parrots, too, crowded on a bough, and twittered and ran to and fro quite busily, as though they said to him, "We don't mind you, my dear; you ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... house, two miles farther, after having walked twenty and twenty-five miles already, just to read their letters, or to hear a few verses out of the Bible, or Watts's First Catechism, or something that will shed a ray of light over their benighted minds. I have about thirty-five little ragged black children who meet me in the place hired for worship on the bay at four o'clock every evening. These I try to teach for two hours, and the only member of the church ...
— The Baptist Magazine, Vol. 27, January, 1835 • Various
... and insignificant, that I care to occupy. The space enclosed between the four walls of your garden is the only spot in the world where I live; you are the only human being who has made me love God. I had renounced everything before I knew you; why deprive me of the only ray of light that Providence has spared me? If it is on account of fear, what have I done to inspire it? If it is on account of pity, in what respect am I culpable? If it is on account of pity and because I suffer, you are mistaken in ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... went, the Spider's depression growing perceptibly, until at last their feet trod the rough planking of a narrow causeway which ended in a dark, raft-like structure moored out in the river. Here was a small and dismal shack from whose solitary window a feeble ray of light beamed. ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol |
