"Starlit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... James Frewen's woods—for there are strange harps in a fir grove, and who shall say what fingers sweep them? Mighty and sonorous was the music above our heads as the winds of the night stirred the great boughs tossing athwart the starlit sky. Perhaps it was that aeolian harmony which recalled to the Story Girl a legend of ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... later to Nevil, yet dressed, yet sitting deep in thought within his starlit chamber, came a messenger from the captain of the watch. "The man whom Sir John Nevil wot of was below. ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... (Vandoeuvres).—At ten o'clock this evening, under a starlit sky, a group of rustics under the windows of the salon employed themselves in shouting disagreeable songs. Why is it that this tuneless shrieking of false notes and scoffing words delights these people? Why is it that this ostentatious parade of ugliness, this jarring vulgarity and grimacing is ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... grimly watchful; though worry began to wrinkle his face as he noted that the semi-gloom of the starlit night was lifting, and that a gray streak on the ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... not see Donnegan's flush, but she heard his teeth grit. And he slipped through the window, gesturing to George to come close. It was still darker inside the room—far darker than the starlit night outside. And the one path of lighter gray was the bed of Jack Landis. His heavy breathing was the only sound. Donnegan kneeled beside him and worked his arms under the ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... congregate, and where Irving concocted some choice bits of fun for the Salamagundi Club. And here was the great drawing-room where they disposed themselves to sociable naps on Sunday afternoons, the vine-covered porch on which they sat and smoked starlit evenings, and the grassy lawn over which they rambled. And now Mr. Washington Irving had been minister to Spain, and the guest of noted people in England and on the continent. He had won fame in more than one line, and hosts of ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... Arthur tried hard to fix his mind on his story, but even the charm of Treasure Island failed to distract him. In spite of himself his thoughts turned always to the starlit winter night, and to the pond gay with bonfires and torches and covered with boys and girls. After a while he closed the book with a snap, and went to the piano, where he softly tried over some new music Ruth had left there. Then came a sound of sleigh-bells, the tramp of feet ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... dusky worms which house Beneath unshaken waters, but at once Upon some earth-awakening day of spring Do pass from gloom to glory, and aloft Winnow the purple, bearing on both sides Double display of starlit wings which burn Fanlike and fibred, with intensest bloom: E'en so my thoughts, erewhile so low, now felt Unutterable buoyancy and strength To bear them upward through the trackless fields Of undefin'd existence far ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... moments they puffed in silence, looking out into the starlit night with its beauty of dim outline and mysterious shadow. Mainwaring was ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... he kept his deck And peered through darkness. Ah, that night Of all dark nights! And then, a speck— 35 A light! a light! a light! a light! It grew, a starlit flag unfurled! It grew to be Time's burst of dawn. He gained a world; he gave that world Its greatest lesson; ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... rock at the laterite steps In a reef-protected pool, For we should sail through the starlit night When the winds were calm ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... the Serbian houses, and the physical wretchedness of those cold, hungry prisoners, lay always like a dead weight on our spirits. Never shall we forget the beauty of the sunrises or the glory of the sunsets, with clear, cold, sunlit days between, and the wonderful starlit nights. But we shall never forget 'the Zoo,'[13] either, or the groans outside when we hid our heads in the blankets to shut out the sound. Nor shall we ever forget the cheeriness or trustfulness of all that hospital, ...
— Elsie Inglis - The Woman with the Torch • Eva Shaw McLaren
... throat, and he was hurled to the bottom of the boat. With a shout, the other Moors seized the boat hooks and stretchers, and rushed upon Botello; but Juan and Alfonzo were upon the alert, and, drawing their long daggers, rushed to his defence. Never was there a more desperate conflict than on that starlit night, in that frail boat, that floated a feeble, solitary speck of humanity on the bosom of the vast ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... The night was clear, starlit, and splendid; the tempest had passed away, and the sweet influences of the evening had restored life, peace and security everywhere. A few fleecy clouds were floating in the heavens, and indicated from their appearance a continuance of beautiful weather, tempered by a ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... facts of geography. He is a botanical expert, and can take you to where the *Sibthorpia europa* grows, and never troubles to wonder what the earth would be without its cloak of plants. He wanders forth of starlit evenings and will name you with unction all the constellations from Andromeda to the Scorpion; but if you ask him why Venus can never be seen at midnight, he will tell you that he has not bothered with the ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... Avoiding the open starlit slope, those three with the dog passed at once into the shadow of the woods, thus taking the safest, though not the shortest way to La Mariniere. Simon stole after them at a safe distance. They came presently to a high corner in a lane, where, ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... the up-stairs lights went out, and a deep silence fell on the old mansion. The ticking of the great clock on the stairs was the only sound. The serene peace of the starlit night settled over The Locusts like brooding wings. The clock struck one, then two, and the long hand was half-way around its face again before any other sound but the musical chime broke the stillness. ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... looked on in silence. When he replaced her in the little bed against the wall, Cummins put one of his long arms about the boy's shoulders and led him to the door, where they stood looking out upon the grim desolation of the forest that rose black and silent against the starlit background of the sky. High above the thick tops of the spruce rose the lone tree over the grave, like a dark finger pointing up into the night, and Cummins' eyes ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... along in their airy dresses, they were pulling off long, hot gloves, and saying, still under their breath, "Oh, isn't it good to get out?" They were laughing softly, and breathing deep breaths of the warm summer air, and looking up at the starlit sky. ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... into space at measured times Amid the market's daily stir and stress, And the night's empty starlit silentness, Might solace souls of this ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Overhead the starlit heavens glistened, brooding and mysterious, looking down with luminous, loving eyes upon these humble sons of men doing a good deed, from the impulse of simple, generous hearts, as upon that other Christmas morning, long ago, ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... minutes we were past most of the houses. A patch of woods, with thick, interlacing treetops about our own height, lay ahead. It extended a few hundred feet over to the lake shore. The sailboat was heading in close. There was a broad starlit roadway at the edge of the lake, and a dock at which the boat was ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings
... in silence out of the starlit garden on to a pale grey road. The hedgerows on either side loomed up out of the darkness, blacker than night. A lane led down to the village, leaving the road on the left. It was the shortest path. As Lyveden started to turn, Valerie laid ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... while on the Lowick road away from the town, glad of the starlit darkness when it came. He felt as if he had had dirt cast on him amidst shouts of scorn. There was this to confirm the fellow's statement—that his mother never would tell him the reason why she had run away from ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... to throw the wheel down and bring the ship into the trough of the sea—to drift. Then the two wet, exhausted, hollow-eyed men slept the sleep that none but sailors and soldiers know; and when they awakened, twelve hours later, stiff and sore, it was to look out on a calm, starlit evening, with an eastern moon silvering the surface of the long, northbound rollers, and showing in sharp relief a dark horizon, on which there was no sign of land ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... his country. To the day of his death he showed his deep affection for the flag, the emblem of that Union which had inspired his noblest efforts. During the last two weeks of his life he was troubled much with sleeplessness. While through his open window he gazed at the starlit sky, his eyes would sometimes fall upon a small boat belonging to him, which floated near the shore not far away. By his direction a ship lantern had been so placed that its light would fall upon ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... peace. A great cross stands upon the lonely shore. The moon sheds its rays upon it in silent benediction and floods the garden of the unknown, unmourned dead with its soft light. Out on the Sound the fishermen see it flashing white against the starlit sky, and bare their heads reverently as their boats speed by, borne upon the wings of the ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... that night under a gorse bush. He was no sooner alone on the great unlit Common with its vast sense of spaciousness, its cool silence, its splendid dome of starlit sky, than all his anger and disappointment seemed to pass away. The white, threatening faces of the professor and Mr. Bomford no longer haunted him. Even the memory of Edith herself tugged no longer at his heartstrings. He slept almost like a child, and awoke to look ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... soon rose lightly in the air. Byers, having hauled Pete in, followed suit, waving good-night to Senator Walsen and the ladies. In another minute both big biplanes were lost to sight, so swiftly did they vanish in a easterly course under the starlit heavens, shimmer of gray haze hugging the lower just ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... the starlit arch, about to descend to her two companions, perceived that they were in conversation with a stranger, she hesitated, and in a moment withdrew. Then the elder of the travellers, exchanging a glance with his friend, bid good ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... side they leaned from the window, striving to accustom their eyes to the starlit night. A long ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... walls of the ship to pay his passage, if he was short of funds, or execute crayon portraits of a shoemaker and his wife, to pay for shoes to enable him to continue his journeys. He could sleep on a steamer's deck, with a few shavings for a bed, and, wrapped in a blanket, look up at the starlit sky, and give thanks to a Providence that he believed was ever ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... He looked down the starlit Mall ahead of him. Somebody, maybe Lester Dawes and Morgan Gatworth and Lorenzo Menardes, had gotten things finished and cleaned up. The pavement was smooth and ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... sick of ink: Boy prodigals are lost in wine, By night where white and red lights blink, The eyes of Death, in Buffalo. And only twenty miles away Are starlit rocks and ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay
... looking like a toy vessel upon a painted sea, and a little group of scattered lights showed him where the hamlet lay. Before him was the stern, massive front of the castle, wrapped in profound gloom, but standing out in clear, ponderous outline against the starlit sky. There seemed to be no light from any part of it, and the great iron gates leading into the courtyard were closed. Nor was there any sound at all, not even the barking of a dog. It was like a dwelling of ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... glasses, was given [to] me. I was to 'sweep for comets;' and I see by my journal that I began August 22nd, 1782, to write down and describe all remarkable appearances I saw in my 'sweeps.' But it was not till the last two months of the same year that I felt the least encouragement to spend the starlit nights on a grass-plot covered with dew or hoar-frost, without a human being near enough to be within call. I knew too little of the real heavens to be able to point out every object so as to find it again without losing too much time by ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... slightest trouble we killed, within a very few minutes, enough quail for supper and breakfast. After we had finished our evening meal, quite a shower came up very suddenly. Just enough rain fell to make things sticky and disagreeable. The clouds vanished and left as beautiful a starlit sky as any human being ever enjoyed. Our wagon had a piece of canvas over it, which shed the rain, and left the ground beneath the wagon dry. Upon this spot we spread our blankets and went to sleep. Next morning ...
— Out of Doors—California and Oregon • J. A. Graves
... brilliance of Piccadilly seemed to burst into one volcano of red splendour; a thousand cannons spitting flame; a thousand eyes bright with love of England. The swaying Tube swept Gordon home in a state of subconscious delirium to the starlit calm ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... struggling with a refractory tie, or obstinate parting. Even if such had ever happened to be the case, we should not have cared to hear about it. We prefer to think of a Napoleon planning great conquests in the serene stillness of night among a sleeping camp and beneath a starlit sky, or of a Wordsworth writing his poetry in his cottage home among ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... shining through the wintry mists, wherries passing up and down with lanterns at their prows, an air of life and gaiety hanging over that river which had carried so many a noble victim to his doom yonder, where the four towers stood black against the starlit greyness, unscathed by fire, and untouched ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... veranda, and there I paused, gazing into the depths of the starlit night. Beneath me Nagasaki lay asleep, wrapped in a soft, light slumber, hushed by the murmuring sound of a thousand insects in the moonlight, and fairy-like with its roseate hues. Then, turning my head, I saw behind me the gilded idol with our lamps burning ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... explosion from Mount Pelee and noted the accompanying phenomena. While these eruptions continue, no sane man should attempt to ascend to the crater of the volcano. Following the salvos of detonations from the mountain, gigantic mushroom-shaped columns of smoke and cinders ascended into the clear, starlit sky, and then spread in a vast black sheet to the south and directly over my head. Through this sheet, which extended a distance of ten miles from the crater, vivid and awful lightning-like bolts flashed with alarming frequency. They followed distinct paths of ignition, ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... in my astonishment at seeing the array of articles which I had not seen for several months—especially as a few minutes before I had been outside and it was a lovely starlit night. ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... altogether, happy above the rest of the year, even for the hapless, is that period of ferment and fever. It is not the season for duns, and the debtor glides about with a less anxious eye; and the weather is warm, and the vagrant sleeps, unfrozen, under the starlit portico; and the beggar thrives, and the thief rejoices—for the rankness of the civilisation has superfluities clutched by all. And out of the general corruption things sordid and things miserable crawl forth to bask in the common sunshine—things ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... With starlit seas below, We move with all the suns that move, With all the seas that flow: For, bond or free, earth, sky, and sea, Wheel with one central will, And thy heart drifteth on to me, And ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang
... their appearance, but the darkness thwarted him. He could see the vague outline of the man nearest him, but it was so uncertain that he could make little of it. One thing only he ascertained, and that was because the figure was silhouetted against the starlit sky. The man seemed to have his face covered with something ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... told me; thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth the fame which I heard." Both without and within, the spirit of beauty dominates the Mother Church, from its mosaic flooring to the soft shimmer of its starlit dome. ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy
... her cheeks were quite glowing from some sudden energy; so were Zuleika's with the excitement of curiosity. Presently the sound of sleigh-bells again filled the room. It was Hays leading the horse and sleigh to the door, beneath a sky now starlit and crisp under a northeast wind. The fair stranger cast a significant glance at Zuleika, and whispered hurriedly, "You know he must not come with me. You must ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... of joy unceasingly Waves to and fro its folds starlit, And far beyond earth's misery I live and breathe ...
— By Still Waters - Lyrical Poems Old and New • George William Russell
... flat on the third floor of a deserted apartment house had been assigned me. It was nine o'clock, and I was getting ready to roll up in my blankets and go to sleep. Beneath the starlit heavens the street below was black as pitch save when a trench light, floating serenely down the sky, illuminated with its green-white glow the curving road and the line of dark, abandoned, half-ruinous villas. ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... easy-chairs were heaped with cushions, and the panels hung with pastel drawings of a lively or sentimental character. The windows toward the garden were close-shuttered, but those on the farther side of the room stood open on a starlit terrace whence the eye looked out over the lagoon to the outer ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... several severe dust-storms the whole pursuit had been blessed with fine weather, and it was on a beautiful starlit night that our Division formed up along the railway for the march towards Mushaidie, a station some twenty miles north of Baghdad on ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... of London died away, and we stood side by side leaning over the bulwarks and staring dreamily over the silent, starlit sea, each pursuing his own thoughts. It was the atmosphere for sentiment, and ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... burden that had lain like an actual crushing weight upon him seemed to slip away into nothingness. A long deep sigh of wonderful relief escaped him and he drew himself straighter in the saddle, a new peace dawning in his eyes as he raised them to the starlit sky. Out of the past there flashed into his mind the picture—forgotten since the days of childhood—of Christian freed of his burden at the foot of the Cross, as represented in the old copy of the "Pilgrim's Progress" ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... away, and he knew the yearning was in her eyes as they strained into the starlit horizon after the things she ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... their shelter and the lions lay hidden in their beds of pine. The round red sun dropped out of sight beyond the trees, a pink glow suffused all the ridges; blue shadows gathered in the hollow, shaded purple and stole upward. A brief twilight succeeded to a dark, coldly starlit night. ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... young cheek whose olive hue The mantling blood shows faintly through; Locks dark as midnight, that divide And shade the neck on either side; Soft, gentle, loving eyes that gleam Clear as a starlit mountain stream; So looked that other child of Shem, The ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... stretched to the north from the kitchen windows. There in the forest to the south where the river curved off at a tangent and flowed directly east, Brian had had his camp. On farther Joan had never cared to go. Where did she go now in the starlit darkness, climbing down the wistaria ladder with a cloak around her shoulders? To what did she venture through the solitude of whispering trees and the gloom of the ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... turret to feel again the sensation of life in his limb. Then he struck himself in his breast with his right fist to feel it there. But in spite of all he saw a cloud of darkness form beyond the rim of the starlit horizon and come sweeping over him, coming in black waves that would rush forward and then stop—forward, and stop—forward and stop.... And the stops kept time exactly with his heart, and he knew the last stop of the wave meant the last beat of his heart—then ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... hill with cautious silence, and when, emerged on the flat, they turned the team north along Main Street toward the sawmill and directly away from the business part of town, they observed even greater caution. They had seen no one, yet when this change of direction was initiated, out of the dim starlit darkness behind arose a whistle. Past the sawmill and the hospital, at lively speed, they went for a quarter of a mile. Then they turned about and headed back over the ground they had just covered. At the end of the first hundred yards ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... most dear In living songs I hear, While blending voices gently swing and sway, In melodies of love, Whose mighty currents move With singing near and singing far away; Sweet in the glow of morning light, And sweeter still across the starlit ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... could hear the soft sound of her feet moving about the room, his room. Quiet succeeded. Banneker, leagues removed from sleep, or the hope of it, despite his bodily weariness, followed the spirit of wonder through starlit and ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... weight of Mary Traill to her horse, then turned to say good-bye to Miss Bishop, who was already mounted. He said it, and seemed to have something to add. But whatever it was, it remained unspoken. The horses started, and receded into the sapphire starlit night, leaving him standing there before Colonel Bishop's door. The last he heard of them was Mary Traill's childlike voice calling back on a ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... starlit hour before dawn the pogrom broke. Redly, from the very start, because from the first bang of a bayonet upon a door blood began ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... sandy shore, low, level as a Western prairie, tufted with palms, green with olives, golden with orange orchards, and away in the distance an outline of gray mountains. Soon, in Jerusalem, he was among the donkeys, dogs, pilgrims, and muleteers. Out on the Mount of Olives and in starlit Bethlehem, by ancient Hebron, and then down to low-lying Jericho and at the Dead Sea, he was refreshing memory and imagination, shedding old fancies and traditions, discriminating as never before between figures of rhetoric and figures of rock and reality, while feeding ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... people. Ruatara and Hongi acted as intermediaries, and friendly relations were soon established between the missionaries and the cannibals. Marsden and his companion even spent the night with the savages, sleeping among them without fear under the starlit sky. ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... and three cold starlit nights nothing happened at the windfall. Henri understood, and explained to Weyman. The lynx was a hunter, like himself, and also had its hunt-line, which it covered about once a week. On the fifth night the lynx returned, went to the windfall, was lured straight ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... a little and looked at the houses of the Thorp lying dark about the snowy ways under the starlit heavens of the winter morning: dark they were indeed and grey, save where here and there the half-burned Yule-fire reddened the windows of a hall, or where, as in one place, the candle of some early waker shone white in a chamber window. There was scarce a man astir, he deemed, and no sound reached ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... and drew back into the darkness, out of the dim, starlit path, and standing there with her head high, her arms outspread, she made her solemn vow ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... unwilling to lose the advantage of the favourable breeze which was now blowing, and the smooth water which would render our voyage easy. We lost sight of the Cowlitz just as the sun sunk in the western wave. We were now gliding calmly over the starlit sea—the beautiful firmament above us shining with a splendour peculiar to the torrid zone. The boats sailed well, and ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... For out of the starlit darkness, from among the trees, started up a giant black figure, and his horse was grasped by the bridle and hurled ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... of a starlit night he saw the figure he had been waiting for glide out of the glitter of the hotel lights. He ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... are not about to close the day without a glance at the chamber which the two sisters held in common. The night was serene and starlit, and Madeline sate by the open window, leaning her face upon her hand, and gazing on the lone house of her lover, which might be seen afar across the landscape, the trees sleeping around it, and one pale and steady light gleaming from its lofty ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... slammed the door behind him. "Jim says it's Corrigan's barn," he said. "Sit tight, boys!" The car leaped forward once more, took the first corner at twenty miles an hour, took the next at thirty and then, in the middle of a firm, hard road, simply roared away into the starlit darkness, the headlights throwing a great white radiance ahead. Tim, on the front seat, whipped off his cap and stuffed it into his pocket. Behind, the three boys huddled themselves low in the wide seat while the ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... on with varying fortune, his blind groping and stumblings alternating with the starlit patches where the woods broke. But it went on deliberately to the end with an inevitability ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... Jenvie—believed I was the worst kid in the United Kingdom. One evening Rose Jenvie—her real name was Leighton, she was my glory, you know—had been visiting my foster-sister, and remaining until after dark, I walked home with her. It was a starlit night in summer, and we talked as we walked as young people do. The gate to the path leading up to her house was open, and I continued to walk by her side until we were almost at the door, when the 'Governor' sprang up from a bench on the little lawn, where ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... copy.... But it is time you were going. Fortunately the night is pleasant and starlit; and if you are tired, the speeding of the boat will rest you. Let me have an opinion of the creed ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... enormous cigar-shaped structure of such gigantic dimensions that it seemed doubtful whether there would be space enough in the glade to accommodate it. This appearance, however, was to a certain extent delusive, due no doubt to the semi-obscurity of the starlit night, for when at length it came to earth, lightly as a snowflake, it was seen that there was ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... with all its loops cut into points. This is aimed with great dexterity at the fish, who are either transfixed or jammed between the prongs. The fine figures of the natives, lighted up by the flickering torches, and standing out in bold relief against the dark blue starlit sky, would have served as models for the ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... held aside and one went by crowned with the majesty of years, wearing the ermine of an unstained rule, the purple of her people's loyalty. Nations stood with bated breath to see her pass in the starlit mist of her children's tears; a monarch—greatest of her time; an empress—conquered men called mother; a woman—Englishmen cried queen; still the crowned captive of her people's heart—the ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... spring night, warm and starlit. The water lapped against the stone walls of the basin and swirled in gentle eddies round the steps with a sound as of low laughter. Somewhere near a chain creaked, swinging slowly to and fro. A huge iron crane towered up, tall and melancholy in the dimness. Black on a shimmering expanse ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... General Grant to the writer one evening in June last. We had been conversing upon Fort Donelson and Pittsburg Landing. One by one his staff officers dropped off to their own tents, and we were alone. It was a quiet, starlit night. The Lieutenant-General was enjoying his fragrant Havana cigar, and was in a mood for conversation, not upon what he was going to do, but upon what had been done. He is always wisely reticent upon the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... often stood together in their short day and their two nights of the moon, so now again they stood with a serenading silence between them. A plaintive waltz-refrain from the house ran through the blue woof of starlit air as a sad-colored thread through the tapestry of night; they heard the mellow croon of the 'cello and the silver plaints of violins, the chiming harp, and the triangle bells, all woven into a minor strain of dance-music that beat gently upon their ears with such suggestion of the ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... shining down from a starlit sky, as the rough but faithful and sturdy cow ponies ambled along. Now the boy ranchers would be down in some swale, or valley, and again topping one of the foothills which led to Buffalo Ridge or Snake Mountain, between which elevations lay Happy Valley, where the ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... bell of midnight toll, And shiver in their flesh and soul; They lie on hard, cold wood or stone, Iron, and ache in every bone; They hate the night: they see no eyes Of loved ones in the starlit skies. They see the cold, dark water near; They dare not take long looks for fear They'll fall like those poor birds that see A snake's eyes staring at their tree. Some of them laugh, half-mad; and some All through the chilly night are dumb; ...
— Foliage • William H. Davies
... which God has revealed Himself to us are creation, redemption and sanctification. Creation is a vast book which speaks to us unceasingly of God, and it is intelligible to all. If we contemplate the magnificence of the starlit sky we must exclaim with David: "The heavens show forth the glory of God, and the firmament declareth the work of his hands" (Ps. xvlii). Yet not only the heavens, but also the earth shows us, at ...
— The Excellence of the Rosary - Conferences for Devotions in Honor of the Blessed Virgin • M. J. Frings
... Fairoaks, and wondering whether her dearest Arthur was at rest after his journey. At this time Laura, too, was awake. And at this time yesterday night, as the coach rolled over silent commons, where cottage windows twinkled, and by darkling woods under calm starlit skies, Pen was vowing to reform and to resist temptation, and his heart was at home. Meanwhile the farce was going on very successfully, and Mrs. Leary, in a hussar jacket and braided pantaloons, was enchanting the audience ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... precious little ones, and tell them that grandmamma thinks of them daily; that in spirit she joins in their charming walks, in their search for flowers, in their admiration of the woods, mountains, and fields, and in their holy inspirations while gazing at the glories of the starlit heavens, or the rising or setting sun. May God bless ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... last Will and Testament, the general confession of Maupassant. To those who come after him he leaves the legacy of his highest thought; then he says farewell to all that he loved, to dreams, to starlit nights, and to the breath of roses. "Sur l'Eau" is the book of modern disenchantment, the faithful mirror of the latest pessimism. The journal written on board ship, disconnected and hasty, but so noble in its disorder, has taken a place forever beside Werther ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... thing from the Park moved onward. High overhead there was a dull muttering like faraway thunder, but it was planes with filled bomb racks circling above the starlit land. There were men in those planes who ached to dive down and destroy this separated fraction of an invasion. But there were firm orders from the Pentagon. So long as the invaders killed nobody, they were not to be attacked. There was ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... indeed is the curtain between us and the unknown. There is a fear of the night that is begotten of ignorance and superstition, a nightmare fear, the fear of the impossible; and there is another fear of the night—of the starlit night—that comes with knowledge, when we see in its true proportion this little life of ours with all its phantasmal environment of cities and stores and arsenals, and the habits, prejudices, and promises of ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... was eager to break the record, was driving her along to the south'ard under every rag that we could show to it, including such fancy fakements as skysails, ringtails, water-sails, and all the rest of it. It was a fine, clear, starlit night, with just the trade- clouds driving along overhead, but there was no moon, and consequently, when an exceptionally big patch of cloud came sweeping up, it fell a bit dark. Still, there was no danger—or ought to have been none—for we were well ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... dim, starlit trail he plodded, shivering and yet elate. As he topped the rise he thought he could see the vague outlines of horses and men, but he was not certain. That soft glow against the distant timber was real enough, however! ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... night the sun went below the horizon for the first time in eight days, but his depth was too slight to make any darkness visible. I was quite tired of the unending daylight, and would willingly have exchanged the pomp of the arctic midnight for the starlit darkness of home. We were confused by the loss of night; we lost the perception of time. One is never sleepy, but simply tired, and after a sleep of eight hours by sunshine, wakes up as tired as ever. ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... the bed-covering to make sure that she still breathed. When he could bear it no longer, he crossed the room to the western window, drawing the draperies and standing between them to stare miserably out into the calm, starlit void. While he looked, a meteor burned its way across the inverted bowl of the heavens, and its passing kindled the embers ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... were fixed on Tony's face with a blinkless stare. The distorted lips moved twice without any sound coming from them. Then the chin fell; the glazing eyes turned up from their stare on Tony's face, up to the dark starlit vault overhead; a wavering sigh came as it were on the silent air of the night—and ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... to drive back in, and he almost carried her up to their bedroom. It was on the same floor as the other room, with the same marvelous bird's-eye view of the starlit sky and the lamplit town. He had got her to himself at last—here, high above the world, half-way to heaven. There seemed to him something poetical, almost sublime in their situation: they two alone, isolated, millions of people surrounding them and no living creature ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... marched on, and long before the crowd had recovered enough from its astonishment to give utterance to these surmises, Zoroaster had passed out of the porch and back through the deserted courts, and down the wide staircase to the palace gate, and out into the quiet, starlit night, alone ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... so—so—" But words failed him and he began to laugh. After a dubious instant Perry chuckled, and then Ossie, and presently they were clinging to each other convulsively in the middle of the unknown road and sending shrieks of laughter up to the starlit sky. ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... porcelain pipe, as usual, but strangely silent. A faint circle of light came from the open ground-floor window of the cafe. The white road gleamed dimly, and beyond the hushed valley the hills loomed vague against a black, starlit sky. In the lighted room a few peasants from neighbouring farms drank their sour white wine and discussed the death in low voices. In other circumstances my master would have joined them under pretext of getting ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... There, with the clear starlit sky over their heads, and the forest on all sides, they awaited the pleasure of their dusky hostess. But she remained away from them for so long that they grew uneasy, fearing some plot against them. While the Captain was wondering what to do in case of ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... indications that his visit was a thing looked forward to, no ordinary occasion. They were in one of the smaller rooms; outside a round table was laid for dinner in the palm-lined conservatory. Presently they sat there together; through the glass was a dazzling view of blue sky, starlit and clear; within, a vista of exotics, whose perfume hung heavy upon the air. Great palms were above their heads, the silver waters of a fountain rose and fell a few feet behind. They were served by a single servant in the de Reuss liveries of grey and silver; everything on the table was daintily ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... of the barrier, rifle in hand, and peering out upon the starlit slope beyond him, stood the form of Jonas, the miner. Not a sound came to him from the mists and shadows of the valley, and ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... was smooth before him, and he threw off his three-cornered hat, bent forward in his saddle and spoke in his horse's ear. His was a good horse, and carried an important message. A house near the roadside showed up dark and silent against the starlit sky; the horseman rode to the door and struck the panels with his whip. A window was thrown open above: "Who's there?"—"Paul Revere: the British march to-night to Lexington and Concord: Warren, of the Committee of Safety, bids you hold your men in readiness."—"Right!"—The horseman turns, ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... New Zealand and Tasmania; of the wonders of Canada, the variety of its natural productions, its magnificent wheat-growing areas; of the charm of South Africa with its glorious climate and its beautiful rolling veldt. What a memory it all is! Tranquil seas, starlit nights, the Southern Cross, noble forests, glorious mountains, mighty rivers, boundless plains; young vigorous communities under sunny skies, with limitless space in which to expand. I should love to enlarge on these ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... mighty bush, the breath of wide sunlit plains, the sound of camp-bells and jingle of hobble chains, floating on the soft twilight breezes, had come to these men and had written a tale on their hearts as had been written on mine. The glory of the starlit heavens, the mighty wonder of the sea, and the majesty of thunder had come home to them, and the breathless fulness of the sunset hour had whispered of something more than the humour of tomorrow's weather. The wind and rain had a voice which spoke to Kendall, and he too had endured ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... full day there was something stark and gaunt about the country. Before him smoke was rising, probably from a village. But that sign of human habitation, that certain indication that people were near, somehow only made him feel lonelier than he had been in the starlit darkness of the night. This would be good enough fun, if only one of his many friends back home were along—Jack French, or Steve Vedder. It was with them that he had shared such adventures in the past. And yet not just such adventures, either. ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine
... reports were followed by a furious burst of yells; there was the rush of feet, sounds as of blows struck against the stout poles, and directly after, dimly-seen against the starlit sky, dark grotesque-looking heads appeared as at least a dozen of the Indians gained the top of the defence, but only to be beaten back by the butt-ends of the men's fire-locks, all save two who dropped over in our midst, and fought ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... cheered again as the machine ran forward and sailed above them, and Smith, as he looked down upon the sea of faces lit up by the flaring torches until it became a blurred spot of light, felt cheered and encouraged, and set his face hopefully towards the starlit east. ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... he was out on the starlit road to Lauderdale. As he rode he thought, not of the Botetourt Resolutions, nor of Fauquier Cary, nor of Allan Gold, nor of the supper table at Three Oaks, nor of a case which he must fight through at the court house three days hence, but of Judith Cary. ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... that my attention began to wander to pictures and memories of the scenes we were just about to leave: Garden Lake, with its hundred islands; the rapids out of Round Pond; the countless vistas of forest, crimson and gold in the autumn sunshine; and the starlit nights we had spent watching in cold, cramped positions for the wary moose on lonely lakes among the hills. The hum of the professor's voice in time grew more soothing. A nod or a grunt was all the reply he looked ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... close to the water's edge, and saw the still water, starlit, stretching before us, a water hen sprang from the reeds almost at our feet with her shrill warning cry, and flapped out into the middle of the dark mere, leaving a long trail of broken water behind her that gleamed for a moment with dancing star sparks from the sky, as if it might have been ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... the streets, choosing the by-ways rather than the thoroughfares. The air was frosty, the December sky clear and starlit, above the blue or purple haze, pierced with lights, that filled the lower air; through which the college fronts, the distant spires and domes showed vaguely—as beautiful "suggestions"—"notes"—from ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... also, a North German Lloyd steamer quitted Southampton for Algiers, bearing among its passengers Priam and Alice. It was a rough starlit night, and from the stern of the vessel the tumbled white water made a pathway straight to receding England. Priam had come to love the slopes of Putney with the broad river at the foot; but he showed what I think was a nice feeling in leaving England. ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... and the scent Of summer gardens; these can bring you all Those dreams that in the starlit silence fall: Sweet songs are full of odours. While I went Last night in drizzling dusk along a lane, I passed a squalid farm; from byre and midden Came the rank smell that brought me once again A dream of war that in the past ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... The dusk had deepened into a starlit darkness, but there was a white glow behind the hills that seemed to wax with every instant that passed. Very soon the whole veldt would ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell |
