"Brightness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the men of this tribe is not bad. Although they have not the bold, daring carriage of the wilder tribes, yet they have active-looking figures, intelligent countenances, and a peculiar brightness in their dark eyes, which, from a constant habit of looking around them while travelling through the woods, are seldom for a moment at rest. Their jet-black hair generally hangs in straight matted locks over their shoulders, sometimes ornamented with ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... pursuits of life. The poems of the former class passed under the name of Homer; while those of the latter were in the same general way ascribed to Hesiod. The former were the productions of the Ionic and AEolic minstrels in Asia Minor, among whom Homer stood pre-eminent and eclipsed the brightness of the rest: the latter were the compositions of a school of bards in the neighbourhood of Mount Helicon in Boeotia, among whom in like manner Hesiod enjoyed the greatest celebrity. The poems of both schools were composed in the hexameter metre and in ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... laid for the morning meal and gay with flowers. In the cooler and darker parts of the room stood high-backed chairs littered with a dozen articles which spoke of a woman's presence; here a fan and silk hood, there a half-mended glove. As the young man's eyes fell on these, and he drank in the airy brightness and even luxury of the room, he felt a strange pang of regret and misery. Such things were no longer for him. Such prettinesses no longer formed part of his life. And then he turned, and in an instant forgot his unhappiness and his loss in the sight ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... sustain, against its terror rise, And on the dread tribunal fix their eyes. Are these the forms that moulder'd in the dust? Oh the transcendent glory of the just! Yet still some thin remains of fear and doubt, Th' infected brightness of their joy pollute. Thus the chaste bridegroom, when the priest draws nigh, Beholds his blessing with a trembling eye, Feels doubtful passions throb in every vein, And in his cheeks are mingled joy and pain, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... those wild and undescribable feelings which accompany the first entrance into a rich tropical country. I had arrived just towards the close of the rainy season, when everything was in full verdure, and new to me. The luxuriant foliage expanding in magnificent variety, the brightness of the stars above, the dazzling brilliancy of the fireflies around me, the breeze laden with balmy smells, and the busy hum of insect life making the deep woods vocal, at first oppress the senses with a feeling of novelty and strangeness till the mind appears ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... supported by the authority of St. Leo, Caesarius, Bede, and others, declares for three.[16] However, the number was small, comparatively to those many others that saw that star, no less than the wise men, but paid no regard to this voice of heaven: admiring, no doubt, its uncommon brightness, but culpably ignorant of the divine call in it, or hardening their hearts against its salutary impressions, overcome by their passions, and the dictates of self-love. In like manner do Christians, from the same causes, turn a deaf ear to the voice of divine ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... afternoon; and there would be such a dazzlin' brightness in her eyes, that I used to wonder if it was the fire of immortality a bein' kindled there, ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... saw her, what a strange brightness shone in her face, what a new beauty was there! Ah, Love, the great transfigurer! And why, too, was it that his friends began to be dissatisfied with their old photographs of Narcissus, though they had been taken but six months before? There seemed ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness, as ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... continually. Every thing went wrong. Each article put into the boxes cost her a flood of tears. Each friend who dropped in, renewed the sense of loss. She scarcely noticed her mother's pale face at all. All the brightness and busy-ness in her was changed for selfish lamentations, and still the burden of her complaint was, "I shan't have any flowers in Redding. My garden, oh, ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... the unrecognized, the white-eyed vireo, or flycatcher, deserves particular mention. The song of this bird is not particularly sweet and soft; on the contrary, it is a little hard and shrill, like that of the indigo-bird or oriole; but for brightness, volubility, execution, and power of imitation, he is unsurpassed by any of our northern birds. His ordinary note is forcible and emphatic, but, as stated, not especially musical; Chick-a-re'r-chick, he seems to say, hiding himself in the low, dense undergrowth, and eluding ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... passed through the doorway she met Black Bull entering, with Smoke at his heels. Over the youth's eyes swept a cloud of fear at the unusual brightness in the little girl's face. He felt instantly that she was going to leave him. Sad as she had been, she had brought a little sunshine into the ...
— Timid Hare • Mary Hazelton Wade
... the beginning of the day is not to be taken from midnight; nor from sunrise, that is, when the substance of the sun appears above the earth; but when the dawn begins to show: because then the sun is said to be risen when the brightness of his beams appears. Accordingly it is written (Mk. 16:1) that "the women came to the tomb, the sun being now risen"; though, as John relates (John 20:1), "while it was yet dark they came to the tomb." It is in this way that Augustine explains ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... the great hall to the brightness of midday; and when I stepped out upon the pavement, trumpets blared, so that all might know of my coming. But there was no roar of welcome. "Deucalion," they lisped with mincing voices, bowing themselves ridiculously to the ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... hidden in my heart to make my face less fair, No tear is hidden in my eye to dim the brightness there— I wear upon my cheek the rose a ...
— Fires of Driftwood • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... me, it seems that of the good Gherardo thou knowest naught. By other added name I know him not, unless I should take it from his daughter Gaia.[2] May God be with you! for further I come not with you. Behold the brightness which rays already glimmering through the smoke, and it behoves me to depart—the Angel is there—ere I appear to him."[3] So he turned, and would not ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri
... through their merriment, would be forced upon the English ministry at the point of the bayonet. But he lived to see it. Then he thought more than once of this day, of Elizabeth, with her dignity and her brightness, who had seen into the heart of one of the world's great struggles and had spoken the thought that later the cannon of a nation thundered through the earth. Now, however, he looked at her without a full idea of her meaning, thinking her only clever, and ready, and a trifle ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... of all shapes and sizes add to the brightness; and even the Shrimps, Prawns, and Crabs are coloured to fit their background. Crabs are always surprising us with their queer ways and quaint "dresses"; and here, among the Coral, it is the same story. ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... Looking at John Henry from under her lowered lashes, she felt a sudden pity for him because he was so far—so very far indeed from being the right man. She saw him too clearly as he was—he stood before her in all the hard brightness of the reality, and first love, like beauty, depends less upon the truth of an outline than it does upon the softening quality of an atmosphere. There was no mystery for her in the simple fact of his being. There was nothing left to discover about his great stature, his excellent ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... Augustina no worse; and in her room there was always comfort, and even brightness. She had a good nurse; a Catholic "Sister" from London, of a kind and cheerful type, that Laura herself could not dislike; and whatever working power there was in the household was ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of unwilling metal forced to move, a puff of air redolent with the sea striking their bodies in chill threat, the brightness of violet light stepped up to a point far beyond the lamps ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... associate snow with darkness and gloom; but, when once the snow has fallen, the sky of Moscow is as bright and as blue as that of Italy; the atmosphere is clear and pure; the sun shines for several hours in the day with a brightness from which the reflection of the snow becomes perfectly dazzling; and if the frost be intense, there is not a breath of wind. The breath that really does attract your notice is that of the pedestrians, who appear to be blowing forth columns of smoke or steam ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... just one more, and then I'll have to stop," she said with eager brightness. "My voice isn't strong enough to do much, you know, though I'm awfully glad you ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... machines the variation of current due to a varying number of lamps in use occasions a rise and fall in the brightness of the lamps which is undesirable, and hence a third class of dynamo has been devised, which combines the principles of both the series and shunt machines. This is the "compound-wound" machine, in which the magnets ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... outside world may have at that time led one to believe—I utterly failed to detect it in their faces. They were either doggedly and determinedly moving in the direction of duty, or going happily home for a brief holiday respite, as an unmistakable brightness of expression, even when their faces were drawn from the strain of the ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... soul is without cultivation, without taste, without refinement, without the sweetness of a happy mind, not all the mysteries of art can ever make her face beautiful. And, on the other hand, it is impossible to dim the brightness of an elegant and polished intellect. The radiance of a charming mind strikes through all deformity of features, and still asserts its sway over the world of the affections. It has been my privilege to see the most ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... surging sound of unloosed tongues and feet, As the encompassed town and suburbs vast, The boated river and the sentinelled bridge Swarmed, parti-colored, with the populace. The sovereign sun, that through the toilsome day No eye had seen for brightness, now subdued, Stepping, like Holy Pontiff, from his throne, Neared to the people, and, with level rays, As hands outstretching, benedictions shed. Full the effulgence flashed upon the walls Which girt the city with a ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... is it since CAROLINE RICHINGS first sung in English opera? It is an ungallant question, but the answer would be still more ungallant were it not that Miss RICHINGS is an artist; and with artists the crown of youth never loses the brightness of its laurel leaves. At any rate, she has sung long enough to compel the recognition of her claims to our gratitude and admiration. She is not faultless in her method, but she differs from other great American ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various
... dark ground of the slate he had made a round, white, full moon with his soft slate-pencil, and had tried hard to draw each cloud as it passed. But the rapid changes had baffled him, and the pencil-marks were gray compared with the whiteness of the clouds and the brightness of the moon, and the slate, though dark, was a mockery of the deep, deep depths of ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... of it a little more warmly than usual, and instead of fading it reversed the process, and became, from light, luminous. Not being able, however, to imagine the Bench a happy place, I corrected the excess of brightness and gave its walls a pine-torch glow; I set them in the middle of a great square, and hung the standard of England drooping over them in a sort of mournful family pride. Then, because I next conceived it a foreign kind of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... first I wondered when I heard the angels say that the light of this world is little more than a shadow in comparison with the light of heaven; but having seen it I can testify that it is so. The brightness and splendor of the light of heaven are such as cannot be described. All things that I have seen in the heavens have been seen in that light, thus more clearly and distinctly ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... if moved by the same set of nerves, they all turned and fled, for without the slightest warning, a part of the lake shot up some fifty feet in the air, like some great geyser, but instead of boiling water it was fluid rock of dazzling brightness even in the sunshine. Then it fell with a sound of hideous splashing, and as they turned to gaze back there was a little rising and falling, and then all was still once more, and the surface rapidly scummed over and ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... possible; but still the monotony of this new life left him enough, and more than enough, leisure for speculations on the past and future, which had a large mixture of disturbing and uneasy thoughts to qualify their brightness. He waited, too, with considerable curiosity for the return of his cousin, who, with her husband, was away from home when he arrived. She had married a neighbouring baronet, and when at home was a frequent visitor at Hunsdon; and this was all that ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... desertion, by recalling to the haunted cell of my brain vivid memories of times gone by. I rejoiced at my success, as I figured Camillus, the Gracchi, Cato, and last the heroes of Tacitus, which shine meteors of surpassing brightness during the murky night of the empire;—as the verses of Horace and Virgil, or the glowing periods of Cicero thronged into the opened gates of my mind, I felt myself exalted by long forgotten enthusiasm. I was delighted to know that I beheld the scene which they ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... she continued to stand motionless in the middle of her soft spacious room. The fire which had been kindled at twilight danced on the brightness of silver and mirrors and sober gilding; and the sofa toward which she had been urged by Miss Suffern heaped up its cushions in inviting proximity to a table laden with new books and papers. She could not recall having ever been more luxuriously housed, or having ever had so strange a sense of being ...
— Autres Temps... - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... or getting hurt and staying home for weeks. I think he welcomed sickness just so he could hide at home safe." There were tears of another sort in Miss Schmitt's eyes now. Kessler thought he detected a brightness in his wife's eyes. "No," Miss Schmitt said, "Bob was afraid of life. Just plumb scared." She refused to let the tears flow. "Oh, but I'm being a terrible hostess! I have so few visitors now. How about ...
— The Last Straw • William J. Smith
... had Jane Kimper been addressed as "Miss." The appellation sent color flying into her face and brightness into her eyes as she stammered out something about ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... the coachmen were quarrelling over accommodation for their horses. Crowds of village people were leaning against the railings to watch the dancers flit past the windows, and to catch the strains of the music. Around all this noise, brightness, and merriment lay the darkness of the winter night, and from the winter night emerged slowly the sledge, carrying the silent, ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... different flirtations—Philippa in her usual bright, laughing, half-sarcastic fashion, with the keen sense of humor that was peculiar to her. Lord Arleigh could not see that there was any effort in her conversation; he could not see the least shadow on her brightness; and at ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... understanding and brightness, Philippa had never before known in one of her own sex, and she tried to think (whether she succeeded I do not know) that she did not mind the propinquity; since a woman so rich, so fair, and with such a command of suitors, could not desire to wreck the happiness of so inoffensive ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... will I not hold My peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... down stairs to receive her guests, looking so charmingly, and her eyes flashing with such malicious brightness, that on meeting her in the entry Ned stopped to kiss her, and tell her that she was looking 'gloriously;' a performance and observation by the way, which he had already repeated half-a-dozen times in the course of the last hour. By twos and threes the ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... further. It was Madame Arnoux such as you were with your two children, tender, grave, dazzlingly beautiful, and yet so good! This image effaced every other. Did I not think of it alone? for I had always in the very depths of my soul the music of your voice and the brightness ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... back and stared moodily at the moon-painted pool where the trout, deceived by the brightness into thinking it was day, started widening ripple-rings here and there, where they flicked the surface with slaty noses; and the wavering rings were gold-tipped until they slid into the shadows and ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... not buried in matter. This is the spirit- [1] ual dawn of the Messiah, and the overture of the angels. This is when God is made manifest in the flesh, and thus it destroys all sense of sin, sickness, and death,—when the brightness of His glory encompasseth ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... leisure to look into their hearts. And now these great depths have opened before me, and I feel more childish and feeble than ever, like a frail glass which holds a most precious liquor, and gains brightness and glory from the hues of the wine it holds, but is not like the gem, compact of colour ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... hall Eugenia had thrown herself down on her bed, and was staring out of the windows. She saw nothing of the summer skies outside, or any of all that outdoor brightness. Her gaze was turned ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... fancies, accepting their lot of poverty and love as bravely and dauntlessly as other women will set themselves to bear the burden of riches and make a parade of their insensibility. The smile that stole over Gillette's lips filled the garret with golden light, and rivaled the brightness of the sun in heaven. The sun, moreover, does not always shine in heaven, whereas Gillette was always in the garret, absorbed in her passion, occupied by Poussin's happiness and sorrow, consoling the genius which found an outlet in ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac
... The brightness expressive of the gayety of her nature departed from her eyes. She looked fixedly at the man's dark face, with its gray, deep-set, penetrative eyes, its bluish jaw, and knitted brows. It frightened her, someway, as it never had before. He had magnetized her always—sometimes more than now, ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... flowers are held in esteem, and it cannot be denied that a well flowered plant has its own attractions. The long, narrow leaves are pale green above and glaucous beneath, and make the shrub of interest, both on account of their evergreen nature and brightness of tint. Unfortunately it is not very hardy, requiring even in southern England a sunny ...
— Hardy Ornamental Flowering Trees and Shrubs • A. D. Webster
... family; yet even this was not for her an unmitigated evil, though certainly the greatest loss she sustained. While Europe, during the eighth and ninth centuries, was in total darkness, Ireland alone basked in the light of science, whose lustre, shining in her numerous schools, attracted thither by its brightness the youth of all nations, whom she received with a generosity unbounded. Not content with this, she sent forth her learned and holy men to spread the light abroad and dispel the thick darkness, to establish seats of learning ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... had been impelled to a choice of lively colours as being symbolical in their brightness of the new life on which she was about to embark. There was a green cloth rendered still more hideous by being inlet with medallions of pink silk, a cornflower blue with much silver braid already becoming tarnished in the few times it had been worn, and a mauve and orange adorned with flamboyant ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... of depression came over her. The dew sparkled on the grass, the air was soft, the breeze caressing, the sun was warm on her shoulders. Yet with all the brightness on every hand, a sense of uneasiness would ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... wild about you, Baroness. We were at your concert the other night." Maude, the lean and tawny, and Beatrice, the dark and pretty, had followed deftly in their mother's wake and were smiling, Maude with steely brightness, Beatrice with nonchalant assurance, at Madame ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... and the soft light to the eye of the maiden. The elastic step, the ringing laugh, and the strong right arm of the youth, own the same mainspring. How soon do irregularities rob the face of color, the eye of brightness! Everyone knows this. The blood becomes impoverished, the victim PALE. This pallor of the skin is often the outward mark of the trouble within. But to the sufferer there arise a host of symptoms, chiefest among which are loss of physical ...
— History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills • Robert B. Shaw
... is envious; Her vestal livery is but sick and green.... Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, Having some business, do entreat her eyes To twinkle in their spheres till they return. What if her eyes were there, they in her head? The brightness in her cheek would shame those stars, As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven Would through the airy regions stream so bright That birds would sing and think it were not night. See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O, that I were a glove upon that hand, ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... body; it shall be raised in power, in incorruption, a spiritual body and glorious (1 Cor 15:44). The glory of which is set forth by several things—1. It is compared to "the brightness of the firmament," and to the shining of the stars "for ever and ever" (Dan 12:3; 1 Cor 15:41,42). 2. It is compared to the shining of the sun—"Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... blame anything but your own incomparable charms for this intrusion upon you. I am forced by their radiance to emerge from the deep shadow in which I should remain shrouded, and approach their dazzling brilliancy—just as the dolphins are attracted from the depths of ocean, by the brightness of the fisherman's lanterns, though they are, alas! to find destruction there, and perish by the sharp harpoons hurled pitilessly at them with unerring aim. I know but too well that the waves will ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... had left Penang,—another unheeded background for her arch, innocent, appealing face,—and forged down the Strait of Malacca in a flood of nebulous moonlight. It was the last night out from Singapore. That veiled brightness, as they leaned on the rail, showed her brown hair fluttering dimly, her face pale, half real, half magical, her eyes dark and undefined pools of mystery. It was late; they had been silent for a long time; and Rudolph felt that something beyond ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... is shining in its garish yellow brightness full down upon us, as we stand together, illuminating my plain, scorched face, the slatternly looseness of my hair, and the burnt ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... one of the things that we must not allow ourselves to think about, my dear," he said. "I should have rejoiced to receive you in my home, and your presence, and the brightness of your dear fair face would have given a charm to my lonely fireside; but unfortunately those are vain dreams. We have to reckon with the world, and the world would not approve of a young girl like you living in the home of a ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... resumed his former attitude, his chin resting on the handle of his crutch-stick, his eyes bent upon the gravel path, their unholy brightness ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... now nearly twelve years since Constantine, himself a pagan, though the son of St. Helena, had prayed to the God of the Christians to give him the victory over his enemies. His prayers had been heard. In the brightness of the noonday sky there appeared a sign which outshone the sun in splendor—the image of the Cross of Christ. "In this sign thou shalt conquer" was traced in fiery letters across it, and the Emperor and all his army ...
— Saint Athanasius - The Father of Orthodoxy • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... the upward curve of a bow, and motionless as they ascend, save for an occasional broad beat as they come, perhaps, to what airmen call a "pocket" in the air, and so up until they are two specks against the dazzling brightness of the sky, and you can no longer look at them—this is to me pleasure and occupation enough for a long summer's morning. Or to watch the gulls, hanging motionless head on to a brisk wind, or swooping and ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... be no talk of love any more, but—well, heavens—of anything else." Boris raised himself up a little, closed his big eyes to tiny slits, and looked dreamily over toward the forest, which drew a very black line through all the brightness over yonder. "There was once a very beautiful woman. She was a neighbor of ours. I was on very good terms with her. She was accustomed to expect me at ten o'clock at night in her park. So far good. Once I was late, and instead of ten ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... civilized man. Color, too, if distinct, not over-bright, nor too much extended in field, is in itself pleasing. The single colors have been the object of comparatively little study. Experiment seems to show that the colors containing most brightness—white, red, and yellow—are preferred. Baldwin, in his "dynamogenic" experiments, based on "the view that the infant's hand movements in reaching or grasping are the best index of the kind and intensity of its sensory experiences," finds that the colors range themselves in order of attractiveness, ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... little while, thinking, as we must all come to think sooner or later, of the vanished brightness of youth. But he refrained, as one may do in taprooms, ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... man gives nurse his hand, stops, and begins talking to her. The brightness of the sun, the noise of the carriages, the horses, the bright buttons are all so impressively new and not dreadful, that Grisha's soul is filled with a feeling of enjoyment ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... long ere this day Two broad and fertile lands, Malaja and Karusha lay, Adorned by heavenly hands. Here, mourning friendship's broken ties, Lord Indra of the thousand eyes Hungered and sorrowed many a day, His brightness soiled with mud and clay, When in a storm of passion he Had slain his dear friend Namuchi. Then came the Gods and saints who bore Their golden pitchers brimming o'er With holy streams that banish stain, And bathed Lord ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... air was still warm and sweet. Schirene gazed upon the luminous heavens. 'We thought not of these skies when we were at Bagdad,' she exclaimed; 'and yet, my life, what was the brightness of our palaces compared to these? All is left to us that man should covet, freedom, beauty, and youth. I do believe, ere long, Alroy, we shall look back upon the wondrous past as on another and a lower world. Would that this were ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... world; his heart was pure; his enthusiasm buoyant as that of a happy child; and well as Scott knew that reflection, sagacity, wit and wisdom, were scattered abundantly among the humblest rangers of these pastoral solitudes, there was here a depth and a brightness that filled him with wonder, combined with a quaintness of humour, and a thousand little touches of absurdity, which afforded him more entertainment, as I have often heard him say, than the best comedy that ever set the pit in a roar." Scott remained several days in the forest, daily accompanied ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... orchids clung to the trees, and the delicate maiden-hair fern held its own with the hardier varieties. Dusky fir-trees, groups of Australian araucarias, and Japanese oak trees and chestnuts set off the brightness of the flower beds. In the park there is a beautiful pond, from the centre of which a fountain throws a crystal spray to catch the sun's rays and dispense a ...
— Across the Equator - A Holiday Trip in Java • Thomas H. Reid
... descriptions, opinions, and facts in regard to the many distinguished musicians and artists of the present day. A little insight into the home life of the German people is presented to the reader, and the atmosphere of art seems to give a brightness and worth to the picture, which imparts pleasure with the interest it creates."—Dwight's ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... by men: they are declared to be distinct officers by themselves. Their title, government, implies, that ruling is their principal work. 3. From 1 Tim. v. 17, where the divine warrant for ruling elders shines with more peculiar brightness than anywhere in the book of God: "Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor; especially they who labor in the word and doctrine." The ruling elders here mentioned necessarily pertain to the ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... thickness, and placed this against the plate. It made no difference. The rays flew through the metal and the book as if neither had been there, and the waves of light, rolling cloud-like over the paper, showed no change in brightness. It was a clear, material illustration of the ease with which paper and wood are penetrated. And then I laid book and paper down, and put my eyes against the rays. All was blackness, and I neither saw nor ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... popular among his tenantry and in the neighbourhood of his residence, Dilston Hall. His gallant bearing and his sad fate have been celebrated in song and story, and the aurora borealis, which shone with exceptional brightness on the night of his execution, is known locally as "Lord Derwentwater's lights." He left an only son John, who, in spite of his father's attainder, assumed the title of earl of Derwentwater, and who died unmarried in 1731; and a ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... own faith he inspired Bachelor Billy with equal confidence in the truth of the story; and, by virtue of his own enthusiasm, he kindled a blaze of enthusiasm in the man's heart that glowed with hardly less of brightness than that in his own. Very late that night they sat there, these two, talking of what the future held for Ralph; building bright castles for him, and high hopes, with happiness beyond measure. It was ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... the end, He confirms and seals, by his own lips, the pardon which the repenting sinner had already secretly received. The Redeemer's forgiving love to sinners is the only cause of all their love to him. "We love him because he first loved us." Have you seen a broad, straight path of silver brightness lying by night upon a smooth sea, and stretching from your feet away until it was lost in the distance—a path that seemed to have been trodden by the feet of all the saints who have ever passed through a shifting world to their eternal home. Oh that silver path by night across ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... Mrs. Ward had bought and beautified; 'because it was so much better for the children to be out of the town.' The tears sprang into Mary's eyes at the veiled windows, and the unfeeling contrast of the spring glow of flowering thorn, lilac, laburnum, and, above all, the hard, flashing brightness of the glass; but tears were so unlike Ethel that Mary always was ashamed of them, and ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... anything, but on trying to see if they could recognise any of their friends! It was a curious collection certainly! So many pictures of old disgraceful men, whose faces seemed like the faces of toads or magpies; dull, blinking, malign, or with the pert brightness of acquisition. There were pictures too of human life so-called, silly, romantic, insincerely posed; some fatuous allegorical things, like ill-staged melodramas; but the strength of English art came ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the ladder it was bathed in light. Nick was pointing a shaft of dazzling brightness downward. It revealed spiders and split rungs on the ladder and all the litter at its foot. All the rotting framework of the place and all the disorder were drawn into the light of day. A pile of old law books became radiant, dry and ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... His restlessness was gone, and he was content to lay still, measuring the time by watching the stars that rose in endless succession above the forests, while the slight puffs of wind under the cloudless sky seemed to fan their twinkle into a greater brightness. Dreamily he assured himself over and over again that she would come, till the certitude crept into his heart and filled him with a great peace. Yes, when the next day broke, they would be together on the great blue sea that was like life—away ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... ahead of me, moved swiftly in the sea and across my way a sheet of dazzling blue brightness, and it frightened me. Often as I had seen the sea and swum in it, I had never seen the like of this, nor had heard of it. The sheet of silver fire turned and drew toward me, and I ceased swimming, and stood, treading water, watching it. Out of its midmost fires darted long streaks ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... when I could not see from the brightness of that light, being led by the hand by those with me, I came to Damascus. [22:12]And a certain Ananias, a man [living] according to the law, approved by all the Jews living [there], [22:13]coming and standing by, said to me, Brother Saul, ...
— The New Testament • Various
... recount to thee this simple tale of "long ago") upon the scene before us, so replete with quiet loveliness it is—that in every heart within the precincts of our smiling village there must be a chord attuned to echo back in voiceless melody the brightness and the beauty around? Yet oh! how many there may be, even here, whose sun of happiness hath set on earth forever! How many whose tear-dimmed glance can descry naught in the far future but a weary waste—whose life-springs all are dried—whose ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... walking up and down her room, she was surprised to see that the crystal which served for a wall had grown cloudy, as if some one had breathed on it, and, what was more, wherever she moved the brightness of the crystal always became clouded. This was enough to cause the Princess to suspect that her lover had returned. In order to set the Prince of the Air's mind at rest she began by being very gracious to him, so that when she begged that her ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... cabin. Then, when the mother was ready to read again, and Sarah and the father were sitting and lying before the fire, he brought in the hidden branches and threw them on, a few twigs at a time, to the surprise of the others. It worked like a charm; the spicewood boughs not only added to the brightness of the scene but filled the whole house with the "sweet smelling savour" of a little boy's ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... of the heavens is most beautiful here in Syria. By day the whole firmament is of a clear azure—not a cloud sullies its perfect brightness; and at night it seems spangled with a far greater number of stars than ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... upon to face Some awful moment, to which heaven has joined Great issues good or bad for humankind, Is happy as a lover; and attired With sudden brightness, like a man inspired; And through the heat of conflict keeps the law In calmness made; and sees what he foresaw, Or, if an unexpected call succeed, Come when it will, is equal to the ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... to the gangway (for it was now very dark), when, in an instant, every one of the electric lights in the ship flashed out at their fullest brightness, brilliantly illuminating the deck, and turning night into day for fully a mile round, and, under the clear steely radiance thus unexpectedly furnished him, the king slowly made his way to the ground, mounted his horse in silence, and galloped away at the head of his followers. The illumination ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... thoroughly recovered. There was a hollowness of the cheek, and an unnatural brightness about the eye, and yet otherwise, he had become well enough again to occupy his place in school and pursue his studies with the other boys. Just after recovering from this illness he wrote a short note ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... individual consciousness or will, focused at the instant into desire, which becomes the urge to creation. "The mind in creation," says Shelley, "is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness; this power rises from within, like the colour of a flower which fades and changes as it is developed, and the conscious portions of our natures are unprophetic either of its approach or its departure." The artist does not say, "Lo, I will paint a landscape; let me find my subject!" The subject ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... saw you all watching me in surprise. My mother told me of it in her anxiety. If my face matched my feelings the moon there would look sickly besides its brightness. I have been in jail for five years, and to-day I ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... Bergmanns the old Italian admitted a stranger to his room, where Rodolphe was received with the cordiality due to his misfortunes and to his being a Frenchman, which excluded all distrust of him. Francesca looked so lovely by candle-light that first evening that she shed a ray of brightness on his grieving heart. Her smiles flung the roses of hope on his woe. She sang, not indeed gay songs, but grave and solemn melodies suited to the state of Rodolphe's heart, and he observed ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... The wind rattled the open window and blew out its white curtains. It was already dark in the corners of the room, one could see but indistinctly the carvings of the wainscoting. The light backs of the books, or the gold letters on the darker bindings, made spots of brightness in the gloom. The hideous pool of blood in the centre of the floor was still plainly ...
— The Case of The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
... reconnoitre. The lane ended in a terrace with a bartizan wall, which gave an out-look between high houses, as out of an embrasure, into the valley lying dark and formless several hundred feet below. Denis looked down, and could discern a few tree-tops waving and a single speck of brightness where the river ran across a weir. The weather was clearing up, and the sky had lightened, so as to show the outline of the heavier clouds and the dark margin of the hills. By the uncertain glimmer, the house ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... likeness. He was of the middle stature, of prodigious strength and swiftness, with sandy hair, and a bright complexion, a bold, prominent forehead, aquiline nose and compressed lips. There was a peculiar brightness, an unquenchable elasticity and force visible in his forehead and his eye, even under the frost of eighty winters. His old age was not cheered by affluence, but his departure was neither unhonored, nor unsung. No American character seems to have more chained ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas
... according to the determination of the will. A man cannot say, 'I will compose poetry.' The greatest poet even cannot say it; for the mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness; this power arises from within, like the colour of a flower which fades and changes as it is developed, and the conscious portions of our natures are unprophetic either of its approach or its departure. Could this influence be durable ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... stood at the bar laughing merrily, as was his wont, and keeping a watchful eye upon any man who entered. He could fascinate other men by cheery good humour, his disregard for worry, his amusing optimism, and his brightness ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... obscure to him; for, though she unmistakeably rejoiced and soared, he none the less saw her at moments as even more agitated than pleasure required. It was a state of emotion in her that could scarce represent simply an impatience to report at home. Her little dry New England brightness—he had "sampled" all the shades of the American complexity, if complexity it were—had its actual reasons for finding relief most in silence; so that before the subject was changed he perceived (with surprise ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... lost no time in informing those who were staying at the inn of the mad freaks of his guest, and a little crowd was gathered to watch his proceedings from a distance, which they were the better able to do as the moon was shining with unusual brightness. Sometimes they saw him stalking to and fro, with serene composure, and sometimes he would pause in his march and stand for a good while leaning on his lance and scanning his armor with a fixed and ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... to salvation, was the fact that the greater number also of those who claim to be good evangelical Christians "imagine that they believe, and imagine and fabricate a faith which may exist without good works, though this is just as impossible as that the sun should not emit brightness and splendor." (Tschackert 515; Frank ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... he was sure. You see, he quite forgot the fact that the brightness of day is to Hooty what the blackness of night is to him. So, because Hooty would simply sit still and hiss and snap his bill, instead of trying to catch his tormentors or flying away, Blacky called him stupid. He felt sure that Hooty ...
— Blacky the Crow • Thornton W. Burgess
... in a state of intolerable nervous tension. Their voices quivered, and their eyes had an unnatural brightness. ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... thus delayed, I felt sure my friends would likewise have been prevented from travelling, and thus I was none the less likely to meet them. At length the wind subsided, the clouds dispersed, and the sun shone forth with dazzling brightness on the snow, which began quickly ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... orb of day emanates solely from a closely fitting robe of surpassing brightness. The great bulk of the sun which lies within that brilliant mantle is comparatively obscure, and might at first seem to play but an unimportant part so far as the dispensing of light and heat is concerned. It may indeed ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... and a couple of hours later, by which time the weather had cleared, we went ashore, and at once found ourselves in the midst of a fairy-like scene, to describe which is almost impossible, so bewildering is it in the brightness and variety of its colouring. The magnolias and yellow and scarlet hibiscus, overshadowing the water, the velvety turf, on to which one steps from the boat, the white road running between rows of wooden houses, whose little gardens are a mass of flowers, the men and women clad in the gayest ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... veil hanging around her like the shade of a summer night on a beautiful landscape, disguising and rendering obscure the beauties which it could not hide. She held in her hand a silver lamp, fed with some aromatic spirit, which burned with unusual brightness. ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... feels—and you cannot understand the why and the wherefore of it all now—but you will some day—and in the meantime you are come to be a bit of sweet garden in our midst, to cheer us as your rose cheered you—and we do need some brightness here, little Jessamine May, I can assure you." And, somehow, Jessie felt much of her overwhelming sorrow vanish at the little old lady's words, and as she helped her down the stairs she felt quite ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... dead—dead and out of her reach forever! All at once I perceived the glimmer of a white robe through the trees; obeying my own impulse, I stepped softly aside—I hid behind a dense screen of foliage through which I could see without being seen. The clear laugh rang out once again on the stillness—its brightness pierced my brain like a sharp sword! She was happy—she was even merry—she wandered here in the moonlight joyous-hearted, while I—I had expected to find her close shut within her room, or else kneeling before ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... and Windy day, after a Moonshine clear Night, for the brightness of the Night (through fear) making them abstain from feeding, and the Gloominess of the Day emboldening and rendering them (through Hunger) sharp, and eager upon food, they bite ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... of the family. The pleasure which he had in Frank's mere company and converse exceeded that which he ever enjoyed in the society of any other man, however delightful in talk, or famous for wit. His presence brought sunshine into a room, his laugh, his prattle, his noble beauty and brightness of look cheered and charmed indescribably. At the least tale of sorrow, his hands were in his purse, and he was eager with sympathy and bounty. The way in which women loved and petted him, when, a year or two afterwards, he came ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... bay, and seeing no cause for concealing his movements. There was more swell than he liked for so frail a craft, but wind and tide were favourable to the enterprise, and the night was exceptionally bright, the moon being full; this brightness would have been fatal had the inhabitants been on the alert, but under present circumstances the pale beams were welcome. Hilda took the helm; she knew every passage in the labyrinth of submerged rocks, and they were soon ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... sea, and the arched aurora rose red above it like some far gate of a land of fire. Here the Sacs and Foxes roamed free; the Iowas and the tribes of the North. It was one vast sunland, a breeze-swept brightness, almost without a ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... seemed all kindness and sympathy now. He sat close beside Ramon and took his hand. Ramon could smell the good wine on the man's breath, and could see faintly the brightness of his eyes. The grip of the priest's hand was strong, moist and surprisingly cold. He began to talk in the low monotonous voice of one accustomed to much chanting, and this droning seemed to have some hypnotic quality. It seemed to lull Ramon's ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... that he should never have thought of this before; how sudden it was; how wonderful! But the die was cast; alea jacta est, as he had read yesterday in an early edition of St. Augustine; and, when BOB rose, there was a new brightness in his eye, and a fresh springiness in his steps. And at that moment the deep bell of St. Mary's—[Three ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various |
