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Darkening   Listen
noun
Darkening  n.  Twilight; gloaming. (Prov. Eng. & Scot.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Darkening" Quotes from Famous Books



... floods, and howls Each gorge with fearful voices; shepherds quake To see the waters' downrush and the mist, Screen dear to wolves and all the wild fierce things Nursed in the wide arms of the forest; so Around the fighters' feet the choking dust Hung, hiding the fair splendour of the sun And darkening all the heaven. Sore distressed With dust and deadly conflict were the folk. Then with a sudden hand some Blessed One Swept the dust-pall aside; and the Gods saw The deadly Fates hurling the charging lines Together, in the unending ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus

... me, and I remained away on foreign stations more than four years. When I at length returned home, it was to find a new affliction darkening our fireside. My father had died on the very day when I sailed for my return voyage ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... an hour all was over. Bertha opened the window; the air was now fresh, the darkening sky was clear and distant. Bertha drew a deep breath, and a feeling of peace and hope ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler

... from herself) that her condition was already interfering with her fresh, young comeliness: her eyes were drawn; her features wore a tense, tired expression. As she looked out of the carriage window on her train journey to Dippenham, the gloom inspired by the darkening shadows of the day, the dreariness of the bleak landscape, chilled her to the heart. She comforted herself by reflecting with what eager cheerfulness Perigal would greet her; how delighted he would be at receiving from her lips further confirmation of her news; how loyally he would ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... trouble yourself," she interrupted him, a sombre melancholy darkening her face; "I shall be ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli

... when the Dago kept the look out, he carried his pipe to the forecastle head and joined him there. Right ahead of the ship the evening sky was still stained with the afterglow of the sunset; the jib-boom swung gently athwart a heaven in whose darkening arch there was still a ghost of color. Between the anchors, where they lay lashed on their chocks, the Dago stood and gazed west to where, beyond the horizon, the shores of Africa had turned barren ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... of your opinion-of your way of thinking, most certainly," interpolates Madame Montford, a shadow of melancholy darkening ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... with wind and tide, With glad waves darkening upon every side, Save where the moon sends ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... waited through evenings long And scanned the ridge with the spruces yonder; But darkening mountains made shadows throng, And you ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... man, Brian Beresford is strangely excited to-night. Long after Honor has left him he walks up and down the darkening room, and, when the old butler comes in to light the lamps, he goes out on to the terrace and continues his measured tramp to and fro, smoking and thinking, and watching ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford

... make melancholy moan; I hear the river flowing by, As, heavy-hearted and alone, Beneath the wild December sky, I take the roses from my breast— White roses of the Holy Rood— And, filled with passionate unrest, I cast them to the darkening flood. O, roses, drifting out to sea, Bring my ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... atmospheric currents, etc. We, thus, follow Lowell in ascribing the accentuation of the canals to the circulation of water in Mars; but we assume a simple and natural mode of conveyance and do not postulate artificial structures of all but impossible magnitude. That vegetation may take part in the darkening of the elevated tracts is not improbable. Indeed we would expect that in the Martian climate these tracts would be the only fertile parts ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly

... settled, blowing from a quarter which placed them to-windward of, and they carried it down with them to within two miles of the stranger and the neutral, who still remained becalmed. But, as the wind freshened, it passed a-head of them, sweeping along the surface, and darkening the colours of the water, until it reached the vessels to leeward; one of which, the one that Newton was so anxious to get along-side of, immediately took advantage of it, and, spreading all her canvas, soon increased her distance. ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... of pine in his nostrils. He saw clearly the row of ships and the many-jointed serpent of boards making its way to the hold, the sailors swinging aloft; the miles of ruminating brown logs, and the alert little man zigzagging across them; the shadow of the mill darkening the water, and the brown leviathan timbers rising dripping in regular succession from them; the whirr of the deadly circular saws, and the calm, erect men dominating the cars that darted back and forth; and finally the sparkling white steam spraying suddenly against the intense blue of ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... to his retinue. If on the stupefied Ammalat the thunderbolt of heaven had fallen, he could not have been more astounded than by this unexpected explanation. Already had the dust raised by the horse's hoofs of the retiring Khan been laid at rest; but he still stood immovable on the hill now darkening in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various

... of her loss increased with the darkening of the early winter time. Bob was not a cautious man who would avoid needless exposure, and a hundred and fifty of the Victory's crew had been disabled or slain. Anybody who had looked into her room ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... she had inscribed his own triumphant declaration, "Music is like wine, inflaming men to new achievements; and I am the Bacchus who serves it out to them." While she watched the rayless marble orbs, more eloquent than dilating darkening human pupils, a shadow dense and mysterious drifted over her frigid face, and, without removing her eyes from the bust above her, she sat down before the piano, and commenced one of those marvellous symphonies which he had commended to ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... under the manipulation of God, is really becoming monotonous. So the eighth plague came. After a day and a night of east wind, a prodigious swarm of locusts went up over the land of Egypt, covering the face of the whole earth, and darkening the ground. They "did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had spared." But we were told that the hail smote every herb, and brake every tree. What then was left for the locusts to eat? The ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote

... Johnnie's face, darkening it so that the misty yellow-white brows stood out grotesquely. And his chest began to heave. He loathed the touch of Barber's hand. He despised the daily orders that only turned him against his work. But most of all he shrank from the indignity ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... Jack said good-bye in earnest, and then there was nothing to do but wait. About them the voices of the insects and frogs changed, with the darkening night. The stars came out, but the night was a dark one. Harry looked at his watch from time to time and at last ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske

... noble dame on turret high, Who waits her gallant knight, Looks to the western beam to spy The flash of armour bright. The village maid, with hand on brow The level ray to shade, Upon the footpath watches now For Colin's darkening plaid. ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... by a thick double window, looking out over the desert to the west. The small sun disappeared beneath the horizon even as he looked, leaving the fast-darkening sky a dull, faint red. Almost as though released by the sunset, pale Phobos popped above the horizon and began to climb its eastward way. The desert already was dark, but a stirring above it ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay

... gentle movement increasing Through the darkening path the speed at which she was walking: I in truth shall hope to satisfy both of your parents, For your mother's character my own nature resembles, And to external graces have I from my youth been accustom'd. ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe

... trifles that lay about the room, she threw into the bottom of the box about a dozen of old books, which had been on the chest of drawers since long before Annie could remember. She, poor child, let her do as she pleased, and asked no questions; for the shadow in which she stood was darkening, and she did not care what came next. For an hour the box stood on the floor like a coffin, and then Betty came, with red eyes and a red nose, and carried it downstairs. Then auntie came up again, dressed in her Sunday clothes. She put on Annie's best frock and bonnet—adorning the victim for sacrifice—at ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... did the abbot utter in this vein of holy admonition. And Basil would have listened with the acquiescence of a perfect faith, but that there stirred within him the memory of what he had read in Augustine's pages, darkening his spirit. At length he found courage to speak of this, ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... into so many devils within us. Now, like prisoners, they attempt to break through the prison of our body; they will attempt to get out at our eyes, mouth, ears, any ways, to the scandal of the gospel, and reproach of religion, to the darkening of our evidences, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... recall her to her senses. It seemed merciful that she should have lost consciousness even for a moment. Indeed she needed no help, for in a few minutes she slowly opened her eyes and closed them, then opened them again and saw Mr. Juxon's figure darkening the window ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford

... promised to tell you more of the Fly-fishing for a Trout; which I may have time enough to do, for you see it rains May butter. First for a Mayfly: you may make his body with greenish-coloured crewel, or willowish colour; darkening it in most places with waxed silk; or ribbed with black hair; or, some of them, ribbed with silver thread; and such wings, for the colour, as you see the fly to have at that season, nay, at that very day on the water. Or you may make the Oak-fly: with an orange, ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton

... fourth match and folded the letter with care and replaced it in the envelope. He sat back on his heels and looked up into the darkening sky. Jacob Pooley. Well, well, well. If Fat Jakey Pooley, the register of the district, was mixed up in the business, the opposition would have its work cut out in advance. Yes, indeedy. For no man could walk more convincingly the tight rope of the ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White

... the gloomy jungle amidst the darkening shadows of the falling night a hairy, manlike creature swung swiftly southward upon some secret ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... back the bed-curtain nearest the window. The feeble, uncertain light flickered upon the countenance, distinct in its mortal paleness, of her parent: the eyes recognized her, and a glance of infinite tenderness gleamed for an instant in the rapidly-darkening orbs: the right arm essayed to lift itself, as for one fast, last embrace. Vainly! Love, love only, was strong, stronger than death, in the expiring mother's heart, and the arm fell feebly back on the bedclothes. Mary Woodley bent down in eager grief, for she felt instinctively that ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... and the card-table was set out, although none of the three had the slightest inclination to play. Jeanne walked along the beach and then came back to her favourite seat, sheltered by the little grove of stunted trees and the tall hollyhocks which bordered the garden. Her eyes were fixed upon the darkening sea, whitened here and there by the long straight line of breakers. The marshes on her right hand were hung with grey mists, floating about like weird phantoms, and here and there between them shone the distant lights of the village. She half closed her eyes. ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... his summit inland. And the marble temples stood up clear in the evening, but films of twilight were drawn between the mountain and the city. Then from the Temple ledges and eaves of palaces the bats fell headlong downwards, then spread their wings and floated up and down through darkening ways; lights came blinking out in golden windows, men cloaked themselves against the grey sea-mist, the sound of small songs arose, and the face of Hilnaric became a resting-place for mysteries ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... saw the Whirlwind Hour, Greatening and darkening as it hurried on, She bent the strenuous Heavens and came down To make a man to meet the mortal need. She took the tried clay of the common road— Clay warm yet with the genial heat of Earth, Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy; Then ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... relieved that the children had consented, even though ungraciously, to the change in their household, slipped the letter back into its envelope. "I'll write to Uncle Johnny right away," and she hurried from the room, a little fearful, perhaps, of the cloud that was noticeably darkening Isobel's face. ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott

... altars to Mammon, piled from the earnings of groaning Labour and cemented with blood and tears. But I looked farther, and saw, in the rear, chains sharpened into swords, misery ripening into justice, and famine darkening into revenge; and I laughed as I beheld, for I knew that the day of the oppressed ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... all outward or tangible points, strictly is so. After such a tornado of strife as the civilized world had not witnessed since the Thirty-Years War. Tornado springing doubtless from the regions called Infernal; and darkening the upper world from south to north, and from east to west for Seven Years long;—issuing in general AS-YOU-WERE! Yes truly, the tornado was Infernal; but Heaven too had silently its purposes in it. Nor is the mere expenditure of men's ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... girl, or danced out of both. They had indeed their sorrows, true and deep, but still, more like children's sorrows than ours, whether bursting into open cry of pain, or hid with shuddering under the veil, still passing over the soul as clouds do over heaven, not sullying it, not mingling with it;—darkening it perhaps long or utterly, but still not becoming one with it, and for the most part passing away in dashing rain of tears, and leaving the man unchanged; in no wise affecting, as our sorrow does, the whole tone of his thought and ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... swelled in his brain to a terrific tumult—a confusion indescribable. And then something seemed to crack inside his head. The dark peaks swayed giddily against the darkening sky, ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell

... ever, it will be the remorseless enemy of mankind. I see it destroying all simplicity and gentleness of life, all the beauty of the world; I see it restoring barbarism under a mask of civilization; I see it darkening men's minds and hardening their hearts; I see it bringing a time of vast conflicts, which will pale into insignificance "the thousand wars of old," and, as likely as not, will whelm all the laborious advances ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing

... delicious odors of the various dishes that had long been favorites with him; particularly the liver and bacon and fried onions. Oh! how tantalizing to suddenly arouse himself with a start, to look around at the rapidly darkening scene of those lonely pine woods, and hear, instead of the waiter's cheery voice, only that continual grinding sound, as the boy with the never-give-up nature kept sawing away with his miserable little bow; and the poor stick kept whirling back ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... exciting great interest. She was conscious that more eyes were watching her from the inn-windows than met her own gaze. Barbara had decided to get home by hiring whatever kind of conveyance the tavern afforded, when, straining her eyes for the last time over the now darkening highway, she perceived yet another dust-cloud drawing near. She paused; a chariot ascended to the inn, and would have passed had not its occupant caught sight of her standing expectantly. The horses were ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy

... came in to light the candles, and remind her of the dinner-hour, while she was still looking out at the darkening woods. The maid was an honest country-bred young woman, selected for the office by Mrs. Oliver. She had accompanied her mistress on the honeymoon tour, and had been dazed and not a little terrified by the wonders of Swiss landscape and the grandeurs ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... friend." She not replied, Observing where the Fates their several tasks Plied ceaseless. "Mark how short the longest web Allowed to man! he cried; observe how soon, Twin'd round yon never-resting wheel, they change Their snowy hue, darkening thro' many a shade, Till Atropos relentless ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey

... miles to travel, past villages and towns and fields, and she was footsore and faint when at last she reached the winding track that led between the darkening hills. Yet on she went, following the murmur of a tiny stream that dropped through thick-set bushes into a shadowed valley. On she went still, and now the darkness came, and she had lost her way. She stumbled ...
— Wonderwings and other Fairy Stories • Edith Howes

... no one was passing whom I could consult; and no earthly right existed on my part to give me a power of control over her, even if I had known how to exercise it. I trace these lines, self-distrustfully, with the shadows of after-events darkening the very paper I write on; and still I say, ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... art thou returned to me, poor boy," she said, "for thy mother's path has gone darkening onward, till now the end is death. Son, son, I have borne thee in my arms when my limbs were tottering, and I have fed thee with the food that I was fainting for; yet I have ill performed a mother's part by thee in life, and now I leave thee no inheritance ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... survey the steepy shore; Europe and Afric, on each other gaze! Lands of the dark-eyed maid and dusky Moor, Alike beheld beneath pale Hecate's blaze: How softly on the Spanish shore she plays, Disclosing rock, and slope, and forest brown, Distinct, though darkening with her waning phase: But Mauritania's giant-shadows frown, From mountain-cliff to coast descending ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron

... in its substance, he would wrap a surprise for you—it was the unexpected word, the unexpected assertion, sentiment, conclusion, that constantly arrived. Meanwhile it would enhance your enjoyment mightily to watch his physiognomy, the movements of his great, grey, shaggy head, the lightening and darkening of his eyes, his smile, his frown, his occasional slight shrug or gesture. But the oddest thing was this, that he could take as well as give; he could listen—surely a rare talent in a monologist. Indeed, I have never known a man who could make ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland

... destruction of life." He then quotes apparently the language of the text, "He consumed his body by Agni (the fire of) Samadhi," and says it is "a common expression for the effects of such ecstatic, ultra-mystic self-annihilation." All this is simply "a darkening of counsel by words without knowledge." Some facts concerning the death of Ananda are hidden beneath the darkness of the phraseology, which it is impossible for us to ascertain. By or in Samadhi he burns his body in the very middle of the river, and then ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien

... irritable whenever she thought of it, the tenderness of Dolly's soothing and the contagion of Dolly's peace were irresistible; and if Dolly had a gnawing subject of care, which hurt and pricked and stung her perpetually, a cloud of fear darkening over her, from the shadow of which she could not get free; yet the loving care to ward off both the pain and the fear from her mother, helped at least to keep her own heart fresh and strong ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... cold gust of wind there was an absolute stillness of the air. The thunder-charged mass hung unbroken beyond the low, ink-black headland, darkening the twilight. By contrast, the sky at the zenith displayed pellucid clearness, the sheen of a delicate glass bubble which the merest movement of air might shatter. A little to the left, between the black masses of the headland and of the forest, the volcano, a feather of smoke ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad

... the garden are slowly darkening. The shadows that intervene between the round masses of the sycamore-leaves deepen, deepen. A bat flitters dumbly by. Vick, to whose faith all things seem possible, runs sharply barking and racing after it. We both laugh at the fruitlessness of her undertaking, ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... myriads of hives were flying the people of all the Gens of Earth, their vast numbers already darkening the roof of the world. The advance fires from Mars seemed to have no effect on them, which Sarka had expected, since the fires seemed to consume nothing ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... muttering sky. The leaves hang still. Above the weird twilight, The hurrying centres of the storm unite And spreading with huge trunk and rolling fringe, Each wheeled upon its own tremendous hinge Tower darkening on. And now from heaven's height With the long roar of elm-trees swept and swayed, And pelted waters, on the vanished plain Plunges the blast. Behind the wild white flash That splits abroad the pealing thunder-crash, ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman

... Thebes. Off the long wharves at the southernmost limits of the city, the rapid boat overtook and passed low-riding, slowly moving stone-barges laden with quarry slaves. The unwieldy craft progressed heavily, nearer and within the darkening shadow of the Arabian hills. Kenkenes watched them as long as they were in sight, an unwonted pity making itself felt in his heart. For even in the dusk he distinguished many women and the immature figures of children; and none knew the quarry life better than he, ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... nowhere found upon them. "Birch Mountains" would be a more characteristic name, as on their summits birch is the prevailing tree. They are the natural home of the black and yellow birch, which grow here to unusual size. On their sides beech and maple abound; while, mantling their lower slopes and darkening the valleys, hemlock formerly enticed the lumberman and tanner. Except in remote or inaccessible localities, the latter tree is now almost never found. In Shandaken and along the Esopus it is about the only product the country ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... be disputed that the old often appear dull-witted, but I cannot believe in a real darkening of the reason, which is a bright spark of the Divine, and even in madness the negation of reason is only external and apparent. A deaf man playing on an instrument out of tune may strike the right notes, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... revisit the place, and make sure that the inscription had been accurately copied. Accordingly, next day, Aigner reascended the mountain and found the chapel again. But he had started late, having his ordinary work to do before he had leisure to go, and the evening was darkening in. As the way led by precipices, he deemed it inadvisable to retrace his steps that night, and so laid himself down to sleep. Next morning, Thursday, he woke refreshed, but to his amazement saw standing before him an aged barefooted friar, who asked him whence he came and ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould

... raft been unloaded and the stores carried up to the camp, than the sea began to roll in with much greater force than hitherto, and as the sun went down the white breakers appeared on every side, like horses' manes waving in the wind, above the darkening waters. The commander was received with hearty ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston

... perspective of the murky, mist-drenched air. Over this vast expanse, low-hung clouds trailed their gray tattered edges in long misty streaks which hid the setting sun. It was a gloomy prospect, this, with the darkening water beneath a leaden sky that gave no promise of a brighter view. It was as if suddenly we had landed at Brest, and our view of the dark gray rocks and the penetrating air made the picture so real our teeth began ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... Kreynborg was regarding the screen absorbedly. Through the haze of flying dots which was the United Nations fleet, a darkening spot to westward became visible. It drew nearer and grew larger. It was dense. It was huge. It was deadly. It was the Com-Pub battle-fleet, nearly equal to the imprisoned ships in number. It swept up to view its helpless enemy. ...
— Invasion • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... leading from the different places of suburban resort, are crowded with people on their return home, and the sound of merry voices rings through the gradually darkening fields. The evening is hot and sultry. The rich man throws open the sashes of his spacious dining-room, and quaffs his iced wine in splendid luxury. The poor man, who has no room to take his meals in, but the close apartment to which he and his family ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens

... week later, on a darkening night, a van left the town of Bursley by the Moorthorne Road on its way to Axe-in-the-Moors, which is the metropolis of the wild wastes that cut off northern Staffordshire from Derbyshire. This van was the last of Mrs Clowes's caravanserai, and almost the last to leave the Fair. Owing to popular ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett

... the letter after the second reading, finished his work with the horses, and walked with his lantern through the now darkening air to the house. Just for a few seconds he stopped in the cold air, and looked about him at the dark land and the ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall

... coming swiftly. The mother's call, growing ever more anxious, more insistent, swept over the darkening hillside. "Perhaps," I thought, with sudden twinges and alarms of conscience, "perhaps I set you all wrong, little chap, in giving you the taste of salt that day, and teaching you to trust things that meet you in the wilderness." ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... was quite warm, Clayton had left the side curtains thrown back over the roof, and as they sat, like Turks, upon their blankets, Lady Alice, straining her eyes into the darkening shadows of the wood, suddenly reached out and ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... led him to eat copiously and carelessly, and long before the end, when after an hour and a quarter a movement took the party, and it pushed away its cheese plates and rose sighing and stretching from the remains of the repast, little streaks and bands of dyspeptic irritation and melancholy were darkening the serenity of ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... watched, his nerves were strained and he feared foolish fears. Then he grew used to them and the sun set then and the aspect of everything altered and he felt strange fears again. Behind him was a hollow in the wold, he watched it darkening; and before him he saw the house through the trunks of the trees. He waited for them to light their lamps so that they could not see, when he would steal up softly and crouch by the little back window. But though ...
— Tales of Three Hemispheres • Lord Dunsany

... can no longer see," said Jeanne, seated near her on a low chair. And then, dropping her work, the child gazed at Paris, which was darkening over with the shadows of night. She rarely romped about, and her mother even had to exert authority to induce her to go out. In accordance with Doctor Bodin's strict injunction, Helene made her stroll with her two hours each day in the Bois de Boulogne, and this was their only promenade; in eighteen ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... you've got your demonstration all set up," he said. He glanced at the darkening sky. "It looks like we might get some heavy ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones

... people talked, and lost in the charm of each thrilling minute, they walked through the shadows and darkening leaves. The soft garden echoed with the sound of a girl's voice crying, "Cuckoo, cuckoo," and the white dresses flew over the sward, and the young men ran after them and caught them. They were playing hide and seek. Excited beyond endurance, Triss barked loudly, and forms ...
— Spring Days • George Moore

... with all its blights, The ruined hope, the friend unkind, And love, that leaves, where'er it lights, A chilled or burning heart behind:— While youth, that now like snow appears, Ere sullied by the darkening rain, When once 'tis touched by sorrow's tears Can ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... a hurried meal, I again went on deck, the horizon away to the northward and eastward was darkening to a light air from that quarter, that came gently stealing along the glassy surface of the ocean, first in cat's-paws, then as a gentle breathing that caused the polished undulations to break into a tremor of laughing ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood

... of Undine's nervousness were unmistakable to Mr. and Mrs. Spragg. They could read the approaching storm in the darkening of her eyes from limpid grey to slate-colour, and in the way her straight black brows met above them and the red curves of her lips narrowed to ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... at nearly dusk, Key West had grown small and finally sank below the horizon, leaving only its three skeleton-like towers standing against the sky—standing erect with all nerves strained, watch-dogs of the darkening sea; ears cocked, to catch a distressed cry from some waif out in the ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... round Clarissa, and tried to draw her towards him; but she released herself from him with a quick proud movement, and rose from her seat on the low wall. He rose at the same moment, and they stood facing each other in the darkening twilight. ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... He turned and went. It was dark now, but there was still some light in the sky at the end of the blue-gum avenue, and against it, as he rode away, he discovered Bessie's tall and graceful form softly outlined upon the darkening night. John had left her to see about some pressing matter connected with the farm, and there she stood, filled with the great joy of a woman who has found her love, and loth as yet to break its spell by entering again into the daily round ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard

... round once again, and she was in the middle of her tale, when a gun was heard at a short distance from the Castle. The weather was very stormy; the wind blew violently, the snow fell in large flakes, darkening the sky; it was almost impossible to ...
— Catharine's Peril, or The Little Russian Girl Lost in a Forest - And Other Stories • M. E. Bewsher

... could hear him pacing the library floor with a restlessness that struck me as being strangely akin to my own inward anguish of impatience and doubt. What was he dreading? What was it I had seen darkening his face and disturbing his manner, when from time to time he pushed open the communicating door and cast an anxious glance our way, only to withdraw again without uttering a word. Did he realize that a crisis was approaching, that danger menaced him, and ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green

... already devised, his epic of King Arthur, ‘typifying above all things the life of man,’ wherein he had intended to represent some of the great religions of the world. He had purposed that this was to be the chief work of his manhood. Yet the death of his friend, Arthur Hallam, and the consequent darkening of the whole world for him made him almost fail in this purpose; nor any longer for a while did he rejoice in the splendour of his spiritual visions, nor in the Gleam that had ‘waned to a ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... golden now, of old rough with forest thickets. Even then men trembled before the wood and rock. 'This grove,' he cries, 'this hill with its leafy crown, is a god's dwelling, though whose we know not; the Arcadians believe Jove himself hath been visible, when often he shook the darkening aegis in his hand and gathered the storm-clouds. Thou seest these two towns likewise with walls overthrown, relics and memorials of men of old. This fortress lord Janus built, this Saturn; the name of this was once Janiculum, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil

... it. He was no more to her than the mast by which he stood. The spell of the sea and the wind surged into her heart and filled it with wild happiness and measureless content. Over yonder, where the lights gleamed on the darkening shore under the high-sprung arch of pale golden sky, was home. How the wind whistled to welcome her back! The lash of it against her face—the flick of salt spray on her lips—the swing of the boat as it cut through the racing crests—how ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... acting entirely on impulse, she told her maid to get the red habit she had not worn for years. When she was dressed she sent round to have out her white Arab; while it was getting ready she went once more to the tower to see the storm-effect in the darkening twilight. As she looked, her heart for an instant stood still. Half-way to the horizon a great ship, ablaze in the bows, was driving through the waves with all her speed. She was heading towards the little port, beyond which the shallows sent ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... In front, a flight of steps led down to the water. The steps were built of brick to resemble stone, very broad and clean. On either side grew an aged bakul tree. Beneath these trees sat Kunda Nandini, alone in the darkening evening, gazing at the reflection of the sky and stars in the clear water. Here and there lotus flowers could be dimly seen. On the other three sides of the talao, mango, jak, plum, orange, lichi, cocoanut, kul, bel, and other fruit-trees grew thickly in rows, looking in the ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee

... for explanation, he desperately said that he had to go home to tease the cook—which had the rakehelly air he thought would insure his release, but was not considered plausible. However, he was finally allowed to go, and, as first hints of evening were already cooling and darkening the air, the party broke up, its members setting forth, whistling, toward their several homes, though Penrod lingered with Sam. Herman was the last to ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington

... three o'clock of the afternoon when, after darkening the windows, we took our seats in a little circle about the table. As usual, I guarded the psychic's right hand, while Fowler sat at her left. Brierly and Mrs. Fowler were opposite Mrs. Smiley. The room was lighter than ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland

... the writing, dear," said Kathleen quietly. And she rose from the table and left the dining-room, both arms around the necks of the Seagrave twins, drawing them close to her sides—closer when her sidelong glance caught the sullen bitterness on the darkening features of the boy, and when on the girl's fair face she saw the flushed, wide-eyed, ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... forth the thoughts buffeted each other, and the Bishop sighed, and threw away his cigar, and then stopped and stared out at the darkening, great ocean. The steady rush and pause and low wash of retreat did not ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... semi-transparent appearance which allowed of a movable black spot to be seen in the body. On the 8th June about fifty per cent. of the larvae had cast a skin and assumed the pupal state in their little cells: the color yellowish-brown, darkening to gray in the more advanced insect. About one per cent. of the cells, in which were two skins and an aperture to the surface, showed the perfect insect to have already come out of them. A gray pupa I was holding ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various

... and venture forth on her way. Lightly, tremulously holding her breath, which ever and anon broke forth in quick convulsive gasps—now gliding by the flower—wreathed columns that bordered the peristyle—now darkening the still moonshine that fell over its tessellated centre—now ascending the terrace of the garden—now gliding amidst the gloomy and breathless trees, she gained the fatal door—to find it locked! We have all seen that expression of pain, of uncertainty, of ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... of any thing mysterious, we can see, by the darkening of his face, how he feels the awe of it. One of his friends, in hurrying to get his ironing done, to get ready to celebrate the new year, brought on an attack of hemorrhage of the lungs. Of course, it was necessary to keep him entirely still, which ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton

... senses of a healthy man who is hungry, knew that the roast had been placed on the table, but he did not stir. The Guide had slipped from his knee to the floor, and he was looking away to the darkening tide of the Rio Grande. He had looked at his problem from every angle, and now he was coming to a ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge

... it your watch-fire, elves, where the down with its darkening shoulder Lifts on the death of the sun, out of the valley of thyme? Dropt on the broad chalk path and, cresting the ridge of it, smoulder Crimson as blood on the white, halting my ...
— The Lord of Misrule - And Other Poems • Alfred Noyes

... if heaven were before him and all the fiends of hell at his heels, he sped through the darkening town, and did not slacken his speed until he was a full ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... most of these things as he hastened towards her house through the darkening streets. Not a carriage was to be seen, and he was obliged to traverse the distance on foot, as often happens at supreme moments, when everything might be gained by the saving of a few ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford

... the frills of which towered over a face remarkable in many ways, but chiefly for its broad masculine forehead and the firm outline of its jaw and chin. Indeed, I could hardly believe that the face belonged to a woman. A slight darkening of the upper lip even suggested a moustache, but on a second look I set this down to the ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... declaration of war, the President's meeting with Congress that morning, his formal request for full wartime power, the granting of permission by a wide-eyed, frightened legislature. Shandor settled back, staring dully at the ground moving below him, the whisps of evening haze rising over the darkening land. There was only one thing to do. He had to have Ingersoll's files. He knew only ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse

... ladies are, however, persuaded that it adds to their charms to give the eyes a long, almond shape—after the Egyptian type—while very many are persuaded that the eye is not seen to advantage unless its apparent size is increased by the darkening of the lids. Both these effects are produced by kohl, a black powder, which may be procured at the chemist's, and is mixed with rose-water and applied ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous

... King Edward in favour of reformation in the Church. But that first and worst of all the penalties remained as yet in the oblivion to which he had consigned it. But in recompense for this, there was a very black cloud darkening the horizon of 1554. The Queen had announced to her Parliament her intended marriage with Prince Philip of Spain. All the old insular prejudices against foreigners rose up to strengthen the Protestant horror of a Spanish and Popish King. The very children in the ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt

... not escape," said the young Indian, his face darkening with anger at the savage taunt. "A man's death for a man, but jackals shall die like jackals. With hearts of terror and blood turned to water in their fear, they shall die a death more horrible than the palefaces ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... alone at the window gazing at the darkening lake. She turned as he entered, and her cry, "At last you have returned, at last, O my beloved!" broken by sobs and wild caresses, ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney

... noise awoke them to the seriousness of the situation. It brought them face to face with that terrible storm whose thunderclouds were now thickly darkening over France—the death-dealing typhoon of the Revolution. A proud thought came into his head. "My time is come. I shall die ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall

... covered faces, were standing back as he went by. The darkness was of their shadows and the covering of their faces. When he went through the Canal bridge, the evening glowed in its last deep colours, the sky was dark blue, the stars glittered from afar, very remote and approaching above the darkening cluster of the farm, above the paths of crystal along the edge of ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... he uttered, but all in the same subdued tone of tenderness. In the presence of helpless suffering, and in the fast-darkening shadow of the Destroyer, he forgot all but his Christian humanity, and cared more about consoling his fellow-man than making ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... the depot Nelson had picked out. They were on a high although gently sloping hill, among the trees that crested it, looking down at the depot about a quarter of a mile away. There was still enough light to see by, but the sky was darkening for night. For the past two or three hours, Nelson had been repeatedly drilling Glynnis over her part. It was simple, really, and she knew it backwards, but she patiently recited her role when he asked her, whether out of regard for ...
— The Happy Man • Gerald Wilburn Page

... can now recall every detail of the trip—how the sun sank behind Indian Mountain, a peak I had known before only through distant views; then, as we journeyed on, how the stars came out above Hemlock Mountain—our own home mountain behind our house, and later, how the fireflies filled the darkening meadows along the river below us, so that we seemed to be floating between the steady stars of heaven and their dancing, ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield



Words linked to "Darkening" :   dark, blackening



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