"Brighten" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I hope Mrs. Skene and you, and some of the children, will come out to brighten the chain of ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... disappointment to every one that she was not a boy. But Raeburn had long ago ceased to regret this, and the nickname referred more to Erica's capability of being both son and daughter to him, able to help him in his work and at the same time to brighten his home. Erica was very proud of her name, for she had been called after her father's greatest friend, Eric Haeberlein, a celebrated republican, who once during a long exile had taken refuge in London. His views were in some respects more extreme than Raeburn's, but in private ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... intended to denote. Numerous presents continued to find their way to the redoubts. Cigars and tobacco, fruits from the De Beers horticultural department, and an odd pint of wine from the casks of the Colussus were periodically received to brighten the lives of the citizen soldiers. An odd bottle, or rather an odd dozen, of "Cape Smoke" found entry at times. Impure though the commodity was—there is no smoke without fire—a little of it on a raw morning was not amiss. Some erred, unfortunately, in not ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... said John. 'This is the bright side of the life we lead in such a place. It would be a dismal life, indeed, if it didn't brighten up to-day' ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... one fully appreciates the old adage that "Blessings brighten as they take their flight." Even the tiresome become interesting when we feel we may never see them again, while the hobbies, or crankiness of the singular become entirely bearable, when they are about to be ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... Imprisoned in walls of brown, They never lost heart, though the blast shrieked loud, And the sleet and the hail came down, But patiently each wrought her beautiful dress, Or fashioned her beautiful crown; And now they are coming to brighten the world, Still shadowed by winter's frown; And well may they cheerily laugh, "Ha! ha!" In a chorus soft and low, The millions of flowers hid under the ground— Yes—millions—beginning ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... like better," said Standish. "I've got just the thing for you. Sit over on the window-sill and be a lily. Flowers brighten up ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... those houses, and it made me most melancholy, for I have never seen such want and misery. There were starving children, a woman dying of grief, and a drunken man. Truly as I saw this scene I longed to be a king for a few moments, that I might send a ray of happiness to brighten this gloomy house, and dry the ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... little grateful squeeze to thank me for speaking kindly to her. I declare I almost heard her voice telling me again that the Shivering Sand seemed to draw her to it against her own will, whenever she went out—almost saw her face brighten again, as it brightened when she first set eyes upon Mr. Franklin coming briskly out on us from among the hillocks. My spirits fell lower and lower as I thought of these things—and the view of the lonesome little bay, when I looked about to rouse myself, only served to make ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... like pois'nous spiders' webs for ever from the scene, Where in their place come crowding now the mighty and the mean; The Peer walks by the Peasant's side,[39] to see if grace and art Can touch a bosom clad in frieze, can brighten Labour's heart. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... about," said the mate, who was trying desperately for a return invitation. "I wish you could always sit there. You quite brighten the ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... the Captain off along the road; and when Juanita at last came in with her little tray and a cup of tea, she found Daisy's face set in a very thoughtful mood, and her eyes full of tears. The face did not even brighten ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... believing that, between precipitate decay and internecine enmities, the English-speaking family is destined to consume itself; and that with its decline the prospect of general pervasiveness, to which I alluded above, will brighten for the deep-lunged children ...
— A Bundle of Letters • Henry James
... duty, a disburthening of my soul, a kind of confession of facts to make, from which education has falsely accustomed us to shrink with pain, and my spirits were overclouded. This rigorous duty is performed; hope again begins to brighten, and my eased heart now ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... studious boy, and his senses seemed to brighten up in the library, where his brother was so gloomy. He knew the books before he could well-nigh carry them, and read in them long before he could understand them. Harry, on the other hand, was all alive in the stables or in the wood, eager for all ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... was what she said) in her distress. She then entreated me to come upstairs, sobbing that Mr. Barkis had always liked me and admired me; that he had often talked of me, before he fell into a stupor; and that she believed, in case of his coming to himself again, he would brighten up at sight of me, if he could brighten ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... of a whiter evening; the lamps were just beginning to brighten the city streets, and the fire burned cheerfully in Theresa's apartment. Various paintings, sketches, and books, were scattered around, and on the table lay a miniature of Amy, painted from memory. It depicted her, not in the flush ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... needs something to brighten one up . . . something out of the common round," he thought, "something that would give the stagnant organism a good shaking up, a reaction . . . whether it's a drinking bout, or . . . Susanna. One can't get ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... must see what can be done. Things may brighten. At any rate, you will be glad to learn that I am behind you in this enterprise. You have Bertram Wooster in ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... but it was plain that he failed to appreciate the situation, and this fact caused Uncle Remus to brighten up and ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... reply but raised the lantern higher that it might brighten the rough path. Unheeding him, the girl stumbled through the darkness, the ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... legitimate species of humming: but would not, we may ask, the rain from these Ladies' bright eyes rather tend to dim their lustre? Or is there any quality in a shower of influence; which, instead of deadening, serves only to brighten ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... plans for the furniture and stores of fair linen, which her old-fashioned ideas deemed a necessary part of the household outfit, and even Bessie had set her unskilful fingers to the work of manufacturing various little ornaments to brighten the simple rooms. But her chief present was to be a picture representing the piazza of the old stone house with Aunt Faith, Hugh, Tom, and herself sitting or standing in their accustomed attitudes, while Sibyl ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... lost faith in God and in woman, and it remained for her to restore his belief, to teach him that his fellow-creatures were in the main animated with the most excellent motives, and to drive away all those strange, wild opinions of his, and generally brighten and sweeten his life and turn him out a new man. She could not have explained how she was going to accomplish all this, but every maiden is at heart a missionary of some sort, and Lucy had a vague idea that the influence of a good woman was always effective in such cases. ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... and longer until all were spent. I love to think that he died with the Continental coat upon his shoulders, nor was it again dishonored by the contact: it even seems to have lent a ray of its own untarnished lustre to brighten the last dark, remorseful ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... be not stopped by a little moderation in the Democrats, it will turn the scale decidedly in favor of the Stadtholder, in the event of their being left to themselves without foreign interference. If foreign powers interfere, their prospect does not brighten. I see no sure friends to the Patriots but France, while Prussia and England are their assured enemies. Nor is it probable that characters so greedy, so enterprising, as the Emperor and Empress, will be idle during ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... fault upon Providence, or bad luck, or something outside their own power. But we seem always to be denied this happy style of thinking, and cannot put aside what comes into our heart more quickly, and has less stir of outward things, to lead it away and to brighten it. So that I fell into sad, low spirits; and the glory of the year began to wane, and the forest ...
— Slain By The Doones • R. D. Blackmore
... "it's kidnappin'. That's the trade yer. Pay down the money, Cunnil, an' this bare room will brighten to be your wedding chamber. Pah! are ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... low doorway of the fort, and approached her mother's room. The place was all very crude. Its atmosphere lacked all sense of comfort. It was all makeshift, and the stern days of the old buccaneers frowned out of every shadowed corner. Keeko had neither time nor inclination to brighten the place to which her step-father's plans had brought them. And her mother—? Her mother was indifferent to all but the purpose which seemed to keep her hovering upon the brink of ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... sensitive as a child, proud as a duchess; but, where we have plenty of genius, these things only serve to brighten it. I shall take Caroline into my own training. When you come to hear her sing again, it will be a ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... the brain To joy, and every heart beats fast with mirth And ancient fellowship, what nervy grasps Of horny hands o'er tables of rough oak! What singing of Lang Syne till tear-drops shine, And friendships brighten as the evening wanes! ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... old newspapers and when you sweep soak the papers in water in which a tablespoonful of ammonia has been dissolved. Squeeze out and throw the paper pulp on the floor you are about to sweep. It will keep the dust from flying and at the same time brighten ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various
... boozing in Luckie Thamson's, with some of his drucken cronies. Feint a hair cared he about auld kirks, or kirkyards, or vouts, or through-stanes, or dead folk in their winding-sheets, with the wet grass growing over them, and at last I began to brighten up a wee myself; so when he had gone over a good few funny stories, I said to him, quoth I, "Mony folk, I daresay, mak mair noise about their sitting up in a kirkyard than it's a' worth. There's naething ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... to be the last, then, of his intercourse with a warmhearted and lovable people. This was to be the end of his friendship with this impetuous and generous girl who had done so much to brighten his life since he had come to St: Louis. Henceforth this house would be shut to him, and all ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... kitchen, and he promised to play a tune for the boys before they went to bed; their mother giving them leave to sit up to supper with their father. He came home with a sorrowful countenance; but how soon did it brighten, when Susan, with a smile, said to him, "Father, we've good news for you! good news for us all!—You have a whole week longer to stay with us; and perhaps," continued she, putting her little purse into his hands,— "perhaps with what's here, and the ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... may, we all felt it—every one of us. The party was clouded. Cards and Clare did their best to brighten things up again, and Peter and Tony and Janet Gale played silly games and made a great deal of noise—but ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... on large, white leaves, the Fairies learned to imitate the lovely colors, and with tiny brushes to brighten the blush on the anemone's cheek, to deepen the blue of the violet's eye, and add new light to the ...
— Flower Fables • Louisa May Alcott
... for good looks, the white-throated sparrow is conspicuously handsome, especially after the spring moult. In midwinter the feathers grow dingy and the markings indistinct; but as the season advances, his colors are sure to brighten perceptibly, and before he takes the northward journey in April, any little lady sparrow might feel proud of the attentions of so fine-looking and sweet-voiced a lover. The black, white, and yellow markings on his head are ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... little fool!" he thought. Then to brighten her up again he asked cheerily, "And what else did you ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... scarcely permitted her feet to touch the floor, then toss her back on the lounge, where she would lie, laughing, breathless, and happy. With a man's ignorant tolerance he accepted her character as an invalid, and felt that the least he could do was to brighten a life which seemed so dismal to him. When he came down dressed for dinner or some evening engagement, she looked at him with a frank, admiring pride that amused him immensely. When he returned earlier than usual he often found her still upon the lounge with her inevitable book, usually a novel, ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... whose verses he had been admiring. Easy-crying widows take new husbands soonest; there is nothing like wet weather for transplanting, as Master Gridley used to say. Susan had a fluent natural gift for tears, as Clement well knew, after the exercise of which she used to brighten up like the rose which had been washed, just washed in a shower, mentioned ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... undisturbed serenity, she executed the most difficult music that could be written for the instrument, no one who saw her beautiful eyes could have surmised their inutility. Her features were expressive, and those sightless eyes apemed at times to brighten with joy, or to grow dim with sorrow. Nevertheless, Therese von Paradies was wholly blind; her eyes were merely the portals of her soul—they sent forth light, but ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... a Christmas card, but so lovely, I know your artistic taste cannot fail to admire it; and it may brighten your cheerless room. It is ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... the baggage, before commencing the downward march, Rowley and I sat upon our mules, wrapped in large Mexican capas, gazing at the morning-star as it sank down and grew gradually paler and fainter. Suddenly the eastern sky began to brighten, and a brilliant beam appeared in the west, a point of light no bigger than a star—but yet not a star; it was of a far rosier hue. The next moment a second sparkling spot appeared, near to the first, which now swelled out into a sort of fiery tongue, that seemed to lick round the silvery summit ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... flicker of the fire- gleam, stole an expression of repose and perfect trust that made him as beautiful to look at, in his high-backed chair, as the child Pansie on her pillow; and sometimes the spirits that were watching him beheld a calm surprise draw slowly over his features and brighten into joy, yet not so vividly as to break his evening quietude. The gate of heaven had been kindly left ajar, that this forlorn old creature might catch a glimpse within. All the night afterwards, ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... I'm lonely without thee; Daytime and night-time, I'm thinking about thee; Night-time and daytime in dreams I behold thee; Unwelcome the waking which ceases to fold thee. Come to me, darling, my sorrows to lighten, Come in thy beauty to bless and to brighten; Come in thy womanhood, meekly and lowly, Come in thy lovingness, queenly ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... profoundly peaceful in this climate and surroundings. Now the sunshine slipped up off the farther ranges, showing only on the light band of clouds high above the farther horizon, and a pale-faced moon began to brighten, ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... one of the handsomest men in the regiment; a printer by trade, an excellent conversationalist, a man of extensive reading, and of thorough information respecting current affairs. I said: "Sergeant, I desire you to brighten up your musket, and clothes if need be, go over to the little white cottage on the right and stand guard." ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... room comfortable, but, after all, hangings are hangings. Perhaps, now and then—of course, I would not suggest continual inconstancy—a slight change, a little rearrangement, even a partial replacement, might brighten up the dear old dwelling-place. An ideal may be clung to too fondly. When the moth gets into it, or the dust—did not Carlyle warn us against this, lest they 'accumulate and at last produce suffocation'? I am exactly ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... enchantment. Under its plastic sway the Alhambra seems to regain its pristine glories. Every rent and chasm of time; every moldering tint and weather-stain is gone; the marble resumes its original whiteness; the long colonnades brighten in the moonbeams; the halls are illuminated with a softened radiance—we tread the enchanted palace of an ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... custom at our house which we call raking up the fire. That is to say, the last half hour before bedtime, we draw in, shoulder to shoulder, around the last brands and embers of our hearth, which we prick up and brighten, and dispose for a few farewell flickers and glimmers. This is a grand time for discussion. Then we talk over parties, if the young people have been out of an evening,—a book, if we have been reading one; we discuss and ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... The place seemed deserted. A few street boys were playing on the pavement, and at the door of the in-patients' ward a little cluster of visitors were collected round a flower stall buying sweet mementoes of the country to brighten the bedsides of their friends within. No one heeded the pale scared boy as he alighted ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... P.M., the wind being somewhat fresher than at the noon preceding, and an appearance of its continuance, our prospect of bringing the enemy to action began to brighten, as I perceived we were coming up with the chase fast, and every inch of canvas being set that could be of service, except the bog reefs which I kept in the topsails, in case of the chase, finding an escape from our thunder impracticable, should ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... "Give me your hand, Isabel; for your lovely sake I pardon Claudio. Say you will be mine, and he shall be my brother too." By this time lord Angelo perceived he was safe; and the duke observing his eye to brighten up a little, said, "Well, Angelo, look that you love your wife; her worth has obtained your pardon: joy to you, Mariana! Love her, Angelo! I have confessed her, and know her virtue." Angelo remembered, when drest in a little brief authority, how hard ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... awkwardly in check. Everybody rose. Lake lost his head and caught himself on the verge of saying, 'Must you go?' Then began the farrago of leave-taking. 'So nice of you—' 'I am awfully sorry' 'By Jove! how things did brighten—' 'Really ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... concluded his report, the president arose. "Brethren," he said, encouragingly, "our night begins to brighten—the day is breaking. Let us, therefore, be vigilant, active, and undaunted. Gather around you the circles of the faithful; initiate and arm them; teach them to be ready for the battle-cry, that they may rise and fight, all ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... from his pipe very slowly and deliberately, and put it away; then he seemed to brighten suddenly, and said briskly: "Well, Lizzie! Are ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... the intellect can never pall, but do constantly increase and brighten, because in them the soul enters its native province and acts in that sphere which is its own for all eternity. Yet how do they all lead the mind up to its great Creator! Not a single discovery in science, not an investigation of the simplest ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... besides its lightness. If any food containing a weak acid, like vinegar and water, is put into a copper kettle, some of the copper dissolves and goes into the food; acid does not affect aluminum except to brighten it if it has been discolored by an alkali like soda. "Tin" dishes, so called, are only iron with a coating of tin. The tin soon wears off, and the iron rusts; aluminum does not rust in moisture. A strong alkali will destroy it, but no alkali in common use in the kitchen ...
— Diggers in the Earth • Eva March Tappan
... now ensued between Goisvintha and Hermanric, and while each stood absorbed in deep meditation, the dark prospect spread around them began to brighten slowly under a soft, clear light. The moon, whose dull broad disk had risen among the evening mists arrayed in gloomy red, had now topped the highest of the exhalations of earth, and beamed in the wide heaven, adorned once more in her pale, accustomed hue. ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... hour I improved. I slept, I lay quietly awake, I partook of nourishing food. I listened and watched, and all the time I gained. But I spoke very little, and though I tried to brighten when Steele was in the room I made only indifferent success of it. Days passed. Sally was almost always with me, yet seldom alone. She was grave where once she had been gay. How I watched her face, praying for that shade to lift! How I listened for a note of the old ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... harvester claimed them all with impartial cruelty. And he—desolate and lonely—with no one greatly to care if he came back or no—with not a single golden thread of hope to which he might cling, without a dream to brighten the coming days of dreariness—with a life in the future that could hold nothing but vain regrets, Bobby had sought Death twenty times to-day and Death had ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... of worryin' yer brains out over Latin, Greek and astronomy, when there's my amount of fun to be had? Come; a little mite of society will brighten up yer ideas. Now listen to me, lad. There's goin' to be a big ball given at the mayor's, and d'ye remimber the darlint little craythur ye met on the street ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... days his pride in the affair had lost its first acuteness, though it had continued to brighten every moment of his life, and though he had not ceased to regret that he had no intimate friend to whom he could recount it in solemn and delicious intimacy. Now, philosophically, he stamped on his ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... inland he would return by choice across the Downs, and in the patriarchal valleys where nothing is heard but the bell-wether he would stand in the great, lonely darkness, and see the lights of Brighton brighten the sky above the ridges, and climbing up the ridges, he gazed on the vague sea, and the long string of coast towns were ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... of the Egyptian desert in front of them, though the ill-treatment of their companion had left them in no humour for the appreciation of its beauty. When the sun had sunk, the horizon had remained of a slaty-violet hue. But now this began to lighten and to brighten until a curious false dawn developed, and it seemed as if a vacillating sun was coming back along the path which it had just abandoned. A rosy pink hung over the west, with beautifully delicate sea-green tints along the upper edge of it. Slowly these ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 'A rib of Shakespeare,' he says, 'would have made a Milton: the same portion of Milton all poets born ever since.' But he speaks of Shakespeare in conventional terms, and seldom quotes or alludes to him. When he touches Milton his eyes brighten and his voice takes a tone of reverent enthusiasm. His ear is dissatisfied with everything for days and weeks after the harmony of 'Paradise Lost.' 'Leaving this magnificent temple, I am hardly to be pacified by the ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... very nice; but you ought not to be in half mourning now. I like to see young people in colors. And then there is that gold-and-white brocade, Ruth, that you wore at the drawing-room last year. It is a beautiful dress, but rather too quiet. Could not you brighten it up with a few cherry-colored bows about it, or a sash? I always think a sash is so becoming. If you were to bring it down, I dare say I could suggest something. And you must be well dressed, for though he only says 'friends,' you never can tell ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... when, taking note that they were soaked through and through, and liberally splashed with the mud cast up by their nags' hooves (circumstances which are not of a kind to add to one's dignity), they, after long silence, the sky beginning to brighten a little, began to converse. And Messer Forese, as he rode and hearkened to Giotto, who was an excellent talker, surveyed him sideways, and from head to foot, and all over, and seeing him in all points in so sorry and scurvy a trim, and recking nought of his own ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... a wave of his hand toward the promoter, "are, if I may use the comparison, the garden walks upon which we tread through life, viewing upon either side of us the flowers which brighten that journey. It is my pleasure to be able to lay out a walk or two. Mrs. Blaylock, sir, is one of those fortunate higher spirits whose mission it is to make the flowers grow. Perhaps, Mr. Bloom, you ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... four bare walls, on the uncarpeted floor where even the tall, gaunt old clothes-press seemed to shiver with discomfort, the cold was extreme. As there was no fireplace in the room they determined to set up a stove, of which the purring, droning murmur assisted to brighten their solitude a bit. ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... idle declaimers! how is it ye say, That affection and tenderness fade and decay? Though so easily pain'd, they endure like a gem, And the heart and the mind imbibe colour from them! In affliction they brighten, in absence refine, And are causes of ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... on this, the anniversary of our National Independence, surrendered to the invincible troops of the Army of the Tennessee. The achievements of this hour will give a new meaning to this memorable day, and Vicksburg will brighten the glow of the patriot's heart which kindles at the mention of Bunker Hill and Yorktown. This is indeed an auspicious day for you. The God of Battle is with you. The dawn of a conquered peace is breaking upon you. The plaudits of an admiring world will hail you wherever you go, and ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge
... Behind her physical and mental attributes, and half revealed by them, there was something deeper: the real personality of the girl. It was elusive, mystic, with a spark of immaterial radiance which might brighten human love with its transcendent glow; but, as he dimly realized, if he won her by force, it might recede and vanish altogether. He could not, with strong ardor, compel its ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... by a sense of the high ground he holds on the floor of this House, as from the professions of a desire to conciliate, which he has so repeatedly made during the session. We have been invited to bury the hatchet, and brighten the chain of peace. We were disposed to meet on middle-ground. We had assurances from the gentleman that he would abstain from reflections on the past, and that his only wish was that we might unite in future in promoting ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... frankly confess to emotions of a very positive character, in contemplating the associations of the table, and I admit farther, that I take pleasure in the reality as well as in the imagination. I like to be 'one of the company,' whether in palace or in farm-house. I always brighten up when I see the dining-room door thrown open to an angle hospitably obtuse, and am pleased alike with the politely-worded request, 'Will the ladies and gentlemen please walk out and partake of some ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... produce the same impression on their public? Why, for instance, did the late Mme. Tietjens, when singing the following passage in Handel's Messiah, always begin with very little voice of a dulled quality, and gradually brighten its character as well as augment its volume until she reached the high G-[sharp] which is the culmination, not only of the musical phrase, but also of the tremendous announcement ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... these sketches should be mainly to collect a variety of ideas which may brighten the mind when there is occasion to use its inventive faculties. Suggestive hints are wanted; rarely will it be possible, or wise, to repeat anything exactly as you see it. These sketches, if made with care, and from what Constable used to call "breeding subjects," ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... the dark, My daughter, dear as my soul! You see but a part of the gloomy world, But I—I have seen the whole, And I know each step of the fearsome way, Till the shadows brighten to open day. ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock
... henna rinse would brighten your hair, Kate—and lots of nice women have them. But you'll have to have a shampoo, you know. The henna rinse is used with a shampoo. I believe I'd have one if I were you, Kate. You never could tell it in the world. And it's good for the hair, ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... pride when he quarreled with his father about—well, it was about his marriage, as you know, Mr. Emblem; he came to London, and tried to make his way by writing, and thought to do it, and either to hide a failure or brighten a success, by using a pseudonym. People were more jealous about their names in those days. He had better," added the unsuccessful veteran of letters, "he had far better have made his living as a—as a"—he looked about him for a ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... sky began to brighten to the eastward, but there was no let-up to the wind or sea. If anything it was breezing up. At six o'clock, when the short blasts of the lightship split the air abreast of us, things were good and lively, but there ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... in fall things brighten a little. Those are the seasons of processions and religious festivals. Almost every day then, and sometimes half a dozen times in a day, the Judge and the baby may see some Italian society parading through the ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... yanking it down with one single tug began to busy herself adroitly with a snarl in the picture-cord. Like a withe of willow yearning over a brook her slender figure curved to the task. Very scintillatingly the afternoon light seemed to brighten suddenly across her lap. You'll Be a Long Time Dead! glinted the motto through ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... do," maintained Mrs. King stoutly. "Folks must have something to brighten up their lives. ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... music interrupts him—a quick rag. The patients brighten, hum, whistle, sway their heads or tap their feet in time to the tune. Doctor Stanton and Doctor Simms appear in the doorway from the hall. All ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... she?" wheezed the fat Sturgeon, with something like enthusiasm. "Now we'll brighten up! By Jove, that's good news. ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... "where constant association with agreeable companions and the influence of well-bred college men in a clean and healthy moral atmosphere make for noble manhood; a place where athletic sports harden the muscles, tan the skin, broaden the shoulders, brighten the eye, and send each lad back to his school work in the fall as brown as a berry ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... strong; the hands, like the rest of the body, were plump, and the fingers thick and short. There was nothing striking about his general expression; but when the conversation turned upon music, and especially if Beethoven were the topic of discussion, his eyes would brighten at once, and the whole face light ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... words. "The thought deeply impressed me," said Mrs. Bronson, "that one who had lifted so many souls above the mere necessity for living in a troublesome world deserved from those permitted to approach him their best efforts to brighten his personal life.... The little studies for his comfort, the small cares entailed upon me during the too brief days and weeks when his precious life was partly entrusted to my care, might seem to count for little in an existence far removed ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... on the other side of the path. Youth is always quick and generous; it never stops to weigh causes or to reason why. And strange, its judgment is almost always unerring. I am going to share my dinner with you to-night. I'll try to brighten ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... the faith of others while in uncertainty myself. Others had doubted and had afterwards believed; for the doubter silence was a duty; the blinded had better keep their misery to themselves. I found some practical relief in parish work of a non-doctrinal kind, in nursing the sick, in trying to brighten a little the lot of the poor of the village. But here, again, I was out of sympathy with most of those around me. The movement among the agricultural laborers, due to the energy and devotion of Joseph Arch, was beginning to be talked of in the fens, ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... to his own recorded voice, rubbed the sunstone on his left finger with the heel of his right palm and watched it brighten. There was, he noticed, a boastful ring to his voice—not the suave, unemphatic tone considered proper on a message-tape. Well, if anybody wondered why, when they played that tape off six months from now in Johannesburg on Terra, they could look in the cargo ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... grip in the chest which is a real, physical pain, though the hurt be given to the soul of a man, slowed Dade's steps to a lagging advance towards the tableau the two made on the steps. So had the senorita sent him dizzy with desire (and with hope to brighten it) in the two weeks and more that he had been the honored guest. So had she laughed and teased him and mocked him; and he had believed that to him alone would she show the sweet whimsies of her nature. But from the moment when he laid her gold thimble in her waiting hand and got no reward save an ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... beautiful and delicious fruits we always have the power of giving pleasure to others, and he's a churl and she a pale reflection of Xantippe who does not covet this power. The faces of our guests brighten as they snuff from afar the delicate aroma. Our vines can furnish gifts that our friends will ever welcome; and by means of their products we can pay homage to genius that will be far more grateful than commonplace compliments. I have seen a letter from the Hon. Wm. C. ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... found for him, living twenty miles from Ukleevo, called Varvara Nikolaevna, no longer quite young, but good-looking, comely, and belonging to a decent family. As soon as she was installed into the upper-storey room everything in the house seemed to brighten up as though new glass had been put into all the windows. The lamps gleamed before the ikons, the tables were covered with snow-white cloths, flowers with red buds made their appearance in the windows and in the front garden, and at dinner, instead of eating from a single ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Evelyns had staid longer," said Hugh. "I think you have wanted something to brighten you up. They did you a great deal of good last year. I am afraid all this taking care of Philetus and Earl Douglass is too much ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... independent spirit, and that ingenuous modesty, qualities inseparable from a noble mind, are, with the million, circumstances not a little disqualifying. What pleasure is in the power of the fortunate and the happy, by their notice and patronage, to brighten the countenance and glad the heart of such depressed youth! I am not so angry with mankind for their deaf economy of the purse:—the goods of this world cannot be divided without being lessened—but why be a niggard of that which bestows bliss on a fellow-creature, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... go to mass in the morning, but lay awake in the white-washed room, hearing footsteps and voices below, and watching the morning light brighten on the wall. He found himself wondering once or twice what Chris was doing, and how he felt; he did not rise till one of his men looked in to tell him that Dr. Layton would be ready for him in ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... that lay duty and the army. "Look once more, my cavalier," said I to myself; "look once more, for the moments are short, and in the days to come, in the dreary bivouacs and on the long marches, when the world seems bare and cold, the memory of that sweet face will brighten up with sunshine your existence and make it all glorious again. Oh, ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... sediments of the sea draw themselves, in process of time, into smooth knots of sphered symmetry; burdened and strained under increase of pressure, they pass into a nascent marble; scorched by fervent heat, they brighten and blanch into the snowy rock of Paros and Carrara. The dark drift of the inland river, or stagnant slime of inland pool and lake, divides, or resolves itself as it dries, into layers of its several elements; slowly purifying each by the patient withdrawal of ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... occasion, from the seclusion of some deep sea-chest; men, weather-beaten and stooped, in grey flannel shirtsleeves, showing an occasional genteel Sabbath coat from the Glen; bright-eyed lasses, with gay touches of finery to brighten their young beauty; youths in heavy boots and homespun clothing, gathered in laughing groups as far from the house as possible; and everywhere ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... me of more visits like this, I'd move to where there was one. You can't imagine how refreshing it is, in the midst of the lonely grind, to have you come in and brighten things up." ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... heaven,—the imperial star Of Jove, and she that from her radiant urn Pours forth the light of love. Let me believe, Awhile, that they are met for ends of good, Amid the evening glory, to confer Of men and their affairs, and to shed down Kind influence. Lo! they brighten as we gaze, And shake out softer fires! The great earth feels The gladness and the quiet of the time. Meekly the mighty river, that infolds This mighty city, smooths his front, and far Glitters and burns even to the rocky base Of the dark heights that bound him to the west; And a deep murmur, from ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... winter months that penny readings and smoking concerts are so much appreciated in the country. Too much cannot be done in this way to brighten the life of the village during the cold, dark days of December and January, for the labouring man hates reading ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... sanctifies it in the Soul, and gives it its proper Value. Such an habitual Disposition of Mind consecrates every Field and Wood, turns an ordinary Walk into a morning or evening Sacrifice, and will improve those transient Gleams of Joy, which naturally brighten up and refresh the Soul on such Occasions, into an inviolable and perpetual State ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... its preservation of Nature's gifts, and despite its forced smiles, the face of a selfish, cruel pessimist, disappointed in her past and with no uplifting faith to brighten the future. ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... didn't have any smell at all," said Mr. Milford, not as if he expected anyone to remember, but that he happened to think of it. A slowly dawning recollection began to brighten in Georgina's eyes. ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... but nothing positive. Finally, at eleven o'clock, just as they have given up all hope of seeing any improvement, it clears up in a degree,—against its will,—and allows two or three depressed and tearful sunbeams to struggle forth, rather with a view to dishearten the world than to brighten it. ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... into this desperate, unexpected conflict? One reason may possibly be, that by it, we may be aroused to a living sense of the great value of our inheritance, the Union, when threatened with its loss. 'Blessings brighten as they take their flight.' Benefit's daily enjoyed, with hardly a care or effort on our part, are not prized as they should be. When, however, we are threatened with their loss, we awaken from indifference. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of the good man is somewhat different. He must be good according to their highest standard of goodness. He must be kind to the poor, not only in a general way, but with particular and unfailing attention to their every want and misfortune. Their joys he must brighten and their sorrows he must alleviate. In emergency, in catastrophe, in misunderstanding with employers and with the law, he must be their strong tower of help. Let him in all these things fill up their ideal of the 'good man' and he has their votes ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes
... was sometimes hard and bitter, especially when they were in charge of a cruel overseer on a large plantation. But it was not always so. For it is pleasant to think that when they had good masters, there were many things to cheer and brighten their lives. We know that household slaves often lived in the most ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... would be stood on the shelf in the English country house where Sally Duggan's Life of Father Damien in verse would join it one of these days. There were ten or twelve little volumes already. Strolling in at dusk, Sandra would open the books and her eyes would brighten (but not at the print), and subsiding into the arm-chair she would suck back again the soul of the moment; or, for sometimes she was restless, would pull out book after book and swing across the whole space of her life like an acrobat ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... took down the sword from the crook, where it had hung untouched ever since the lieutenant's death, and delivered it to the corporal to brighten up;—and having detained Le Fever a single fortnight to equip him, and contract for his passage to Leghorn,—he put the sword into his hand.—If thou art brave, Le Fever, said my uncle Toby, this will not fail thee,—but Fortune, said he ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... don't you go and say such a thing as that again. You weren't acting, and so I tell you; only doing your duty to your king and country, and your father and mother into the bargain. You can't do fighting without a bit of show along with it to brighten it up. You ask a man whether he'd like to wear a feather in his cap, and a bit o' scarlet and gold on his back, he'll laugh at you and say that such things are only for women. But don't you believe him, my lad; he won't own it, but he likes it all ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... grass of last fall. It is very difficult to tell when the grass of last fall became the grass of this spring. It looks "warmed over." The green is rusty. The lilac-buds have certainly swollen a little, and so have those of the soft maple. In the rain the grass does not brighten as you think it ought to, and it is only when the rain turns to snow that you see any decided green color by contrast with the white. The snow gradually covers everything very quietly, however. Winter comes back without the least noise ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner |
