"Darkness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... we were in bed, or rather in torture, had become quite stormy, and the waves of the lake beat against the shore with the violence of an agitated sea. There was just sufficient moon to make the "darkness visible," and to show the black clouds drifting with rapid confusion, in broken masses, over our heads. This, joined to the tossing of the billows against the shore—the dark silent groups that came, like shadows, stooping for a moment over ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... Bishop answered. "I speak not in reproach, but in gratitude. I have you to thank for showing me my path. You led me from theories about life to life itself. You pulled aside the veils from the social shams. You were light in my darkness, but now I, too, see the light. And I am very happy, only . . ." he hesitated painfully, and in his eyes fear leaped large. "Only the persecution. I harm no one. Why will they not let me alone? But it is not that. It is the nature ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... hasty and confused excuse for not taking Elizabeth into the same place, which was now completely closed in front with logs and bark, saying some-thing that she hardly understood about its darkness, and the unpleasantness of being with the dead body. Miss Temple, however, found a sufficient shelter against the torrent of rain that fell, under the projection of a rock which overhung them, But long before the shower was over, the sounds of voices ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... the Lords of Lamentation and Wailing proceed through those rigid locks and depend (from them). Concerning whom it is written, Prov. iv. 19, "The path of the wicked is as darkness; they know not ...
— Hebrew Literature
... crimson upon cloud and water; of violet domes and bell-towers etched against the orange of a western sky; of moonlight silvering breeze-rippled breadths of liquid blue; of distant islands shimmering in sun-litten haze; of music and black gliding boats; of labyrinthine darkness made for mysteries of love and crime; of statue-fretted palace fronts; of brazen clangour and a moving crowd; of pictures by earth's proudest painters, cased in gold on walls of council chambers where Venice sat ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... of the fleets located new and concealed batteries placed in position by the Turks, and at two o'clock in the afternoon of February 3, 1915, they ascended to direct the fire of the ships' guns by signal. The bombardment was kept up till darkness fell, but it was resumed ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... after the two. She moved, and the resemblance to Harriet was so striking that Julian again stopped. As he did so, the figure turned away, and walked in the opposite direction, till it was lost in the darkness. ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... there was a sudden look in his eyes which gave them a sombre darkness, darker than ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... my eyes and waited for sleep to come; instead of sleep, however, there came to me a succession of curiously vivid clairvoyant pictures. There was no light in the room, and it was perfectly dark; I had my eyes shut also. But, notwithstanding the darkness, I suddenly was conscious of looking at a scene of singular beauty. It was as if I saw a living miniature about the size of a magic-lantern slide. At this moment I can recall the scene as if I saw it again. It was a seaside piece. The moon was shining upon the water, which rippled slowly ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... of conflict. Horses, mailed knights, vassals are mixed together in wild confusion; banners are waving and lances flashing amid the dust and smoke, while the wounded and dying are trodden under foot in darkness and blood. I now first begin to comprehend the power and sublimity of his genius. From the wildness and gloom of his pictures, he might almost be called ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... talks in a friendly way with the peasants, discussing their problems with a simplicity which conceals much wisdom. To those who wish to use her name as a standard to restore the power of the common people, she insists that she desires nothing but darkness and silence in which to end her days. She had been suspected of heresy, because she read Erasmus, but the Jesuit Francisco de Borja, a man of saintly life, is with her at her death, and bears witness that her faith is untainted and that she will receive in the bosom of God ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... Nevill Tyson turned on Stanistreet were not search-lights; they were wells of darkness, ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... the light dimmed by the green growth over the mouth of the opening, the next he was in utter darkness, and gliding down rapidly for what seemed, in his horror and confusion, a long period. Then all at once the rattling, echoing noise of falling stones ceased, and so did his progress, as he found himself, scratched and sore, lying on his side upon a heap of stones, some of which were right ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... be the generator of thought, was reduced to a comatose state. Fact after fact came hurtling in upon me, demanding explanation I was incompetent to give. I studied the obscurer sides of consciousness, dreams, hallucinations, illusions, insanity. Into the darkness shot a ray of light—A.P. Sinnett's "Occult World," with its wonderfully suggestive letters, expounding not the supernatural but a nature under law, wider than I had dared to conceive. I added Spiritualism to my studies, experimenting privately, finding the phenomena indubitable, but the ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... it for more than twenty years." Taking down his hat from a big nail in the wall, Christopher stood for a moment abstractedly fingering the brim. "Well, I'll be back shortly," he said at last, and went out hurriedly into the darkness. At the instant he could not tell why he had so suddenly decided to follow Will Fletcher to the store, but, as usual, when the impulse came to him he proceeded to act promptly as it directed. Strangely enough, the boy was the one human being whom he felt no inclination to avoid, ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... for the history of the day that followed the birthday. Not a glimmer of light had broken in on us, so far. A day or two after, however, the darkness lifted a little. How, and with what result, you ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... What else he said, how in his agonizing dumbness he was able to tell her that she was the mother, not, indeed, of his body, but of his soul—was only for her ears; what his face, hidden in her pillow, confessed, the quiet darkness held inviolate. This silent man's experiences of shame and courage, began that night when, in the fire-lit room, besieged by darkness and the storm, that ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... we went, the louder and more horrible was the noise. Entering a region of darkness, we were at length compelled to light our torches; when, holding them up, we could see birds flitting about in all directions, their long nests fixed in the roof and ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... me feel that we are all too ready with our peevish outcries against the beautiful world in which we have been placed; too ready to complain that all is sadness and sorrow and disappointment, when the gloom exists within ourselves, not without us; it is from ourselves the misty darkness springs; it is we ourselves who have lost, or who have never possessed, the secret of being happy, and we exclaim that there is no happiness on the face of the globe! It is we ourselves who are 'flat, stale, and unprofitable,' not our neighbors; ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... the preparations necessary—that we have horses all ready here, concealed in a pent-house—that we have a vessel at the Cows[G] waiting for us—that we are all prepared to attend you, and eager to engage in the enterprise—the darkness of the night favoring our plan, and rendering it almost certain of success. Now," added he, "these suppositions express the real state of the case, and the only question is what your majesty ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... intent had he been on his reveries to notice that the room was in darkness. How still everything was! That was the way the little hut would be after he was gone,—cold, dark, and silent. He wondered as he sat there whether he should ever come back. Would the Fernalds want him next season and again offer him the boathouse for a home? They had said nothing about ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... ship was at the mercy of some rapid and dangerous current, perhaps being drawn into some whirlpool. Now the fog seemed to lift, and long lines of light were seen ahead, but it was only to be succeeded by greater darkness. Then the sounds began to change and vary; and while what seemed voices were heard singing and sighing overhead, the deep rush and roll of waters below had a strange and bewildering effect on the feelings. Now the ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... assistance. The boys scrambled up after him. Some were caught, and ultimately sentenced to the Island, on a charge of stealing the articles which were found; but others escaped. Among these was Ben, who was lucky enough to glide off in the darkness. He took the little German boy under his protection, and managed to get him safely away also. In this case the ends of justice were not interfered with, as neither of the two had been guilty of dishonesty, or anything else rendering ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... face the remaining hour of darkness, powerless to do anything, utterly helpless, with nerves strung to the highest possible pitch, and hearts that beat wildly ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... petition of Ocer but yet more by beholding the old hero, bereft of the blessing of sight, inasmuch as the calamities which we witness make more impression upon us than those of which we only hear. He, poor man, living on in perpetual darkness, had to borrow the sight of another to hasten to our presence in order that he might feel the sweetness of our clemency, though he could not gaze upon ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... blood, and breath. Press the brain a little, its light goes out, followed by both the others. Stop the heart a minute, and out go all three of the wicks. Choke the air out of the lungs, and presently the fluid ceases to supply the other centres of flame, and all is soon stagnation, cold, and darkness. The "tripod of life" a French physiologist called these three organs. It is all clear enough which leg of the tripod is going to break down here. I could tell you exactly what the difficulty is;—which would be as intelligible and amusing as a watchmaker's description ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... often weighted from infancy with hereditary maladies, both of body and of character. This is reason enough, I think, for us all to help each other, even though we feel, as you feel, that we are as lost children, wandering in a great darkness, with no thread or clue to guide us to ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... their lips. This theme does not enter into their program. Suddenly a strident voice speaks out of the darkness: ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... musing in my room, The snow is on the ground; The moon has hid her face to-night, And darkness is profound. 'Twas somewhat such a night as this, A little darker, though, I asked Bess to go sleighing, and She ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... song of amorous fire. Sweet the sighs that thrill the lyre; Oh! sweeter far than all the gold Thy wings can waft, thy mines can hold. Well do I know thy arts, thy wiles— They withered Love's young wreathed smiles; And o'er his lyre such darkness shed, I thought its soul of song was fled! They dashed the wine-cup, that, by him, Was filled with kisses to the brim.[3] Go—fly to haunts of sordid men, But come not near the bard again. Thy glitter in the Muse's ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... house behind him, Stuart had silence except for the occasional call of a whippoorwill, and as he drew nearer to the sleepy darkness at the pines a clear and fragrant scent of honeysuckle came to ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... butterfly of the night to awake you. No, no; all this was not accidental, Christian. The heavens impose upon you a terrible mission. If you do not accomplish it, tremble lest you fall yourself into the hands of the old murderess! Perhaps, at this moment, she is preparing her snares in the darkness." ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... Darkness gathers round me, and I am tired, tired, and I would that I could sleep like Rip Van Winkle, and awake an old man, with an old man's passionless resignation; or better, awake not at all. Such poor fools as I ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... embodied creatures. Thou art possessed of vast feet. Thou hast vast hands. Thou art of vast body. Thou art endued with wide extending fame. Thou hast a vast head.[139] Thou art of vast measurements. Thou art of vast vision. Thou art the home of the darkness of ignorance. Thou art the Destroyer of the Destroyer. Thou art possessed of vast years. Thou hast vast lips. Thou art he that has vast cheeks. Thou hast a vast nose. Thou art of a vast throat. Thou hast a vast neck. Thou art he ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... began to struggle, and in the darkness of the place it seemed to those of his comrades who observed him as if he were writhing like a snake. But little did his fellow-pirates heed. Their hearts had long ago ceased to be impressible by horrid fancies. They could not help but see ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... master tolerates nothing that is disagreeable to him; that ruling is simply being master; and that the master's method is the method of violent punishment. And our citizens, all school taught, are walking in the same darkness. As I write these lines the Home Secretary is explaining that a man who has been imprisoned for blasphemy must not be released because his remarks were painful to the feelings of his pious fellow townsmen. Now it happens ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... were mounted, and in the darkness they sped away over the same route which Jack had taken when he went to visit ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline
... to quiet again. Phil knew, however, that he was not alone—that undoubtedly there was someone watching his prison. He examined the place as well as he could in the darkness, tried the door, ran his hands over the sides and up among the piles of linen. There was scant encouragement to be found, though Phil believed that if he had room to take a running start he might ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... everything would go wrong without her. At dusk she fell asleep, and Rose went down to order lights and fire in the parlor, with tea ready to serve at any moment, for she felt sure some of the men would come and that a cheerful greeting and creature comforts would suit them better than tears, darkness, and desolation. ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... me think of haunts, 'cause every evening when I drive up the cows for milking, there's a old, old log cabin right on the way that I pass every night—and it's so haunted won't nobody pass it after the darkness covers in ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... reign. Russia might be radically transformed, it was thought, politically and socially, according to abstract scientific principles, in the space of a few years, and be thereby raised to the level of West-European civilisation, or even higher. The older nations had for centuries groped in darkness, or stumbled along in the faint light of practical experience, and consequently their progress had been slow and uncertain. For Russia there was no necessity to follow such devious, unexplored paths. She ought to profit by the experience of her elder sisters, ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... painful to turn from this bright picture of her life to all the sorrow and darkness which followed it. She made an unhappy marriage, her husband proving to be an adventurer who had assumed a distinguished name. For a time she was crushed by this sorrow; but her friends remained true to her, and she found relief in absolute devotion to her art. For twelve ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... guns, and I did not the least desire to sit among these things. My own servant came to me in the twilight, the muslin of his clothes clinging tightly to his drenched body, and told me that a gentleman had called and wished to see some one. Very much against my will, and because of the darkness of the rooms, I went into the naked drawing-room, telling my man to bring the lights. There might or might not have been a caller in the room—it seems to me that I saw a figure by one of the windows, but when the lights came there was nothing ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... her body down into the grass, into the firm hard ground. It seemed to her that her mind, her fancy, all the life within her, except just her physical life, went away. The earth pressed upwards against her body. Her body was pressed against the earth. There was darkness. She was imprisoned. She pressed against the walls of her prison. Everything was dark and there was in all the earth silence. Her fingers clutched a handful of the grasses, ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... appeared at the threshold of the door she heaved a deep sigh, and it was this that startled her lover; but as he had his head in a stooping position, and was busy brushing his coat, the sound seemed to him to come from the farther end of the room, which was obscured in darkness. He was not aware that fat ladies' sighs were proportionate to their size. However, now that his heart's idol was present, he cared nothing for aught else; so, taking her small hand, he led her to the window, and they stood gazing with mutual consent at the starry heavens. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... walked there on Sundays, arm in arm. Then the stroll to Port Island, and Barker's plot against him, and the evening at the Stack passed through his mind; and the dinner at the Jolly Herring, and, above all, Vernon's death. Oh! how awful it seemed to him now, as he looked through the darkness at the very road along which they had brought Verny's dead body. Then his thoughts turned to the theft of the pigeons, his own drunkenness, and then his last cruel, cruel experiences, and this dreadful ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... When darkness came I placed a guard a little distance off our camp. It seemed likely that the Tibetans might make a rush on our tent if they had a chance. One of us kept watch all night outside the tent, while those inside lay down in their clothes, with loaded rifles ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... wood, and taking a cart path, began to penetrate its hidden depths. The night darkened upon him; he heard the owl screech his dismal note, and the whip-poor-will chant his cheery song. A certain sense of security now pervaded his mind, for the darkness concealed him from the world, and he had placed six good miles between him and the ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... themselves out into deep passages and vast squares, in which sound is lost, and where the light, which cannot reach the nearest object, only glimmers like a point of fire. In order to comprehend this vacuity and this darkness, the travellers let the guide extinguish his torch, and all is night; they are penetrated, as it were, with darkness; the hand feels after a wall, in order to have some restraint, some thought on which to repose itself: the eye sees nothing; the ear hears nothing. Horror seizes on the strongest ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... shudder. The soft, plaintive chant swelled and grew louder, as if addressed to me. It gripped my very heart. I stood up all in a shiver, and started to walk in the direction of the sound. But around me, up and down, on every side, was total darkness. The moon had set long ago. I moved away only a few steps from the horses, and could not make them out any more. By and by I could distinguish some words, and I recognized the heart-gripping chant of a ...
— In Those Days - The Story of an Old Man • Jehudah Steinberg
... little light in the lodge, as the fire was low, and its fitful flashes, by disclosing their white faces and then dropping them in sudden darkness, served rather to increase ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... which shone through the transom window of the front door, there was not a vestige of light in a single window of the seven stories. Cornmarket was a gloomy commonplace, thought Starmidge, but the little oil lamps in the cottages were riotously cheery in comparison with the darkness of the tall, gaunt Chestermarke mansion. It looked like ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... me to know its power, Cap'n Daddy," warned Janet with a glint of darkness in the laughing serenity of her gaze; "the temper is here just the same, and powerful bad, ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... the northern horizon, his gray eyes narrowed a little. There was a darkness there, a faint indication of cloud build-up. He hoped it didn't mean rain. Getting the transplants in early was all right, but it didn't count for anything if ...
— The Destroyers • Gordon Randall Garrett
... back to his brother's tent, exclaimed, "Quick, quick! not a moment is to be lost; let us fly or we are defeated!" As rapidly as possible the tents were struck, the baggage prepared, and every man in readiness; and, in the darkness of night, King Henry mounted his good steed, and never slackened rein till he reached the walls of Saintes, followed by his soldiers, who, harassed and fatigued, were not sorry to find ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... Dewey herein before referred to—was the black background and cellar of the institution. Like a rat, he came from the coal heap or a hidden corner unawares and was gone into further darkness before you could turn to learn the cause of the noise he made. His shadowy participation in home management contributed to the family's progress as a millstone about the neck of its mistress, and did not follow ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... she said to the darkness, "Mac is all right. HE can take care of himself." But for all that she had a clear-cut vision of her husband's body, bloated with seawater, his blond hair streaming like kelp, ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... given him so hearty a drubbing. But I should think myself very unworthy, if I did not at the same time acknowledge Mr. John Wesley's merit, as a veteran 'Soldier of Jesus Christ' [2 Timothy, ii. 3], who has, I do believe, 'turned many from darkness into light, and from the power of Satan to the living GOD' [Acts, xxvi. 18]. BOSWELL. Wesley wrote on Nov. 11, 1775 (Journal, iv. 56), 'I made some additions to the Calm Address to our American Colonies. Need any one ask from what motive this was wrote? Let him ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... of the sidewalks. After trudging through mud and slush for a long time, they conceived the idea of laying a plank walk through the worst sections. And so they laid two six-inch planks side by side. The scheme helped wonderfully, except on short winter days when the men had to go to work in the darkness of early morning and return in the darkness of evening. It often was so dark that they would step off the planks, and once off they were about as muddy as if there had been no walk at all. Finally someone suggested the idea that if a lantern were hung up at ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... and while it portrays the person of Christ as the light of life, it represents him as again and again misunderstood, even by those well disposed to Him, as if the text of his Gospel were "the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not"; the authenticity of this Gospel has been much debated, and its composition has by recent criticism been referred to somewhere between ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... rumbling just beneath; it made a ruder but richer music. Bernard stood looking at it a moment; then he went down the steps to the beach. The tide was rather low; he walked slowly down to the line of the breaking waves. The sea looked huge and black and simple; everything was vague in the unassisted darkness. Bernard stood there some time; there was nothing but the sound and the sharp, fresh smell. Suddenly he put his hand to his heart; it was beating very fast. An immense conviction had come over him—abruptly, ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... The darkness, the dangers, the awe and mystery attending these midnight meetings invested them with an extraordinary degree of interest and even fascination. It is not surprising that under such circumstances the devotion of these poor people should have run into fanaticism and superstition. ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... intelligence...." On October 22, 1844, he exclaimed, regarding racial distinctions: "Education levels everything. An erudite man in any class is equal to any other man having the same degree of education; he is a demi-god and is superior to kings, when the latter are immersed in the darkness of ignorance." ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... smile And eloquence of beauty; and she glides Into his darker musings with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart, Go forth under the open sky, and list To Nature's teachings, while from all around— Earth and her waters, and the depths of air— Comes a still voice:—Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... us in France," writes a British officer, "was the pilot, and the first intimation of his presence was a huge voice in the darkness, which roared out 'A bas Guillaume. Eep, eep, 'ooray!'" As transport after transport sailed into Boulogne, and regiment after regiment landed, the population went into ecstasies of delight. Through the narrow streets of the old town the ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... farther into the comparative darkness of the inner room. He felt himself singularly insignificant and out of place, and he made no more efforts to talk. Rose played a violin solo, and played it with astonishing delicacy and fire. When it was ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... respecting apparitions; for during that awful sleep the spirit of the deceased would visit them, seize them by the throat, and, opening them, take out their bowels, which they would replace and close up the wound. We understood that very few chose to encounter the darkness of the night, the solemnity of the grave, and the visitation of the spirit of the deceased; but that such as were so hardy became immediately car-rah-dys, and that all those who exercised that profession had gone ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... unperfumed By roses, and clear suns, though scarcely felt, And groves, if unharmonious yet secure From clamour and whose very silence charms, To be preferred to smoke—to the eclipse That Metropolitan volcanoes make, Whose Stygian throats breathe darkness all day long, And to the stir of commerce, driving slow, And thundering loud with his ten thousand wheels? They would be, were not madness in the head And folly in the heart; were England now What England was, plain, hospitable, ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... flourished in Persia in the second half of the third century, and who engrafted some Christian doctrines on his system, which was essentially the dualism of Zoroaster and the pantheism of Buddha. He assumed two original substances,—God and Hyle, light and darkness, good and evil,—which were opposed to each other. Matter, which is neither good nor evil, was regarded as bad in itself, and identified with darkness, the prince of which overthrew the primitive man. Among the descendants of the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... its myriads of sounds and that feeling of restless settling down for the night that it always seems to have in the country, slowly deepened into darkness and Arethusa still played on. Perhaps her execution was not of the best and her fingering may have been questionable; but she seemed to feel some of the real spirit of the quaint old tunes she ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... find Anna in the forest. She is in a deep reverie; her heart has spoken, but alas, not for her bridegroom, whom she now fears; it only beats for Conrad, who has owned his love to her. Darkness comes on and the gnomes appear with their Queen, who reveals to the frightened girl the origin of her bridegroom and entreats her to give back the son to his poor bereft mother. When the gnomes have disappeared, Conrad overtakes Anna, and she tells him all, ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... sun was away and frost came from the lake, and darkness sank down from heaven, and terror stole forward on the twilight's trail, and in the forest it ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... rub the inflamed organ, and told him he thought the moisture of the eye would soon wash out the intruder, if left to itself. Oscar tried to follow this advice, but the pain and irritation did not subside, and he closed his eyes, and resigned himself to darkness. ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... very irony of fate, yet such I believed to be the case. To be sure, there were various incidents which seemed to conflict with such a theory, and the theory itself seemed wild to the point of absurdity; but at least it was a ray of light in what had been utter darkness. I turned it over and over in my mind, trying to fit into it the happenings of the day—I must confess with very poor success. Freylinghuisen's voice brought me out ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... of our lamps. We rushed through villages and intensely gloomy woods. Sign-posts shone white for an instant at cross roads and disappeared. The wind whipped the rain against our faces. The white slime utterly dimmed my spectacles, and I looked out at walls of darkness through ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... the light that illumines his pathway, And his noonday how like to the darkness of night; Yet he keeps in the beam directing his footsteps, So must his intent be accounted for right. I would not, I dare not, sit in Judgment upon thee, Tho' the light on thy path be less bright than on mine, But rather come to the fulness of duty In my life as thou hast ...
— The American Missionary — Vol. 48, No. 10, October, 1894 • Various
... that produces this wonderful characteristic of humanity? Ignorance; ignorance is the sole support of despotism, which lives on darkness and silence. Now happiness in the domestic establishment as in a political state is a negative happiness. The affection of a people for a king, in an absolute monarchy, is perhaps less contrary to nature than the fidelity of a wife towards her husband, when love between them no longer ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... last, he could go to sleep if he liked, at the fire. Joe went to sleep—HOW, I don't know. Then Dad sat beside him, and for long intervals would stare silently into the darkness. Sometimes a string of the vermin would hop past close to the fire, and another time a curlew would come near and screech its ghostly wail, but he never noticed them. Yet he seemed to ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... was confident, would abolish the Slave-trade when, as would then soon happen, its injustice and cruelty should be fairly laid before them. It was a nest of serpents, which would never have existed so long, but for the darkness in which they lay hid. The light of day would now be let in on them, and they would vanish from the sight. For himself, he declared he was engaged in a work, which he would never abandon. The consciousness of ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... sea so vast that the Italian boy, who had never before ventured beyond the canals of the Adriatic, was bewildered when day after day the giant ship plowed onward and still, despite her speed, failed to reach the land. Sunlight flooded the water, twilight settled into darkness, and yet on every hand tossed that mighty expanse of waves. Would a haven ever be reached, the lad asked himself; and how, amid that pathless ocean, could the captain be so sure that eventually he would make the port for which he was aiming? It ...
— The Story of Glass • Sara Ware Bassett
... Darkness had set in now, and Ney, finding it impossible to make his way further, and feeling sure that had the Emperor been still at Krasnoi he would have sent a force to his assistance, fell back into the forest. His position was a desperate one; the scanty supply of provisions ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... you will love him!" said Wingfold, "for he will love you. They are getting him ready to let you now. I think he is loving you in the darkness. He had begun to love you long before he went. But he was the slave of the nature he had enfeebled and corrupted. I hope endlessly for him—though God only knows how long it may take, even after the change is begun, to bring men like him back to their true ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... open to us. I am listening to your spirit. We shall be led into Truth, Love and Happiness. Our love is perfect. We shall not err. You hear the voice of my wish for you. You know my mind. All promises in truth are perfect. All is light, there is no darkness between us. There is no distance, or obstacle between us. Your mind answers to my mind, your heart to my heart, your soul to my soul. When tempted, I am near to with-hold you. When disheartened ...
— Supreme Personality • Delmer Eugene Croft
... under which the crews of these vessels were situated, being such as had never before occurred, it cannot be uninteresting to know in what manner they passed their time during three months of nearly total darkness, and in the midst of ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... commenced before daylight, and which did not finish at its close, dispersed all that had remained together. They lost themselves in the darkness of these great forests and long nights. They halted at night and resumed their march in the morning, in darkness, at random, and without hearing the signal; the dissolution of the remains of the corps was then completed; all were ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... on driving, forever, with no hope of the tedium ending. She was bewildered. She passed six times what seemed to be precisely the same forest clearing, always with the road on a tiny ridge to the left of the clearing, always with a darkness-stilled house at one end and always, in the pasture at the other end, a horse which neighed. She was in a panorama stage-scene; things moved steadily by her, there was a sound of the engine, and a sensation of steering, ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... leant hard against the alder trunk, as though to steady himself, and keep all troublesome thoughts well in front of him. In this attitude of defense he reasoned with himself on the absurdity of allowing himself to be depressed by the mere accidents of place, and darkness, and silence; but all the reasoning at his command didn't alter the fact. He felt the enemy advancing again, and, casting, about for help, fell back on the thought that he was going through a task, holding to his word, doing what he had said he would do; and this brought him some ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... into the house by his custodian; and, while the guard was looking the other way, perhaps he had suddenly popped up the chimney, leaving the rebel soldier in charge of him to believe that he was in league with the powers of darkness, and had been spirited ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... sinful; but this is only in a total alienation of the will from God. It is not a total depravity, but a total alienation. There is a natural depravity, but it is not total. But the choice may be totally perverted, when it chooses darkness instead of light, evil instead ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... the darkness it showed, a distant moving lantern on the curtain of the night. Although few would have credited Kerry with the virtue, he was a man of cultured imagination, and it seemed to him, as it seemed to Seton Pasha, that the dim light symbolized the life of the missing woman, of the woman who hovered ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... remarked to my companion this change in the heavens, and spoke about the darkness of ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... symbolical meaning. They represent our Savior, who is "the light of the world," "who enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world," without whom we should be wandering in darkness and ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... About the lip of the empty stone basin, vigorously chirruping, sparrows came and went, while in the far corner a grove of starveling sunflowers lifted their brown and yellow-rayed faces towards the light. Dominic, resting gratefully in the cool semi-darkness of the empty room, until the faintness which had attacked him was passed, found the place very gentle, soothing, and sweet. The sadder memories had died out here, so he noted. Only gracious and tender ones remained. He wished he could stay on indefinitely. ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... splendid scene that burst upon our view, on rounding a precipitous rock, from the crevices of which some magnificent trees shot up—their gnarled trunks and twisted branches overhanging the canal where we were pulling, and anticipating the fast—falling darkness that was creeping over the fair face of nature; and there we floated, in the deep shadow of the cliff and trees Dragonflies and Water Sprites, motionless and silent, the boats floating so lightly that they scarcely seemed to touch the water, the men resting ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... intelligent beings, it has never yet happened to me to converse with a man without penetrating his thoughts through that living mask which has been thrown over our mind, in order to retain its expression. But to-night, in this darkness, in the reserve which you maintain, I can read nothing on your features, and something tells me that I shall have great difficulty in wresting from you a sincere declaration. I beseech you, then, not for love of me, for subjects ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... people. Roused by the noise of the signal guns, the natives of the surrounding islands kindled many fires on their hills, and flocked in crowds to the coasts; and the Dutch; not knowing what might be their designs in the darkness of the night and in the midst of their own confusion, fired upon them without ceremony, that they might have as few dangers as possible to deal with at one time. In the morning as soon as it was light, they had a clear view of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... mosquitoes seem like a lot of baby butterflies in comparison. However, much as we may dislike the latter, they at least do not poison us or convey disease (as yet), and are repelled by thick clothing. The black flies attack us like some awful pestilence walking in darkness, crawling in and forcing themselves under our clothing, stinging and poisoning as they go. They are, of course, worst near the openings in our armour, that is necks, wrists, and ankles. Soon each of us had a neck like an old fighting ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... already set, and the darkness favoured the attack. Daun had not yet recovered from the terrible confusion into which his troops were thrown by the attack, and the Prussians again mounted the hill, Holstein attacking Daun's ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... out; we amused ourselves with watching the Highlanders at work: they went leisurely about everything, and whatever was to be done, all followed, old men, and young, and little children. We were driven into the house by a shower, which came on with the evening darkness, and the people leaving their work paused at the same time. I was pleased to see them a while after sitting round a blazing fire in the kitchen, father and son-in-law, master and man, and the mother with her little child on her knee. When I had been ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... they were meant for her even now. Surely it was her own wedding and not Hilda's, after all! She was being married, and she wasn't ready! Oh, it was horrible—horrible! And where was Trevor, or Bertie, or someone—anyone— to hold her back from that dreadful, scented darkness? ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... half an armful of dry brushwood on the fire, with the result that there was a loud crackling sound, and a burst of brilliant flame which lit up a large circle round, throwing up the figures of the little party clearly against the darkness, ready for the spears of the blacks who might ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... with a gesture of the hand toward the ball-room. He followed, because she led the way, but without seeing the meaning of the move until they were actually on the polished dancing-floor. Owing to the darkness of the December afternoon, the large empty room was lit up as brilliantly as at night. For a minute they stood on the threshold, looking absently at the palms grouped in the corners and the garlands festooning the walls. It was ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... sings the praise of a beautiful woman, a queen who died about 700 B.C., as follows: "The beloved before all women, the king's daughter who is sweet in love, the fairest among women, a maid whose like none has seen. Blacker is her hair than the darkness of night, blacker than the berries of the blackberry bush (?). Harder are her teeth (?) than the flints on the sickle. A wreath of flowers is each of her breasts, close nestling on her arms." Wiedemann, who quotes this, adds: "During the whole classic period ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... system made a compliment to the freedom of men. In their fraud there was no mixture of force. This was reserved to our time, to quench the little glimmerings of reason which might break in upon the solid darkness of this enlightened age. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... quietly from the darkness within the carriage; "but I am too tired to care about ...
— "Le Monsieur De La Petite Dame" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... French Encyclopaedists, or of the English infidels. I consider religion as essential to man, and belonging to the human mind in the same manner as instincts belong to the brute creation, a light, if you please of revelation to guide him through the darkness of this life, and to keep alive his undying hope of immortality: but pardon me if I consider this instinct as equally useful in all its different forms, and still a divine light through whatever medium or cloud of human passion or prejudice it passes. I reverence ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... arrogance—this wretched fragment of a faction, after assuring the South that the North would not fight, and persuading the North that the South was quite in the right in every thing, now appears as constant meddler and mischief-maker in the great struggle going on, giving to it those elements of darkness, disgrace, and treason which, unfortunately, are always to be found in the greatest struggles for freedom and right, and which, when history is written, give such grounds to the carper, the sophist, and skeptic to ridicule the noblest efforts of humanity. Such are the self-called ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... Subsequently to the suffering, and on the ground of it, begins the exercise of the Kingly office of Christ, chap. liii. 12. He brings law and righteousness to the [Pg 9] Gentile world, chap. xlii. 1; light into their darkness, chap. xlii. 6. He becomes the centre around which the whole Gentile world gathers, chap. xi. 10: "And it shall come to pass in that day, the root of Jesse which shall stand for an ensign of the people, to it shall the Gentiles ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... time darkness was coming on, and there were no signs of houses or of people. He staggered forward but a little distance, and then, on the short, soft turf, sank down ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... of the troops carried some trenches, and then pushing on gained a useful piece of ground south of Guillemont with few casualties. Another (the left) section of British troops were unable to proceed farther on account of the darkness. Another section, owing to miscalculation, swept through the German trenches straight into the village of Guillemont, where they lost their direction amid the ruins and confusion. Working their way through the shattered streets they proceeded to dig themselves in when they had reached the far northeast ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... not seen the works of Mr. Jefferson, but I will obtain and examine them with care and attention. The history of the times to which these memorandums and documents relate are enveloped in thick darkness. Whether the period has yet arrived when an effort should be made to dispel that darkness is problematical. The means, however, do exist of proving, to the satisfaction of the most skeptical, what are the ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us. We wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness." ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... unsolvable mystery, one becomes affected by a strange lost feeling. The loneliness, the silence, the impossibility of seeing far into the surrounding wall of foliage, all oppress the soul, and strange alarms attack the most hardy. Then at night, when there is no moon and the darkness is thick, a phosphorescent light, due to decaying wood, shines fearsomely all about on the ground, so that it seems, as Louis said, "like picking one's way over the mouth of hell." "We ourselves," writes Mrs. Stevenson, "have become infected with the native fear of the spirits. Louis has been ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... was the aim of these knights of darkness, they lay concealed under all shapes and disguises, and followed up their game with all wariness and discretion. Like wise traders, they made it the business of their lives to excel in ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... crowbars with a fellow we used to call Hercules. He laid me out with a crusher alongside the head that made everything crack, and seemed to spring every joint in my skull and made it overlap its neighbor. Then the world went out in darkness, and I didn't feel anything more, and didn't know anything at all —at ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Sheffield. This one had his fingers gaudily ornamented with rings and diamonds. Of course there isn't much to be said of us recruits, except, perhaps, that we were regarded as so many "raw lads." Nevertheless we passed our time during the day very agreeably in various ways—games, &c.—until darkness settled over the ship, and then we retired ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... Quintard, with the cotton socks. Both were very acceptable, though the latter I have not yet tried. At the time of their reception the enemy was threatening an attack, which was continued till Saturday night, when under cover of darkness we suddenly withdrew. Your letter of the 2d, with the yarn socks, four pairs, was handed to me when I was preparing to follow, and I could not at the time attend to either. But I have since, and as I found Perry in desperate ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... cottage another wanderer was journeying yet faster to a more distant ocean. The darkness closed in. Garth was tossing on his bed. His mother was rocking herself at his side. All ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... Boers who were with the waggon had gone to sleep, but that Muller was still sitting in his tent thinking. Then they crept on, perfectly sure that if they were not heard they would not be seen, curtained as they were by the dense mist and darkness. ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... longed, like a certain famous general, for the coming of night! A little more darkness and he would flee with his wife and child under its friendly cover, and place a safe distance between them and their enemies, before the latter could ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... folded it and tucked it securely into his turban, then he slipped through a door into the darkness of the Singapore night. In his ciphered message was the key to an adventure that would plunge his American friends into both darkness and danger in the fabled, terrifying Caves of Korse Lenken, a story to be related ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... avail as much in the darkness of the closet as they do in an exposition building, with an electric light, and as long as sinners will do many things which they ought not to do, and undo many, things that they never ought to have done, the dark of the moon is probably ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... the last day of 1797. O may I this day put off the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light: and begin a new life with a new year,—Lord, help me this day to live to Thee. Let Thy love be shed abroad in my heart. Inspire the spirit of prayer. Let my few days be spent in praising Thee, the Giver of all ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... hill, the bullets pattering down harmlessly, and only making a blue bruise when they hit. As soon as the sappers and gunners had made sure the gun was destroyed, the order to retire was given, and the line began climbing down in the darkness. The half company in support was taken up, the two companies at the foot were reached by some, when a heavy fire flashed out of the darkness on both sides. The Boers, evidently by a preconcerted scheme, were crowding in from Thornhill's ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... spouted the whale, with a gleeful gurgle, and before any one could say "Jack Robinson!" Mr. Jonah appeared upon the deck of the Ark, and with a swish of his great tail the whale disappeared in the darkness. ...
— The Cruise of the Noah's Ark • David Cory
... I had the honor to present to the Senate, are little more than the announcement of what I hold to be the clearly-expressed declarations of the Constitution itself. To that fixed standard it is sought, at this time, when we are drifting far from the initial point, and when clouds and darkness hover over us, to bring back the Government, and to test our condition to-day by the rules which our fathers laid down for us ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... having tidied it a little by throwing the bacon rind away, and spreading the mugs about, we sat listening to the sputtering of the bacon and watching the flickering of the flames, which in the increasing darkness began to gild and tinge the rough ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... 'to think of oneself as an instrument of God's designs is a privilege one shares with the devil,' as someone said. I will not believe that He is so little in earnest as that. No, He is the great invader, who desires to turn darkness to light, rage to peace, misery to happiness. Then, and only then, can I enlist under His banner, fight for Him, honour Him, worship Him, compassionate Him, and even love Him; but if He is ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... speaking with great effort, for the room was growing very dark, and a strange numbness seemed stealing over heart and brain, "this tells that I was stolen from the side of my dead mother who was killed in a wreck—" She could get no farther, and she knew nothing of his reply. A thick darkness seemed to envelop her, fast shutting out all sense even of life itself. There was a sound for an instant like the deafening roar of waters surging about her, and then she seemed sinking down, down into infinite depths, until she lost all consciousness. For the first ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... for Rachel, and one could see that the mere sight of him rested her. She told him all about it, in her wonderfully comprehensive way, and he felt the whole thing, and we were all very quiet and peaceful and sad, as we drove home through the early darkness of ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... he challenged me twice to come out into the darkness to him, and this in an angry voice, saying that he would tear me limb from limb. I went out and told him to come on, but nothing happened. When I went back to my place and asked him why he had not fulfilled his promise, he said, 'I had no orders for it from my master'. He asked us whether ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... which many people have fallen is in supposing that Kelly was simply a clever base-ball machine. He is very much more than this: he is an unusually bright and intelligent man. As a class, base-ball professionals are either dull brutes or ribald brutes; ignorance as dense as Egyptian darkness has seemed to constitute one of the essentials to successful base-ball playing, and the average professional occupies an intellectual plane hardly above that of the average stall-fed ox or the fat pig at a country fair. Mike Kelly stands ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... room we hurried in the darkness, lighting the lights. They were all empty, yet each one gave its mute testimony to the character of its use and its former occupants. There were opium lay-outs with pipes, lamps, yen haucks, and other paraphernalia in some. In others had been cocaine snuffers. ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... Of course darkness put an end to his operations for that day; and with the intention of continuing them on the morrow, both the operator and spectators wended their way back to the hut—Karl and Caspar showing as much respect to Ossaroo, as if he ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... the midst of us, and ate our supper. It was indeed a strange chamber to feast in; and we could not help remarking on the cold, ghastly appearance of the walls, and the black water at our side with the thick darkness beyond, and the sullen sound of the drops that fell at long intervals from the roof of the cavern into the still water, and the strong contrast between all this and our bed and supper, which, with our faces, were lit up with the ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne |
