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More "Overcast" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cried, departed Burke, All chivalrous romantic work Is ended now and past! That iron age—which some have thought Of mettle rather overwrought— Is now all overcast." ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers, And heavily in clouds brings on the day, The great, th' important day, big with the fate Of ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... foot of the cliffs, where the water curled in white lace about the barrier of boulders. There was no change in the dullness of the sky; no sun broke through the thick lid of clouds. And the green of the sea was ashened to gray which matched that overcast until one could strain one's eyes trying to find the horizon, unable to mark the dividing line here between ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... and the dim light that stole from the heavens (in which the moon was partially overcast) through the casement on the staircase rested on a shapeless figure robed in black from head to foot,—a figure so obscure and undefinable in outline, so suited to the gloom in its hue, so stealthy and rapid in its movements, that had you started from sleep and seen it on your floor, you would ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... looking alternately at one another, and then at the packet which they guessed contained the long-expected and important papers. The red wax, with which the package was sealed, gleamed in the lamp-light, for one had been set aglow. It was dark early on this night, as clouds overcast ...
— Jack of the Pony Express • Frank V. Webster
... not long before we repented of our temerity: for in a short time the sky became overcast, the wind increased till it blew with violence, and meeting with the tide, caused the waves to rise prodigiously, which broke over our wretched canoe, and filled it with water. We lightened it as much as we could, by throwing overboard ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... nurse called Mabel in, and Christie walked sorrowfully away. The world seemed very full of trouble to him. Even the sky was overcast, and a cutting east wind chilled Christie through and through. The spring flowers were nipped by it, and the budding branches were sent backwards and forwards by each fresh gust of the wind, and Christie felt almost glad that it was so cheerless. He was very sad and unhappy, very restless ...
— Christie's Old Organ - Or, "Home, Sweet Home" • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... 1761 the political horizon was overcast. There were difficulties with Great Britain. James Otis had made a great speech, which Adams heard, on what were called "writs of assistance," giving power to the English officers of customs in the Colony to enter houses and stores ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... ends should be secured strongly and neatly together. If the selvage is bad, the best way is to hem it at once. Kitchen dusters, tea cloths, and knife cloths, may be made of any suitable material; but in all cases let the edges be turned down, and neatly sewed or overcast. ...
— The Ladies' Work-Table Book • Anonymous
... the fells, and the lake—somewhat vast and gloomy, and furnished in a stately old fashion—was said to be haunted, especially when the wind blew from the direction of Golden Friars, the point from which it blew on the night of her death in the lake; or when the sky was overcast, and thunder rolled among the lofty fells, and lightning gleamed on the wide ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... supper, and a rushlight; and she tied round his neck an amulet, given her by an African conjurer, as a charm against evil spirits. Dolph was escorted on his way by the doctor and Peter de Groodt, who had agreed to accompany him to the house, and to see him safe lodged. The night was overcast, and it was very dark when they arrived at the grounds which surrounded the mansion. The sexton led the way with a lantern. As they walked along the avenue of acacias, the fitful light, catching from bush to bush, ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... the sky was overcast. A squall struck the boat and tore away the sail. In the distance a huge billow—a great white wall of water—came sweeping toward their frail craft, threatening it with instant destruction. She clasped her child to her bosom, and a moment later found herself struggling ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... everything,—that the sky was oftener blue than black; and my floral experiences in the garden taught me that it was the sunshine, and not the cloud, that makes the flower. It became my study to look only on the bright side of things, convinced, that, if the present were a little overcast, there was a future for us that would be all delightful. I was full of hope; and the eye of hope can discover a star in the thickest darkness, a rainbow even in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... main-sail, the captain, who had come up from below with Mr Saunders when the starboard watch relieved us, having ordered it to be furled and another reef to be taken in the topsails, as it was then blowing great guns and the ship staggering along through a storm-tossed sea, with the sky overcast all round—a sign that we had not seen the worst ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Garde Nationale, who, when they are on duty at the ramparts, quietly leave their men there, and come home to dinner. No one appears to consider this anything extraordinary. Well may General Trochu look up to the sky when it is overcast, and wish that he were in Brittany shooting woodcocks. He has undertaken a task beyond his own strength, and beyond the strength of the greatest general that ever lived. How can the Parisians expect to force the Prussians to raise the siege? They decline to be soldiers, and ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... this fatal Tuesday all the elements seemed to unite in adding horror to the scene of carnage. Shortly before this a great comet had made men fear and wonder; and now, on this morning the sky was overcast with such dense clouds that the land was in darkness; so black were the heavens that nothing like it had been known within the memory of man. A violent tempest, with a deluge of rain and terrific thunder and lightning, swept over the country. ...
— Evesham • Edmund H. New
... Chamondrin was a witness to some of these facts. The letters of his son revealed others. He was extremely anxious in regard to the future, and more than once Dolores and his wife saw his brow overcast ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... partly aided by the tide, up the Para river. Towards evening we passed Vigia and Colares, two fishing villages, and saw many native canoes, which seemed like toys beneath the lofty walls of dark forest. The air was excessively close, the sky overcast, and sheet lightning played almost incessantly around the horizon— an appropriate greeting on the threshold of a country lying close under the equator! The evening was calm, this being the season when the winds are not strong, so we glided along in a noiseless manner, ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... was gloomy and abstracted; arguments about Justification interested him little, and when the talk fell upon the price of wool, he remained standing, absolutely lost in gloomy dreams. It grew a little dark in the room, the sky being so overcast, and suddenly, all the voices having fallen, there was a gurgle of water by the threshold, and a little flood, coming in between sill and floor, reached as it were, a tiny finger of witness towards his great feet. He looked down at ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... the gentle Bianca insensible to his evident partiality for her society; she detected herself repeatedly, without being willing to acknowledge it, wishing for evening—disappointed, if the sky was overcast, or the weather rainy—fluttering with hope, and joy, and indescribable emotion, at the sight of every distant cavalier, or at the sound of every horse's hoof upon the road towards the city. The warm blush, the speaking smile, the sparkling eyes, of both the lovely Bianca and the young soldier, ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... coarsened face, was seen in an admirable foreshortening, while her eyes were shadowed by her drooping lids, which were faintly tinted to look like rose-leaves. With the memory his expression was again overcast. Then a pleased smile chased the heaviness from his eyes, for he remembered suddenly that he held a firm grip on the promising Chericoke Valley Central stock. He lighted his cigar, tossed the match into the empty fireplace, and pushing the papers from his knees, ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... troops passed through Plassans again. The prefect and the colonel, whom Monsieur Garconnet had invited to dinner, once more entered the town alone. The soldiers went round the ramparts and encamped in the Faubourg, on the Nice road. Night was falling; the sky, overcast since the morning, had a strange yellow tint, and illumined the town with a murky light, similar to the copper-coloured glimmer of stormy weather. The reception of the troops by the inhabitants was timid; the bloodstained ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... and silent time it was Within that house of woe, All eyes were dull and overcast, And every voice was low! And from each cheek at intervals The blood appear'd to start, As if recall'd in sudden haste ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... to unhallow'd sight the Muse divine Might seem, when first she raised her eyes to mine. What mortal change does in thy face appear, Lost youth, she cried, since first I met thee here! With how undecent clouds are overcast Thy looks, when every cause of grief is past! Unworthy the glad tidings which I bring, Listen while the Muse thus teaches thee to sing: As parent earth, burst by imprison'd winds, Scatters strange agues o'er men's sickly minds, And shakes the atheist's knees; such ghastly fear ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... Nature, contrary to her usual custom of indifference to human suffering, was mourning with him. The sky was overcast, and the sun had ceased to shine. There was a sort of sombreness in the afternoon, which fitted in with his mood. And then ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... entire day the sky was overcast, with a thermometer varying from fifty-seven degrees at 300 feet to forty-four degrees, Fahrenheit at 5,000 feet, at which altitude the wind had a velocity of 43 miles an hour, in clouds of a cirro-cumulus nature, a landing finally being made near Tannersville, New York, in the ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... used by beginners in many ways. Squares of duck, fringed out on the edges, and overcast or hem-stitched, can have simple borders or stripes of any desired width worked in this stitch (see Fig. 3). You can draw the lines yourself with a pencil and ruler; those lines which slant in one direction may be worked in one shade, those slanting in the opposite direction ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the Loves rejoice—and well did they Who wove these fables picture in their weaving That blessed truth, (which in a darker day ORIGEN lost his saintship for believing,[1])— That Love, eternal Love, whose fadeless ray Nor time nor death nor sin can overcast, Even to the depths of hell will find his way, And soothe and heal and triumph there at last! GUERCINO'S Agar—where the bondmaid hears From Abram's lips that he and she must part, And looks at him with eyes all full of tears That seem the very last drops from her heart. Exquisite picture!—let ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... for the rest of us, using the life overcast To ripen our wine of the present (too new) in glooms of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... was not cold, but snow fell part of the day, and it grew dark about half-past four in the afternoon. The gale of Monday had subsided, and the sky was overcast. The steamer "Sadie" of the Alaska Commercial Company surprised us by coming into Golovin, and again suddenly we fell to letter writing in order to send them out by her, remaining several hours as she ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... finished above an hour before the sky became overcast; and, all at once, a rushing, sweeping wind came over the country. Far-off in the distance where the hills could be seen, a thick, misty appearance almost hid them from sight. There was a low, muttering sound, then another, seemingly nearer; then came ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... desolate day, gray and overcast. The shore-line was blurred out before Felicia had so much as a fair look at it. The wind blew, raw and cold, but she shook her head when they suggested she let them take her into the cabin. She just lay with closed eyes and cuddled a little ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... contemporaries, and mingle in the contentious scenes of worldly affairs. Or, at least, it might have been expected that his traducers would only be found among the oppressors of the New World, or the slave-traders of the Old. This felicity has not been his lot; and the evening of his days has been overcast by an assault upon his character, proceeding from the quarter of all others the most unexpected ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... host followed him out on the staircase with a candle, to light him down the stairs, the day was coldly looking in through its grimy windows. When he got out of the house, the air was cold and sad, the dull sky overcast, the river dark and dim, the whole scene like a lifeless desert. And wreaths of dust were spinning round and round before the morning blast, as if the desert-sand had risen far away, and the first spray of it in its advance had ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... fashion of poets, by the tale of disasters, would vow that he would begin to work in earnest, and then forget his resolution, and drown his fleeting cares in excess. One day Coralie saw the poetic brow overcast, and scolded Berenice, and told her lover that everything would ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... and there, away to the south, was the dim light coming steadily up the stream. The moon had not yet risen; the sky was overcast with wildly flying clouds; the wind was rising, and would drive and grind the ice more fiercely. It was just the night for a tragedy, and he felt that if he saw that light disappear, as a sign that the boat had been crushed and its occupants swallowed up by the wintry tide, the saddest tragedy of ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... accompanied us for seven leagues, all through the woods. We had a delightful ride, the day was cool and cloudy, and we were besides, constantly shaded by the noble forest trees. But we had not reached Las Millas before the sky was overcast, the clouds became black and gloomy, and at length broke out in rain. We galloped fast, for the day, besides being rainy, was cold; and in the afternoon reached Las Millas. Here we breakfasted in the little portico, which we preferred to the interior of the cottage, chiefly ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... an unlucky omen; wives will be jealous and distrustful of their husbands, and sweethearts will quarrel and nag each other into crimination and recrimination. Dulness will overcast business horizons. ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... into low conversation with Jennie, holding out hopeful views of her future, and presently darkness set in. The sky was overcast with heavy clouds; there was no air moving; the heat and oppression threatened storm. By and by Duane could not see a rod in front of him, though his horse had no difficulty in keeping to the road. Duane was bothered by the blackness of the ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... reached the house by this time and were standing near the verandah steps. It was a chilly night, and the sky was overcast with not a star to be seen. A tremor shook Lois' form as she ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... but I thought I saw that I should get well through it—'Well, Sir Walter,' I said, 'I was dining yesterday, where your works became the subject of very copious conversation.' His countenance immediately became overcast—and his answer was, 'Well, I think, I must say your party might have been better employed.' 'I knew it would be your answer,'—the conversation continued,—'nor would I have mentioned it, but that Dr. Chalmers was ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... dismal one on that particular day. The sky was overcast and gray, with a distinct threat of rain. The sea was gray and cold and cheerless. The fields were bare and bleak and across them moved a damp, chill, penetrating breeze. From horizon to horizon not a breathing creature, except themselves, was visible. ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... behind the clouds, the sky is overcast, and the broad Volga looks gloomy. Levitan ought not to live on the Volga. It lays a weight of gloom on the soul. Though it would not be bad to have an estate ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... not start till about nine o'clock. This was the coldest day we have yet experienced: the heavens were overcast with clouds. We came five hours; our course irregular, but always south-east; the track through wadys filled with the usual trees of the tholukh species. Yesterday were seen numbers of large butterflies, but to-day, ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... were more like changes of weather, and interchange of day and night, than at any other place in the heavenly country. Sometimes the whole valley would be shrouded with mists, sometimes it would be grey and overcast, sometimes the light was clear and radiant, but through it all there beat a pulse of light and darkness; and I do not know which was the more desirable—the hours when we walked in the forests, with the wind moving softly in the leaves overhead ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... eighty-three degrees, but the blood mounted ten degrees higher; though I think a good deal of the heat imparted itself through the eye from the lurid horizons paling upward into the dull, unbroken blue of the heavens, ordinarily overcast or heaped with masses of white cloud. A good deal came also from the thronged streets, in which the season had scarcely begun to waver, and the pulses of the plethoric town throbbed with a sense ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... fields and hedges, throughout the summer nights, we may see and study most interesting examples of creatures which produce their own light. Heedless of whether the moon shines brightly, or whether an overcast sky cloaks the blackest of nights, the fireflies blaze their sinuous path through life. These little yellow and black beetles, which illumine our way like a cloud of tiny meteors, have indeed a wonderful power, for the light which they produce within their own bodies is ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... slightly soiled negligee, answered his ring, then, recognizing him, blocked the door hastily, exposing a face overcast with ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... the clouds that had so long overcast this little house had drifted away this calm Sabbath day, and the sun was shining ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... darker, at last veil the horizon in a blueish grey mist. Towards the zenith they tower up in bright broad-spreading masses, and assume the appearance of gigantic mountains in the air. All at once the sky is completely overcast, excepting that a few spots of deep blue still appear through the clouds. The sun is hid, but the heat of the atmosphere is more oppressive. The noontide is past; a cheerless melancholy gloom hangs heavily over nature. Fast sink the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... the early part of the evening when he had drawn attention to himself with his wonderful clothes. Now his comic actor's face, with its brownish-red cheeks, protuberant ears and horizontal slit of a mouth, was overcast with gravity. His bald forehead was seamed with the wrinkles of responsibility. He drew Annixter into one of the empty stalls and began an elaborate explanation, glib, voluble, interminable, going over again in detail what he had reported to the ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... was about to reply that he did not believe that the peasants could continue to resist the Government indefinitely, the police-sergeant in charge of the picnic-party approached, his face overcast. ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... became more and more overcast, but Andrew could think of no way in which he could take the little girl home without being late and losing ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... back before supper," she said, and hurried homewards over the moor, where the wind was rising and sighing in the broom bushes. The clouds were hurrying up from the north-west, and threatening to overcast the pale evening sky, quivering flocks of fieldfares whirred over her, and the gold and purple were fast losing their brilliant tints. As she neared the cottage in the darkening twilight, a patch of scarlet caught her eye, and a warm glow of comfort rushed ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... to sovereigns; three great dukedoms, an independent principality with its own mint and with its own tribunals, and an income greatly exceeding the whole revenue of the kingdom of Scotland. But this splendid prospect had been overcast. The match had been broken off. The aspiring suitor had been, during many years, shut up in an Alpine castle. At length Lewis relented. Lauzun was forbidden to appear in the royal presence, but was allowed to enjoy liberty ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... companions, I believe, regretted I had not been omitted. I tried, therefore, to be inconspicuous, and went up to seclude myself at the back of the boat on the poop, there to understudy a dog which is sorry it did it. Not adverse fate itself could show a more misanthropic aspect than the empty overcast waste around us. It was useless to appeal to it. It did vouchsafe us one ship that morning, a German trawler with a fir tree lashed to her deck, ready for Christmas morning, I suppose, when perhaps they would ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... overcast, ceiling about two thousand feet, visibility about two miles. The wind was moderate and steady. Rick examined the water in front of the cottage and told his friends, "I can take off all right. But I don't want to ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... greensward ring of the Auld Kirkhill at sunset, and wakened at daybreak in the wild hills of Breadalbane. And see that, when you are looking for deer, the red stag does not gall you as he did Diccon Thorburn, who never overcast the wound that he took from a buck's horn. And see, when you go swaggering about with a long broadsword by your side, whilk it becomes no peaceful man to do, that you dinna meet with them that have broadsword and lance ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... of fine weather. So is fog. Neither of these two formations occurs under an overcast sky, or when there is much wind. One sees the fog occasionally rolled away, as it were, by wind—but not formed ...
— Barometer and Weather Guide • Robert Fitzroy
... There's the stage horn. Let us hurry out and get an inside seat. The sky looks overcast, and I shouldn't like to have this coat rained upon. There's a fine piece of cloth, Dic. Feel it." Dic complied. "Soft as silk, isn't it?" continued Billy. "They don't make such cloth in these days of flimsy woolsey. Got it thirty years ago from the famous Schwitzer on Cork Street. ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... assistance always sit stolidly silent until their separate summons comes to join the chief, eyeing each other suspiciously and surveying their surroundings with unconcealed and fitting awe. One is of bluff and hearty appearance, but his full face is overcast for the moment with an expression half sad, half whimsical; it is plain that a conjunction of untoward circumstances has raised doubts in his mind of the integrity of a business associate, and he has reluctantly determined to clear or confirm ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... literature." He talks of taking up journalism—but in his heart he feels unfit for any regular profession, by reason both of physical weakness and a certain lack of system in mental work. The future becomes blackly, blankly overcast; the res augusta domi descend like a curtain between the sublimity of Keats and the calm commonsense of Fanny. They turn homewards in silence, the poet ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron
... saw red with rage and anguish, he watched the hesitating approach of the woman. She stopped at the corner and looked up and down the Drive, peering intently into the dark shadows by the lake. The sky was overcast; no stars peeped through its blackness. With uncertain, halting steps she crossed the boulevard, still glancing about as if in search of someone. He moved forward unconsciously, almost blindly, and she caught a glimpse of his tall, dark figure. He was ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... to thee, A debt already paid in pain. Yet even that pain was some relief; It felt, but still forgot thy power:[bs] The active agony of grief Retards, but never counts the hour.[bt] In joy I've sighed to think thy flight Would soon subside from swift to slow; Thy cloud could overcast the light, But could not add a night to Woe; For then, however drear and dark, My soul was suited to thy sky; One star alone shot forth a spark To prove thee—not Eternity. That beam hath sunk—and now thou art A blank—a thing to count and curse Through each dull tedious ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... dashing up like the explosion of shells, and the cliffs, and the rampart of hills grown with grass and cactus. A bold promontory terminated the coast view to the north, and behind it I could glimpse a more fertile and wooded country. The sky was partly overcast by the volcanic murk. It fled before the Trades, and the red sun alternately blazed and clouded ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... unity of impression that would only be disturbed and dissipated if we stayed longer. Clear vision goes with the quick foot. Things fall for us into a sort of natural perspective when we see them for a moment in going by; we generalise boldly and simply, and are gone before the sun is overcast, before the rain falls, before the season can steal like a dial-hand from his figure, before the lights and shadows, shifting round towards nightfall, can show us the other side of things, and belie what they showed us in the morning. We expose ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... worked like a pair of bellows. There he stood, glancing now back along the road, now up at the sky. His hat had gone flying at the first unexpected plunge; he ought to return and look for it. But he shrank from the additional fatigue, the delay in reaching home this would mean. The sky was still overcast: he decided to risk it. Knotting his handkerchief he spread it cap-wise over his head and got back into ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... extended at full length on a settee, which he insisted was a divan. There was a glass bottle holding half a gallon of red wine on a table near him, also a bottle of Marsala, and half a dozen glasses. There was a roaring wood-fire in his stove—for it was December, and the day was overcast and cool. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... youth, which courts melancholy as an indulgence, and loves to assume a sadness it has not had time to earn, may have had some share in, at least, fostering the gloom by which the mind of the young poet was overcast, I am not disposed to deny. The circumstance, indeed, of his having, at this time, among the ornaments of his study, a number of skulls highly polished, and placed on light stands round the room, would seem to indicate that he rather courted than shunned such gloomy associations.[113] ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... salts exchanged glances the cloud seemed to grow, as if by magic, and by the time the awning was snugged home and lashed and everything had been hauled taut in preparation for the blow, the whole heavens were overcast with a sullen gray veil, and the sea began to rise with a low moaning sound that presaged what Ben Stubbs termed "a ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... ours,—where the interest of the people is so much neglected—neglected! no, but never thought of at all! Good-bye, sir," he added, taking up his hat, whilst the features of this sterling and honest man were overcast with a solemn and pathetic spirit, "don't consider me any longer your tenant. For many a long year has our names been—but no matther—the time is come at last, and the M'Mahon's of Carriglass and Ahadarra will be known there no more. It wasn't our fault; we ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... ate a hastily prepared breakfast and were off to the boat. Neither Robinson nor Friday stopped for their noonday lunch. "A storm is brewing," said Robinson, "the air is calm, the sky is overcast with clouds, the heat is oppressive. We must hurry." With the utmost diligence they rowed back and forth all day. They made nine trips. They had now on shore a surprising quantity of all kinds of tools, goods and weapons. They had all kinds of ware to use in the kitchen, clothes, and food. ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe - for American Boys and Girls • Samuel. B. Allison
... The sky is overcast, Yet stars shall rise at last, Brighter for darkness past, And angels' silver voices stir ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... the still sea-shore, A monitory sound that never failed,— The sunset cannon. While the orb went down 325 In the tranquillity of nature, came That voice, ill requiem! seldom heard by me Without a spirit overcast by dark Imaginations, sense of woes to come, Sorrow for human kind, and pain ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... The sky had been overcast all day long. All of a sudden, at that very moment,—it was eight o'clock in the evening—the clouds on the horizon parted, and allowed the grand and sinister glow of the setting sun to pass through, athwart ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... birds are passing by, flitting to the lowland. The sky is overcast; there is a lull in the wind. Hark, I hear the piping of the shepherd and the tinkling bell of the wether. Yonder is his flock; and there sits he on a rock blowing his doleful reed. I am almost slain ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... cheerful council. There was no exultation as after Wyoming and Cherry Valley and the Minisink and other places. Sir John bit his lip uneasily, and his brother-in-law, resting his hand on his knee, stared gloomily at the fire. The two Butlers were silent, and the dark face of Thayendanegea was overcast. ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... terrible phenomenon of natural scenery that she had not noticed, in the thicket on her right, a low hut that, with its brown-green moldering colors, fell so naturally in with the hue of the surrounding scenery as easily to escape observation. She did not even observe that the sky was entirely overcast, and the thunder was muttering in the distance. She was aroused from her profound reverie by a voice ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... rose as usual, but, as the weather was overcast, it only peered now and then through the broken gray clouds. There were mutterings of thunder and a few drops of rain fell, big and heavy with black soot. Then the shower stopped and a stillness like that before a great storm settled over the land. The day, instead of growing ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton
... straits of Florida. I took the helm, the general the sheet, Colonel Wilson was stationed by the halyards, Russell and O'Toole were prepared to bail. Tom, thoroughly demoralized, was already sitting in the bottom of the boat, between the general's knees. The sky was soon completely overcast with dark lowering clouds; the darkness, which could almost be felt, was broken every few minutes by lurid streaks of lightning chasing one another through black abysses. Fitful gusts of wind were the ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... wood the path was very dark. The heavens were overcast with clouds, and a few drops began to fall. Then the rain fell faster and faster, and before she had gone a quarter of a mile down the beacon hill, the clouds had opened themselves, and the shower had become a storm of water. ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... (saith he) that the Light which Mercury receives, is far enough from being able to burn Bodies, and yet that the same Light is great enough in Saturn to see cleer there, seeing that (to him) it appears greater in Saturn, than it doth upon our Earth, when it is overcast with Clouds: Which (he adds) would scarce be believed, if by means of this Glass it did not sensibly appear so; Whereof he promises to discourse more fully in his {70} Treatise of the usefulness of great Optick-Glasses, where he also intends to deliver ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... became frightened, and as the faint rays of light from a distant port-hole fell squarely upon his face, I observed a wild, peculiar stare in his eyes, and noticed that his whole countenance was overcast by a most villainous expression. At that moment, I remembered the doctor's warning words, that he might change personalities at any time that he was subjected to severe mental excitement, and I now recognized in the man standing ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... the sky became overcast; the water was of that dull leaden hue, striped with white foam, which gives so gloomy an aspect to the ocean; and heavy squalls compelled us to shorten sail as fast as all hands could get through the task. For the greater part of the day the squalls continued; but in the afternoon, though it was ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... so much interested in searching for minerals that we had quite forgotten our luncheon. The sky, I remember, was overcast and the sun obscured; it was also very smoky from forest fires, which in those days were nearly always burning somewhere to the north ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... more oppressive, and the burning winds of the desert were sometimes wafted over to us. The highest temperature at midday was 36 degrees, and in the shade from 24 to 25 degrees Reaumur. The sky was far less beautiful and clear than in Syria; it was here frequently overcast with white clouds. ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... were the enclosed cloisters, as they entered by the west gate. It was later than the usual hour of closing, and it was, moreover, a gloomy evening, the sky overcast. They went through the cloisters to the south gate, Ketch grumbling all the way. He locked it, and then turned ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... while he was following the profession of itinerant painter through England, that he wrote to his father of "much dissatisfaction and much sorrow," of "that repeated disappointment and that long dejection which have served to overcast and to throw into deep obscurity some of the best ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... at the swift-running stream, and emptied them as often. By two o'clock F. was getting a little wobbly from the sun. We talked of stopping, when an unexpected thunder shower rolled out from behind the mountains, and speedily overcast the entire heavens. This shadow relieved the stress. F., much revived, insisted that we proceed. So we marched and ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... before blue and cloudless, became overcast, a tremendous storm gathered from the west, broke in all its fury of rain, hail and thunder and lightning—even a partial eclipse of the sun occurred. There was a terrible downpour, and to the horror of the moment was ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... which has been a great object to the noblest minds in all ages.' BOSWELL. His preface to the third edition thus ends:—'When I first ventured to send this book into the world, I fairly owned an ardent desire for literary fame. I have obtained my desire: and whatever clouds may overcast my days, I can now walk here among the rocks and woods of my ancestors, with an agreeable consciousness that I have done something worthy.' The dedication of the first edition and the preface of the third are ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... they gained the edge of the woods and came out on the plains. The sky was still overcast, only a few ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... protest, and hearken all to it, Ye times and ages, future, present, past, Hear all ye blessed in the heavens that sit, The time for this achievement hasteneth fast: The longer rest worse will the season fit, Our sureties shall with doubt be overcast. If we forslow the siege I well foresee From Egypt ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... fire of the little cottage parlour, a black-edged letter lying idly between her fingers. Very pale, she had the appearance of one who had passed many sleepless nights. Outside, the November sky was overcast, the rain was coming down in torrents, and sad-looking people picked their way down the muddy lane under streaming ...
— Brave and True - Short stories for children by G. M. Fenn and Others • George Manville Fenn
... warm, and still. Only on one side of the sky the stars were shining, the other and greater part was overcast by one huge cloud stretching from the mountaintops. The black cloud, blending in the absence of any wind with the mountains, moved slowly onwards, its curved edges sharply denned against the deep starry sky. Only in front of him could the Cossack discern the Terek and ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... Majesty dwelt on that hope, and overwhelmed with grief, his sorrowful heart beheld Sweden's last misfortune. The Crown Prince, Carl August, is no more, and a cloud has overcast the joyful and bright days of our native country. With a heart rent by sorrow and affliction, his Royal Majesty has assembled the Diet, on this occasion to repair the loss. His Royal Majesty sees on our side endless disputes and disturbances ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... sullen manner amused her; she attributed his morose ways to the effects of an over-lively night. Onward she went, down to the edge of the brook, then turned to the right up the course of the streamlet. That the skies threatened to become overcast and that rain might overtake her during the day mattered little. Whenever the Indian is bent upon the performance of some task, sunshine or rain, moonlight or snow, are matters of indifference. Shotaye strolled on regardless of things above or below. ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... blindness.[76] Cicero likewise says very justly, that reason is as it were, the light and splendor of life.[77] Hence God is stiled the father of lights.[78] Thus the virtues of the mind decaying, may be compared to the luminaries of the world overcast. I am conscious that this exposition is contrary to that of a number of learned interpreters, who take this obscuration of the lights in the genuine sense of the words, and think that the failing of the sight is here to be understood. But I am surprized, ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... been the usual myriads of the insects that cause this sound. While I was thinking in this way a swallow alighted on the turf, picked up a small white moth from among the short grass, and went off with it. In gloomy overcast weather the swallows at the sea-side frequently alight on the pebbles of the beach to pick up the insects which will not rise and fly. Some beaches and sandbanks are much frequented by insects, and black clouds of them sometimes come drifting along, striking ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... resting on them, Georgina looked into the fire through the slits of the damper and thought and thought. Then she looked out through the little square window-panes across the wind-swept dunes. It did not seem like summer with the sky all overcast with clouds. It was more like the end of a day in the early ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... only a momentary mood, and will it pass and leave no trace?" he thought. But the same instant, going back to his mood, he felt with delight that something new and important had happened to him. Real life had only for a time overcast the spiritual peace he had found, but it was ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... chairs and spittoons, a small gas-heater, and many tottering columns of dusty letter-files. The window-panes, encrusted with perennial deposits of Atmosphere, were less transparent than translucent, and so little the latter that electric bulbs burned all day long whenever the skies were overcast. Also, the windows were fixed and set against the outer air—impregnable to any form of assault less impulsive than a stone cast by an irresponsible hand. A door, set craftily in the most inconvenient spot imaginable, afforded both ventilation and access to an aisle which led tortuously between ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... young man were so excellent that he combated, by reason and religion, the fits of gloom which at times overcast his mind, and it was not till he attained the commencement of his twenty-first year that they assumed a character which made his father tremble for the consequences. It seemed as if the gloomiest ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the method of overcasting and explain its use. She should have the pupils trim the edges of their seams neatly and overcast them carefully. After the seams have been overcast, she should discuss the depth of the hem that the pupils expect to use and the method of turning and basting it. They should then measure, turn, pin, and baste the hems, using the gauge for determining the depth of ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario
... all sides were anxious faces and furrowed brows. The country was out of health; money, the vital blood of business, circulated slowly from one part of the great body to the other—the rich fearing to lose, the poor becoming unable to win. The future was overcast all at once, like the summer sky ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... toboggans were hitched behind the Mackenzie River dogs, and while 'Merican Joe plodded ahead, Connie had all he could do at the tail rope. An hour later the wind suddenly changed and came roaring out of the north. The whole sky became overcast and stinging particles of flinty snow were driven against their faces. The storm increased in fury. The stinging particles changed to dry, powdery snow dust that whirled and eddied about them so thickly that Connie could not see the dogs ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... in the thick reeds and waited. The sky above was darkly overcast; an occasional burst of lightning revealed the dimensions of the pond, and they could see high ground on the eastern shore, covered by ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... happened to be late in arriving, and youthful March looked more like October, and only at noon, and that not on every day, did the pale, wintry sun show himself in the overcast heavens, or, glimmering in blue spaces between clouds, contemplate the earth with a ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... was still threatening; the sky was dull and overcast, and now and then big drops of rain dashed against the window-panes; but this traveler with his heavy cloak lined with sheep-skin was not a man to worry about ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... cross-grained, silent, or irritable, raw-edged for the first time, for a better lot of fellows one could not ask to ship with. Nor throughout the day did weather conditions or tempers improve. All day long the sky was heavily overcast with dense, low-hanging, dark gray clouds, which, while wholly obscuring the sun, seemed to focus its rays upon us like a vast burning-glass; wherefore it was expedient for the two pajama-clad passengers ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... by North Atlantic Current; mild winters, cool summers; consistently humid; overcast about half ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... promise and bright sunshine, but became overcast and gloomy by the time the Royal progress from the Palace had commenced. The crowds gathered early, and soon every seat in the many stands were filled with expectant and interested people who numbered in the end fully half a million. Picked troops, chiefly Household Cavalry and Colonial ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... not remarkable in any way, while the barometer has been little affected by them; but it has been often observed by those employed on the water that when it ceased blowing half a gale the sky at once became overcast, with damp weather or rain. This may all seem common enough to most people; but to those accustomed to gauge the wind by the number of reefs wanted in a mainsail or foresail it was not so; and the number of consecutive days when two or more reefs have been kept tied down during the last ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... have no desire but that of cherishing me dearly, and embellishing my life by all kinds of delicious cares. Come, come, Croustillac," said the adventurer, with increased exaltation, "I say truly, your star is in the ascendent, and shall shine more than in the past it has been overcast! Yes, it is in ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... a moth ball was a lemon drop an' dealt with it a'cordin', an' she was too used up by the bein' up all night to even so much as overcast a plain seam; but the rest was there an' we all aired ourselves inside out, I can assure you, an' was more 'n glad as she was n't there, so we could do ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... presaging David Dubbs's misfortune, had grown overcast, and flung down spiteful little sallies of snow as he crossed the river on his way to Mr. Griffin's. The creaking of the bridge's huge timbers and the splitting ice below it made him shiver and pull his threadbare coat close about him and sacrifice his old hands to the wind ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... camp shortly after six A. M., and after a few brief instructions, we started out. The going not as heavy as the day previous; but the sky overcast, and a heavy drift on the surface made it decidedly unpleasant for the dogs. For the first six hours the going was over rough, jagged ice, covered with deep, soft snow; for the rest of the day it improved. We encountered comparatively level ice, with a few hummocks, and in places covered with ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... inconceivable abominations and horrors: it was the royal court. At the upper end of the king's accursed hall, amidst thousands of other dread sights, by the light my companion shed, I could see in the darkness two feet of prodigious size, and so enormous as to overcast the whole infernal firmament. I inquired of my Guide what such immensities might be. "Thou shalt have a fuller view of this monster when returning," said he, "but, come now, let us to see the court." As we were ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... reached the spot than suddenly the clouds gathered, the sky was overcast, a squall rose shrieking and whistling amidst the trees, and there was every appearance of a downpour. We were not prepared for it, but we rashly continued our way. At last, just before we reached a small road-side cabaret, down it came, as if the whole reservoir of cloudland ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... though it began brightly, had long been overcast, and the clouds now spat down a few spiteful drops upon us, besides that the east-wind was very chill; so we descended the winding tower-stair, and went next into the garden, one side of which is shut in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... being arrived, and disliking the vehicle of a hackney coach, I walked forward to the inn at which the stranger had been left; musing much on the prospect before me, which was once more beginning to be heavily overcast. ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... weather for days, the skies being overcast and the wind damp and chill. It did not rain, nor were the waves dangerous, although choppy enough to make ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... to the Athenaeum, and, being received with great courtesy by Mr. Folsom, was shown all over the edifice from the very bottom to the very top, whence I looked out over Boston. It is an admirable point of view; but, it being an overcast and misty day, I did not get the full advantage of it. The library is in a noble hall, and looks splendidly with its vista of alcoves. The most remarkable sight, however, was Mr. Hildreth, writing his history of the United States. He sits at a table, at the entrance ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... honour her, and with what fidelity he would attach himself to her, with what affection serve her, how studiously obey her commands, with what sports he would dispel the light clouds of her melancholy sadness on the days when the skies should be overcast. Fashioning himself one out of his imagination, he would throw himself at her feet, kiss, fondle, caress, bite, and clasp her with as much reality as a prisoner scampers over the grass when he sees the green fields through ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... that when the sky was overcast, the waves were dark and sullen, and the great gulls flew far over the sea, her laugh lost its gaiety, and she forgot to sing ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks
... last he said to her: "My friend, doth aught ail me with thee? Wilt thou not tell me, so that I may amend it? For thou are grown of few words with me and turnest thee from me, and seemest as if thou heedest me little. Thou art as a fair spring morning gone cold and overcast in the afternoon. What is it then? we are going a long journey together, and belike shall find little help or comfort save in each other; and ill will it be if we fall asunder in heart, though we be ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... set, the weather unexpectedly changed, and a fine drizzling rain set in. So gently come the autumn showers that dull and fine are subject to uncertain alternations. The shades of twilight gradually fell on this occasion. The heavens too got so overcast as to look deep black. Besides the effect of this change on her mind, the patter of the rain on the bamboo tops intensified her despondency, and, concluding that Pao-ch'ai would be deterred from coming, she ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... blankets and, naturally, all of us went to sleep. A great shock brought us to our feet. The moon had set and the sky was overcast. Thick night clung around us. We saw nothing, but by the rocking of the boats and the roaring of the river, we ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... teeth). And no money for the fare. (Looks up.) Sky's come overcast. Black, too. It'll be a wild, windy night... to walk the high road on. But I and wild nights are old friends wherever the free ...
— One Day More - A Play In One Act • Joseph Conrad
... a cold spell, with heavy frosts at night, but the days are still glorious. The overcast days are so few in the West that I've been wondering if the optimism of the Westerners isn't really due to the sunshine they get. Who could be gloomy under such golden skies? Every pore of my body has a throat and is shouting out a Tarentella Sincera of its own! But it ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... The sky was overcast when we started, and before noon there was a heavy rain which prevented any enjoyment of the really fine landscape. The Japanese proverb in substance runs: "Do not use the word 'magnificent' until you have seen Nikko." This had been ringing in my ears all the way, and ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... red with rage and anguish, he watched the hesitating approach of the woman. She stopped at the corner and looked up and down the Drive, peering intently into the dark shadows by the lake. The sky was overcast; no stars peeped through its blackness. With uncertain, halting steps she crossed the boulevard, still glancing about as if in search of someone. He moved forward unconsciously, almost blindly, and she caught a glimpse of his tall, dark figure. He was not unlike ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... tramp around to the other side of this clearing," remarked Gif. "And it looks to me as if it might begin to snow again," he added, with a glance at the sky which was now heavily overcast. ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... pleasing and benevolent countenance grew overcast, and he turned, from time to time, searching, curious, uneasy glances ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... one on that particular day. The sky was overcast and gray, with a distinct threat of rain. The sea was gray and cold and cheerless. The fields were bare and bleak and across them moved a damp, chill, penetrating breeze. From horizon to horizon not a breathing creature, except themselves, was visible. And in ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... breath is agitation, and their life A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last, And yet so nursed and bigoted to strife, That should their days, surviving perils past, Melt to calm twilight, they feel overcast With sorrow and supineness, and so die; Even as a flame unfed, which runs to waste With its own flickering, or a sword laid by, Which eats into itself, ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... this time become completely overcast, and although it was only mid afternoon, it was as dark as though twilight were coming on. The wind came in stronger gusts, and the waves broke ever more threateningly against the side of the boat. The land was blotted out, ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... idea of time. Things seemed dark around him, but he was not sure whether this was due to the sky being overcast or to the approach of twilight. Perhaps it was neither. It might be only that his eyes were dimmed by the fever that was ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... The sky had become overcast with dense black clouds, and the gloom to the valley was quite impenetrable. From their concealment the two Filmores could hear Redburn, Alice and the "General" singing up at the cabin, and it told them to be on their guard, ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... are so frequent that I often expected it to rain when I first went to Lima. These vapours are not so dense, low, and gloomy, like our fogs, nor yet are they separated above like our summer clouds; but an exhalation between both, spread all around, as when we say the day is overcast, so that sometimes a fine dew is felt on the upper garments, and may even be discerned on the knap of the cloth. This is a prodigious convenience to the inhabitants of Lima, who are thus screened half the day ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... set eyes upon her again. In the privacy of her room the Lady Mary sank upon her prie-dieu and poured forth the thanks of her heart to the Virgin that one deed was accomplished; but even as she did so her joy was overcast by the thought of those two others ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... watched these grim proceedings intently; it became quite silent now. The hour was growing late, the day had been overcast, and a damp chill that searched the marrow was settling as the short afternoon drew to a close. The prisoner's naked body showed very white beneath his shock of coal-black hair; his flesh seemed tender and the onlookers stared at it ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... warning to others. The country was covered with scraggy forest, but so undulating that one could often see all around from the crest of the waves. Great mountain masses appear in the south and south-west. It feels cold, and the sky is often overcast. ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... would have you rest upon the alleys of the side grounds, there to walk, if you be disposed, in the heat of the year or day; but to make account, that the main garden is for the more temperate parts of the year; and in the heat of summer, for the morning and the evening, or overcast days. ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... sparing the occasion the triviality of useless words. That afternoon she had ridden with her son to the funeral, holding him up with her strength, fortifying him with her courage. But now that his wife was gone for ever, and the pleasant house was overcast with its haunting emptiness, it seemed that her power ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... Hans, who laughed with delight whenever he caught it. Inga was bustling about inside the house, preparing breakfast, which was to consist of porridge, salt herring, and baked potatoes. It had rained during the night, and the sky was yet overcast, but the sun was struggling to break through the cloud-banks. A couple of thrushes in the alder-bushes about the cottage were rejoicing at the change in the weather, and Nils was listening to their song and to his son's merry prattle, when he caught sight of the twenty ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... an immense shadow is cast athwart the plateau in front of the fall, and over the chaparral bushes that clothe the slopes and benches of the walls to the eastward, creeping upward until the fall is wholly overcast, the contrast between the shaded and illumined sections being very striking in ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... traces, he worked his ski shoes adrift and had to leave the sledge. At the time the surface was awful, the soft snow, which had recently fallen, clogging the ski and runners at every step, the sledge groaning, the sky overcast, and the land hazy. They stopped for about an hour, and then Evans came up again, but very slowly. Half an hour later he dropped out again on the same plea, and asked Bowers to lend [Page 400] him a piece of string. Scott cautioned him to come on as quickly as he could, and he gave what seemed ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... day of early March; with that uncompromising brightness of sky and land which has no shadow of sympathy with a heart overcast. The snow still lay a foot thick over the ground, thawing a little in sunny spots; the trees quite bare and brown, the buds even of the early maples hardly shewing colour; the blessed evergreens alone doing their utmost to redeem the waste, and speaking of patience ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... pocket nervously, and began to clear away the things, with abrupt movements, looking askance every now and then at the overcast ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... "I proceeded slowly,—sickness was in the land and the face of nature was overcast,—heavy rain-clouds swam in the heavens,—the blast howled amid the pines which nearly surround my lonely dwelling, and the waters of the lake which lies before it, so quiet in general and tranquil, were fearfully agitated. 'Bring lights hither, O Hayim Ben ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... by increasing success; one burning mass after another was quenched, if not extinguished, and instead of flames smoke, mingled with sparks, rose from Lochias blacker and blacker-and still Pontius came not to look after her. She could not see any stars for the sky was overcast with clouds, but the beginning of a new day could not be far distant. She was shivering with cold, and her friend's long absence began to annoy her. When, presently, it began to rain in large drops, she went down the ladder that led from the roof and sat down by the fire in the little room where ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... By Puck's mistake, the love juice was laid in absence of the fair Athenian lady, and so the object desired was not obtained. In consequence of this, much confusion and misunderstanding followed. To prevent a fight, Oberon, whom Puck addressed as "king of shadows," ordered the night to be overcast with drooping fog, that the rivals might be led astray. Other instructions were given, which Puck suggested should be done quickly, as in the distance shone Aurora's harbinger, at whose approach ghosts, wandering here and there, trooped home ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... leering stars in the zenith, and where the Laconia's lights had shone there remained only the dim outlines of a blacker hulk standing out above the water like a jagged headland, silhouetted against the overcast sky. ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... of mine might hope to last, Which sing most sweetly when they sing of you, Though queen and empress wore oblivion's hue, Your loveliness would not be overcast. ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... question, to my surprise George's good humour vanished, his comely features were suddenly overcast, and he exchanged ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... the sinking of the shaft was in progress, a strange new power was coming upon Pele. The gods of the earth and air had seen this assault and had resolved to take her part. The sky became overcast with brown, unwholesome-looking clouds, the ground grew hot and parched, vegetation drooped and withered, birds flew seaward with cries of distress, and a waiting stillness fell upon the world. Kamapua had cut away ten feet of rock, when the voice of Pele was heard in long, shrill ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... strolled out by herself into the forest. She had been in several distinct rages; first with her court ladies, secondly with her dressmaker, thirdly with the sky, which, in spite of her wishes for fine weather, had become overcast ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... a good hour on several lion tracks that were a day old, and for such trails we had no time. We reached the cedars however at seven o'clock, and as the sky was overcast with low dun-colored clouds and the air cool, we were sure ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... Cherry Valley and the Minisink and other places. Sir John bit his lip uneasily, and his brother-in-law, resting his hand on his knee, stared gloomily at the fire. The two Butlers were silent, and the dark face of Thayendanegea was overcast. ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of his mind were inexhaustible. He had commenced life with an attention so vigilant that nothing had escaped his observation; and a judgment so solid that every incident was turned to advantage. His youth had not been wasted in idleness, nor overcast by intemperance. He had been, all his life, a close and deep reader, as well as thinker; and by the force of his own powers, had wrought up the raw materials which he had gathered from books, with such exquisite skill and felicity, that he has added a hundred fold ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... to praise when all shines fair; but when life is overcast, when all things seem to be against us, when we are in fear for some cherished happiness, or in the depths of sorrow, or in the solitude of a life which has no visible support, or in a season of sickness, and with the shadow of death approaching,—then to praise God; then to say, This fear, loneliness, ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... myself looking out upon a scene that was altogether strange to me. The night was overcast, and through the flocculent grey of the heaped clouds there filtered a faint half-light of dawn. Just at the edge of the sky the cloud-canopy had a blood-red rim. Below, everything was dark and indistinct, ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... the rumble of thunder, and, glancing up, saw that the sky above the sea was overcast with a rolling mass of dark, menacing clouds. There was a strange portentous blackness about these storm clouds that filled him ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... got to the Forge, did their errands, and started back in the canoes. Not until they got well out into the lake did they notice that there were angry clouds in the northwest. And very soon the sun became overcast, while the wind ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... of Parliament would probably have the effect of maintaining the existing Assembly for years. To all these evils was now superadded great commercial depression. And there seemed to be no prospect of brighter times. The future seemed overcast and hopeless. Is it any wonder if those who were compelled to contemplate the picture from this dark point of view were forced to the conclusion that a change of any kind must ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... now going up the Volga. One suffocating night in July, when the sky was overcast with thick black clouds, and everything on the Volga was somewhat ominously calm, they reached Kazan and anchored near Uslon at the end of an enormous fleet of vessels. The clinking of the anchor chains and the shouting ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... been fascinated by the beauty of night in the tropics. Our evenings no doubt are often delicious also, though the mild climate we enjoy is partly due to the sky being so often overcast. In parts of the tropics, however, the air is calm and cloudless throughout nearly the whole of the year. There is no dew, and the inhabitants sleep on the house-tops, in full view of the brightness of the stars and the beauty of the ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... dark mass moved from the Professor's side of the ground, and hurriedly went towards it. Then I too moved, but I had to go round headstones and railed-off tombs, and I stumbled over graves. The sky was overcast, and somewhere far off an early cock crew. A little ways off, beyond a line of scattered juniper trees, which marked the pathway to the church, a white dim figure flitted in the direction of the tomb. The tomb itself was hidden by trees, and I could ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... and well stored with provisions. To the first and second mates, with a portion of the crew, he assigned two of the boats, and in the third and largest he embarked himself with four stout men and the passengers, twelve in all. The sky was still overcast with clouds, and the sea rolled heavily from the effects of the brief but severe storm that had raged in the night. Pushing off front the doomed vessel, we lingered near for a couple of hours to see what her fate would be. At the end ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... him to remain and "speak of the joys of Heaven till the morning." But Benedict would not listen; he must return. His sister then buried her face in her hands weeping and praying. Suddenly the sky was overcast with clouds, and a terrific storm burst upon the mountains, which prevented her brother's return. Three days later Benedict saw the soul of his sister entering heaven. On March 21, 543, a short time after his sister's death, two monks beheld ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... halted in a clover field a little after ten o'clock. The night was dark, the sky being overcast; and here we had our first bivouac. No sooner had we reached the spot than we saw what convinced us that we had entered in good earnest upon the business for which we professed to have left our homes; for far away to the front rose the heavy boom of artillery firing, and a bright light reflected ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... Thither accordingly they betook themselves one day of great heat, carrying Pietro with them, and there abiding, it befell, as whiles we see it happen in summer time, that the sky became of a sudden overcast with dark clouds, wherefore the lady set out with her company to return to Trapani, so they might not be there overtaken of the foul weather, and fared on as fast as they might. But Pietro and Violante, being young, outwent her mother and the rest by a great way, urged belike, no ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... lower end of the park, and glanced at the interwoven cipher and crest of the Amelyns still above, she was conscious that the wind was blowing more chill, and that a few clouds had gathered. As she walked on down the long winding avenue, the sky became overcast, and, in one of those strange contrasts of the English climate, the glory of the whole day went out with the sunshine. The woods suddenly became wrinkled and gray, the distant hills sombre, the very English turf beneath her feet grew brown; a mile and a half away, through the opening of ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... imagined, with all diligence. I laid down my bow and arrows and resumed my paddle, and in an hour we could no longer see our late pursuers. We continued our voyage, and for three days met with no further adventures, when about noon, on the fourth day, the sky became overcast, and there was every prospect of rough weather. Before night the wind and sea rose, and it was no longer possible for us to keep along the coast, which already was ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... tumult strange, and darkness dim, Efface both light and quiet; No shape is in those shadows grim, No voice in that wild riot. Sustain'd and strong, a wondrous blast Above and round him blows; A greenish gloom, dense overcast, Each moment ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... grew less; but it had left an increasing difficulty in his breathing; it was a labour to absorb sufficient air even for his small, aged demands. Sleep deserted him; and he waited through seeming years for the delayed appearance of dawn. He had hoped that the new day would be sunny, warm; it was overcast, he could see the snow drifted in ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... I thought I saw that I should get well through it—'Well, Sir Walter,' I said, 'I was dining yesterday, where your works became the subject of very copious conversation.' His countenance immediately became overcast—and his answer was, 'Well, I think, I must say your party might have been better employed.' 'I knew it would be your answer,'—the conversation continued,—'nor would I have mentioned it, but that Dr. Chalmers was present, and was ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... evening, pacing by the still sea-shore, A monitory sound that never failed,— The sunset cannon. While the orb went down 325 In the tranquillity of nature, came That voice, ill requiem! seldom heard by me Without a spirit overcast by dark Imaginations, sense of woes to come, Sorrow for human kind, and pain of ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... was soon destined to be overcast. Questions of detail arose which, when closely examined, proved to be matters of very essential importance. The Uitlanders and British South Africans, who had experienced in the past how illusory the promises of the President might ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... so full of breathless excitement that we dared only converse in whispers. The atmosphere was hot and oppressive, the sky had grown dark and overcast, threatening ominously, while ever and anon could be heard the faint clank of arms; men, tall, dark and mysterious, passed and repassed along the dark colonnades, or stood in knots leaning on their rifles discussing the ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... upon the boat-house, and there, away to the south, was the dim light coming steadily up the stream. The moon had not yet risen; the sky was overcast with wildly flying clouds; the wind was rising, and would drive and grind the ice more fiercely. It was just the night for a tragedy, and he felt that if he saw that light disappear, as a sign that the boat had been crushed and its occupants swallowed up by the ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... prevailing southwest winds over the North Atlantic Current; more than one-half of the days are overcast ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... beams The Crab casts fiery gleams, He that doth then with seed Th'unwilling furrows feed, Deceived of his bread Must be with acorns fed. Seek not the flowery woods For violets' sweet buds, When fields are overcast With the fierce northern blast, Nor hope thou home to bring Vine-clusters in the Spring If thou in grapes delight: In autumn Bacchus' might With them doth deck our clime. God every several time With proper ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... the sky Is overcast, and musters muttering thunder, In clouds that seem approaching fast, and show In forked flashes a commanding tempest.[r] 540 Will you then quit ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... in the morning, a north-west wind having sprung up and a little refreshed us, our caravan continued its route; our generous Englishman again taking the task of procuring us provisions. At four o'clock the sky became overcast, and we heard thunder in the distance. We all expected a great tempest, which, happily did not take place. Near seven we reached the spot where we were to wait for Mr. Carnet, who came to us with a ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... as the ensuing days, the atmosphere alone displayed itself in the character of an enemy. In fact, the emperor had scarcely passed the river, when a rumbling sound began to agitate the air. In a short time the day became overcast, the wind rose, and brought with it the inauspicious mutterings of a thunder-storm. That menacing sky and unsheltered country filled us with melancholy impressions. There were even some amongst us, who, enthusiastic as they had lately been, were ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... like changes of weather, and interchange of day and night, than at any other place in the heavenly country. Sometimes the whole valley would be shrouded with mists, sometimes it would be grey and overcast, sometimes the light was clear and radiant, but through it all there beat a pulse of light and darkness; and I do not know which was the more desirable—the hours when we walked in the forests, with the wind moving softly ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the night seemed to sympathise with the occasion, for the sky became overcast with clouds, which obliterated the stars, ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... experiences in the garden taught me that it was the sunshine, and not the cloud, that makes the flower. It became my study to look only on the bright side of things, convinced, that, if the present were a little overcast, there was a future for us that would be all delightful. I was full of hope; and the eye of hope can discover a star in the thickest darkness, a rainbow even in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... become so much interested in searching for minerals that we had quite forgotten our luncheon. The sky, I remember, was overcast and the sun obscured; it was also very smoky from forest fires, which in those days were nearly always burning somewhere to the north of us during ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... Potsdam, that, on the 27th of February, towards evening, the sky began to get overcast; black clouds, presaging a tempest of unexampled fury, covered all the horizon: the thunder, with its lightnings, forked bolts of amazing brilliancy, burst out; and, under its redoubled peals, there ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... that the harbor never froze; but we were unable to ascertain whether the snow lasted long. I conclude, however, that this region is of moderate temperature, and the winter not severe. While we were there, there was a north-cast storm, which lasted four days; the sky being so overcast that the sun hardly shone at all. It was very cold, and we were obliged to put on our great-coats, which we had entirely left off. Yet I think the cold was accidental, as it is often experienced elsewhere out ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... And in consequence of the myriads of waves caused in the falling torrents, the deep roar of the clouds, the flashes of lightning, the violence of the wind, and the general agitation, the sky looked as if dancing in madness. The sky became overcast, and the rays of the Sun and the Moon totally disappeared in ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... greeted one another. The boy's sullen manner amused her; she attributed his morose ways to the effects of an over-lively night. Onward she went, down to the edge of the brook, then turned to the right up the course of the streamlet. That the skies threatened to become overcast and that rain might overtake her during the day mattered little. Whenever the Indian is bent upon the performance of some task, sunshine or rain, moonlight or snow, are matters of indifference. Shotaye strolled on regardless of things above or ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... the rest of us, using the life overcast To ripen our wine of the present (too new) in ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... then a space of rather sandy shore and wiry grasses that reared themselves stiffly. There was nothing to read. And now she wished for some sewing. She was glad enough when night came. The next morning the sky was overcast and there was a ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Indians, under Weatherford, the great half-breed chief, who was the life and soul of the war, rode across a neighboring field, and settled themselves for supper within a dozen yards of Sam's camp. The sky was overcast with clouds, and so night fell even more quickly than it usually does in Southern latitudes, where there is almost no twilight at all. Sam made his companions lie down at the approach of the savages, and as soon as it was fairly dark, the little ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... a winter afternoon; the sky was overcast and the air was gray, but it was not cold. Luna and the Spaniard were walking slowly along the road that leads to Europa Point, which is the extreme end of the peninsula of Gibraltar. They had left behind ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... well seem that William was, at this time, one of the most enviable of human beings. He was in truth one of the most anxious and unhappy. He well knew that the difficulties of his task were only beginning. Already that dawn which had lately been so bright was overcast; and many signs portended ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... sky was overcast with angry clouds, whirling this way and that. Huge drops of hail pattered down, and the next minute came a tremendous flash of lightning, accompanied, rather than followed, by a crash of thunder close ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... Biscay, heading toward Cape Finisterre. We had experienced fresh breezes, but fine, clear weather, from the moment when we had left the Isle of Wight astern; but on this particular day, shortly after noon, the sky became overcast and gloomy, with a thick, murky appearance to windward that portended a change for the worse. This, however, did not greatly trouble us, for with Ushant out of sight astern, the ship heading South-West by ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... are arrived in our shelters in the second line. We lodge in earth huts, where the fire smokes us out as much as it warms us. The weather, which during the night was overcast, has given us a charming blue and rosy morning. Unfortunately the woods have less to say to me than the marvellous spaces of our front lines. Still, ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... more sad—by the unsympathetic aspect of the visible world. December does not suspend its habitual gloom because all men of goodwill are trying to rejoice in the Birthday of the Prince of Peace. We all can recall disasters and disappointments which have overcast the spring, and tidings of achievement or deliverance which have been happily out of keeping with the melancholy beauty ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... dead, and light Is quenched in night. What sound can break the silence of despair? Oh doubting heart! Thy sky is overcast, Yet stars shall rise at last, Brighter for darkness past, And angels' ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... "The forenoon was overcast, with frequent showers. Each one occupied his or her room until dinner-time, when we met again with something of the old geniality. There was an evident effort to restore our former flow of good feeling. Abel's experience with the beer was freely discussed. He insisted strongly ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... twelve o'clock that night—and the night being particularly black with an overcast sky—Bartley Wagg opened the iron door of the big chimney and called forth Frank Vaniman and led him out through the little door at the side ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... obscured by clouds. One of the sudden changes characteristic of the month of May was in progress, and a cold wind was blowing from the northwest. It promised to be half a gale by midnight, and already the sky was partially overcast. The initiative lay, of course, with Piers Major, and Constans must use his own judgment in making the diversion ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... Smith's residence in London was overcast by growing anxiety about the condition of his friend Hume, who had always enjoyed fairly good health till the beginning of the year 1775, and then seemed to fall rapidly away. As Smith said one evening at Lord Shelburne's to Dr. Price, who asked him about Hume's ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... of July, the night was overcast and dark when the little band who undertook this perilous service left the town of Pampeluna, and, passing through the outer fortifications, struck into the open country. It consisted of four horsemen and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... last letters written by Frohman were filled with a curious tenderness and affection. In the light of what happened after he sailed they seem to be overcast with a strange foreboding of his doom. The most striking example of this is furnished in a letter he wrote to Henry Miller on April 29th, a few days before he went aboard the Lusitania. He had not written to Miller for a year, yet this is ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... of sun-dried bricks, overcast with a kind of stucco. Yet, unfortunately, the plastering art died with the Montezumas, for the most vivid imagination failed to convert this rough coating into the "silver sheen" which so dazzled Cortes's little band. The ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... Indeed, scholar, it was well done of you. But the heavens are becoming overcast; it threatens storm. Would it not be wise to ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... without hesitation, little concerned whither I went, or what happened to me, provided the scene was often shifted. The lanes and enclosures we passed on our road to the hills, appeared in all the gaiety that verdure, flowers, and sunshine could give them. But my pleasures were overcast, and I beheld every object, however cheerful, through a dusky medium. Deeply engaged in conversation, distance made no impression; and we beheld the meadows, over which the ruins are scattered, lie before us, when we still imagined ourselves several miles away. Had I but ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... hopeful view," he said, but his face was overcast. "I don't see why we should lose the little we have. It has been hard enough to scrape it together, God knows. Promptitude and joint action with Reynolds will probably save it. But I must be prompt." ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... but the sky was now becoming overcast. The wind came fresh and strong from the south. The white-capped waves were beginning to toss and fret the shallow waters, and the air gave promise of storm. We could see men busy making all things snug on the vessels that swung uneasily to their anchors in the harbor, ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... knight and faithful counsellor came in, treading heavily. His swarthy face was overcast, his mouth set in stern lines under ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... I replied; and sitting down I commenced the BIBLE IN SPAIN. At first I proceeded slowly - sickness was in the land, and the face of nature was overcast - heavy rain-clouds swam in the heavens, - the blast howled amid the pines which nearly surround my lonely dwelling, and the waters of the lake which lies before it, so quiet in general and tranquil, were fearfully agitated. 'Bring lights hither, O Hayim Ben Attar, son of the miracle! ' And the ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... ask about Mr. Nicholls. I hear he has got a curacy, but do not yet know where. I trust the news is true. He and papa never speak. He seems to pass a desolate life. He has allowed late circumstances so to act on him as to freeze up his manner and overcast his countenance not only to those immediately concerned but to every one. He sits drearily in his rooms. If Mr. Grant or any other clergyman calls to see, and as they think, to cheer him, he scarcely speaks. I find he tells them nothing, seeks no confidant, rebuffs all ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... Roberts has passed one of the two terrible nights, his faithful Bill at one end of the rickyard and himself at the other. The second night they took up their positions in the same manner as soon as it was dark. There was no moon, and the sky was overcast with those stationary clouds which often precede a great storm, so that the darkness was marked, and after they had parted a step or two they lost sight of each other. Worn with long wakefulness, and hard labour during the day, they both dropped asleep at their posts. Mr. Roberts ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... A scaffold had been put up in the middle of the nave; upon it an art critic was examining the paintings, and as the day was overcast he threw upon the walls the beams of a lamp with a reflector. Then you saw arms thrown out, faces grimacing, without unity, without harmony; the most exquisite figures took on ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... squaws and papooses, every one deserted the little settlement by the river and went in wild haste up the eastward hills to look upon this strange wonder. It was a lowering day with overcast skies and water of a sullen gray and with ominously little wind. In speechless wonder the Indians stood gazing, for there indeed were three white-sailed ships, moving slowly before the lazy breeze, stanch little fishing vessels of English ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... is best to write of, but worst to write in." And he adds this, concerning his own art of poetry: "There is nothing that requires so much serenity and chearfulness of spirit; it must not be either overwhelmed with the cares of Life, or overcast with the Clouds of Melancholy and Sorrow, or shaken and disturbed with the storms of injurious Fortune; it must, like the Halcyon, have fair weather to breed in. The Soul must be filled with bright ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... the weather, which till now had been rather favourable, increased the difficulties of this journey. Already when we left Kalmannstunga, the sky began to be overcast, and the sun enlivened us with its rays only for a few minutes at a time. On our reaching the higher mountains the weather became worse; for here we encountered clouds and fog, which wreaked their vengeance upon us, and which only careered by to make ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... is nothing cruel, or harsh, in his victory. The yearnings of love, indeed, cannot be stifled; for the prattle, and smiles, and all the little world of thoughts that were so delightful, are gone for ever. Awe, too, will overcast us in its presence—for we are looking on death; but we do not fear for the little, lonely voyager—for the child has gone, simple and trusting, into the presence of its all-wise Father; and of such, we know, is the kingdom ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... with the stragglers of the cannery fleet they sighted the alien fishing-boats coming in their direction. Dickie's brow was overcast. ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... was once the middle of the wood. About eleven in the morning the Jacobite army was seen, marching in two columns, and advancing to the rising ground. Scarcely had they begun their march than the sky was overcast, and a violent storm blinded their enemy, who were, on the other hand, marching with their bayonets fixed; the fury of the tempest was such, that they could hardly secure ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... more upon the broad ocean of humanity to lead the world to the haven of true human brotherhood. We have encountered storms and tempests at times; the waves of race antipathy have run high, and the political exigencies of the hour seem to overcast the heavens with clouds of darkness and despair, yet I have never lost faith, because the fathers set her course, and God, the Master Mariner, has ever been at the helm. "In giving freedom to the slave we insured freedom to the ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... to last! Ah, starry hope! that did'st arise But to be overcast! A voice from out the future cries On! on! But o'er the past (Dim gulf!) my spirit ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... a pathetic close to these pages, so full of touches of humour, keen observation and racy anecdote. It would seem as if the hand which wielded so descriptive and ready a pen had wearied of its task; as if, at last, the sunny nature was overcast and the merry heart saddened. But surely not another word is needed to make the narrative more perfect. Those who first become acquainted with it in this reprint will meet with many things less familiar than Lady Fanshawe's moving account of her ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... the house where death is. But the sad incident tempered his mind with a sort of pensiveness that lasted throughout the morning, and quite till lunch. He spent the time in going about the churches; but the sunshine which the day began with was overcast, as it was the day before, and the churches were rather too dark and cold in the afternoon. He went to Viesseux's reading-room and looked over the English papers, which he did not care for much; and he also made a diligent search of the catalogue ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... evil in it, no doubt; but to those who do not misuse it, it affords comfort, temporary comfort, much—much that endears us to it, and dignifies it—many true and good feelings, I trust, of which we need not be ashamed—hours of tranquillity and hope. But the morning was dull and overcast, and my spirits were under a cloud. I feel ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... sun pecked fitfully at the low overcast while a sullen crowd watched a squat alien ship descend vertically, to finally settle with a flaming belch not far from the first. Similar crowds watched similar landings at nineteen other airports around the world, but ...
— Alien Offer • Al Sevcik
... Phineas agreed, his legs giving way alarmingly, so that he collapsed on a brocade-covered couch. "It's a touch of the sun, which I would give you to understand," he continued with a self-preservatory flash, for it was an overcast day in June, "is often magnified in power when it is behind a cloud. A wee drop of whisky is what I require for ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... and rending of soul; inspiration strives with doubt, and faith with vain questionings. The bright ideals of the past,—physical freedom, political power, the training of brains and the training of hands,—all these in turn have waxed and waned, until even the last grows dim and overcast. Are they all wrong,—all false? No, not that, but each alone was over-simple and incomplete,—the dreams of a credulous race-childhood, or the fond imaginings of the other world which does not know and does not want to know our power. To ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... minor, first performed by von Buelow at Boston in '88. At this period his health completely broke down, the immediate cause being an unhappy marriage. He finally rallied but had to travel abroad for a year, and for the rest of his life his temper, never bright, was overcast with gloom. There now entered Tchaikowsky's life Frau von Meck, the woman who played the part of fairy godmother. She greatly admired his music, was wealthy and generous and, that he might have entire ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... until one night, when searching for the bridge that crosses the Salt River, the sky became suddenly overcast, the rain fell in torrents, and soon the river was in flood. There was nothing to be done but to sit down and wait until the moon should rise. The fierce wind buffeted them, the rain drenched them; they had lost their way, and were at the mercy of ...
— The Cat and the Mouse - A Book of Persian Fairy Tales • Hartwell James
... to be. All day Sunday the sky was overcast, and by Monday morning it was snowing furiously, blotting out the landscape on ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... NAPOLEON, diminished to the aspect of a doll, reappears in front of his suite on the plain below. He rides across the swaying bridge. Since the morning the sky has grown overcast, and its blackness seems now to envelope the retreating array on the other side of the stream. The storm bursts with thunder and lightning, the river turns leaden, and the scene is blotted out by the ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... returned to the raft he was wet, tired, and hungry, though very proud of his accomplished task. He was shivering too, now that his violent exertions were ended, for the sky had become overcast, and a chill wind ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... themselves one night at the head of a little creek where the tide lapped pleasantly on a smooth, sandy beach. They were already getting into milder weather, and here, a half mile inland, there was no wind. The sky was overcast, and the seals lay in contented security along the edge of the water. The blacker darkness of a fir forest came down to within perhaps fifty paces of their resting-place. But they had no anxieties. The only creatures that they had learned to fear on shore besides ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... still searching and digging for water, the sky became overcast, thunder and lightning were seen and heard in the distance, and the clouds came rolling in volumes toward them. Hope was now in every face; they already anticipated the copious showers which were to succeed; their eyes ever fixed upon the coming storm; even the cattle appeared to ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... shadow is cast athwart the plateau in front of the fall, and over the chaparral bushes that clothe the slopes and benches of the walls to the eastward, creeping upward until the fall is wholly overcast, the contrast between the shaded and illumined sections being very ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... grotesque and terrible grotesque; but that we cannot legitimately consider it under these two aspects, because there are hardly any examples which do not in some degree combine both elements; there are few grotesques so utterly playful as to be overcast with no shade of fearfulness, and few so fearful as absolutely to exclude all ideas of jest. But although we cannot separate the grotesque itself into two branches, we may easily examine separately the two conditions of mind which ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... had something to do with the attire of Greek women thus upon the water. That moment Lael glanced up at him, and he saw how childlike her face was, and lovely despite the anxiety and fear with which it was overcast. He became ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... wind, partly aided by the tide, up the Para river. Towards evening we passed Vigia and Colares, two fishing villages, and saw many native canoes, which seemed like toys beneath the lofty walls of dark forest. The air was excessively close, the sky overcast, and sheet lightning played almost incessantly around the horizon— an appropriate greeting on the threshold of a country lying close under the equator! The evening was calm, this being the season when the winds are not strong, so we glided ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... of almost American heat. The mercury never went above eighty-three degrees, but the blood mounted ten degrees higher; though I think a good deal of the heat imparted itself through the eye from the lurid horizons paling upward into the dull, unbroken blue of the heavens, ordinarily overcast or heaped with masses of white cloud. A good deal came also from the thronged streets, in which the season had scarcely begun to waver, and the pulses of the plethoric town throbbed with a sense of choking fulness. The feverish activity of the cabs contributed ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... two stood in the hazelled field; it was two hours before noon, the sky was overcast with a promise of the first snow of the winter, but as yet none had fallen, and the field was dry and hard. Now Hardcastle has Fiddlebow bare in his fist, but Osberne takes Boardcleaver from his girdle and unwinds the peace-strings; then he stands still ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... went to Lima. These vapours are not so dense, low, and gloomy, like our fogs, nor yet are they separated above like our summer clouds; but an exhalation between both, spread all around, as when we say the day is overcast, so that sometimes a fine dew is felt on the upper garments, and may even be discerned on the knap of the cloth. This is a prodigious convenience to the inhabitants of Lima, who are thus screened half the day from ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... found the weather overcast, the sea gray but calm. Hardly a billow. I hoped to encounter Captain Nemo there—would he come? I saw only the helmsman imprisoned in his glass-windowed pilothouse. Seated on the ledge furnished by the hull of the skiff, I inhaled ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... were overcast with clouds and the darkness was so dense that the watchers could not see six feet outside of the constantly dimming circle of the firelight. In a couple of hours the fire had burnt down so low, that, from where Thure stood near ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... had she been born there and then; but as it was, had been fated to become only the Wesleyan abbess of the town, and, like Deborah, 'a mother in Israel.' With her tall, slim, queenly figure, massive forehead, glittering eyes, features beaming with tenderness and enthusiasm, and yet overcast with a peculiar expression of self-consciousness and restraint, well known to those who have studied the physiognomies of 'saints,' she seemed to want only the dress of some monastic order to make her the ideal of a mediaeval ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... under Weatherford, the great half-breed chief, who was the life and soul of the war, rode across a neighboring field, and settled themselves for supper within a dozen yards of Sam's camp. The sky was overcast with clouds, and so night fell even more quickly than it usually does in Southern latitudes, where there is almost no twilight at all. Sam made his companions lie down at the approach of the savages, and as soon as it was fairly dark, the little party crept silently away. Before leaving, ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... and the day's sport was about to begin in earnest. But since noon the bright, sunny weather had changed; the heavens were overcast, and there was a fear that one of the sudden, heavy storms which were frequent at this season, might come before the day ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... grave for the rest of us, using the life overcast To ripen our wine of the present (too new) in glooms of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... and having quartered ourselves to our most advantage, with sufficient guard upon every strait, we thought to rest ourselves for that night there. The Governor sent us some refreshing, as bread, wine, oil, apples, grapes, marmalade and such like. About midnight the weather began to overcast, insomuch that it was thought meeter to repair aboard, than to make any longer abode on land. And before we could recover the fleet a great tempest arose, which caused many of our ships to drive from their anchorhold, and some were forced to sea ...
— Drake's Great Armada • Walter Biggs
... imperfect Notions of this Nature raised in the Imagination by an Artificial Composition of Notes; and we find that great Masters in the Art are able, sometimes, to set their Hearers in the Heat and Hurry of a Battel, to overcast their Minds with melancholy Scenes and Apprehensions of Deaths and Funerals, or to lull them into pleasing ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... the information, Scott and de Spain clattered out on the Sinks. Their horseflesh was good and they felt they could overtake any man not suspecting pursuit. The sky was overcast, and speed was their only resource. After two miles of riding, the pursuers reined up on a ridge, and Scott, springing from the saddle, listened for sounds. He rose from the ground, declaring he could hear ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... wood of centennial trees of gigantic branches; it is reached by granite steps, through strange gateways, as deeply furrowed as the old Celtic dolmens. The trees have also invaded this yard; the daylight is overcast with a greenish tint, and the drenching rain that pours down in torrents, is full of torn-up leaves and moss. Old granite monsters, of unknown shapes, are seated in the corners, and grimace with smiling ferocity; their faces ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... At first, the event seemed to justify their decision. Meeting a Roman army, commanded by the Prtor Arrius, on the borders of Samnium, the Gauls put it to rout, and the victory of Crixus was not less decisive than any of those which had been won by Spartacus. But this splendid dawn was soon overcast. Crixus was a drunkard, and, while sleeping off one of his fits of intoxication, he was set upon by a Roman army under the Consul Gellius. He was killed, and his followers either shared his fate or were totally dispersed. This was the first great ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... villa at Arcetri, near Florence: but there, as at Sienna, he was confined to his own premises, and strictly forbidden to receive his friends. It is painful to contemplate the variety of evils which overcast the evening of this great man's life. In addition to a distressing chronic complaint, contracted in youth, he was now suffering under a painful infirmity which by some is said to have been produced by torture, applied in the prisons of the Inquisition to extort a recantation. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... their separate summons comes to join the chief, eyeing each other suspiciously and surveying their surroundings with unconcealed and fitting awe. One is of bluff and hearty appearance, but his full face is overcast for the moment with an expression half sad, half whimsical; it is plain that a conjunction of untoward circumstances has raised doubts in his mind of the integrity of a business associate, and he has reluctantly determined to clear or confirm them by means of a ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... disturbed and dissipated if we stayed longer. Clear vision goes with the quick foot. Things fall for us into a sort of natural perspective when we see them for a moment in going by; we generalise boldly and simply, and are gone before the sun is overcast, before the rain falls, before the season can steal like a dial-hand from his figure, before the lights and shadows, shifting round towards nightfall, can show us the other side of things, and belie what they showed us in the morning. We expose our mind to the landscape (as we would expose ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said little, sparing the occasion the triviality of useless words. That afternoon she had ridden with her son to the funeral, holding him up with her strength, fortifying him with her courage. But now that his wife was gone for ever, and the pleasant house was overcast with its haunting emptiness, it seemed that her ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... busy setting out the tin cups and plates that it was not till Zeb beat on a tin basin with a spoon to announce that the evening meal was ready that anyone noticed that the professor was missing. Night was closing in and the sky was overcast. ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... park, and glanced at the interwoven cipher and crest of the Amelyns still above, she was conscious that the wind was blowing more chill, and that a few clouds had gathered. As she walked on down the long winding avenue, the sky became overcast, and, in one of those strange contrasts of the English climate, the glory of the whole day went out with the sunshine. The woods suddenly became wrinkled and gray, the distant hills sombre, the very English turf beneath her feet grew brown; a mile and a half away, through the opening of the ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... The sky became overcast, rain began to fall, and there was a rush for the carts. In half an hour Tynwald Hill was empty, and the people were splashing off on every side like the big drops of rain ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... of the action, the weather, which had hitherto been fair and sunny, became overcast, and a heavy blast of rain and sleet beat directly in the faces of the Highlanders. The English artillery then began to play upon them, and, being admirably served, every discharge told with fearful ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... we have just seen, matters were beginning to brighten a little in Spain, they remained as dull and overcast as ever in France. The impossibility of obtaining peace, and the exhaustion of the realm, threw, the King into the most cruel anguish, and Desmarets into the saddest embarrassment. The paper of all kinds with which trade was inundated, and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... People now begin to sow ghaseb, ghafouly, dra, and such grains, which are reaped in the summer season. Barley and wheat are sown in autumn or winter, and reaped in spring. As I walked I noticed that the sky was darkly overcast, as if threatening rain; and presently, sure enough, a few precious drops fell on the ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... man were so excellent that he combated, by reason and religion, the fits of gloom which at times overcast his mind, and it was not till he attained the commencement of his twenty-first year that they assumed a character which made his father tremble for the consequences. It seemed as if the gloomiest and most hideous of mental maladies was taking the form of religious despair. ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... side Dan heard the rumble of thunder, and, glancing up, saw that the sky above the sea was overcast with a rolling mass of dark, menacing clouds. There was a strange portentous blackness about these storm clouds that filled him ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... him the vital parts of a reflector specially constructed to collect evidence about the corona. But he reached Oran only to find himself shut behind a cloud-curtain more impervious than the Prussian lines. Everywhere the sky was more or less overcast. Lockyer's journey from England to Sicily, and shipwreck in the Psyche, were recompensed with a glimpse of the solar aureola during one second and a half! Three parties stationed at various heights on Mount Etna saw absolutely nothing. ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... but many sad years ago My life was burdened with woe But the seens [sic] through which I passed Are now with gladness overcast. ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... in the height of summer, the cold continued so bitter, that many would have taken to their beds had they not been compelled to attend to the working of the ship. During this time also the sky became so overcast with clouds and thick mists, that it was impossible to take an observation. At length they came to the conclusion that there was no passage at all along the north shore of America, or that it was so blocked up with ice as to be impassable. They ran in and dropped ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... as his son, Robert, entered the consulting-room. Half-Moon Street was bathed in almost tropical sunlight, but already the celebrated physician had sent those out from his house to whom the sky was overcast, whom the sun would gladden no more, and a group of anxious-eyed sufferers yet awaited his scrutiny ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... went on with his breakfast. By the time we were done eating, the gray light of a bedraggled morning revealed tiny lakes in every hollow, and each coulee and washout was a miniature torrent of muddy water—with a promise of more to come in the murky cloud-drift that overcast the sky. Horner sent out two men to relieve the night-herders, remarked philosophically "More rain, more rest," and retired to the shelter of the cook's canvas. His drivers sought cover in and under the wagons, where they ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Olaf spent the night in prayer, but at dawn, to his great chagrin, the sky was overcast. Nevertheless, he assembled the people near Thor's statue, and after secretly bidding his principal attendant to smash the idol with his battle-axe if the people turned their eyes away but for a moment, he began to address them. Suddenly, while all were listening to him, Olaf pointed to the horizon, ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... screen and placed it about the bed—the last service she could render. For hours the end was expected, but moment by moment he held death at bay, refusing to accept the freedom that he so earnestly longed for. At noon the sky became overcast and the slow falling of rain was heard on the low wooden roof. But still his ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... streamed off, no matter where it falls, Is lost unto the sun. And this 'tis thine To know from these examples: soon as clouds Have first begun to under-pass the sun, And, as it were, to rend the rays of light In twain, at once the lower part of them Is lost entire, and earth is overcast Where'er the thunderheads are rolled along— So know thou mayst that things forever need A fresh replenishment of gleam and glow, And each effulgence, foremost flashed forth, Perisheth one by one. Nor otherwise Can things be seen in sunlight, lest alway ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... morning of the sixth day Bessie Lonsdale went out into the garden as usual, to find the sky overcast with light, fleecy clouds. But the air was soft, and she wandered about for half an hour before it occurred to her that perhaps Ayling was waiting for her inside. She went in to look, but saw him ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... letters as he spoke, and Giovanni, whose brow had grown overcast, took them with a hand that seemed reluctant. Then bidding the servant see to the courier's refreshment, ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... evening we were in 82 deg. 3' north latitude. To-day the Fram is two years old. The sky has been overcast during the last two days, and it has been so dark at midday that I thought we should soon have to stop our snow-shoe expeditions. But this morning brought us clear still weather, and I went out on a delightful trip to the westward, where there had been a good deal of fresh packing, ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... the scent of a million shooting sprouts, and delicate with the perfume of violets. But the sunshine of the day was not to stay, for the party from the castle were scarce three miles within the confines of the forest when the sun became overcast. But they rode on, however, taking delight in the fine air, and caring naught of ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... the fairest flower; The sweetest dream is soonest pass'd; The brightest morning in an hour, May be with storm clouds overcast. ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... it was called, Even by ourselves—that which springs Out of the years for all flesh, first or last, Commonplace, scrawled Dully on days that go past. Yet, all the while, it upbore us like wings Even in hours overcast: Aye, though this best thing of ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... on the radar," Meta said, coming out of the ground-control office and squinting up at the overcast. "I wonder if it is that ecology expedition that Brucco arranged—or the ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... her hand, Honora went thoughtfully up the stairs to her sitting-room. The month was February, the day overcast and muggy, and she stood for a while apparently watching the holes made in the snow by the steady drip from the cap of the garden wall. What she really saw was the face of Mrs. Israel Simpson, a face that had haunted her these many months. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... his last visit to her, Scholastica begged him to remain and "speak of the joys of Heaven till the morning." But Benedict would not listen; he must return. His sister then buried her face in her hands weeping and praying. Suddenly the sky was overcast with clouds, and a terrific storm burst upon the mountains, which prevented her brother's return. Three days later Benedict saw the soul of his sister entering heaven. On March 21, 543, a short time after his sister's ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... a hard, strait, chalky old road—evidently Roman: and in due time perceived and entered the town of LILLEBONNE. But the sky had become overcast: soft and small rain was descending, and an unusual gloom prevailed ... when I halted, agreeably to my instructions, immediately before the gate of the ancient Castle. Venerable indeed is this Norman castle, and extensive ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... boil, foam, froth, mantle, sparkle, guggle[obs3], gurgle; effervesce, ferment, fizzle. Adj. bubbling &c. v.; frothy, nappy[obs3], effervescent, sparkling, mousseux[French: frothy], up. cloudy &c. n.; thunderheaded[obs3]; vaporous, nebulous, overcast. Phr. "the lowring element scowls o'er the darkened landscip" ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... a current bringing up from the south the warm humid air of the equator. The wind, therefore, which reaches Ceylon comes laden with moisture, taken up in its passage across the great Indian Ocean. As the monsoon draws near, the days become more overcast and hot, banks of clouds rise over the ocean to the west, and in the peculiar twilight the eye is attracted by the unusual whiteness of the sea-birds that sweep along the strand to seize the objects flung on ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... praise when all shines fair; but when life is overcast, when all things seem to be against us, when we are in fear for some cherished happiness, or in the depths of sorrow, or in the solitude of a life which has no visible support, or in a season of sickness, and with the shadow of death approaching,—then to praise God; then ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... turned loose to follow, both toboggans were hitched behind the Mackenzie River dogs, and while 'Merican Joe plodded ahead, Connie had all he could do at the tail rope. An hour later the wind suddenly changed and came roaring out of the north. The whole sky became overcast and stinging particles of flinty snow were driven against their faces. The storm increased in fury. The stinging particles changed to dry, powdery snow dust that whirled and eddied about them so thickly that Connie could not see the dogs from the rear of the toboggans. Covering their ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... is why we are now examining the clauses of the famous Treaty with about as much care for what they may mean to us as if they concerned the movements of the Asteroids. A year ago the German attacks seemed near to making guns the deciding voice in the affairs of unhappy humanity. On the chill and overcast spring morning when the Treaty was published, it was significant that those very few men to whom we could go for courage a year ago were the only people dismayed by the terms of the Peace Treaty. And the timid, who once went to those stout hearts for assurance—to ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... we are arrived in our shelters in the second line. We lodge in earth huts, where the fire smokes us out as much as it warms us. The weather, which during the night was overcast, has given us a charming blue and rosy morning. Unfortunately the woods have less to say to me than the marvellous spaces of our front lines. Still, ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... bring a stupendous florid young man to the King in the torture-chamber. King Ferdinand was not idle at the moment, and he looked up good-temperedly enough from his employment: but almost instantly his merry face was overcast. ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... with piercing shrieks he fell; The rushing entrails pour'd upon the ground His hands collect; and darkness wraps him round. When Hector view'd, all ghastly in his gore, Thus sadly slain the unhappy Polydore, A cloud of sorrow overcast his sight, His soul no longer brook'd the distant fight: Full in Achilles' dreadful front he came, And shook his javelin like a waving flame. The son of Peleus sees, with joy possess'd, His heart high-bounding ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... the fawn of the red doe they had killed two nights ago, and found it. But it was lonely hunting without Andoo, and she returned caveward before dawn. The sky was grey and overcast, the trees up the gorge were black and unfamiliar, and into her ursine mind came a dim sense of strange and dreary happenings. She lifted up her voice and called Andoo by name. The sides of ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... was to be seen in that direction, but the low-lying land upon which the village was situated. I could not see any people on shore—in fact, I could hardly distinguish the houses; for, as if to add to the gloom and peril that surrounded me, the sky had become overcast, and along with the clouds a fresh ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... is agitation, and their life A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last, And yet so nursed and bigoted to strife, That should their days, surviving perils past, Melt to calm twilight, they feel overcast With sorrow and supineness, and so die; Even as a flame unfed, which runs to waste With its own flickering, or a sword laid by, Which eats into itself, ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... most absolute security that Elizabeth enjoyed during her whole reign, never exempted her from vigilance and attention; but the scene began now to be more overcast, and dangers gradually multiplied on her ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... vertues, which are indeed their essential parts, and only immortal; For even yet did the clouds intercept our day with the continuance of so dismall a storm, as it obnubilated all those hopes of ours. It is an infinite adventure, if in a Princes Family [HW: Firmament] (once overcast) it ever grow fair weather again, but by a singular and extraordinary providence. I mention this to increase the wonder, and reinforce your felicity. Empires passe, Kingdomes are translated, and dominions cease: The Cecropides of old, the Arsacides, the Theban, Corinthian, Syracusian, ...
— An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) • John Evelyn
... and pitching a ball to little Hans, who laughed with delight whenever he caught it. Inga was bustling about inside the house, preparing breakfast, which was to consist of porridge, salt herring, and baked potatoes. It had rained during the night, and the sky was yet overcast, but the sun was struggling to break through the cloud-banks. A couple of thrushes in the alder-bushes about the cottage were rejoicing at the change in the weather, and Nils was listening to their ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... generally to be found in a broken thread in the sewing, and the only permanent cure is to take the book out of its cover, and re-sew it, when it may usually be re-inserted in the same binding. This is for cloth-bound books. When bound in leather, it is best to take out the loose sheet, "overcast" it, that is, secure all the leaves by sewing, then carefully lay some paste along the outer edge or back of the sheet, insert the sheet in its place, pressing it firmly with a paper knife along the middle of the ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... distribute, indeed, some show of power to the people, as Lycurgus and Romulus did, but you inflame them, with the thirst of liberty by allowing them even the slightest taste of its sweetness; and still their hearts will be overcast with alarm lest their king, as often happens, should become unjust. The prosperity of the people, therefore, can be little better than fragile, when placed at the disposal of any one individual, and subjected ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... river the myriad lights of the metropolis give the scene air appearance as of fairyland. The night is overcast and the clouds act as a reflector to the million lights in the city below; the sky line of Brooklyn is a dull salmon color. A chill October wind sweeps from east to west. It is a bad night to speak out of doors. Upon ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... capacity for effort. That sort of rubbish is well enough for rich old maids who go about the world with a maid, a hot-water bottle, and a poll parrot; but it is degrading and undignified in a successful business man who has a wife and two children to work for, whether the sun shines or the sky is overcast. ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... gorgeous bog-end, in its breathless Dazzle of may-blobs, when the marigold glare overcast You with fire on your brow and your cheeks and your chin as you dipped Your face in your marigold bunch, to touch and contrast Your own dark mouth with the bridal faint lady-smocks Dissolved in the golden sorcery you ...
— Some Imagist Poets - An Anthology • Richard Aldington
... night, its reflection stretching to the neighbouring hillsides and whitening the walls of the convents there. However, Pierre noticed it grow paler and paler, which surprised him, and he roused himself, feeling thoroughly chilled; it was the day breaking, beneath a leaden sky overcast with clouds. He perceived that one of those storms, so sudden in mountainous regions, was rapidly rising from the south. The thunder could already be heard rumbling in the distance, whilst gusts of wind swept along the roads. Perhaps he also had been sleeping, for he no ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the faces of each of the young men, and even the ordinarily bright sky of Dame Charter became somewhat overcast; although, in her heart, she did not believe that anybody in this world could have devised a better plan, under the circumstances, than ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... Mozambique Channel—that she had been cast away on a reef of rocks near Macao—that five persons had been saved from her wreck, but nothing certain transpired, except that she was lost; and this fine singer of the sea along with her. Unfortunate Aurora! dawn soon overcast! Unfortunate poet, so ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... the Elsinore, with many of her sails furled, slashing along through a troubled sea under an overcast sky. Also I found Mr. Mellaire marching up and down, just as I had left him hours before, and it took quite a distinct effort for me to realize that he had had the watch off between four and eight. Even then, he told me, he had slept from ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... we visited Herculaneum was in melancholy contrast to the day we spent in Pompeii. The lingering summer had at last saddened into something like autumnal gloom, and that blue, blue sky of Naples was overcast. So, this second draught of the spirit of the past had not only something of the insipidity of custom, but brought rather a depression than a lightness to our hearts. There was so little of Herculaneum: only a few hundred yards square are exhumed, and ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... sovereigns; three great dukedoms, an independent principality with its own mint and with its own tribunals, and an income greatly exceeding the whole revenue of the kingdom of Scotland. But this splendid prospect had been overcast. The match had been broken off. The aspiring suitor had been, during many years, shut up in an Alpine castle. At length Lewis relented. Lauzun was forbidden to appear in the royal presence, but was allowed to enjoy liberty at a distance from the court. He visited England, and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was overcast but settled, when we commenced our adventurous and perilous journey. We had neither to fear fatiguing heat nor drenching rain. It was, in fact, ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... and a hope was entertained that it was not going to be anything serious after all. Their spirits revived when suddenly the wind ceased and the atmosphere became as clear as usual. Two or three of them had, however, again to go out; and on their return they reported that the sky was once more overcast, and that it was lightening in all quarters. Presently the rain came down in true tropical fashion, again to stop and again to go on with greater energy than before. Sometimes it was perfectly calm, but the lightning continued darting forth from the sky ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... the day following, upon our return to Morelia, the village of Santa Maria was overcast with mourning. The Cacique was dead, they told us; had fallen among the rocks on the mountain-side, being an old man and feeble, and so was killed. And I was expressly charged with a message to the good Padre, begging him to hasten to Santa Maria that the dead man might have Christian ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... a Jew beggar riding a runaway horse. Meanwhile his heart, which was already overcast with the most promising sultry clouds caused by domestic and church-troubles, could have immediately drawn up the necessary water, as easily as the sun before bad weather, if only the floating-house navigating toward him had not always come between as a much too cheerful ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... The overcast sky had partly cleared to windward during the last minutes; a few stars glinted where hitherto nothing but the most impenetrable pall had hung. In the east, the rays of a yet invisible moon, edging with faint silver the banks of clouds just above ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... continued her tormentor, "you may see um shadda in da water—dat all you ebba see ob Edwa'd Wa'ffeld. Whoebbar dat ere coon may be, you nebbar set you' eyes on him 'gain—nebba!" A dark shade quickly overcast the crimson, betokening that the words gave pain. My pleasure was in like proportion, but inversely. "You fool, missy' golding har? you' better gone 'long wi' de young dragoon offica who want take you—dat am, if you must had man all to youseff. Yah, yah, ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... began to writhe about his limbs, but drew no sound to vie with their crackling. But there was weeping heard in the crowd. And suddenly from the unobservedly overcast heavens came a flash of lightning and a peal of thunder followed by a violent shower of rain. The flames were extinguished. The spring shower was as brief as it was violent, but ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... and with what fidelity he would attach himself to her, with what affection serve her, how studiously obey her commands, with what sports he would dispel the light clouds of her melancholy sadness on the days when the skies should be overcast. Fashioning himself one out of his imagination, he would throw himself at her feet, kiss, fondle, caress, bite, and clasp her with as much reality as a prisoner scampers over the grass when he sees the green fields ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... bring with him into the world, even thyself, dark one, terrible one, causeless, unbegotten, without a father. Oh, how unfrequently dost thou break down the barriers which divide thee from the poor soul of man, and overcast its sunshine with thy gloomy shadow. In the brightest days of prosperity—in the midst of health and wealth—how sentient is the poor human creature of thy neighbourhood! how instinctively aware that the flood-gates ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... became overcast, so there was little light. The black shadow of the shore seemed ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... a general sluggishness, to which he was always inclined, and, in part of his life, almost compelled, by morbid melancholy, and weariness of mind. This was his constitutional malady, derived, perhaps, from his father, who was, at times, overcast with a gloom that bordered on insanity. When to this it is added, that Johnson, about the age of twenty, drew up a description of his infirmities, for Dr. Swinfen, at that time an eminent physician, in ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... roses, being withered; Nor us, my friend, when we are lost, Like to a dew or melted frost. Then live we mirthful while we should, And turn the iron age to gold. Let's feast, and frolic, sing, and play, And thus less last than live our day. Whose life with care is overcast, That man's not said to live, but last; Nor is't a life, seven years to tell, But for to live that half seven well; And that we'll do, as men who know, Some few sands spent, we hence must go, Both to be blended in the urn From whence ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... after death, which has been a great object to the noblest minds in all ages.' BOSWELL. His preface to the third edition thus ends:—'When I first ventured to send this book into the world, I fairly owned an ardent desire for literary fame. I have obtained my desire: and whatever clouds may overcast my days, I can now walk here among the rocks and woods of my ancestors, with an agreeable consciousness that I have done something worthy.' The dedication of the first edition and the preface of the third are both dated Oct. 29—one 1767, and the other 1768. Oct. 29 ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... This they thought to be an ill omen, all of them except Benoni, who said that the point of the sword stretched out over Caesarea, presaging the destruction of the Romans by the hand of God. Towards dawn, the pale, unnatural lustre of the comet faded, and the sky grew overcast and stormy. At length the sun came up, when, to their marvelling eyes, the fiery clouds took ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... and they walked homewards. The sky was again overcast. A fresh gust came from the fell-side and bore with it ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... them, and I remember the whole of that day vividly, though nothing particular happened. After dinner Genya read, lying in her lounge chair, and I sat on the bottom step of the terrace. We were silent. The sky was overcast and a thin fine rain began to fall. It was hot, the wind had dropped, and it seemed the day would never end. Ekaterina Pavlovna came out on to the terrace with ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... he says, "I proceeded slowly,—sickness was in the land and the face of nature was overcast,—heavy rain-clouds swam in the heavens,—the blast howled amid the pines which nearly surround my lonely dwelling, and the waters of the lake which lies before it, so quiet in general and tranquil, were fearfully agitated. 'Bring lights hither, O Hayim Ben ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... the greater part of the first day in clear and cloudless weather, but towards evening the sky became overcast and a rapidly rising wind brought down another shrieking poorga, which compelled us to encamp in haste under the lee of a rocky cliff, luckily at hand when the storm burst upon us. At this time a breastplate of solid ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... the battle had been wet and stormy, but the morning gave some promise of clearing; the sky, however, remained overcast and some rain continued to fall. The French were weary after a long march, and the artillery moved with difficulty across this wet and muddy plain. Altogether they were in poor condition for a battle, in which all their fortunes were ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... purple land to pursue his quest. It is one of toil and struggle. He has to fight the dragon offspring of Ares and the bands of armed men who spring from the dragon's teeth which were sown, that is, the clouds and gloom of the overcast sky. He conquers, and is rewarded, but does ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... day was dull and cold, and on Monday, the twenty-fifth, the sky was still overcast. There was no bright Yule log in the Mayflower, and no holly ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... awful beat Of our pale unnumbered feet Made a murmur strange and sweet, As we followed evermore. Now the night was almost passed, And the dawn was overcast, When the stranger stayed at last At ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... maritime; modified by North Atlantic Current; mild winters, cool summers; consistently humid; overcast about ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... the air as Captain Hazzard, not able to imagine what had happened rushed out on deck in his night clothes. The sky had become overcast and it was terribly black. It was hardly possible for one to see his hand before his face. A heavy sulphurous smell was in ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... dull and gray. Ominous clouds billowed restlessly and low. Beneath them torn fragments scudded toward the northwest. From her window Tara of Helium looked out upon this unusual scene. Dense clouds seldom overcast the Barsoomian sky. At this hour of the day it was her custom to ride one of those small thoats that are the saddle animals of the red Martians, but the sight of the billowing clouds lured her to a new adventure. Uthia still slept and the girl did not ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... no money for the fare. (Looks up.) Sky's come overcast. Black, too. It'll be a wild, windy night... to walk the high road on. But I and wild nights are old friends wherever the ...
— One Day More - A Play In One Act • Joseph Conrad
... saying that I had broken down and was going to the country, I started almost at random. After a few hours' riding I wearied of the cars, and left them at a small village whose name I did not care to inquire. The mountains and scenery pleased me, although the day was overcast like my mind and fortunes. Having found a quiet inn and gone through the form of a dinner, I sat down on the porch ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... John Egerton's face was overcast. "I must. I came here not knowing what was required of me. In fact, I never realised what was required of my calling until I had a glimpse into a life of real Christian consecration. I am going to another field, to do better work, ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... and overcast, and as Lily and Selden moved toward the deserted gardens below the restaurant, spurts of warm rain blew fitfully against their faces. The fiction of the cab had been tacitly abandoned; they walked on in silence, her hand on his arm, till the deeper shade of the gardens ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... over the hayfields, so that there must have been the usual myriads of the insects that cause this sound. While I was thinking in this way a swallow alighted on the turf, picked up a small white moth from among the short grass, and went off with it. In gloomy overcast weather the swallows at the sea-side frequently alight on the pebbles of the beach to pick up the insects which will not rise and fly. Some beaches and sandbanks are much frequented by insects, and black clouds of them sometimes come drifting along, ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... astonished, while sitting alone and rather blue and overcast in my room, at the sudden entrance of a second cousin of mine named Frank Fisher, who was studying medicine in Paris. He had by some odd chance seen my name registered in the newspapers as having arrived ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... that guarded other men's property, Condon turned the key and the knob simultaneously. Gentle pressure upon the door swung it slowly inward upon its hinges. The man entered the room, closing the door behind him. The moon was temporarily overcast by heavy clouds. The interior of the apartment was shrouded in gloom. Condon groped his way toward the bed. In the far corner of the room something moved—moved with a silent stealthiness which transcended even the trained silence of the burglar. Condon heard nothing. His attention was riveted ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... have not heard from each other since the first days of my poor Genevieve's marriage, when everything looked so bright and fair, and we little realized the clouds that were to overcast her happiness. It is a long story, and I will not go into it fully. The truth is that poor Gigi did not treat her very kindly, and that she has not lived with him since the birth of their little girl, now nearly two years old, and the sweetest little ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... horizon was overcast, and it had begun to rain, which before sunrise had encreased to a violent storm. He found therefore that he must content himself to stay until it was over, which did not happen till near night, and too late to pursue his journey. He was informed by the inn-keeper, that the theatre, which ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... was so full of breathless excitement that we dared only converse in whispers. The atmosphere was hot and oppressive, the sky had grown dark and overcast, threatening ominously, while ever and anon could be heard the faint clank of arms; men, tall, dark and mysterious, passed and repassed along the dark colonnades, or stood in knots leaning on their rifles discussing the ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... liberty, being legal and necessitated. She was learned, her sex and time considered, beyond common belief; for letters about this time, or somewhat before, did but begin to be of esteem and in fashion, the former ages being overcast with the mists and fogs of the Roman {20} ignorance; and it was the maxim that over-ruled the foregoing times, that IGNORANCE WAS THE MOTHER OF DEVOTION. Her wars were a long time more in the auxiliary part, and assistance of foreign princes and states, than by invasion of any; till ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... have picked out basic arrogances—tail of a peacock, horns of a stag, dollars of a capitalist—eclipses of astronomers. Though I have no desire for the job, I'd engage to list hundreds of instances in which the report upon an expected eclipse has been "sky overcast" or "weather unfavorable." In our Super-Hibernia, the unfavorable has been construed as the favorable. Some time ago, when we were lost, because we had not recognized our own dominant, when we were still of the unchosen and ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... it rose as usual, but, as the weather was overcast, it only peered now and then through the broken gray clouds. There were mutterings of thunder and a few drops of rain fell, big and heavy with black soot. Then the shower stopped and a stillness like that before a great storm settled over the land. The day, instead ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton
... myriad lights of the metropolis give the scene air appearance as of fairyland. The night is overcast and the clouds act as a reflector to the million lights in the city below; the sky line of Brooklyn is a dull salmon color. A chill October wind sweeps from east to west. It is a bad night to speak out of doors. Upon ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... time. Tom's faults flourished and multiplied. There can be no question that he was idle, untruthful, and unreliable. In earliest youth he had been a merry prank; he was still a prank, but not often merry. His spirit seemed to be overcast; and the terrible fact came out gradually that he was not 'nicely disposed.' His relatives failed to understand him, and they gave him up like a puzzle. He was self-contradictory. For instance, though a shocking liar, he ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... whereby all units of the contingent had to keep a daily rendezvous with accompanying warships, he said, that, thanks to his navigating officers and despite overcast skies, which made astronomical observations impossible, each rendezvous had been minutely and accurately kept by each unit. The orders he issued at the outset, which comprised scores of details, were observed, the Admiral declared, with ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... in a blue basin so lake-like that it was hard to realize it as the Nile. Now and then a yellow river of sand poured down to the sapphire sea, and where its bright waves were reflected, the water became liquid gold under a surface of blue glass. The sky was overcast, and through a thick silver veil, the sun shone with a mystic light as of a lamp burning in an alabaster globe; yet the flaming gold of the sand created an illusion as of sunshine. It was as if the treasure of all the lost mines of Nub had been flung out on the black rocks, ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... fairest flower; The sweetest dream is soonest pass'd; The brightest morning in an hour, May be with storm clouds overcast. ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... matter of voice training has been clouded by controversy. The strident advocates of various systems, each of them "the only true method," have in their disputes overcast the subject with much that is irrelevant, ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... the duchess saw him climb a garden wall, with a lute in his hand, then the sky became overcast, and she could distinguish him no more; she could only see a lighted window where a beautiful girl was standing. The maiden charmed her beyond measure, and she grew hot and cold with the pleasurable anticipation ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... passed. A sunset of melancholy red, streaked with level lines of murky cloud, stretched across the flats behind them, and faintly tinged with its reflected light the eastern horizon which the towers and domes of Venice had not yet begun to break. The twilight came, and then through the overcast heavens the moon shone dim; a light blossomed here and there in the villas, distant voices called musically; a cow lowed, a dog barked; the rich, sweet breath of the vernal land mingled its odors with the sultry air ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... September 14 came news of the President's death—opening a new depth of sadness; for I had come not merely to revere him as a patriot and admire him as a statesman, but to love him as a man. Few days have seemed more overcast than that Sunday when, at the little American chapel in Berlin, our colony held a simple service of mourning, the imperial minister of foreign affairs and other representatives of the government having quietly come to us. The feeling of ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... chanced that as he was speaking, a small cloud appeared on the horizon, and as it approached grew larger, until the heavens were overcast. Then drawing his bow to its utmost tension, he let fly the arrow, which sped up into the gathering blackness, and was lost to view. Presently the sky was illumined with a vivid flash, and peal upon peal of thunder followed in rapid succession. The crowd ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... friends covered the bodies with sand and stones, and, leaving them in their shallow grave, pursued their way; but they had not gone far when a few large drops of rain fell, and the sky became overcast with dark ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... it was quite plain, we knew intuitively that hope was not there, that we were watching something past its doom. It drew abeam, and we saw what it was, a derelict sailing ship, mastless and awash. The alien wilderness was around us now, and we saw a sky that was overcast and driven, and seas that were uplifted, which had grown incredibly huge, swift, and perilous, and they had colder and ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... Tower for this especial purpose, itself a tower! stood conspicuous for its magnitude. And now the Rev. **** the then admired court Chaplain, was proceeding with the grace, when, at a signal given, the lights were suddenly overcast, and a huge transparency was discovered, in which glittered ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... traversed the country regularly with the Monsoon,[109] and reduced the hopes of the cultivator to nothing. When two days from Lucknow, we ourselves saw the ravages committed by this insect. It was perfect weather; suddenly we saw the sky overcast; a darkness like that of a total eclipse spread itself abroad and lasted a good hour. In less than no time we saw the trees under which we were camped stripped of their leaves. The next day as we journeyed we saw that the same devastation ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill
... clean and even, with a razor, so that both rent and stitches may be lost in the hairy surface of the cloth. Scissors do not cut so closely, and are liable moreover, to disturb the nap, and render the darn more visible. When this is done, fit the edges exactly together, and overcast them. Then thread a needle with a hair by the root, and slip it in, 2 or 3 m/m. from the one edge and back again pointed towards you, through the other, so that, neither needle nor hair, are visible on either side. The stitches should be set ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... which might precipitate strife was indeed in these days most desirable. June 28th saw the murder of the Archduke at Sarajevo. The European sky grew rapidly overcast. Days passed, and the possibility of civil war was exchanged for the near probability of European war which might find the British Empire divided ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... belief as we rode down the trail, which was fairly pleasant except for short periods, when the clouds leaped the snowy walls behind and scattered drizzles of rain over us. Later the clouds thickened, the sky became completely overcast, and my exultation changed to dismay, and we camped at night as desolate as ever, in the rain, and by the side of a little marsh on which the horses could feed only by wading fetlock deep in the water. We were wet to the ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... whiter series is begun, Which in soft centuries shall smoothly run: Those clouds, that overcast your morn, shall fly, Dispell'd to farthest corners of the sky. Our nation with united interest blest, Not now content to poise, shall sway the rest. Abroad your empire shall no limits know, But, like the sea, in boundless circles flow. Your much-loved fleet shall, with a wide command, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... of caterpillars. After a little the hen returned with her bill full of caterpillars, but she did not venture within 75 feet of the nest. I was not permitted to observe how long it would take the parental instinct to overcome the natural timidity of the birds. The sky suddenly became overcast, and a few minutes later I found myself enveloped in what the Scotch call a "wet mist." At certain seasons of the year rain storms come up as unexpectedly in the Himalayas as they ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... God with the transcendent crime of infanticide perpetrated in the most deliberate manner and on the most gigantic scale. Who can bear, by thus quenching the hope of another life, to add death to death, and overcast, to every thoughtful eye, the whole sunny field of life with the melancholy shadow of a bier? There is a noble strength and confidence, cheering to the reader, in these words of one of the wisest and boldest of thinkers: "I should be the very last man to be willing to dispense ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... so much overcast that we could not find our way, we remained in our encampment till eight, A.M. Encamped at a quarter ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... paint"—a liquid chemical that could be brushed or sprayed on iron, chromium, nickel or cobalt alloys, rendering them passive to practically all chemical agents. The new "paint" left the iron or steel as brilliantly glossy as ever, but overcast with a beautiful iridescence, and immune to the most ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... that we shall have you sad at the thought of how rare is happiness, you that but a moment back were—or so it seemed—so joyous. Or is it that my coming has overcast the sky of your good ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... Novelle Antiche also certain necromancers exhibit their craft before the Emperor Frederic (Barbarossa apparently): "The weather began to be overcast, and lo of a sudden rain began to fall with continued thunders and lightnings, as if the world were come to an end, and hailstones that looked like steel-caps," etc. Various other European legends of like character will be found in Liebrecht's ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... William. Though he seemed plunged in gloom, Marion was radiant. She gaily prepared her trousseau, and took William on long shopping expeditions from which he returned more overcast than ever. Sometimes I wondered if he had really got over his infatuation for Gladys, and if he had merely proposed to Marion out of pique. A strange foreboding came over me that all was not ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... undue influence of the crown, the time might come when venality would prove stronger than principle, and the unworthy patriot be tempted to sacrifice his birthright for a mess of pottage. Thus early was the fair dawn of freedom overcast, which opened in Castile under more brilliant auspices, perhaps, than in any ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... turmoil. I could sit out in the most dreadful thunder storm and just revel in the crashes. Just as I was about to start down to the house—it was a little after six o'clock, and getting awfully dark and overcast,—Roon took up the glasses again. He seemed to be excited and called his companion. Paul grabbed the glasses and looked down the road. They both became very much excited, pointing and gesticulating, and taking ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... coal-sheds and carriage-sheds of the station itself, extending in their ashy and oily splendours for about a quarter of a mile out of the town; and then, just as the train gets into speed, under a large chimney tower, which he cannot see to nearly the top of, but will feel overcast by the shadow of its smoke, he may see, if he will trust his intelligent head out of the window, and look back, fifty or fifty-one (I am not sure of my count to a unit) similar chimneys, all similarly smoking, all with similar works attached, oblongs of brown brick wall, with ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... His countenance was thoughtful and overcast. His manner abstracted. He addressed a few words to Simon, and then, seating himself by the window, leant his cheek on his hand, and was soon lost in reverie. Fanny, finding that he did not speak, and after stealing ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... when he slept on the greensward ring of the Auld Kirkhill at sunset, and wakened at daybreak in the wild hills of Breadalbane. And see that, when you are looking for deer, the red stag does not gall you as he did Diccon Thorburn, who never overcast the wound that he took from a buck's horn. And see, when you go swaggering about with a long broadsword by your side, whilk it becomes no peaceful man to do, that you dinna meet with them that have broadsword and lance both—there ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... the Continent) know that when distant features of the landscape, in an otherwise clear and sunlit atmosphere, suddenly seem almost near enough to touch, rainy weather is approaching. Likewise a conspicuous increase in distance, while the sky is still overcast, foreshadows ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... should be done ere he should set eyes upon her again. In the privacy of her room the Lady Mary sank upon her prie-dieu and poured forth the thanks of her heart to the Virgin that one deed was accomplished; but even as she did so her joy was overcast by the thought of those two others ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... they torment him by ungrateful cravings, than that he should have to repent having satiated them by criminal indulgence." The dispositions of the young man were so excellent, that he combated, by reason and religion, the fits of gloom which at times overcast his mind; and it was not till he attained the commencement of his twenty-first year, that they assumed a character which made his father tremble for the consequences. It seemed as if the gloomiest and most hideous of mental maladies were taking the form of religious ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... consternation. On top of that come advices from Burgundy that the siege of Dole is raised, and from Saintonge that there are fifteen thousand peasants revolted, and that there is fear lest Poitou and Guienne may follow this example. Bad news comes thickly, the sky is overcast on all sides, the tempest beats upon us in all directions, and from no quarter whatever does a single ray of good fortune shine upon us. Amidst all this darkness, did the cardinal see less clearly? Did he lose his head during all this tempest? Did he not still hold ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... sundry chairs and spittoons, a small gas-heater, and many tottering columns of dusty letter-files. The window-panes, encrusted with perennial deposits of Atmosphere, were less transparent than translucent, and so little the latter that electric bulbs burned all day long whenever the skies were overcast. Also, the windows were fixed and set against the outer air—impregnable to any form of assault less impulsive than a stone cast by an irresponsible hand. A door, set craftily in the most inconvenient spot imaginable, ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... scene changed. Light clouds began to gather on the top of all the hills and to shut the mountain peaks entirely from view. The wind moaned between the gorges and occasionally swept along in such sudden gusts that they could with difficulty retain their feet. The sky became gradually overcast, and frequently light specks of snow, so small as to be scarcely perceptible, were driven along on the blast, making their faces smart by the force with which ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... secluding myself in my room most of the afternoon, I went into the garden to walk about. The day was overcast, with an autumnal flavor in the warm, still air. Finding myself near the excavation, I entered the subterranean chamber and sat down there. "This," I muttered to myself, "is the only home I have. Let me stay here, and not go forth any more." Seeking aid from the familiar surroundings, ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... Bandjermasin on November 1. To travel by the canal to Martapura can hardly be regarded as a pleasure-trip, as mosquitoes and flies are troublesome. Half a year later I went by the road to the same place under more cheerful conditions, and though the day was overcast, the flooded country just north of the town presented a picturesque appearance. Rows of high-gabled Malay houses, with narrow bridges leading out to them, were reflected in the calm water, and beautiful blue morning-glories covered the small bushes growing in the water. Along the road were ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... old salts exchanged glances the cloud seemed to grow, as if by magic, and by the time the awning was snugged home and lashed and everything had been hauled taut in preparation for the blow, the whole heavens were overcast with a sullen gray veil, and the sea began to rise with a low moaning sound that presaged what Ben Stubbs termed "a ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... his majesty, and those of his cabinet, had as great an interest in the prosperity and well- doing of the people, as it was possible for a landlord to have in the thriving of his tenantry. Accordingly, giving on all occasions, and at all times and seasons, even when the policy of the kingdom was overcast with a cloud, the king and government, in church and state, credit for the best intentions, however humble their capacity in performance might seem in those straits and difficulties, which, from time to time, dumfoundered the wisest in power and authority, I was exceedingly ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... such a proceeding—after wheeling agitatedly about the ship for a few minutes with discordant screams, as of warning to the travellers not to venture into so vast and gloomy a solitude, forsook them and retraced their way to the southward. The weather, too, changed, the sky becoming overcast with a pall of dull grey snow—laden cloud accompanied by a dismal murky atmosphere and a temperature of ten degrees below zero. The wind sighed and moaned over the icy waste; but, excepting for this dreary and depressing sound, ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... was warm, I suppose, for Scotland, but cool enough to seem wonderfully fresh and invigorating after the enclosed air within the house. It was very dark, and the sky was overcast, though just above us a star or two was shining, very large and clear. Otherwise I could hardly distinguish anything at all, except the line, about fifty yards away, where the lawn came to an end, and the ground dipped abruptly down towards the loch, so that the level ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... day, the youngest son of Kalev was sitting on the top of a cliff watching the clouds and waves. Suddenly the sky became overcast, and a terrific storm arose, which lashed the breakers into foam. Aeike,[32] the Thunder-God, was driving his brazen-wheeled chariot over the iron bridges of the sky, and as he thundered above, the sparks flew ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... and docility those of the women. Strangers came in crowds from other States [5].' Confucius became the idol of the people, and flew in songs through their mouths [6]. But this sky of bright promise was soon overcast. As the fame of the reformations in Lu went abroad, the neighboring princes began to be afraid. The duke of Ch'i said, 'With Confucius at the head of its government, Lu will become supreme among the States, and ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... remained at home. It was frosty and the air was sharp, but toward evening the sky became overcast and it began to thaw. On the fifteenth, when young Rostov, in his dressing gown, looked out of the window, he saw it was an unsurpassable morning for hunting: it was as if the sky were melting and sinking to the earth without any wind. The only motion in the ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Forge, did their errands, and started back in the canoes. Not until they got well out into the lake did they notice that there were angry clouds in the northwest. And very soon the sun became overcast, while the wind whipped down upon ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... is dead, and light Is quenched in night. What sound can break the silence of despair? Oh doubting heart! Thy sky is overcast, Yet stars shall rise at last, Brighter for darkness past, And angels' silver ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... crosstrees; but almost every one was looking out in the direction where some trace of David and Jonathan might be discovered. And the minutes seemed lengthened into hours as they anxiously peered into the mass of slatey-brown water in front and around topped with yeasty foam. But the sky was overcast with storm-clouds and the darkening of approaching night, and their horizon was now limited so that they could not see very far in advance of the Sea Rover's bows—not more than a mile ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... sothly for to tell, Now shineth it, and now it raineth fast, Right so can gery Venus overcast The hertes of hire folk, right as hire day Is gerfull, right so changeth she aray. Selde is the Friday all the ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 19, Saturday, March 9, 1850 • Various
... was by this time overcast, the pond was so smooth that I could see where he broke the surface when I did not hear him. His white breast, the stillness of the air, and the smoothness of the water were all against him. At length, having come up fifty rods off, he uttered ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... that directly after each rumbling the smoke rolled up in a thick, black mass that shut out the light of the sun and overcast ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... very amusing and foreign and discreet; a little rambling room with a number of small tables, with red electric light shades and flowers. It was an overcast day, albeit not foggy, and the electric light shades glowed warmly, and an Italian waiter with insufficient English took Ramage's orders, and waited with an appearance of affection. Ann Veronica thought the whole affair rather jolly. Ritter sold better food than ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... and bearing an important and confidential letter to the general commanding the department, who was with his troops in the field. It was over eighty miles by the river road; the night was dark and the skies overcast. There might be Indians along the route; there certainly were no soldiers, for, with the exception of eight or ten men, all of Captain Terry's troop were with him scouting on the north side of the Platte and over near the Sioux ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... here quoting the Preface to the third edition of his Corsica:—'Whatever clouds may overcast my days, I can now walk here among the rocks and woods of my ancestors, with an agreeable consciousness that I ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... as I should like to promise. You have suffered deeply. Here are dark caverns, crosses, confusion and wavy, broken and crooked lines. No good luck to be foretold. So it appears on the surface. You are overcast by sorrow and losses, with death to many present hopes. As holding up the cup, gravestones, tears—heart-tears—seems an ill-omened cup, yet no one ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... itself was overcast; a raw wind moaned through the trees, sighing a requiem. The drab, silent river went placidly, mockingly on its way down to the sea, telling no tales: if Rosabel Vick was rolling, gliding along the bottom, gently urged by the current, the grim waters covered well ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... Jacob's knife. The wife of this idle and improvident butcher was such a wife as such men usually contrive to pick up,—industrious, saving, and capable; the mainstay of his house. Often she remonstrated with her wasteful and beer-loving husband; the domestic sky was often overcast, and the children were glad to fly from the noise and ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... was when past Those lands and woes at length and last. Eight times, as thence he fared forth fast, Dawn rose and even was overcast With starry darkness dear as day, Before his venturous quest might meet Adventure, seeing within a sweet Green low-lying forest, hushed in heat, A tower that ...
— The Tale of Balen • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... in '88. At this period his health completely broke down, the immediate cause being an unhappy marriage. He finally rallied but had to travel abroad for a year, and for the rest of his life his temper, never bright, was overcast with gloom. There now entered Tchaikowsky's life Frau von Meck, the woman who played the part of fairy godmother. She greatly admired his music, was wealthy and generous and, that he might have entire leisure for composition, ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... number of these movements being from twelve to fifteen in a minute. There can be no doubt that they perceive what is going on about them, and are very sensitive to changes in the state of the atmosphere; for, as soon as the surface of the water is ruffled, or the sky becomes overcast, they sink into deeper water, and vanish out of sight. When approached with a dip-net, it is evident, from the acceleration of their movements, that they are ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... (dimness) 422. V. bubble, boil, foam, froth, mantle, sparkle, guggle^, gurgle; effervesce, ferment, fizzle. Adj. bubbling &c v.; frothy, nappy^, effervescent, sparkling, mousseux [Fr.], frothy [Fr.Tr.], up. cloudy &c n.; thunderheaded^; vaporous, nebulous, overcast. Phr. the lowring element scowls o'er the darkened landscip ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... tears flow, and then the pain is eased. On the other hand, the adagio of some of Beethoven's sonatas and Gluck's Iphigenie en Tauride are full of melancholy, and therefore provoke spleen ... it is then cold within, the sky is grey and overcast with clouds, the north wind moans dully...." ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... and stretched himself and cleared his throat and assumed an air of alertness and said it was a fine morning, which it was not, the sky being overcast and the air dank and chilly. He removed his greatcoat and threw it on ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... hardly noticed that we were approaching Kuntsevo, or that the sky was becoming overcast and beginning to threaten rain. On the right, the sun was slowly sinking behind the ancient trees of the Kuntsevo park—one half of its brilliant disc obscured with grey, subluminous cloud, and the other half sending forth spokes ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... While the sinking of the shaft was in progress, a strange new power was coming upon Pele. The gods of the earth and air had seen this assault and had resolved to take her part. The sky became overcast with brown, unwholesome-looking clouds, the ground grew hot and parched, vegetation drooped and withered, birds flew seaward with cries of distress, and a waiting stillness fell upon the world. Kamapua had cut away ten feet of rock, when the voice of Pele was heard in long, shrill laughter, ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... advised from Potsdam, that, on the 27th of February, towards evening, the sky began to get overcast; black clouds, presaging a tempest of unexampled fury, covered all the horizon: the thunder, with its lightnings, forked bolts of amazing brilliancy, burst out; and, under its redoubled peals, there descended such a torrent of hail as within man's memory had ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... first, the event seemed to justify their decision. Meeting a Roman army, commanded by the Prtor Arrius, on the borders of Samnium, the Gauls put it to rout, and the victory of Crixus was not less decisive than any of those which had been won by Spartacus. But this splendid dawn was soon overcast. Crixus was a drunkard, and, while sleeping off one of his fits of intoxication, he was set upon by a Roman army under the Consul Gellius. He was killed, and his followers either shared his fate or were totally dispersed. This was the first great victory ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... well-wooded, rocky, pyramidal mountains, which stood forth in grand relief. In advance the picture was bounded by forest and mountain; one bold acclivity, in shape of a dome, standing prominent among its fellows. It was a lovely evening: the sky, overcast and gloomy, threw an interesting, wild, mysterious coloring over the landscape. I gazed forth upon the romantic scene before me with intense delight, and felt melancholy and sorrowful at passing so fleetingly through ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... the threat fell to the ground. But it had had its effect on the poor girl. It had done all the injury it could do in that confused brain, where, under the sudden, overpowering rush of the blood, her reason was wavering and became overcast at the slightest shock. It had overturned that brain which was so prompt to go astray in fear or vexation, which lost so quickly the faculty of good judgment, of discernment, clear-sightedness and appreciation ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... of NAPOLEON, diminished to the aspect of a doll, reappears in front of his suite on the plain below. He rides across the swaying bridge. Since the morning the sky has grown overcast, and its blackness seems now to envelope the retreating array on the other side of the stream. The storm bursts with thunder and lightning, the river turns leaden, and the scene is blotted out ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... and his courtiers passed St. Goar, however, than the smiling sky became overcast, heavy clouds gathered, and the distant sound of thunder was heard. A moment more and they were in the midst of a raging storm; water surged and boiled all around, and darkness fell so thickly that scarce ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... never could her glance descry, And any wish'd-for boon deny! She's weeping too!—most strangely wrought By workings of another's thought! She knows no English; yet I speak That language, and her paling cheek With watery floods is overcast.— Fair maid, we talk of times long past; A friend we often mourn in vain— A knight in distant battle slain, Whose bones had moulder'd in the earth Full many a year before thy birth. He fed our ears with ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... the hours; while the death-bell cries out harshly for the grave's occupant, and [168] the corpse itself is borne along stealthily not far from them, and, unnoticed by either, the entire aspect of things has changed. Under the overcast sky it is in darkness they are playing, by guess and touch chiefly; and suddenly an icy blast of wind has lifted the roof from the old chapel, the trees are moaning in wild circular motion, and their devil's ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... right now," declared Captain Jack Rover, as he glanced through the trees to the overcast sky. "Don't you hear it on ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... shyness, she cast a quick but seeing look round. It was an overcast day; the soft floods of liquid light—the beautiful light of her beloved City of the Sun—poured into the big room through an enormous window of clear glass which formed the entire north wall. Round the other walls from floor almost to lofty ceiling were books ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... still beautiful, although the sky was overcast by a mist from south-east to souih-west. Owing to this there was some difficulty in identifying the vague outlines which stood out like floating vapour in the sky, disappearing and then reappearing between the breaks of ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... "Elm Bluff" was built of brick, overcast with stucco painted in imitation of gray granite, and its foundation was only four feet high, resting upon a broad terrace of brickwork; the latter bounded by a graceful wooden balustrade, with pedestals ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... booming into the Bay of Biscay, heading toward Cape Finisterre. We had experienced fresh breezes, but fine, clear weather, from the moment when we had left the Isle of Wight astern; but on this particular day, shortly after noon, the sky became overcast and gloomy, with a thick, murky appearance to windward that portended a change for the worse. This, however, did not greatly trouble us, for with Ushant out of sight astern, the ship heading South-West ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... and Leo joined the passengers who had now left the dining saloon. The light winds had freshened and the skies were overcast and gave promise of showers, if not of a storm. After walking a few times around the promenade deck, most of the passengers went below, some to the library, some to the smoking room, and some to their staterooms, perhaps thinking discretion the better part of valor. ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... of September the day was warm and still, but overcast. In the early morning a light mist had hung over the Volga, and after nine o'clock it had begun to spout with rain. And there seemed no hope of the sky clearing. Over their morning tea Ryabovsky told Olga Ivanovna that painting was the most ungrateful ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Skies are overcast; Slowly comes the spring, Quarry's tracked—at last, Strong, though, on the wing. Steady! Not so fast! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 9th, 1892 • Various
... early gave place to the dawn—not rosy that sad morning, but overcast—gloom was in everything. Piero was still praying by his dead wife's side when the tramp of footsteps upon the gravel outside the house fell upon his ears. Swiftly he ran and closed the entrance-doors, and then calling in a creature of his—a base-born medico—he ordered ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... moments before blue and cloudless, became overcast, a tremendous storm gathered from the west, broke in all its fury of rain, hail and thunder and lightning—even a partial eclipse of the sun occurred. There was a terrible downpour, and to the horror of the moment was added the hoarse cries of crows and ravens which fluttered before ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... a cloud overcast the evening of that day, which had shone out with a mighty luster in the eyes of all Europe! There are few great personages in history who have been more exposed to the calumny of enemies and the adulation of friends than Queen Elizabeth; ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... government opened to them the agreeable prospect of future tranquillity; and it appeared more probable that they would henceforth become formidable to their neighbours, than be exposed to their inroads and devastations. But these flattering views were soon overcast by the appearance of the Danes, who, during some centuries, kept the Anglo-Saxons in perpetual inquietude, committed the most barbarous ravages upon them, and at last reduced them to ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... months henceforth this picture was to be their altar, their place of prayer. Often hereafter when their hopes were overcast, or life grew mean with little cares, they would slip, singly, or ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... certain, there may be confused, imperfect Notions of this Nature raised in the Imagination by an Artificial Composition of Notes; and we find that great Masters in the Art are able, sometimes, to set their Hearers in the Heat and Hurry of a Battel, to overcast their Minds with melancholy Scenes and Apprehensions of Deaths and Funerals, or to lull them into pleasing Dreams of ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... the evening before; then, drawing the table to the wall pierced by the small, high window, she mounted it to obtain a few breaths of fresh air. She opened the sash; the breeze came in through the heavy bars, but Dolores could only catch a glimpse of the gray sky already overcast by the mists ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... and the heat grew to be almost unbearable. Each day the sun shone more gloriously, and the Duchess longed for one grey, overcast day. To her the sun seemed pitiless and cruel, the summer's amplitude seemed to mock her ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... this intensity accounts for the suddenness with which the Russian spirit has blazed forth on the horizon, so that the successive stages of development are scarcely visible. The darkness which overcast the letters of Russia before Pushkin disappears not slowly, but the sky is lighted up suddenly by innumerable lights. Stars of the first magnitude stud it, now here, now there, until the bewildered observer beholds not twinkling points but shining luminaries. ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... Such a day was in truth one of those captain jewels "that seldom placed are" among the blusterous days of late autumn, with winter already present to speed its parting. For a long time the sky had been overcast with multitudes and endless hurrying processions of wild-looking clouds—torn, wind-chased fugitives, of every mournful shade of color, from palest gray to slatey-black; and storms of rain had been frequent, impetuous, and suddenly intermitted, or passing ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... was a period of conflict, of inspiration and doubt, of faith and vain questionings, of Sturm and Drang. The ideals of physical freedom, of political power, of school training, as separate all-sufficient panaceas for social ills, became in the third decade dim and overcast. They were the vain dreams of credulous race childhood; not wrong, but incomplete and over-simple. The training of the schools we need to-day more than ever,—the training of deft hands, quick eyes and ears, and the broader, deeper, higher culture of ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... on her bed. But before the sun set, the weather unexpectedly changed, and a fine drizzling rain set in. So gently come the autumn showers that dull and fine are subject to uncertain alternations. The shades of twilight gradually fell on this occasion. The heavens too got so overcast as to look deep black. Besides the effect of this change on her mind, the patter of the rain on the bamboo tops intensified her despondency, and, concluding that Pao-ch'ai would be deterred from coming, she took up, in the lamp light, the first book within her reach, which turned ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... stopped snowing, but the sky was still overcast. It was colder than before—a drop in the thermometer which meant but one thing—that the long Alaskan winter had arrived. For months to come everything would be frozen up as hard as ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield
... after the fashion of poets, by the tale of disasters, would vow that he would begin to work in earnest, and then forget his resolution, and drown his fleeting cares in excess. One day Coralie saw the poetic brow overcast, and scolded Berenice, and told her lover that ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... speedy answer, both to their owne, & the Indeans admiration, that lived amongest them. For all y^e morning, and greatest part of the day, it was clear weather & very hotte, and not a cloud or any signe of raine to be seen, yet toward evening it begane to overcast, and shortly after to raine, with shuch sweete and gentle showers, as gave them cause of rejoyceing, & blesing God. It came, without either wind, or thunder, or any violence, and by degreese in y^t abundance, as that y^e ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... him to her feet in spite of all trammels was food for a natural and secret exultation. But now that the first exquisite days of love were over, the trammels, the forgotten trammels, were all there again—for the fretting of her patience. That his mind was often disturbed, his cheerfulness overcast, that his letters gave him frequently more pain than pleasure, and that a certain inward unrest made his dealings with himself more stern, and his manner to those around him less attractive than before,—these things were ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Flachs looked like a Jew beggar riding a runaway horse. Meanwhile his heart, which was already overcast with the most promising sultry clouds caused by domestic and church-troubles, could have immediately drawn up the necessary water, as easily as the sun before bad weather, if only the floating-house navigating ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... at the foot of the cliffs, where the water curled in white lace about the barrier of boulders. There was no change in the dullness of the sky; no sun broke through the thick lid of clouds. And the green of the sea was ashened to gray which matched that overcast until one could strain one's eyes trying to find the horizon, unable to mark the dividing line here between ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... recorded that on this fatal Tuesday all the elements seemed to unite in adding horror to the scene of carnage. Shortly before this a great comet had made men fear and wonder; and now, on this morning the sky was overcast with such dense clouds that the land was in darkness; so black were the heavens that nothing like it had been known within the memory of man. A violent tempest, with a deluge of rain and terrific thunder and lightning, swept over the country. The terrified monks could not ...
— Evesham • Edmund H. New
... overspread the whole sky. They took out the grist, and left it to be ground, and then immediately got into the sleigh again, and commenced their return. Before they had gone far, the sky became entirely overcast, and the distant hills to the south-east were enveloped in what appeared to be a kind of mist, but which was really ...
— Jonas on a Farm in Winter • Jacob Abbott
... smilingly after him, but suddenly his countenance became overcast, he was seized with a fearful idea—suppose the general had deceived him, and the bread was not for the king? He must know, he must convince himself that the statement was true. He followed the general ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... gained upon the vessels, which still carried on every stitch of canvas, making short tacks in-shore. The Aurora was again put about with her head towards them, and they were not two points on her weather bow. The sky, which had been clear in the morning, was now overcast, the sun was obscured with opaque white clouds, and the sea was rising fast. Another ten minutes, and then they were under double-reefed topsails, and the squalls were accompanied with heavy rain. The frigate now dashed through the waves, foaming in her course ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... happy while they still live. Cyrus, applying it to himself, was seized with remorse or pity, and commanded the bystanders to quench the fire, but their efforts were in vain. Thereupon Croesus implored the pity of Apollo, and suddenly the sky, which up till then had been serene and clear, became overcast; thick clouds collected, and rain fell so heavily that the burning pile was at ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... still but little noise, for those who yet lived were silent, waiting patiently, and the vast peace was more powerful in its impression upon the mind than any tumult could have been. Helen looked up once at the skies. They were black and overcast. But few stars twinkled there. It was a fit canopy for the Wilderness, the gloomy forest that bore such a burden. From a far point in the southwest came the low rumble of thunder, and lightning, like the heat-lightning of a summer night, glimmered ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... time it was Within that house of woe, All eyes were dull and overcast, And every voice was low! And from each cheek at intervals The blood appear'd to start, As if recall'd in sudden haste To aid the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... when September was well in, and the sky was moonless and overcast, somewhat before midnight the dame came and hung over Birdalone as she lay abed, and watched to see if she waked; forsooth the witch's coming had waked her; but even so she was wary, and lay still, nor changed her breathing. So the witch turned away, ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... absolute security that Elizabeth enjoyed during her whole reign, never exempted her from vigilance and attention; but the scene began now to be more overcast, and dangers gradually multiplied on her from more than ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... gravity. There he confided the joke to the tall pine trees, with many slaps of his leg, contortions of his face, and the usual profanity. But when he returned to the party, he found them seated by a fire—for the air had grown strangely chill and the sky overcast—in apparently amicable conversation. Piney was actually talking in an impulsive, girlish fashion to the Duchess, who was listening with an interest and animation she had not shown for many days. The Innocent was holding forth, apparently with equal effect, to Mr. Oakhurst and Mother Shipton, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... well-side, are very luxuriant. People now begin to sow ghaseb, ghafouly, dra, and such grains, which are reaped in the summer season. Barley and wheat are sown in autumn or winter, and reaped in spring. As I walked I noticed that the sky was darkly overcast, as if threatening rain; and presently, sure enough, a few precious drops fell on the thirsty ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... vagrant, blazing star was about to plunge into the earth and annihilate the planet and every vestige of life upon it. But then it drew slowly to a stop high up in the atmosphere, where it remained motionless, glowing white and incandescent against the Stygian background of the overcast skies. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... her eyes to his with timid courage. They were wet. George abruptly walked away along the deck. The steamer was passing the custom-house again. The tide had now almost slacked. Fresh and heavier clouds had overcast the sky. All the varied thoughts of the afternoon were active in George's head at once: architecture, architects, beauty, professional injustices, girls—his girl. Each affected the others, for they were deeply entangled. It is a fact that he could not put Inigo ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... was not to be. All day Sunday the sky was overcast, and by Monday morning it was snowing furiously, blotting out the landscape on ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... negro disappeared. I now expected some touching scene—a prayer on bended knees, and a reconciliation sealed with glowing kisses. But no! nothing of the kind occurred. The incomprehensible being took from his pocketbook a sealed packet, and placed it in the hands of the lady. Sadness overcast her face as she she looked at it, and ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... give the first three time to get alongside the Mole; Sirius and Brilliant shifted their course for Ostend; and the great swarm of destroyers and motor craft sowed themselves abroad upon their multifarious particular duties. The night was overcast and there was a drift of haze; down the coast a great searchlight swung its beams to and fro; there was a small wind ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... Selma was abruptly overcast and ominously silent. She wished she had not been turned so far by her impulse of penitence—wished she had held to the calm and deliberate part of her resolve about Jane—the part that involved keeping aloof from her. However, Jane, ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... fascinated by the beauty of night in the tropics. Our evenings no doubt are often delicious also, though the mild climate we enjoy is partly due to the sky being so often overcast. In parts of the tropics, however, the air is calm and cloudless throughout nearly the whole of the year. There is no dew, and the inhabitants sleep on the house-tops, in full view of the brightness of the stars and the beauty of the ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... themselves in words as he prowled one night in March, chill and melancholy, across a rushy meadow under an overcast sky. The death squeal of some little beast caught suddenly in a distant copse had set loose this train of thought. "Life struggling under a birth curse?" he thought. "How nearly I come back at times to the Christian ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... to her cheeks. She knew she was pretty and always strove to look nice for the mere pleasure of the thing. All her instincts were aesthetic. Now she had the air of a saint wrought up to spiritual exaltation. She was almost frightened by the vision. She had seen her face frowning, weeping, overcast with gloom, never with an expression so fateful. It seemed as if her resolution was writ large upon every feature for all ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... of the two terrible nights, his faithful Bill at one end of the rickyard and himself at the other. The second night they took up their positions in the same manner as soon as it was dark. There was no moon, and the sky was overcast with those stationary clouds which often precede a great storm, so that the darkness was marked, and after they had parted a step or two they lost sight of each other. Worn with long wakefulness, and hard labour ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... any I have ever seen. And methought that another woof was woven, which crossed the first, and yet it was no whit less beautiful. Then the women who wove the woofs cried out, 'Enough!' And a fair white arm reached out and seized the rare fabrics, and tore them into shreds. And then the sky was overcast, and the thunder began to roll and the lightning to flash, and red fires gleamed, and fierce wolves howled around me, and ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... prudent thought came to me: suppose Mary should not accept me? Then, with this great invention lost,—for I never should have the heart to make another,—I should have nothing left in the world. No; I would be cautious, lest in every way my future life should be overcast with disappointment. The sun had risen, and I felt I must go out; I must have air. Before I opened the front door, however, I said to myself, 'Remember it is all settled. It is Mary you must have—that is, ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... reply to the remarks of customers, the day was fine to them, the weather beautiful! But on the really fine days, when the blue of the heavens brightened all Paris, and the Parisians walked about to enjoy themselves and cared for no "goods" but those they carried on their back, the day was overcast to the Rogrons. "Bad weather for sales," ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... any sounds reach or disturb them for hours. Not one of the sleepers stirred enough to know that the sky gradually became overcast and that there was a distant rumbling ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... to reply that he did not believe that the peasants could continue to resist the Government indefinitely, the police-sergeant in charge of the picnic-party approached, his face overcast. ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... which Captain Jack endlessly backed and filled, and the water in the river steadily fell, had finally cast off that afternoon; and after ascending twenty miles or so, tied up to the bank to await the dawn. It was now about ten; overcast above; velvety dark below; and still as death. For the first time Garth and Natalie missed, with a catch in the breath, the faint, domestic murmur that rises on the quietest night from an inhabited land. It was so still they could occasionally ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... specially constructed to collect evidence about the corona. But he reached Oran only to find himself shut behind a cloud-curtain more impervious than the Prussian lines. Everywhere the sky was more or less overcast. Lockyer's journey from England to Sicily, and shipwreck in the Psyche, were recompensed with a glimpse of the solar aureola during one second and a half! Three parties stationed at various heights on Mount Etna saw absolutely nothing. Nevertheless ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... a dismal one on that particular day. The sky was overcast and gray, with a distinct threat of rain. The sea was gray and cold and cheerless. The fields were bare and bleak and across them moved a damp, chill, penetrating breeze. From horizon to horizon ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... thought had been over-estimated. He also requested him to write to Dr. Foster of Cambridge, and inform him of the expected event, as it was desirable that the transit should be observed from several places in consequence of the possibility of failure, owing to an overcast sky. His letter is dated October 26, 1639. He says: 'My reason for now writing is to advise you of a remarkable conjunction of the Sun and Venus on the 24th of November, when there will be a transit. As such a thing has not ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... having quartered ourselves to our most advantage, with sufficient guard upon every strait, we thought to rest ourselves for that night there. The Governor sent us some refreshing, as bread, wine, oil, apples, grapes, marmalade and such like. About midnight the weather began to overcast, insomuch that it was thought meeter to repair aboard, than to make any longer abode on land. And before we could recover the fleet a great tempest arose, which caused many of our ships to drive from their anchorhold, and some were forced to sea in ...
— Drake's Great Armada • Walter Biggs
... Marjorie's look still hurt, and somehow he felt that even Mavis was vaguely on their side against him, and of a sudden the pang of loneliness that Marjorie saw in his eyes so pierced him that he pulled his old nag in and stood motionless in the middle of the road. The sky was overcast and the air was bitter and chill; through the gray curtain that hung to the rim of the earth, the low sun swung like a cooling ball of fire and under it the gray fields stretched with such desolation for him that he dared ride no farther into them. And then ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... Snakes Island, the fells, and the lake—somewhat vast and gloomy, and furnished in a stately old fashion—was said to be haunted, especially when the wind blew from the direction of Golden Friars, the point from which it blew on the night of her death in the lake; or when the sky was overcast, and thunder rolled among the lofty fells, and lightning gleamed on the ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... passing by, flitting to the lowland. The sky is overcast; there is a lull in the wind. Hark, I hear the piping of the shepherd and the tinkling bell of the wether. Yonder is his flock; and there sits he on a rock blowing his doleful reed. I am almost slain with thirst. I go to him, and cheerfully does he milk for ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... drinking, and I don't believe I was sober a single moment until after we had accomplished our object and the robbery was committed. How it was done, you all know, and it is not necessary for me to detail the particulars of an event which will overcast ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... eyes of the black child were overcast with tears;—large, bright drops rolled heavily down, one by one, and fell on the little white hand. Yes, in that moment, a ray of real belief, a ray of heavenly love, had penetrated the darkness of her heathen soul! She laid her head down between her ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... al that thei hiere, Bot thanne scholde a wisman stiere The Schip, whan suche wyndes blowe: For ferst thogh thei beginne lowe, At ende thei be noght menable, Bot al tobreken Mast and Cable, So that the Schip with sodein blast, Whan men lest wene, is overcast; 1070 As now fulofte a man mai se: And of old time how it hath be I finde a gret experience, Wherof to take an evidence Good is, and to be war also Of the peril, er him be wo. Of hem that ben so derk withinne, At Troie also if we beginne, Ipocrisie it hath betraied: ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower
... sudden turn in the winding passage he showed the adventurers a small opening in the side of the crag. In an instant they had passed through, and found themselves in daylight once more. The sudden glare almost blinded them, for, though the sky was overcast by clouds, from which jagged tongues of lightning played, the outside was much lighter than the ...
— Tom Swift Among The Diamond Makers - or The Secret of Phantom Mountain • Victor Appleton
... dream, the present or the past? The night of anguish or the joyous morn? The long, long years with horrors overcast, Or the sweet promise of the ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... stall-keepers, the donkey drivers and the cosmopolitan passengers, casts here a sullen, impassive and consuming fire. And meanwhile the shadows shorten—and just as they do every day, beneath this sky which is never overcast, just as they have done for five and thirty centuries, these columns, these friezes and this temple itself, like a mysterious and solemn sundial, record patiently on the ground the slow passing of the hours. Verily for us, the ephemerae of thought, this unbroken ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... weather unexpectedly changed, and a fine drizzling rain set in. So gently come the autumn showers that dull and fine are subject to uncertain alternations. The shades of twilight gradually fell on this occasion. The heavens too got so overcast as to look deep black. Besides the effect of this change on her mind, the patter of the rain on the bamboo tops intensified her despondency, and, concluding that Pao-ch'ai would be deterred from coming, she took up, in the lamp light, the first book within her reach, which turned out to be ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... air as Captain Hazzard, not able to imagine what had happened rushed out on deck in his night clothes. The sky had become overcast and it was terribly black. It was hardly possible for one to see his hand before his face. A heavy sulphurous smell ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... the sky slowly became overcast. Torn clouds, whipped to ragged streamers, fled low above the tree tops. They reminded Tarzan of frightened antelope fleeing the charge of a hungry lion. But though the light clouds raced so swiftly, ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... once I started to feel a great splash of rain upon my cheek, and glancing up saw the sky all overcast while seaward the whole horizon was very black and ominous; great masses of writhing vapour and these threatening clouds lit ever and anon by a reddish glow, and pierced by vivid lightning flashes. All of which took us mightily by surprise, we having been too intent upon these new buskins to ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... out, that we were able to bring the little hooker to the wind for half an hour or so, and make a few miles of northing. And when it was not blowing with hurricane strength it was usually just the opposite: a flat calm, with a black, lowering, overcast sky, moist, steamy, overpowering heat, heavy storms of thunder and lightning, torrential downpours of tepid rain—which, by the way, enabled us to re-fill all our water tanks and casks—and waterspouts ad libitum constantly threatening ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... dinner-hour had arrived; and our long continued exercise in the open air had so much improved our appetites that we did ample justice to the good things set before us. Dinner being over, we observed, what had before escaped our notice, that the sky was becoming overcast with dark clouds, and soon a heavy rain began to fall, which put an end to all our plans of out-of-door enjoyment for the afternoon. As I mentioned at the beginning, Harry was very much disappointed, for outside sports ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... house (though God knows I am as willing as any to help), saying that I do hinder all, and damp their spirit for work with my gloomy countenance, which is no more than the truth, I fear. The sky very overcast, with wind in the south and the air very muggy, mild, and close, so that I do apprehend our geese will be all stinking before they are eat. And if it pour of rain on Christmas day how will the ox be roast, and what sort of company can we expect? This puts me to another taking for dread ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... her sudden shyness, she cast a quick but seeing look round. It was an overcast day; the soft floods of liquid light—the beautiful light of her beloved City of the Sun—poured into the big room through an enormous window of clear glass which formed the entire north wall. Round the other walls from floor almost to lofty ceiling ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... roared through the gateway and directly out upon the darkened field. Something bellowed and raced down a runway and took to the air. Other things followed it. They gained altitude and circled back overhead. Tiny bluish flickerings moved across the overcast sky. Exhaust flames. ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... they had in store; there were a few sparks in their back log unextinguished, and this they gladly fanned up into a blaze, with which they dried their wet clothes, and warmed themselves. The air was now cool almost to chilliness, and for some days the weather remained unsettled, and the sky overcast with clouds, while the lake presented a leaden hue, ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... to bed he just peeped out of the window to look at the moon, but the sky was now overcast, and the clouds were hurrying by, and the wind rising—which the snail had expected, or he would not have ventured out along the wall. While Bevis was peeping out he saw the owl go by over the orchard and up ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... tide, up the Para river. Towards evening we passed Vigia and Colares, two fishing villages, and saw many native canoes, which seemed like toys beneath the lofty walls of dark forest. The air was excessively close, the sky overcast, and sheet lightning played almost incessantly around the horizon— an appropriate greeting on the threshold of a country lying close under the equator! The evening was calm, this being the season when the winds are not strong, ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... sky overcast. The spires fall, the flowers wither. Ye turn to look at the man. He is a giant. See the face of him now. It makes ye tremble. He is the White Guard an' he brings ye back. Ah, then, mayhap ye rise in the ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... cloud overcast the heavens, the wind continued favourable, and, in the shortest possible time, they landed in the Port of Balsora. There lay many new ships at anchor, ready prepared, and laden with ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... dispirited and marking also the many wonderful portents, that foremost of all wielders of arms, the preceptor Drona, son of Bharadwaja, said, 'Violent and hot are the winds that below, showering gravels in profusion. The sky also is overcast with a gloom of ashy hue. The clouds present the strange sight of being dry and waterless. Our weapons also of various kinds are coming out of their cases. The jackals are yelling hideously affrighted at the conflagrations on all sides.[41] The horses too are shedding tears, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... mid-summer and a mid-wood bird, Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again. He says that leaves are old and that for flowers Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten. He says the early petal-fall is past When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers On sunny days a moment overcast; And comes that other fall we name the fall. He says the highway dust is over all. The bird would cease and be as other birds But that he knows in singing not to sing. The question that he frames in all but words Is what to ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost
... was discovered and the threat fell to the ground. But it had had its effect on the poor girl. It had done all the injury it could do in that confused brain, where, under the sudden, overpowering rush of the blood, her reason was wavering and became overcast at the slightest shock. It had overturned that brain which was so prompt to go astray in fear or vexation, which lost so quickly the faculty of good judgment, of discernment, clear-sightedness and appreciation ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... were so busy setting out the tin cups and plates that it was not till Zeb beat on a tin basin with a spoon to announce that the evening meal was ready that anyone noticed that the professor was missing. Night was closing in and the sky was overcast. ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... of the mirthfulness of these top-men was, that they always looked out upon the blue, boundless, dimpled, laughing, sunny sea. Nor do I hold, that it militates against this theory, that of a stormy day, when the face of the ocean was black, and overcast, that some of them would grow moody, and chose to sit apart. On the contrary, it only proves the thing which I maintain. For even on shore, there are many people naturally gay and light-hearted, who, ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... picture roaming around out of stock without a frame! Him and me together can do Ariel and Prospero without a scratch of make-up." Grant beamed, but when Brotherton exclaimed as an afterthought, "Say, man, what about that boy's eyes?" Grant's features mantled and the old grim look overcast his face, as Brotherton went on: "Why, them eyes would make a madonna's look like fried eggs! Where did he get 'em—they're not Sands and they're not Adams. He must take back to some Peri that blew into Massachusetts from an enchanted isle." Brotherton saw that he was annoying Grant ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... which gleamed the delicate blue of the half-formed ice. Sometimes, however, the "neves" spread over wide spaces without a rupture or wrinkle to break the smoothness of the superficial snow. The sky was now, for the most part, overcast, but through the residual blue spaces the sun at intervals poured light over the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... My feet are drawn thither, And, looking with awe in the magical mirror, I see through my tears, Half doubtful of seeing, The face unperverted, 220 The warm golden being Of a child of five years; And spite of the mists and the error. And the days overcast, Can feel that I walk undeserted, But forever attended By the glad heavens that bended O'er the innocent past; Toward fancy or truth Doth the sweet vision win me? 230 Dare I think that I cast In the fountain of youth The fleeting reflection ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... moment outside the hut, studying the sky, which was a patchwork of clouds scattered across grey splotches that would turn to blue with the coming of the sun. Evidently the sky had been quite overcast during the night, but the clouds were broken now, though ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... more than four hours. The sky, which had been almost without a cloud through the day, began now to be overcast, and showed signs of a coming storm. Before seeking a place of shelter for himself and his prizes, Don John reconnoitred the scene of action. He met with several vessels in too damaged a state for further service. These ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... on which we visited Herculaneum was in melancholy contrast to the day we spent in Pompeii. The lingering summer had at last saddened into something like autumnal gloom, and that blue, blue sky of Naples was overcast. So, this second draught of the spirit of the past had not only something of the insipidity of custom, but brought rather a depression than a lightness to our hearts. There was so little of Herculaneum: only a few hundred yards square are exhumed, and we counted the houses easily on ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... sense of relief when we had climbed the rise and had the open prairie again before us. The sky was overcast and the wind strong, but some rain had fallen during the night, and the clouds had lifted themselves again. The air was fresh and damp, but not chill. We rode slowly, of necessity, for the mud was deeper ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... of pastime with her daughter and other women and ladies. Thither accordingly they betook themselves one day of great heat, carrying Pietro with them, and there abiding, it befell, as whiles we see it happen in summer time, that the sky became of a sudden overcast with dark clouds, wherefore the lady set out with her company to return to Trapani, so they might not be there overtaken of the foul weather, and fared on as fast as they might. But Pietro and Violante, being young, outwent her mother and the rest by a great way, urged belike, no less by love than ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... swell; the winds are high; Clouds overcast my wintry sky: Out of the depths to thee I call; My fears are great, ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... (recognize) no person but Berka. Him I have given a present. What was demanded I have given Berka. I will not now give more presents, and not indeed by main force. It is robbery! Go and take my camels." The Giant, who listened to these few words, spoken distinctly and energetically, with a brow overcast, like a storm-cloud charged with the electric fire, and a bosom heaving and boiling with wrath, got up from where he lay sprawling, ("many a rood,") and very deliberately took hold of his broadsword (I began ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... visited by a terrific hurricane, from which the 1st West India Regiment suffered some loss. On the afternoon of the 9th of September the sky became totally overcast, and masses of clouds gathered over the island. About 7 p.m. a tremendous thunderstorm commenced, accompanied by violent gusts of wind, which increased in strength, until by 10 p.m., every vessel in the harbour, ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... hand, Europe, after emerging from the War, is darkened and overcast by intrigues, secret agreements and dissimulated plots: fresh menaces of war and fresh explosions ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... bottom of the lead, and von Sperrgebiet made a prolonged scrutiny of the chart. "H'm'm!" he said. "I don't understand." Submerging again, they progressed at slow speed for some hours and he took another sounding. The sky was overcast and no sights ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... so overcast the night, that, although it was not perfectly dark, it was sufficiently obscure to screen our countenances. Just as Tyrrell approached, Thornton dashed forward, and cried, in a feigned voice—'Stand, on your peril!' I followed, and we were now both ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... at something strange in his gone-by dream, he looked up to the heavens, thinking to see signs of the even at hand, for he seemed to have been dreaming so long. The sky was thinly overcast by now, but by his wonted woodcraft he knew the whereabouts of the sun, and that it was scant an hour after noon. He sat there till he was wholly awake, and then drank once more of the woodland water; and he said to himself, but out ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... Notions of this Nature raised in the Imagination by an Artificial Composition of Notes; and we find that great Masters in the Art are able, sometimes, to set their Hearers in the Heat and Hurry of a Battel, to overcast their Minds with melancholy Scenes and Apprehensions of Deaths and Funerals, or to lull them into pleasing Dreams of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... going out, and looking with intensity on the pure azure over his head; for a more unclouded sky was rarely ever seen. Contrary to all external signs of rain, and contrary to the expectations of all, except himself, the sky became overcast toward evening, and the clouds dropped the fullness of a shower upon the earth. His very soul seemed to drink in the falling drops. The family grouped around him, like children around their father, while he gave out his favorite hymn, "I'll praise my Maker while I've breath;" "and ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... they bring a stupendous florid young man to the King in the torture-chamber. King Ferdinand was not idle at the moment, and he looked up good-temperedly enough from his employment: but almost instantly his merry face was overcast. ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... the dark intervals when the moon was overcast. I was sufficiently interested to follow the boat, on the chance that a return of the moonlight might show me who could possibly be in it. After no very long interval, the yellow light for which I was waiting poured ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... of thy victims lies red on That stricken field, fiercest and last, In the sunset that gilds Armageddon With battle-drift still overcast— When the smoke of thy hot conflagrations O'ershadows the earth as with wings, Where nations have fought against nations, And kings have encounter'd with kings, When cometh the end ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... movements being from twelve to fifteen in a minute. There can be no doubt that they perceive what is going on about them, and are very sensitive to changes in the state of the atmosphere; for, as soon as the surface of the water is ruffled, or the sky becomes overcast, they sink into deeper water, and vanish out of sight. When approached with a dip-net, it is evident, from the acceleration of their movements, that they are attempting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... some trace of David and Jonathan might be discovered. And the minutes seemed lengthened into hours as they anxiously peered into the mass of slatey-brown water in front and around topped with yeasty foam. But the sky was overcast with storm-clouds and the darkening of approaching night, and their horizon was now limited so that they could not see very far in advance of the Sea Rover's bows—not more than ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... circular in her hand, Honora went thoughtfully up the stairs to her sitting-room. The month was February, the day overcast and muggy, and she stood for a while apparently watching the holes made in the snow by the steady drip from the cap of the garden wall. What she really saw was the face of Mrs. Israel Simpson, a face that had haunted her these many months. For Mrs. Simpson had gradually ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... we had encountered after leaving the south-east trades which had previously wafted her so well on her way; when, all at once, without hardly a warning, the sea began to grow choppy and sullen, and the air thick and heavy. The sky, too, which had been for days and days nearly cloudless, became overcast all round, heavy masses of vapour piling themselves upwards from the horizon towards the zenith, to the southward and westward, gradually enveloping ship and ocean alike in a ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... two horsemen, after having ridden circumspectly around the outbuildings and corrals, dismounted from their horses at some little distance from the door of the Calabasas Inn. They shook out their legs as men do after a long turn in the saddle and faced each other in a whispered colloquy. An overcast sky, darkening the night, concealed the alkali crusting the riders and their horses; but the hard breathing of the latter in the darkness told of a pace forced for ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... on this fatal Tuesday all the elements seemed to unite in adding horror to the scene of carnage. Shortly before this a great comet had made men fear and wonder; and now, on this morning the sky was overcast with such dense clouds that the land was in darkness; so black were the heavens that nothing like it had been known within the memory of man. A violent tempest, with a deluge of rain and terrific thunder and lightning, swept over the country. The terrified ...
— Evesham • Edmund H. New
... the same shoal. Nelson left the ELEPHANT soon after she took the ground, to follow Lindholm. The heat of the action was over, and that kind of feeling which the surrounding scene of havoc was so well fitted to produce, pressed heavily upon his exhausted spirits. The sky had suddenly become overcast; white flags were waving from the mast-heads of so many shattered ships; the slaughter had ceased, but the grief was to come; for the account of the dead was not yet made up, and no man could tell for what friends he might have to mourn. The very silence which follows the cessation ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... the horizon to the south the clouds that are called cumuli began to gather. The air was so hot too that I could scarcely bear to work, for I had set myself to take some plant-cuttings in a little glass-house that was in the garden against the south wall; and by noon the sky was overcast. ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... ready to praise when all shines fair; but when life is overcast, when all things seem to be against us, when we are in fear for some cherished happiness, or in the depths of sorrow, or in the solitude of a life which has no visible support, or in a season of sickness, ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... through the autumn woods, and the aspect of them was very lovely. But their loveliness was hectic, a loveliness as it seemed, at all events at first sight, of death and burial, rather than of life and hope. The sky was overcast, and a chill clung to the stream side and haunted the hollows. The young man's humour, unfortunately, was only too much in harmony with the more melancholy suggestions of the scene. For Richard was by nature something of a poet, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... attention to the religious spirit that lies latent in the pedantic Br[a]hmanas, we are willing to admit that the age is overcast, not only with a thick cloud of ritualism, but also with an unpleasant mask of phariseeism. There cannot have been quite so much attention paid to the outside of the platter without neglect of the ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... if presaging David Dubbs's misfortune, had grown overcast, and flung down spiteful little sallies of snow as he crossed the river on his way to Mr. Griffin's. The creaking of the bridge's huge timbers and the splitting ice below it made him shiver and pull his ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... circumstance of my own qualifications appeared in all the aggravation of self-conceit, to heighten my expectation! Neither was this transport of long duration. The dread of her being already disposed of intervened, and overcast my enchanting reverie! My presaging apprehension represented her encircled in the arms of some happy rival, and in consequence for ever lost to me. I was stung with this suggestion, and, believing the person who conducted her to be the husband of this amiable young lady, already devoted him to ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... delicious bread. He found nothing of this sort. The Crystal Palace Hotel was bare of provender. Achieving a discreet retirement from the hostelry he stood irresolute in the street. This morning there was no genial sun to warm him. A high fog overcast the sky, and the air was chill. At intervals he shivered violently. For no reason, except that he had there last beheld actual food, he went back ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... it's starting right now," declared Captain Jack Rover, as he glanced through the trees to the overcast sky. "Don't you hear ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... direction, but the low-lying land upon which the village was situated. I could not see any people on shore—in fact, I could hardly distinguish the houses; for, as if to add to the gloom and peril that surrounded me, the sky had become overcast, and along with the clouds a ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... Pete urged the springing craft onward. Seldom did they speak, and hardly a sound did they make as their paddles dipped rhythmically into the cold water. The sky was overcast, and not a star was to be seen. No lights gleamed along the shore. They were completely enwrapped by night and silence, securely enfolded ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... nevertheless, she showed it all the time. Tom's faults flourished and multiplied. There can be no question that he was idle, untruthful, and unreliable. In earliest youth he had been a merry prank; he was still a prank, but not often merry. His spirit seemed to be overcast; and the terrible fact came out gradually that he was not 'nicely disposed.' His relatives failed to understand him, and they gave him up like a puzzle. He was self-contradictory. For instance, though a shocking liar, he was lavish ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... counsellor came in, treading heavily. His swarthy face was overcast, his mouth set in stern lines ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... reproduced Cato, Wignell, who acted "Porcius," omitted the prologue, and began at once with the lines, "The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers...." "The prologue! the prologue!" shouted the audience; and Wignell went on in the same tone, as if ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... Time's whiter series is begun, Which in soft centuries shall smoothly run: Those clouds, that overcast your morn, shall fly, Dispell'd to farthest corners of the sky. Our nation with united interest blest, Not now content to poise, shall sway the rest. Abroad your empire shall no limits know, But, like the sea, in boundless circles flow. Your much-loved fleet ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... 'I am content,' I replied; and sitting down I commenced the BIBLE IN SPAIN. At first I proceeded slowly - sickness was in the land, and the face of nature was overcast - heavy rain-clouds swam in the heavens, - the blast howled amid the pines which nearly surround my lonely dwelling, and the waters of the lake which lies before it, so quiet in general and tranquil, ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... summer night, but chilly, the sky somewhat gloomy and overcast. Still there was a moon—faint and sickly, but still a moon—and, if the clouds permitted, after midnight it ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... their mansard roofs and boarded windows bent their heads together like mutes at a wake, black-cloaked and hooded; seldom one showed a light; never one betrayed by any sound the life that lurked behind its jealous blinds. Now again the rain had ceased and, though the sky remained overcast, the atmosphere was clear and brisk with a touch of frost, in grateful contrast to the dull and muggy airs that had obtained for ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... in a slightly soiled negligee, answered his ring, then, recognizing him, blocked the door hastily, exposing a face overcast with defiance ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... tracks, the only ones seen since leaving the head of Long Lake, were found on the first portage, and on the second I gathered my first moss berries. A heavy shower passed late in the afternoon and the sky remained overcast; but we were not delayed, and towards evening arrived at the point, twenty miles below Thousand Island Expansion, where a large tributary comes in from the west, and the George River turns abruptly northward among the ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... Deep lines appeared in his broad forehead, his face was overcast like the sky above them; but though his features seemed to contract with the pain of an intolerably bitter memory, no tears came to his eyes. Like all men of strong character, he possessed the power of forcing his emotions down into some inner depth, and, perhaps, ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... the interwoven cipher and crest of the Amelyns still above, she was conscious that the wind was blowing more chill, and that a few clouds had gathered. As she walked on down the long winding avenue, the sky became overcast, and, in one of those strange contrasts of the English climate, the glory of the whole day went out with the sunshine. The woods suddenly became wrinkled and gray, the distant hills sombre, the very English turf beneath ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... which there is a great number in that part of Scotland. Yesterday we took boat again on our return to Leith, with fair wind and agreeable weather; but we had not advanced half-way when the, sky was suddenly overcast, and the wind changing, blew directly in our teeth so that we were obliged to turn, or tack the rest of the way. In a word, the gale increased to a storm of wind and rain, attended with such a fog, that we could not see ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... had torn in two his favorite picture of elephants in his animal book. The little girl was quite unaware of the mischief her chubby fingers had wrought, but she knew very well by the look of Master Sunshine's overcast face that in some way she ...
— Master Sunshine • Mrs. C. F. Fraser
... started at 8.30. The sky was overcast, and in any country but this we should have expected rain. We had now fairly emerged upon a district entirely different from the hateful Messaria, which has given Cyprus an unfortunate reputation. We were quickly ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... some way of taking Darnay's place in the gloomy prison; he would, by his substitution, restore her husband to Lucy's side; he would make his life sublime at its close. His career should resemble a day that, fitful and overcast, ends at length in a glorious sunset. He would save his ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... characterizes summer showers, the whole sky became overcast. The thunder increased, and the flashes of lightning became more frequent and dazzling. A wind sprang up and blew clouds ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton
... and Jenny's countenance became more and more overcast, but Andrew could think of no way in which he could take the little girl home without being late and losing his standing ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... doubled, and the ends should be secured strongly and neatly together. If the selvage is bad, the best way is to hem it at once. Kitchen dusters, tea cloths, and knife cloths, may be made of any suitable material; but in all cases let the edges be turned down, and neatly sewed or overcast. ...
— The Ladies' Work-Table Book • Anonymous
... the moon generally has all the blame for fickleness, when the sun quite as often hides his face without sufficient warning. The Fairport Guard had hardly made the circuit of the town, before the late smiling sky was overcast by dark hurrying clouds, and the weatherwise began to predict a coming storm, which was to be "no ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... heard the rumble of thunder, and, glancing up, saw that the sky above the sea was overcast with a rolling mass of dark, menacing clouds. There was a strange portentous blackness about these storm clouds that filled him with a ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... gave up the intention of examining this spot, and proceeded to the southward till four o'clock, at which time land was seen in the south-west quarter; but as there was not sufficient daylight to close with it, we hauled off to the westward for the night. Shortly after sunset the sky became overcast, the wind veered about from one point to another, the air became suddenly quite chill, the sea rose high, and every thing, in short, seemed to indicate an approaching tyfoong or hurricane. All our preparations were made to encounter a violent tempest; but we were much pleased at ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... accept him!), 'The salvation of the soul lies in resistance to it and its damnation in submission to it.' Quoth Mansur bin Ammar,[FN356] 'I made a pilgrimage and was faring Meccahwards by way of Cufa, and the night was overcast, when I heard a voice crying out from the deeps of the darkness saying, 'O Allah, I swear by Thy Greatness and Thy Glory, I meant not through my disobedience to transgress against Thee; for indeed I am not ignorant ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... pleasure he had in her society, a belief that the ground of it could not last. "If she could grow up so!" he said to himself. "But it is impossible. A very few years, and all that clear sunshine of the mind will be overcast, there is not a ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... carrying the bit of paper in her hand as if she did not know by heart the words written on it. For once, she had no guests, and for the first time she was glad of it. She walked slowly up and down, and as it was a warm morning, still and overcast, she fanned herself with the telegram in a very futile way, and watched the flies skimming over the water of the little pond, and repeated her inward question to herself ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... sad thoughts following the discovery of the severed cable. I remained in a very, very low state of mind indeed during that forenoon. The gale did not abate; nothing but the boisterous sea and the overcast sky could I see about me. Not even a seabird came to the dead whale. I was ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... to record, either of the day or the night. The latter shut down dark, but rainless, although the sky was heavily overcast by clouds. Satisfied that the river was clear as far as eye could reach in every direction, we managed to pole the heavy boat out of its berth in the creek while the twilight yet lingered, the western sky still remaining purple from the lingering sunset as we emerged into the broader stream. The ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... eve of taking place, for which they prepared the family. She had been very restless during the night. After frequent intervals of uneasy sleep, she would awake with evident surprise and bewilderment. Sometimes a peculiar smile would flit over her emaciated features; at others, they would be overcast with gloom, and she would seem struggling to suppress tears. Her voice, too, when she spoke, was feeble and tremulous; and she would sigh, and shake her head mournfully. Old Jacob Jones, not being introduced at the accustomed hour, she asked for him. When he made his appearance, she gazed at ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... moaned in the trees. It was cold and the sky was overcast with the promise of a stormy morrow. Suddenly Helen started and glanced hastily at the window behind her, ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... Continent) know that when distant features of the landscape, in an otherwise clear and sunlit atmosphere, suddenly seem almost near enough to touch, rainy weather is approaching. Likewise a conspicuous increase in distance, while the sky is still overcast, foreshadows fine weather. ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... young son. Allyn had seemed brighter, happier, more like the normal boy of his age, and his father had been hoping that some mental crisis was past, that the old moodiness had vanished. For the last day or two, however, Allyn's face had been overcast, and the doctor's anxiety had returned to him once more. Nevertheless, there was no trace of this in his voice, ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... gone from our earthly home, get to your own abode. I take the power of casting you all from here. Begone! begone! begone!" And all the devils flew up, and there was a mighty clap as of thunder, and the earth trembled, and the sky became overcast, and all the devils burst, and the sky ...
— Welsh Fairy-Tales And Other Stories • Edited by P. H. Emerson
... time it was nearly dark, the sky was overcast with heavy leaden clouds, and only a faint lurid glow on the horizon in the west showed where the sun had gone down. An icy wind, blowing full in their faces, and the hard, frozen surface of the snow, made their progress both difficult ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... now as if we have a chance," said Brigadier General Robert K. Evans. "The Germans will attack at daybreak and—by the way, what's the matter with our wireless reports?" He peered out into the night which was heavily overcast—not a star in sight. He was looking toward the radio station a mile back on the crest of a hill where the lone pine tree stood that supported the ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... it was about noon. From long habit he would have known had the sky been overcast, but now his glance at the sun was like looking at a watch. Dusty and begrimed he followed his team to the barn, slipped from them their headstalls and left them to amuse themselves with a little hay while they cooled sufficiently for heartier food. "Well now," he mused, ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... of youth, which courts melancholy as an indulgence, and loves to assume a sadness it has not had time to earn, may have had some share in, at least, fostering the gloom by which the mind of the young poet was overcast, I am not disposed to deny. The circumstance, indeed, of his having, at this time, among the ornaments of his study, a number of skulls highly polished, and placed on light stands round the room, would seem to indicate that he rather courted ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... singular enough, that the ships had scarcely begun to lift their anchors, when the sky, which had hitherto continued clear and serene, became suddenly darkened and overcast with heavy clouds: and the water, which before had been as smooth and bright as a mirror, began to rise in black waves tipped with foam, though there was not a breath of air to fill the sails. Hurricanes are, I believe, not unfrequent ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... morning, he was very much discouraged, for the sky was overcast, and by church-time ...
— Four Boy Hunters • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... to come upon the dead dingo, but though we searched about we could nowhere discover it. On and on we went, still no dingoes could we see, nor could we distinguish the track made by our horses' feet. The sky had become overcast, but though we could not see the sun, we knew that it must be near setting. In a short time the increasing darkness made us feel somewhat uncomfortable about the chance ...
— Adventures in Australia • W.H.G. Kingston
... the different uses of that word "world." In the old-time conception it was used in a loose way as meaning the spirit that actuates men in the world. The scheme of selfishness and wickedness and sinfulness which has overcast all life is commonly spoken of in the Bible as the world spirit. In that sense the world is bad, and only bad. Men are to be saved out of ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... Magdalen rose and looked out, was cloudy and overcast. But as time advanced to the breakfast hour the threatening of rain passed away; and she was free to provide, without hinderance from the weather, for the first necessity of the day—the necessity of securing the absence of her traveling companion ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... is overcast; but haply for thy grief, Though all untold, a spell I hold to work a swift relief,— A hallowed spell;—no rites we need that shun the light, Thy taper trim; for we must read some dark old words to-night. For I will, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... the depths of His wisdom He had judged, and for the great purposes of His providence He saw that it was meet we should yet suffer. Accordingly, even while we were issuing forth from the port of the town, the face of the heavens became overcast, and a swift carry and a rising wind were solemn intimations to my troubled spirit that the heartening of His countenance went no farther ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... foggy and overcast as we walked home to Goodge Street. The churches and chapels were emptying themselves, but the great mass of the population had been "nowhere." I had dinner with M'Kay, and as the day wore on the fog thickened. London on a dark Sunday afternoon, ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... customers, the day was fine to them, the weather beautiful! But on the really fine days, when the blue of the heavens brightened all Paris, and the Parisians walked about to enjoy themselves and cared for no "goods" but those they carried on their back, the day was overcast to the Rogrons. "Bad weather for sales," said that pair ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... looked glum— Each rustic reveller was dumb: Sir Wilfrid struggled hard to hide Revengeful throes and ireful pride, That, now, his wounded bosom swelled,— For in that youth he had beheld An image which had overcast His life with sorrow in the Past:— He struggled,—and besought the youth To leave his strains of woe and ruth For some light lay, or merry rhyme, More fitting Yule's rejoicing time.— And, though it cost him dear, the while, He eyed the minstrel ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... in a voice she knew was earnest and determined that he could no longer remain deaf to his country's call—that where the battle storm was raging he was needed, and like a second Sardanapalus he must not stay at home. Then for a brief season her bright face was overcast, and her brown eyes dim with weeping. Giving him to the war seemed like giving him up to death. But women can be as true heroes as men. Indeed, it oftentimes costs more courage for a weak, confiding woman to bid her loved ones leave her for the field of carnage ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... the Bay of Biscay, heading toward Cape Finisterre. We had experienced fresh breezes, but fine, clear weather, from the moment when we had left the Isle of Wight astern; but on this particular day, shortly after noon, the sky became overcast and gloomy, with a thick, murky appearance to windward that portended a change for the worse. This, however, did not greatly trouble us, for with Ushant out of sight astern, the ship heading South-West by compass, and the wind two points free, we had nothing to fear beyond such discomfort ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... after leaving the mouth of the Ohio, the boat had passed the third Chickasaw Bluff, and was within fifty miles of Natchez, when blue-black clouds suddenly overcast the sky, and a violent storm burst upon the river. Buffeted by opposing forces, the Mississippi soon began to fume and rage like a wrathful brute. The three ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... homespun, were clean and variously mended. Her hair, in a thick braid, was the tone of the heart of a chestnut-bur, and her eyes were of that mystifying hazel, sometimes brown, sometimes gray, according to whether the sky was clear or overcast. And there was something above and beyond all these things, a modesty, a gentleness and a purity; none of the bold, rollicking, knowing manner so common in handsome peasant girls. He contemplated her through half-closed eyes and gave her in fancy the tariffing ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... the election of Daniel S. Dickinson for the six-years term, in spite of the strong opposition of the Radical members of the caucus, was a triumph for the Conservatives, and a defeat for the friends of Governor Wright. The closing years of the great statesman's life were overcast by shadows; adverse influences were evidently in the ascendant, not only at Washington, but close about him and at home."—Morgan Dix, Memoirs of John A. Dix, Vol. 1, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... with the weakness of fear. Every sacrifice made to appease its violence only paved the way for a greater. Every act of my life had reference to this one master-passion. I scarcely ever spoke without watching the countenance of Ernest to see the effect of my words. If it was overcast or saddened, I feared I had given utterance to an improper sentiment, and then I blushed in silence. Very unfortunate was it for him, that I thus fed and strengthened the serpent that should have been strangled in the cradle of our love; and his mother unconsciously did the same. She ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... which greeted his eyes in the morning."[1] Therefore Cadmus leaves the purple land to pursue his quest. It is one of toil and struggle. He has to fight the dragon offspring of Ares and the bands of armed men who spring from the dragon's teeth which were sown, that is, the clouds and gloom of the overcast sky. He conquers, and is rewarded, but does ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... great object to the noblest minds in all ages.' BOSWELL. His preface to the third edition thus ends:—'When I first ventured to send this book into the world, I fairly owned an ardent desire for literary fame. I have obtained my desire: and whatever clouds may overcast my days, I can now walk here among the rocks and woods of my ancestors, with an agreeable consciousness that I have done something worthy.' The dedication of the first edition and the preface of the third ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... agony of jealousy and fear. Finally I fell into a troubled sleep. It was daylight when I awoke. We were steaming along slowly upon the surface, my orders having been to proceed at half speed until we could take an observation and determine our position. The sky had been overcast all the previous day and all night; but as I stepped into the centrale that morning I was delighted to see that the sun was again shining. The spirits of the men seemed improved; everything seemed propitious. I forgot at ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... was a dismal one on that particular day. The sky was overcast and gray, with a distinct threat of rain. The sea was gray and cold and cheerless. The fields were bare and bleak and across them moved a damp, chill, penetrating breeze. From horizon to horizon not a breathing creature, ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
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