"Dimness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... black, gloved hands were tightly twisted together in her lap, and she allowed her plump body to wag quite loosely with the motion of the carriage, making no attempt at resistance. She had really the appearance of a corpse sitting up. The tarpaulin flapped monotonously. The coachman cried out in the dimness to his horses like a bird, prolonging his call drearily, and then violently cracking his whip. Domini kept her eyes fixed on the loose tarpaulin, so that she might not miss one of the wet visions it discovered ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... as scenes flashed by the sun on the plates of photography! True, the pictures were perhaps now slightly fading into the similitude of pale negatives, . . but still, would not everything that happened in the ACTUAL world merge into that same undecided dimness with the ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Hamilton went forward and seated himself in the first of these rows. The tom-toms had ceased: there was quiet, an interval of rest presumably for the dancers. It was far cooler than outside, and Hamilton breathed a sigh of relief as he sank into his seat. The dimness of the light, the quiet, the coolness all pleased him: he had not known till he sat down how tired he was. He might have sat there a quarter of an hour, his mind in that state of hopeless blank that supervenes ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... "pirate," turning on Owen his lusterless sea-green eyes, faded by much grog to a dimness that reminded one of the faint lights set in ships' decks and known as "dead-eyes." "No, but your porthole idea is just the scheme to get at him and get rid of him. I can slip down a rope tonight when all is quiet and the fool passengers are over on the other side looking ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... pleasant sight truly, and there was a dimness in the rector's eyes, as he stood at the head of a long table, at two o'clock on Christmas-day, to say grace before the dinner spread for those ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... that night ride were most extraordinary. As the sun sank, and twilight shaded into night, the atmosphere was filled with a hazy dimness; not merely fog, nor smoke, nor yet a pall of suspended dust, but rather what one might expect in a blending of those three. Only a tinge of moonlight from above softened the dull hue. It was not darkness as night usually ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... In the dimness of this interior he could just make out the outlines of things around. The doorway was located at a corner of the inclosure. In front lay a small open space of water. At one side a platform about two feet above the surface formed the floor of the room. A tiny ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... converse, it should be to learn from each other what good we can and ought to do, and so mingle the brightness of one with the dimness of the other. Our meetings should be such that we should go away feeling that God had been with us and multiplied our blessings. The question should be, 'Brother, can you teach me the way of the Lord in a more perfect manner than that in which I tread it, so that my soul may be increased and ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... gone well and hopefully, and the enthusiasm of the moment had brought a flush to the cheek and a dimness to the eye of many a weather-beaten tar among the little crew. But enthusiasm is fleeting in these practical days, and the sound of the last cheer had scarcely died away upon the summer breeze ere the scene changed, and the true nineteenth century spirit resumed ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... the place already haunted? Her heart swelled in her throat and a dimness came before her eyes. But another moan brought a swift realization—Kells was alive. And the cold, clamping sickness, the strangle in her throat, all the feelings of terror, changed and were lost in a flood of instinctive joy. He was not dead. She had ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... the approach to the court. The Fillmore Street entrance, with the Zone shrieking at you at one side, hardly puts you in the mood for the beauty in the courts. At night the situation is somewhat different. The flaring lights of the Zone make the dimness of the court all ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry
... door behind him. The schoolmistress found herself in a dark little parlour, which smelt even more of drugs than the shop itself. The window looked out into a dirty back-yard, and was almost concealed with heavy red curtains. As the eyes got accustomed to the dimness, one observed that the floor was covered with very old oil-cloth, and that the articles of furniture were few, only the most indispensable, and all very shabby. Everything seemed to be dusty and musty. The only approach to an ornament was a framed diploma hanging over the mantelpiece, certifying ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... in the background, hoping that no one would speak to her. Her face was burning. There was a dimness about her ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... coffee-houses are one or two cataracts several feet high, and the perpetual sound of their fall, and the coolness they spread around, are exquisite luxuries—in the heat of day, or in the dimness of evening. There are two or three Cafes constructed somewhat differently from those just described: a low gallery divides the platform from the tide; fountains play on the floor, which is furnished with very plain sofas and cushions; and music and dancing always abound, of the most ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... third and last." She ceas'd from further talk, and then began "Ave Maria" singing, and with that song Vanish'd, as heavy substance through deep wave. Mine eye, that far as it was capable, Pursued her, when in dimness she was lost, Turn'd to the mark where greater want impell'd, And bent on Beatrice all its gaze. But she as light'ning beam'd upon my looks: So that the sight sustain'd it not at first. Whence I to question her became ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... no doubt that I had experienced the ebb of some vitality, for it is the saddest thing about us that this bright spirit with which we are lit from within like lanterns, can suffer dimness. Such frailty makes one fear that extinction is our final destiny, and it saps us with numbness, and we are less than ourselves. Seven nights had I been on pilgrimage, and two of them had I passed in the open. Seven great heights had I climbed: ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... view'd th' interminable host, The prospect seem'd at last in dimness lost: But still the wish remain'd their doom to know, As, watchful, I survey'd the passing show. As each majestic form emerged to light, Thither, intent, I turn'd my sharpen'd sight; And soon a noble pair ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... she and he were transported from the bewildering city, talking in its sleep, to the sweet, fresh dimness of the Kenmore Green, where the steamer had left them. It was early, very early morning, not more than four o'clock, and the stars were bright and the hemlocks black, and the red rocks looked soft in the shadows, like ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... the tongues in Summer, when a Swiss lad entered with a round grin to tell him that a lady on horseback below had asked for him—Dr. Alvan. Who could the lady be? He thought of too many. The thought of Clotilde was dismissed in its dimness. Issuing and beholding her, his face became illuminated as by a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... increasing clouds, will sometimes pierce through the interstices of the dark masses, and dart for a moment the intensity of his light upon the earth, the mind of Mazereau would flash in all its youthful grandeur and power from the dimness that was ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... think me quite an ass.' He was astonished at himself. That he should still be capable of so strenuous a sensation! 'And I had thought I was blase!' He was intensely conscious of the silence, of the solitude and dimness of the forest, and of their isolation there, so near to each other, that superb pale woman and himself. But his eyes were bent on the misbehaving strap, which he ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... the music of pageantry, cloth-of-gold and scarlet vestments; pendant jewels and multicolored dimness shouldering upward to be lost in vaulted stone. It was music which awaited the accompaniment of whispers, thousands of awed, ritualistic sibilants which would carry no knowable meaning and only one avowed purpose. ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn
... the soft pad of pine needles, little twigs switched his face, and warm, odorous airs breathed their welcome. Through the dimness he saw her gain the crest of a ridge, running lightly with long strides, and, as he reached the spot, from the hollow beneath there rang her voice flung back in mocking laughter. By the trail's wide curve and the ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... them that two such queer monuments ought to be widely apart to escape notice. So, in the gathering dimness, each knelt stock still, without even the comfort of the other's proximity to help her through the long, long, awful minutes while the roisterous company were passing by. The men proceeded slowly; happily they had no interest in inspecting the gravestones of the little cemetery; but had they been ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... a while see for himself, by the low point of land with a great, long row of cocoanut-palms growing upon it (the appearance of which he knew very well), which by-and-by began to loom up from the dimness of the moonlight. As they approached the river they found the tide was running very violently, so that it gurgled and rippled alongside the boat as the crew of black men pulled strongly against it. Thus rowing slowly against the stream they came ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... raised, and the landlady looked her last upon the Virginian. Her lips were faintly parted, and no woman's eyes ever said more plainly, "I am one of your possessions." She had forgotten that it might be seen. Her glance caught mine, and she backed into the dimness of the room. What look she may have received from him, if he gave her any at this too public moment, I could not tell. His eyes seemed to be upon the horses, and he drove with the same mastering ease that had roped the wild pony yesterday. We passed the ramparts ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... figures on arras that gloomily glare, Stirr'd by the breath of the wintry air, So seen by the dying lamp's fitful light, Lifeless, but life-like and awful to sight; As they seem, through the dimness, about to come down From the shadowy wall ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... me stood faint and tall and dim; the trees towards the park were growing black. All about me the red weed clambered among the ruins, writhing to get above me in the dimness. Night, the mother of fear and mystery, was coming upon me. But while that voice sounded the solitude, the desolation, had been endurable; by virtue of it London had still seemed alive, and the sense of life about me had upheld me. Then suddenly a change, the ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... know; but he found developing in his brain a strange, numb sense of remoteness, a want of coordination and identity between it and his body. In remembering this day, he was always afterwards to associate it with a smell of stale smoke in his nostrils and a vague dimness of sight. Even the thousand vivid incidents of the great conflagration were always to come back to him with this haunting sense of unreality, the feeling that it was not actually he but some one else who had witnessed and shared and lived through them—some one not alien, ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... bound to caution the boys about disturbing the wild rabbits that in summer breed in my currant-patch, and in autumn seek refuge under my study floor. The occasional glimpses I get of them about the lawn in the dusk, their cotton tails twinkling in the dimness, afford me a genuine pleasure. I have seen the time when I would go a good way to shoot a partridge; but I would not have killed, if I could, the one that started out of the vines that cover my rustic ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... waistcoat, fancy neckerchief, gilt chains, and filagreed buttons, to that of the scrupulously inornate clergyman, than which nothing could be less liable to suspicion. Still all were distinguished by a certain sodden swarthiness of complexion, a filmy dimness of eye, and pallor and compression of lip. There were two other traits, moreover, by which I could always detect them;—a guarded lowness of tone in conversation, and a more than ordinary extension of the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... deliver her message, that she must break it to-night. In the dim pool of her mirror a face looked back at her that was not the face of Arthur Peyton; she saw it take form there as one sees a face grow gradually into life from the dimness of dreams. It was, she told herself to-night, the very face of her dream ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... the one-eyed leader, glared from him into the dimness of the night, whining softly. A low, mourning wind swept through the spruce tops, and from Jan's throat there burst sobbingly words which he had heard beside this same grave more than seventeen years before, when Williams' choking ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... made him alert, savage. A moment later, his head pushing up to the level of the shoulder of the mountain, he saw his quarry. In the dimness of that early dawn he made out the form of a sleeper huddled in blankets, but it was enough. That must be Riley Sinclair. It could not be another, and ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... smiles; he views the preparations of each departing boy with envy, and, try all he can, he cannot assume a nonchalant or I-don't-care kind of air, nor prevent a lump rising in his throat, and an occasional dimness gathering over his eyes. May be he hides himself away that he may not see the general departure of all his school-fellows, and as their joyous shouts reach him in his hiding-place, he puts his fingers in his ears to shut out the noise which means ...
— Leslie Ross: - or, Fond of a Lark • Charles Bruce
... I knew not which way we faced. Only that Cyneward was yet with me, and that out of the dimness came against us Jomsburgers clad in outlandish armour, and with shouts to strange gods as they ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... shot a loon, though several have legends of some one who has. Sound has no power to express a profounder emotion of utter loneliness than the loon's cry. Standing in piny darkness on the lake's bank, or floating in dimness of mist or glimmer of twilight on its surface, you hear this wailing note, and all possibility of human tenancy by the shore or human voyaging is annihilated. You can fancy no response to this signal of solitude disturbed, and again it comes sadly over the water, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... second floor, stumbling, terribly afraid of what he might find. Reaching the top, his heart thudding, he squinted into the dimness. ...
— Small World • William F. Nolan
... calm, and the rain had ceased; overhead the clouds, without form or colour, seemed to conceal that latent light that could not be explained; the eye could see clearly, yet one was still conscious of the night; this dimness was all ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... is a reason for looking for more." With which Isabel was grateful for the dimness of the room; she felt as if her face were hideously insincere. It was what she was doing for Osmond; it was what one had to do for Osmond! Pansy's solemn eyes, fixed on her own, almost embarrassed her; she was ashamed to think she had made so ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... shown in successive height, one behind another, instead of the mere tops and flanks of masses, as in the plains; and the forms of multitudes of them continually defined against the clear sky, near and above, or against white clouds entangled among their branches, instead of being confused in dimness of distance. ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... in his cheery voice, the dimness of his eyes, the smile on his lips, and the gesture with which he returned the pressure of the hand upon his arm, told the little romance of the good major's life more eloquently than pages of fine writing, and touched the hearts of ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... wiped her eyes. Not that she was weeping, but over and above her short-sightedness she was troubled with a dimness of vision, which afflicted her more at some times than others. As she was in the habit of endeavouring to counteract the evils of a too constantly laborious and sedentary life, and of an anxious and desponding temperament, by large doses ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... an affectionate farewell of his old friends. Before parting, the Captain insisted on his accepting a small loan which he said he could return to Nassau whenever he felt like it. There was a suspicious dimness in his eyes as he crushed Paul's hand in his own, while Betsy cried outright as she heartily kissed him good-bye. When the weather became mild again, Paul engaged a small fishing craft and went down the coast to the vicinity ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... unutterable thought which, when you first knew her, seemed to look out from her eyes and to prompt her complicated gestures. Those features in especial had a misleading eloquence; they lingered on you with a far- off dimness, an air of obstructed sympathy, which was certainly not always a key to the spirit of their owner; so that, of a truth, a young lady could scarce have been so dejected and disillusioned without having committed a crime for which she was consumed with remorse, or ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... To find the dew-point some form of apparatus, consisting essentially of a thin glass vessel containing a thermometer and a volatile liquid, such as ether, may be used. The vessel is gradually cooled through the evaporation of the liquid, accelerated by forcing air through a tube until a haze or dimness, due to condensation from the surrounding air, first appears upon the brighter outer surface of the glass. The temperature at which the haze first appears is the dew-point. Several trials should be made for this temperature determination, using the average ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner
... blue dimness I saw that she was holding one of the Martian cylinders. The smallest size; it would ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... eye to a blue, and explains by early love passages his reasons for the preference, I do not get angry; on the contrary, I feel quite pleased; perhaps, if the matter is related with unusual grace and tenderness, it is read with a certain moisture and dimness of eye. And the reason is obvious. The egotistical X. is barren, and suggests nothing beyond himself, save that he is a good deal better off than I am—a reflection much pleasanter to him than it is to me; whereas the equally egotistical Z., with a single sentence ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... voices of the retreating congregation died away, when the same ill favoured face peeped round the corner of the entrance, gave a quick glance about, and the man came in. Like a snuffing terrier, he went peering in the dimness into every hollow, and behind every projection, until he suddenly caught sight of Malcolm, probably by ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... cosmetics and the unguents—the perfumes and the paints—the jewels and combs—the ribands and the gold pins, which were destined to add to the natural attractions of beauty the assistance of art and the capricious allurements of fashion. Through the dimness of the room glowed brightly the vivid and various colourings of the wall, in all the dazzling frescoes of Pompeian taste. Before the dressing-table, and under the feet of Julia, was spread a carpet, woven from the looms of the East. Near at hand, ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... like those of a corpse; a kind of glistening leprous scales formed over the hands; a constant tremulousncss pervaded the whole system, while separate small vibrations of the fibres on the back of the hand were plainly visible to the eye. To these symptoms should be added a dimness of sight often so considerable as to prevent the recognition of objects ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... importance, contrary to his will, against his advice? The whole world around her, the solid walls, and the sky that shone in through the great window, swam in Lucy's eyes. She drew her breath hard like a hunted creature; there was a singing in her ears, and a dimness in her sight. Lady Randolph's voice asking with a certain satisfaction, yet sympathy, "What is the matter? I hope it is not anything very bad," seemed to come to her from a distance as from a different world; and when she added, after a moment, soothingly, "You must not vex yourself ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... own interests. I believe I did my duty. It seemed to me that I must be there if Pluto wished it, and I was pleased to be with him. But—if you can understand me—there was a sort of a dimness over everything, and I never entered into the political life of the place. As to the social life, you can imagine that they were not people that one cared to know. At the same time, of course, I feel now how ridiculous it was of me to hold that position and not take ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse
... looked at the white moustache, the grizzled hair, the bright brown eyes suffused with answering dimness, and said, almost remorsefully, "Father, good-bye. You meant me well, no doubt. You thought you were befriending me. But I wish to Heaven in my soul you had meant me worse. It would have been easier for me to bear in the end. ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... and pulled sharply. If the meninges are injured we have further: headache, a slow and irregular but increasing fever, alternating with chills, distortion of the angles of the eyes, redness of the cheeks, mental disturbances, dimness of vision, a weak voice and bleeding from the ears or the nose. In the presence of such symptoms the death of the patient may be expected within at ...
— Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century • Henry Ebenezer Handerson
... beside the bed. He attempted to speak, but his utterance was choked; and the tears in his eyes blurred to spectral dimness the only human being whom he held warm ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... intellect, he apprehended truths quickly and truly as a man; then, again, through the warm haze of undisciplined tenderness, or the raw mists of that sensitive pride in which objects, small in themselves, loom large with undetected outlines, he fell back into the passionate dimness of a child's reasoning. He was intensely ambitious; Quixotic in the point of honour; dauntless in peril: but morbidly trembling at the very shadow of disgrace, as a foal, destined to be the war-horse and trample ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hazy evening air exaggerated the distances between the willow beds and islands out towards Chaumont. But poor Mari' Anto did not look at the view when, worn out with retracing the steps of her grief, she leant both elbows on the balustrade and gazed into the dimness. Her life appeared before her, waste and desolate, at an age when it is difficult to make a fresh start. A faint sound of voices rose from Mousseaux, a group of two or three small houses on the embankment; the ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... be better served by living gladly in the phenomenal world than by passing beyond it? But such an idea has rarely satisfied Indian thinkers. If, on the other hand, Maya is an evil or at least an imperfection, if it is like rust on a blade or dimness in a mirror, if, so to speak, the edges of Brahman are weak and break into fragments which are prevented by their own feebleness from realizing the unity of the whole, then the mind wonders uneasily if, in spite of all assurances to the contrary, this does not imply that Brahman is subject to ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... was never quite known to Sarah Sanson. Whenever she would try to recollect there would become a buzzing in her ears and a dimness in her eyes, and all would pass away. The only thing that she could remember of it all—and this she never forgot—was Eric's breathing heavily, with his face whiter than that of the dead man, as he muttered under ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... the carriage, but she could see a white figure, which in the dimness had neither face nor definite shape; and there was a perfume as of aromatic amulets grown warm on a ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... consoling, but, alas, It wipes no dimness from the glass Where I am flattening my poor nose, In hope to see beyond my toes, Though I accept my pedigree, Yet where, pray tell me, is the key That should unlock a private door To the Great Mystery, such no more? Each offers his, but one nor all Are much ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... a man's figure, moving with the free, athletic swing of a sailor, crossed the stage to where the dancer lay huddled in the dimness like a broken thing, lifted ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... window, and was peering through the dimness. He came toward her. She held out her hands to keep ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... underground dwellings in Spitalfields as being perhaps the worst specimens of human habitation which we should find, and he offered to be my guide. I entered a cellar-like room in a basement, which, till one's eyes got used to the dimness, seemed pitch-dark. I felt, rather than saw, the presence of a woman, and, when we began to talk, I discerned by her voice that she was not a Londoner. "No, sir," she replied, "I come from Wantage, in Berkshire." Having always heard ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... it said. 'I am almost sure I can help you. Unless I am grossly deceived I can help you. You won't mind my leaving you for an hour or two?' and without waiting for a reply it soared up through the dimness of the tower ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... The autumn-evening. The field Strewn with its dank yellow drifts Of wither'd leaves, and the elms, Fade into dimness apace, Silent;—hardly a shout From a few boys late at their play! The lights come out in the street, In the school-room windows;—but cold, Solemn, unlighted, austere, Through the gathering darkness, arise ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... him in the dimness of his lamp as a man whom I had attended for an accident, and I ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterwards did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... compared; but the pomp of the Venetian fisher-boat is like neither. The sail seems dyed in its fullness by the sunshine, as the rainbow dyes a cloud; the rich stains upon it fade and reappear, as its folds swell or fall; worn with the Adrian storms, its rough woof has a kind of noble dimness upon it, and its colors seem as grave, inherent, and free from vanity as the spots of the leopard, or veins ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... or goes; You have hopes, and doubts, and fears, Numberless as are your hairs; You have pulses that do beat High, and passions less of heat; You are young, but must be old:— And, to these, ye must be told, Time, ere long, will come and plow Loathed furrows in your brow: And the dimness of your eye Will no other thing imply, But you must die As ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... said Mrs. Porter. The doctor spun round, startled. In the dimness of the studio he had not perceived her. "Mr. Winfield's servant has injured his knee very superficially. There is practically nothing wrong with him. I have ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... round about the throne of God,—three entire respondent circles, one glowing with seven-fold beams within the other, full, clear, distinct as the starry stripes of our country's banner,—no fracture in the smooth, majestic curves,—no dimness in ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... closer union of the individual spirit with the spirit of the universe; it was so close that it was difficult to understand where the individual ceased and the universe began. I felt at the same time it was upon that very dimness of the boundary that the happiness of this other life rested, as the being did not live in opposition or exclusion but in harmony with his surroundings, and thus lived with the whole power ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... hopeless from the first," returned Grace, slowly; but, as she spoke, a sort of dimness and paleness crept over her face, belying ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... The dimness of the light her candle emitted made her turn to it with alarm; but there was no danger of its sudden extinction; it had yet some hours to burn; and that she might not have any greater difficulty in distinguishing the writing than what its ancient date might occasion, she hastily ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... For myself, I declare that as it has happened on the hills when I was fleeing from Claverhouse, so it is now in my affairs. I am moving in a mist which folds me round like a thin garment; here and there I see the light struggling through, and it seems to me most beautiful even in its dimness; by and by the mist shall altogether pass, and I shall stand in the light, which is the shining of His face. But whether I shall then find myself at Cana of Galilee or in the Garden of Gethsemane, ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... brown hair streaked with gold struck upon his vision from just within the door. He paused, as if in response to a military command, while a pair of gray eyes met his with a flash. The cabin room was ill lighted; but the crepuscular dimness did not seem to hinder his sight. Beyond the girl's figure, a pair of slender swords hung crossed aslant on the wall opposite the ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... they were alone; the jungle was vast with a new vastness. The girl was taller and more powerful—her sayings veritable, equitable. There were golden flashes among the rich shadows of her mind, like the cathedral dimness of the jungle on their right hand as they walked, slanting ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... ages, and foretelling Eternities to come; but, all the while There, in the dim cathedral, he knew well, That dreaming youngster, with his tawny mane Of red-gold hair, and deep ethereal eyes, What odorous clouds of incense round him rose; Was conscious in the dimness, of great throngs Kneeling around him; shared in his own heart The music and the silence and the cry, O, salutaris hostia!—so now, There was no mortal conflict in his mind Between his dream-clocks and things absolute, And one far voice, most ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... approach in the dimness of the February twilight, turned with a start to greet the Squire. He looked, to her eyes, lankier and thinner and queerer than ever. But it was a distinguished queerness. Elizabeth had forgotten that the ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was forced to leave off several times through weakness and a dimness in her sight, of which she complained; if I may say complained; for so easy and soft were her complaints, that they could hardly be ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... one is the intruder that must be turned out; the other is the regular visitor that must be respected. Sight helps, for things take place in the daylight, under glass; but the wasps have other means of information in the dimness of the burrow. When I produce darkness by covering the apparatus with a screen, the murder of the trespassers is accomplished just the same. For so say the police regulations of the wasps' nest: any stranger discovered must be slain and thrown ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... pathways across the park dotted out in yellow lamps, each with a fringe of dim green; and further off, hot and bright, is the tracery of the illuminated streets, through which the people go to and fro. Save for an occasional stirring, or a passing voice speaking out of the dimness beneath me, the night is very still. Not a cloud is to be seen in the dark midwinter sky to hide one speck of its broad smears of star dust and its ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... and tingling in the mouth and throat, and afterwards in other portions of the body, with sore throat, pain over the stomach, and vomiting; dimness of vision, dizziness, great prostration, loss of sensibility and delirium. Treatment: An emetic and then brandy in tablespoonful doses, in ice-water, every half hour; spirits of ammonia in half teaspoonful doses in like manner; the cold douche over the head and chest, warmth to the ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... beside him in his little chair, not looking at him much, for she still found it difficult to overcome the painful impression of the sight of that crippled and deformed body, she felt a choking in her throat and a dimness in her eyes—a longing to do any thing in the wide world that would help or comfort ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... the Tarantula has stung them all. Dance or die; it is fury,—the Corybantes, the Maenads, the—Ho, ho! more wine! the Sabbat of the Witches at Benevento is a joke to this! From cloud to cloud wanders the moon,—now shining, now lost. Dimness while the maiden blushes; light when ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... miles they could see a rolling, open country, curving slightly upward into the dimness of the distance. At their right, close by, lay a broad lake, its surface wrinkled under a gentle breeze and gleaming bright as a great ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... for a second to adjust his eyes to the relative dimness of the studio. After the brightness of the desert that the televicarion helmet had projected into his eyes, the ...
— ...After a Few Words... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... encountered in these pages have not been altogether to their liking. The fault is Chichikov's rather than mine, for he is the master, and where he leads we must follow. Also, should my readers gird at me for a certain dimness and want of clarity in my principal characters and actors, that will be tantamount to saying that never do the broad tendency and the general scope of a work become immediately apparent. Similarly does the entry ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... incapacity—its hopes crushed, and its hardly earned rewards snatched away in the same instant—at once the heart withered, and the right arm snapped; look upon the piteous children, delicately nurtured, whose soft eyes, now large with wonder at their parents' grief, must soon be set in the dimness of famine; and, far more than all this, look forward to the length of sorrow beyond—to the hardest labour of life, now to be undergone either in all the severity of unexpected and inexperienced trial, or ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... its background, and it is principally in the management of its perspective that one artist differs from another. Some events must be represented on a large scale, others diminished; the great majority will be lost in the dimness of the horizon, and a general idea of their joint effect will be given by a few ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... but their eyes must have met in the dimness and some message have passed between them, for there was a tremor of sheer relief in his voice when Bertrand ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... silent above. Joe went up, and was startled by a groan. He had to stand a few seconds, to let the darkness grow into light, ere he could see; and, when he could discern outlines in the dimness, there was given to him the picture of Uncle John, lying helpless amid and upon the nubbins that had been piled over ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... A curious dimness came over the professor's eyes, as he paused for a moment or two upon the top of a rock, to gaze before him. But there was nothing visible, for the defile at the bottom curved and zigzagged so that they could not see ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... the wet dimness, a light flashed, vanished, and flashed again. Issy saw it and smiled grimly. Bartlett saw ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... darkness fell like a curtain, so quickly did it come dropping down. High up above the trees they could see the red lantern shining in the dusk like a glowing ruby; the air was growing chilly, and all the warm bright colours were fading into a dull uniform grey, when suddenly out of the shadowy dimness there leapt a dark form—a form with a bushy tail and ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... and which I thought must be somehow connected with my breakfast. But it would not go down, and I could do nothing but gaze hard as through a mist at the little delicate woman who was holding so tightly to my hands. There was a dimness and an unreality about everything. Things seemed to be going on in a way I did not understand, and I quite started at last as somebody seemed to say, "Good-bye," and I found myself in the little boat and on ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... space will spread around me, I will seek the farthest star, Cleaving swift the air around me, Searching beauty near and far. Like an eagle onward cleaving, All the Past behind me leaving, Chaos dark around me lying, Through its dimness lightly flying, Through its infinite abysses, On through darker worlds than this is, Farther—farther—ringing—ringing— Sounds the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and similar humours which be at the mouth of the maw.[FN85] And let not the blood in the hot bath for it enfeebleth man's force, and gaze not upon the metal pots of the Balnea because such sight breedeth dimness of vision. Also have no connection with woman in the Hammam for its consequence is the palsy; nor do thou lie with her when thou art full or when thou art empty or when thou drunken with wine or when thou ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... without fear. He could barely see a dark, shapeless outline within the dimness of his hut, but he was sure it was the figure of the slouching warrior who had bumped against him. The man stood a moment or two, seeking to pierce the dusk with his own eyes, and then he said in ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... broadside on to the mouth of the cave. Not a man stirs out without killing me," old Jem shouted; and to hear a plain voice was sudden relief to most of them. In the wavering dimness they laid the pinnace across the narrow entrance, while the smugglers huddled all together in their boat. "Burn two blue-lights," cried old Jem; ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... and hearts, and let the past Be as a grave which gives not up its dead 1820 To evil thoughts.'—A film then overcast My sense with dimness, for the wound, which bled Freshly, swift shadows o'er mine eyes had shed. When I awoke, I lay mid friends and foes, And earnest countenances on me shed 1825 The light of questioning looks, whilst one ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... of the entertainment was a series of pictures called 'Then and Now,' each illustrating the change in woman's condition during the last fifty years. And after this, upon the dimness there shone out, one after another, the names of noble women like Mary Lyon, Maria Mitchell, Emma Willard, and many others who have passed away. Upon the shadows and the silence broke Mme. Sterling's voice in Tennyson's 'Crossing the Bar.' And when this was over, as with one ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... Through the dimness I couldn't tell which way to look; but I suppose in the thickest midnight he would have known where he was. He jumped from the trap and took the old horse by the bridle. I made out that he was guiding ...
— Coming Home - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... was just light enough to see the child, perched on the edge of the bed, her soft blue dressing-gown trailing over the white night-dress, while her black and long-fringed eyes shone through the dimness of morning. She yielded gladly to my grasp, and I could fondle again the silken hair, the velvety brunette cheek, the plump, childish shoulders. Yet sleep still half held me, and when my cherub appeared to hold it a cherubic ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... for Di finally illustrated her strong-minded theories by crying like the weakest of her sex. Laura, with "the ruling passion strong in death," still tried to draw, but broke her pet crayon, and endowed her Clytie with a supplementary orb, owing to the dimness of her own. And Nan sat with drooping eyes, that shone upon her work, thinking with tender pride,—"They know him now, and love him for ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... the matter. He and Rose were left alone in the scented fire-lit room. And a jet of flame suddenly showed him the girl's face turned away, convulsed with a momentary struggle for self-control. She raised a hand an instant to her eyes, not dreaming evidently that she could be seen in the dimness; and her ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to seeing through this veil of snow and thick darkness. All things were dreamlike in dimness, of course, but he could make out terrific cloud effects, as the clouds gushed over the summit and down the slope a little way like the smoke of enormous guns; and again a pyramid of mist was like a false mountain before him, a mountain that ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... the worse," answered the stranger: "not at all, it may be. There is a pleasant dimness and uncertainty in my mode of being. I am taken off my feet, as it were, and float in air, with a faint delight in my sensations. The grossness, the roughness, the too great angularity of the actual, is removed from me. It is a state that I like well. It may be, this is the ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... only one rose-shaded lamp left alight in the long low room, and the dimness within made it possible to see out into the clear night and ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... there about this dismal, silent place that seemed to leap at him all at once from the dimness, he knew not whence? Was it the shack with its solitary light, or the broad river lapping with soft sighings and low weeping sounds among the piles below, or was it something in the altered aspect of the guiding figure that led him forward, slow and ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... still stood a moment, looking toward the sanctuary, like one with last fond words to say after the farewell; and this excess of either regard for the priest's feelings or else a devoutness he had not suspected in her quickened Gerald's attention. And there in the dimness he saw what he had not seen in the broad light of day, that his friend's little face, which had presented the effect of a house with all the blinds drawn down, was lighted up behind the blinds—oh, lighted as if ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... on the heath were descendants of such prisoners of the forest. They sometimes went down to the inhabited, cultivated valleys, for they no longer feared to be reduced to the slavery from which their forefathers had fled, but they were happiest in the dimness of the forest. The hunter's name was Toenne. His real work was to cultivate the earth, but he also could do other things. He collected herbs, boiled tar, dried punk, and often went hunting. The dancer was called Jofrid. Her father was a charcoal burner. She tied ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... spark. Nothing appeared along the rolling surface, no answering cry came from the black void; De Croix had disappeared into the depths, as desperate men go down to death. Suddenly, as I leaned over, sick at heart, peering into the dimness, Toinette drew near and touched ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... been able to escape, where Maggie was lying with the light from the street lamp shining full in her face. Her dress was torn at the neck, for she had not been costumed as the others were, and the cold, wintry night-air was blowing on her bare throat and breast. Her big eyes had lost their dimness, and were blazing with a fire kindled by a wild imagination. Mr. Dootleby took off his hat and knelt upon the alley stones, and threw his arms around her shoulders, supporting her. She looked through him at some ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... a corner of the dimness, pale eyes fixed silently on the trio. Old Beard was not so very old. He appeared to be in robust middle age, although his skin was very pale from long existence underground. His hair and heavy beard were long and untrimmed, ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... ended in a sound of pain. Then he lifted her hand again, kissed it, and was gone; running—head down—through the dimness of the lane. ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... very trembling little hand I had lighted one of the matches, would have been disappointing to most boys, but not to me. The litter and old boards I saw in odd corners about me were full of possibilities, while in the dimness beyond I seemed to perceive a sort of staircase which might lead—I do not think I made any attempt to answer that question even in my own mind, but when, after some hesitation and a sense of great daring, I finally ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... had come up, and the dimness of coming eventide had already spread over the water, but there was no rain. In fact, it had turned too cold for that. A fine baffling mist was falling, however, and this was condensing into ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... The very dimness of my sight Makes me secure; For groping in my misty way, I feel his hand; I hear him ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... found the sight more than I could bear, and returning to the ship bade farewell to Nauplius and resumed the voyage. Very soon we seemed quite close to the Isle of Dreams, though there was a certain dimness and vagueness about its outline; but it had something dreamlike in its very nature; for as we approached it receded, and seemed to get further and further off. At last we reached it and sailed into Slumber, the port, close to the ivory gates where ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... brought up a new sub-section, which he admitted was so obscure that he only 'more or less' understood it himself, and which, indeed, is of 'plusquam-Thucydidean' dimness and involution.... There is no excuse, we must say, for the muddle into which the Government has got over the Bill.... The House of Commons has adjourned for a short holiday, but the Irish Land Purchase Bill is not yet through ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various
... ascribed to the deafening effect of the experiment. Things about him seemed curiously dark and faint, but his mind explained that on the obvious but mistaken idea that the explosion had engendered a huge volume of dark smoke. Through the dimness the figures of Lidgett and the boys moved, as faint and silent as ghosts. Plattner's face still tingled with the stinging heat of the flash. He, was, he says, "all muddled." His first definite thoughts seem to have been of his personal safety. He thought ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... from rock to rock, from leaf to leaf, from wave to wave,—glowing, or flashing, or scintillating, according to what it strikes, or in its holier moods, absorbing and enfolding all things in the deep fulness of its repose, and then again losing itself in bewilderment, and doubt, and dimness; or perishing and passing away, entangled in drifting mist, or melted into melancholy air, but still,—kindling, or declining, sparkling or still, it is the living light, which breathes in its deepest, most entranced rest, which ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... not show so grim as his wont is, and the winged lion on the other might have been a winged lamb, so mild and gentle he looked by the tender light of the storm. The towers of the island churches loomed faint and far away in the dimness; the sailors in the rigging of the ships that lay in the Basin, wrought like phantoms among the shrouds; the gondolas stole in and out of the opaque distance, more noiselessly and dreamily than ever; and a silence almost palpable, lay upon the ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... admitted honestly, looking at her, as she stood in the frame of the long window, the ruffles of her muslin dressing-gown blowing gently in the breeze which had sprung up in the garden. Beyond her there was a pale dimness, and the fresh, moist smell of ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... gloaming. A horse, wildly ridden, splashed through the town. There were shouts; voices called hoarsely. Lamps began to gleam in the windows. Half-clad people emerged from their houses, men slapping their braces on their shoulders as they ran out of doors. Questions were shouted into the dimness. ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... Dimness of sight spared me from seeing certain figures, which were at the toll-bar of the pier, on the way to quit our shores. What I heard was not of a character to give me faith in the sanity of the companion I had chosen. He murmured it ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... influence of a dream, and returns gradually from the confines which separate night from day. He strives to discover whether the ground he walks on is that of fiction or reality, and the more he burrows in the dimness of his brain the further he buries ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... sufficed for the day. Once more Nature was merciful to me; for that diligent seeking among the concealing leaves left no interval for thought; every chance morsel gave a momentary pleasure, and as I prolonged my search my steps grew firmer, the dimness passed from my eyes. I was more forgetful of self, more eager, and like a wild animal with no thought or feeling beyond its immediate wants. Fatigued at the end, I fell asleep as soon as darkness brought my busy rambles ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... ceased to be dark; we walked in a dim twilight, breathing through the dimness the breath of the spring. A wondrous change had passed upon the world—or was it not rather that a change more marvellous had taken place in us? Without light enough in the sky or the air to reveal anything, every heather-bush, every small shrub, every blade of grass was perfectly visible—either ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... wearing an odd smile—had already begun to grow less distinct. It seemed as if the light surrounding him had faded, though everywhere else in the cabin it still gleamed with its accustomed brilliance. And as this light around him began to blur into a russet dimness, forming a sort of screen between him and visibility, the definition of his outlines ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... was. Miss Wenham, in whose personal tradition the flame of resentment appeared to have been reduced by time to the palest ashes—for whom indeed the story of the great schism was now but a legend only needing a little less dimness to make it romantic—Miss Wenham had promptly responded by a letter fragrant with the hope that old threads might be taken up. It was a relationship that they must puzzle out together, and she had earnestly sounded the other party to it on the subject of a possible visit. Addie ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... the entreaties of the old sheik and his daughter not to risk what he had gained, so he continued to use the shade of leaves, and allowed himself to be persuaded to defer his departure until the dimness which still prevented his seeing anything ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... young people looked up gravely from the script-laden table before them as Martin Pike came into the strong lamplight out of the dimness of the hall, where only a taper burned. He shambled a few limp steps into the room and came to a halt. Big as he was, his clothes hung upon him loosely, like coverlets upon a collapsed bed; and he seemed but a distorted image of ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... of the star, which passes through it, makes it appear dim, and by its moisture or dryness changes it in colour. In like manner it may thus appear through the visual organ, that is, the eye, which on account of some infirmity, or because of fatigue, is changed into some degree of dimness or into some degree of weakness. So it happens very often, owing to the membrane of the pupil becoming suffused with blood, on account of some corruption produced by weakness, that things all appear of a red colour; and therefore the star appears so coloured. And owing ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... of these rejoicing peasants, I recognised the bull-frog face that had puzzled me that day at Epsom. In a flash I remembered him and all the scenes in which he had played a humble part. Far back from the dimness of some of my earliest theatrical experiences, up to the present moment, I followed him on his career, simulating joint merriment, bearing one of many banners, carrying a pike or a halberd in an army similarly armed, conspiring in a mantle, draining ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... chosen. "You will know better next time!" No. Next time will never come. Next time the choice will be in quite another aspect—between quite different things,—you, weaker than you were by the evil into which you have fallen; it, more doubtful than it was, by the increased dimness of your sight. No one ever gets wiser by doing wrong, nor stronger. You will get wiser and stronger only by doing right, whether forced or not; the prime, the one need is to do THAT, under whatever compulsion, until you can do it ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... drawn out in waste, nor Pieces of good Bread to lie to mould and spoil, he must keep his Vessels close stopped, and his Bottles sweet, his Cellars clean washed, and his Buttery clean, and his Bread-Bins wholsom and sweet, his Knives whetted, his Glasses clean washed that there be no dimness upon them, when they come to be used, all his Plate clean and bright, his Table, Basket and Linnen very neat, he must be sure to have all things of Sauce ready which is for him to bring forth, that it may ...
— The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet • Hannah Wolley
... door-post and looked out, her hand white in the shadow against the dark wood, her face whiter still. But on her hand there were two marks, visible even in the dimness. They would have been red in the day, and the place hurt her from time to time, for she had bitten it savagely. It was her pledge, and the pain of it reminded her of what she ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... nearer it came, and now he could see masts and spars, sails spread to catch the faint breeze, gleaming brass-work about the decks. A vessel, surely; yet,—what was that? The fog lifted for a moment, or else his eyes grew better used to the dimness, and he saw a strange thing. On the prow of the vessel, which now was seen to be a schooner, stood a figure; a statue, was it? Surely it was a statue of bronze, like the Soldiers' Monument, leaning against the mast, with ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... aeons'—and other variations of this prophetic language (so full of dreadful meaning, but also of doubt and perplexity), are all significant. The peculiar grandeur of such expressions lies partly in the dimness of the approximation to any attempt at settling their limits, and still more in this, that the conventional character, and consequent meanness of ordinary human dates, are abandoned in the celestial chronologies. Hours and days, or lunations and months, have no true or philosophic relation to the ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... that the work of the plague was done, and the last resort of life yielding to the enemy—broke the coherent order of words and thoughts; and Marius, intent on the coming agony, found his best hope in the increasing dimness of the patient's mind. In intervals of clearer consciousness the visible signs of cold, of sorrow and desolation, were very painful. No longer battling with the disease, he seemed as it were to place himself [118] at the disposal of the victorious foe, dying passively, like some dumb creature, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... and went in search of the cathedral. It was scarcely worth finding, and struck me as an odd, dislocated fragment. The front consists only of a portal beside which a tall brick tower of a later period has been erected. The nave was wrapped in dimness, with a few scattered lamps. I could only distinguish an immense vault, like a high cavern, without aisles. Here and there in the gloom was a kneeling figure; the whole place was mysterious and lopsided. The choir ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... dulled by long suffering; communication between one district and another was rendered impossible or difficult, and what was happening in one place was unknown quite near at hand; in the minds of men there reigned dimness, ignorance, confusion. ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... again. Yet she had a consciousness of tunnels and hills and of broad marshes pallid under a moon and a coming dawn. And in the dawn there was Pisa. She watched the word hanging in the station in the dimness: "Pisa." Ciccio told her people were changing for Florence. It all seemed wonderful to her—wonderful. She sat and watched the black station—then she heard the sound of the child's trumpet. And it did ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... in battalions. Though the activity of the day was practically over, tugs and small boats were darting about and lending life to the scene. We were on the "Hills" side of the river. Far away, in dreamy dimness, lay the flat, blue-green line of the "Forests" shore. On our left was the mouth of the Oka, and the Fair beyond, which seemed to be swarming with ants, lay flat on the water level. The setting sun tinged the scene with pale rose and amber in a mild glow for a while, and then the myriad lights ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... A dimness came over Madeline's eyes, and it was not all owing to the sting of the wind. She rubbed it away, seeing Florence as a flying dot in a strange blur. What a daring, intrepid girl! This kind of strength—and aye, splendid thought for a weaker sister—was ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... distant doors, that told of scenes of animation and interest from which we were excluded? How doleful sounded the tick of the clock, and how dismal was the darkness as sunshine faded from the window, leaving only a square of dusky dimness ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... whom we are following walked slowly across the house-top to a tower built over the northwest corner of the palace. Had he been a stranger, he might have bestowed a glance upon the structure as he drew nigh it, and seen all the dimness permitted—a darkened mass, low, latticed, pillared, and domed. He entered, passing under a half-raised curtain. The interior was all darkness, except that on four sides there were arched openings like doorways, through which the sky, lighted ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... The two in the sitting room huddled close together, Keziah holding the broom like a battle-ax, ready for whatsoever might develop. From the dimness of the tightly shuttered study stepped the owner of the voice, a stranger, a young man, his hair rumpled, his tie disarranged, and the buttons of his waistcoat filling the wrong buttonholes. Despite this evidence of a hasty toilet in ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... that do grow, and are of greatest comfort and solace to mankind," so ran the passage, "a foremost place hath the euphrasy. Though it be but an humble plant scarce an inch in height, yet it maketh an ointment very precious for to cure dimness of sight. Thence it hath been called in the vulgar tongue 'eye-bright', nevertheless its true name is euphrasy, and thus it is known ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... find the joints in our harness. A tough hard nature such as constitutes the true fighter only presses more doggedly to the front, but gentler spirits are fain to turn aside out of the battle, and go home to die. There came a dimness before Simon's eyes, and a ringing in his ears. He scarcely heard his companion, while ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... the last thing I wished, but would not say so. Without a word I went forward with her to the penthouse, and took down the three loose timbers again. The dim chamber seemed very still, and across its dimness the shafts of sunlight—which came through the chinks in the rough timbering of walls and roofs—shifted and glanced as if alive, as the ship swayed. One golden ray lit on the still face of the old king, and it was almost as if he smiled as we stood in the doorway. Gerda saw it, and ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... at the bottle—the last drop of water is consumed. She leans back, her bosom heaves faintly; the effort has been more than her failing strength would bear. She turns her eyes towards them; they are the last objects of any earthly thing she is destined to behold. A dimness comes stealing over them. Her thoughts are no longer under control, her arms fall by her side, her head droops on her chest, she has no strength to raise it. In a few hours more the faithful nurse will have ceased to breathe, and those young children will be left alone with the dead ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... been a handsome man, and he was handsome still, albeit premature decay, the result of an evil life, was distinctly marked in his faded face. The dull, yellow tint of the complexion, the tarnished dimness of the large blue eyes, the discontented droop of the lips, the languor of the attitude, the pallid transparency of the wasted hands, all told of a life worn threadbare, energies exhausted, chances thrown away, ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon |
