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Darken   /dˈɑrkən/   Listen
Darken

verb
(past & past part. darkened; pres. part. darkening)
1.
Become dark or darker.
2.
Tarnish or stain.
3.
Make dark or darker.



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"Darken" Quotes from Famous Books



... other causes, contributes to the backwardness and barbarism of Ireland. Its debasing superstition, childish ceremonies, and the profound submission to the priesthood which it teaches, all tend to darken men's minds, to impede the progress of knowledge and inquiry, and to prevent Ireland from becoming as free, as powerful, and as rich as the sister kingdom. Though sincere friends to Catholic emancipation, we are no ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith

... he was frightened or distressed the colour would pass slowly from his cheeks, and strange little gasping breaths would come from him; his body would stiffen and his hands clench. If he was angry the colour in his face would darken and his eyes half close, and it was then that he did, indeed, seem in the possession of some disastrous thraldom—but he was angry very seldom, and only with certain people; for the most part he was a happy ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole

... answered him. He raised his large, mournful eyes to the festooned roses, the gilded doves, the snowy, shimmering satin, and to his fading senses they seemed gradually to darken into cypress-wreaths and funereal palls. He pressed his hand upon his bursting heart, and fell ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... with a quick gesture he turned as if toward the light, in truth to hide the flash of triumph that passed across his face. Carefully controlling his voice, he answered in a moment, as he looked up, quite composed, "Yes, my lady, I can retouch the faded colors on these margins and darken the pale ink of the Old English text. I like the work, and will gladly do ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott

... midst of his triumphs, to warn him that his power was bounded by the seas that washed the shores of the Continent. Well did Meredith say that in his last great fight Nelson "drove the smoke of Trafalgar to darken ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale

... Rivington, after all, was a secret traitor to the crown, and, in fact, the secret informant of Washington. Be this, however, as it may, as the war drew to a close, and the prospects of the King's arms began to darken, Rivington's loyalty began to cool down; and by 1787 the King's arms had disappeared and the title of the paper, no more the Royal Gazette, was simply Rivington's New York Gazette and Universal Advertiser. But although he ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... we overshot Scilly?—and is the next land we are likely to see Ushant or Finisterre? Nobody knows. The faces of the Brothers Dobbs darken; and they recall to each other how they deprecated from the first this rash venturing into unknown waters. We hail two ships piteously, to ask our way. The two ships can't tell us. We unroll the charts, and differ in opinion over them more remarkably than ever. The Dobbses grimly opine that it ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... done with man.—Thou sayest true, Women are as a sin in life: for that The gods have made mankind in double sex. Sin of desiring woman is to be The knowledgeable light within man's soul, Whereby he kills the darken'd ache of being. But shall I leave him there? or shall I leave Woman amid these hungers? Nay: I hold The rages of these fires as a soft clay Obedient to my handling; there shall be Of man desiring, and of woman desired, A single ecstasy divinely formed, Two souls knowing themselves ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie

... I my case discover, Who can estimate my grief! If a cloud thy presence darken, Nought can give my soul relief. Through the clouds let my entreaty— Let these sighs to Thee ascend, Till new light break o'er my spirit— Till ...
— Favourite Welsh Hymns - Translated into English • Joseph Morris

... for romance. This is not so—they only painted what they saw around them after the ravages of the Thirty Years' War. It must not be supposed, however, that the forecast in these pages is based on the consequences of the war; these no doubt must darken our picture of the future; but the shadows, which I have put in as sparingly as I could, are essentially the expression of a greatly reduced economic efficiency, combined with the uniformity produced by the general proletarianization of life with the absence of any correcting factor in individual ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau

... While each moment she beguiles With her sweet enliv'ning smiles, While she softly whispers me, 'Lycidas again is free,' While I gaze on Pleasure's gleam, Say not thou 'Tis all a dream.' Hence—nor darken Joy's soft bloom With thy pale and sickly gloom: Nought have I to do with thee— Hence—begone—Anxiety. Isle of ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow

... "darken counsel with words" as to methods, when it is evident that the purpose is, not to form any union which would be other than humiliating to a colored man, and contrary to the heretofore held principles ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 9, September, 1889 • Various

... comes too, an awful lookin' object as ever you see! 'Mrs. Sprowl,' says he, 'don't be scared; it's only me; won't ye let me in?' for ye see, I'd shet the house agin' him in season, detarmined so dangerous a character should never darken ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... wife? Shall one whom nature, learning, birth, conspired To form not to admire but be admired, Sigh, while his Chloe blind to wit and worth Weds the rich dulness of some son of earth? Yet time ennobles, or degrades each line; It brightened Craggs's, and may darken thine: And what is fame? the meanest have their day, The greatest can but blaze and pass away. Graced as thou art, with all the power of words, So known, so honoured, at the House of Lords: Conspicuous scene! another yet is nigh, (More silent far) where kings and poets lie; Where Murray ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope

... if shadows darken, Never fear though foes be strong; Lift your heads and shout hosannah! Praise the Lord, ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... long at Annesley that the day was nearly spent before we reached the Abbey. How did the venerable pile, with its mysterious memories, fateful histories, and poetical associations, flash out into light and darken into shadow as the October sun sank ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various

... deliberate villainy. Had the parties but seen fit to act in this manner, the duties of a biographer would have been sensibly lightened. A fair and dispassionate account of the circumstances that led to the unpopularity which clouded, though it could hardly be said to darken, Cooper's later life, demands a full and careful examination of many facts which, in some instances, seem to have no relation to the subject. Especially is a knowledge of the European estimate of America ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury

... but I had scarcely done so when my spirits fell. I walked hastily away with a coarse threatening sound in my ears like that of the clarionets whose sustained low notes darken the woodland in "Der Frieschutz." I found myself presently at the graveyard. It was a barren place, enclosed by a mud wall with a gate to admit funerals, and numerous gaps to admit peasantry, who made short cuts across it as they went to and fro ...
— The Miraculous Revenge - Little Blue Book #215 • Bernard Shaw

... her head, and he saw, or imagined he saw, the shadow of her indignant surprise darken ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... peace, nor joy until that accursed black hour standing out of the dial should have passed. Only the shadow of the knowledge of something which no living being could know stood there in the corner, and that was enough to darken the world and envelop him with the impenetrable gloom of horror. The once disturbed fear of death diffused through his body, ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev

... weight of a father's anger; but I do not wish the world to know that my daughter has been wasting her affections upon a worthless nigger; that is all that protects you! Now, hear me," he added, fiercely,—"if ever you presume to darken my door again, or attempt to approach my daughter, I will shoot you, as sure as you ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... have friends like this, who will not leave our side when the crowd ebbs, but draw closer as the shadows darken over our path, and the prison damp wraps its chill mantle about us! To be loved like that is earth's deepest bliss! These heroic souls risked all the peril that might accrue to themselves from this identification with their master; they did not hesitate to come to his cell with tidings of ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... it from fifty to ten fathoms water, a bottom of mud and sand. Its shores are covered with wood fit for fuel; and in it are several streams of fresh water. On the islands were sea-lions, etc. and such an innumerable quantity of gulls as to darken the air when disturbed, and almost to suffocate our people with their dung. This they seemed to void in a way of defence, and it stunk worse than assafoetida, or what is commonly called devil's dung. Our people saw several geese, ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook

... about it, just quietly. How did you happen to go out there? Was it because you heard that Captain Herrick was wounded? That's the way the papers cabled the story. Was that true?" Then, seeing her face darken, he added: "Perhaps I ought not to ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett

... and now the battle comes: See how the arrows fly That darken all the sky! Hark how the trumpets sound! Hark how the hills rebound— Tara, ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various

... previous lives upon the screen of the subliminal self may be invisible to us at present, but they exist there. Why are they invisible to us now? Because the more powerful light of sense-consciousness has subdued them. If we close the windows and doors of our senses from outside contact and darken the inner chamber of our self, then by focusing the light of consciousness and concentrating the mental rays we shall be able to know and remember our past lives, and all the events and experiences thereof. Those who wish therefore to develop ...
— Reincarnation • Swami Abhedananda

... will of fate to separate us. But I loved you even more. I could not give up hope. Not even when you wrote home, the year before last, that you had decided to live abroad. I got that news on the shortest day of the year. I watched the twilight darken into night until the very blackness swam before my eyes in blood-red spots. It was then I made up ...
— Hadda Padda • Godmunder Kamban

... afterwards Printed, thus express himself; 'At New-England now the Sun of Comfort begins to appear, and the glorious Day-Star to show it self;—Sed Venient Annis Saeculae Seris, there will come Times in after Ages, when the Clouds will over-shadow and darken the Sky there. Many now promise to themselves nothing but successive Happiness there, which for a time through God's Mercy they may enjoy; and I pray God, they may a long time; but in this World there is no Happiness perpetual.' An Observation, ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather

... long hand up against the blue, And, looking on the tenderly darken'd fingers, Thought that by rights one ought to see ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris

... pray 'tis so; and evermore shall be, That year by year thy honors may increase, No shadow darken thy prosperity, Nor treach'rous pitfall mar thy way of peace. My loving eyes would always joy to see Thy path lie fair ...
— Edward MacDowell • Elizabeth Fry Page

... when evening sobered all the air, No doubt but she would sit and marvel where He tarried, by the bounds of what strange sea; And peradventure look at intervals Forth of the windows of her palace walls, And watch the gloaming darken fount and tree; And think on twilight shores, with dreaming caves Full of the groping of bewildered waves, Full of the murmur of their ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson

... office within a very few yards of the same spot, though all trace of the garden of Theodosia's childhood had long ago disappeared. She was a child of affluence. Not till she had left her father's house did a shadow of misfortune darken its portals. Abundance and elegance surrounded her from her infancy, and whatever advantages in education and training wealth can produce for a child she had in profusion. At the same time her father's vigilant stoicism guarded her from ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... the shepherd Shama, who had listened with doubt in his face, started up in anger. "Pig of a Galilean," he cried, "despiser of parents! breaker of the law! When I saw you coming I knew you for something vile. Why do you darken the night for us with your presence? You have reviled him who begot you. Away, or ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke

... pea-soup, the other as dark as if some of his children had been boiled down in it—and armed with a sponge of most uninviting appearance, applies these liquids with most scientific touch, thereby managing to change the colour, and marble it, darken it, or lighten it, so as to suit the various tastes. This operation completed, and perspiring negroes screwing down frantically, it is forced into the box prepared for its reception, which is imbedded in a strong iron-bound ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... beauty of the brightest day; The golden ball of heaven's eternal fire, That danc'd with glory on the silver waves, Now wants the fuel that inflam'd his beams; And all with faintness, and for foul disgrace, He binds his temples with a frowning cloud, Ready to darken earth with endless night. Zenocrate, that gave him light and life, Whose eyes shot fire from their [82] ivory brows, [83] And temper'd every soul with lively heat, Now by the malice of the angry skies, ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe

... religious philosophy, among them, instead of a living and a personal power. You have been awakened to the truth, Mrs. Arnot, and you have awakened me. I do not feel equal to the task which I clearly foresee before me; I may fail miserably, but I shall no longer darken counsel with many words. You have given me much food for thought; and while I cannot foretell the end, I think present duty will be made clear. In times of perplexity it is our part to do what seems right, asking God for guidance, and then leave the consequences to ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... Caicus and Lycormas roar, And Xanthus, fated to be burned once more. The famed Meeander, that unwearied strays Through mazy windings, smokes in every maze. From his loved Babylon Euphrates flies; The big-swoln Ganges and the Danube rise 290 In thickening fumes, and darken half the skies. In flames Ismenos and the Phasis rolled, And Tagus floating in his melted gold. The swans, that on Cayster often tried Their tuneful songs, now sung their last, and died. The frighted Nile ran off, and under-ground Concealed his head, nor ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... beamed. Mani directed the course of the moon, and Sol drove the chariot of the sun. They were followed by a wolf, which was of the giant race, and that will in the end of time swallow, or assist to swallow, up the moon, darken the sun's brightness, let loose the boisterous winds, and drink the blood ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... ashamed to present. But though from the grace of the picture the colors may fade by time, may give by weather, may be spited by chance; yet the other, nor time with her swift wings shall overtake, nor the misty clouds with their lowering may darken, nor chance with ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... seemed to darken around her. She could not see Dale, though she knew he held her. ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey

... by us now! How should the gospel of the grace of God be prized by us! What an antipathy to glory, as now prepared and dressed up for sinful man, must they shew, whose whole wits and parts are busied to darken the glory of that grace, which God would have shining in the gospel; and who are at so much pains and labour to dress up another gospel, (though the apostle hath told us, Gal. i. 7, that there is not another,) wherein ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)

... said that Mr. Bacon was a kind-hearted cheerful-minded man. And so he was; kind-hearted and cheerful, even though clouds were beginning to darken above him, and a sigh from the coming tempest was in the air. Yet not so uniformly cheerful as of old, though never moody nor perverse in his tempers. Of the change that was in progress, the change from prosperity to adversity, he did not seem to be ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... in by lowering ranges, always looking close, yet never growing any nearer. The moon slanted back toward the west, losing its white radiance, and the gloom of the earlier evening began to creep into the washes and to darken under the mesas. By and by Ladd entered an arroyo, and here the travelers turned and twisted with the meanderings of a dry stream bed. At the head of a canyon they had to take once more to the rougher ground. Always it led down, always it grew rougher, more ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... systems darken, And our benumbed conceiving soars!— The drift of pinions, would we hearken, Beats at our ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman

... collected and put everywhere in circulation, were of a nature to terrify the imagination, fill the mind with horrible apprehensions, degrade the general intelligence and taste, and dethrone the reason. They darken and dishonor the literature of that period. A rehash of them can be found in the Sixth Book of the Magnalia. The effects of such publications were naturally developed in widespread delusions and universal credulity. They penetrated the whole body of society, and reached all the inhabitants and ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... word about me to any one," he went on, with the blood beginning to darken his face. And now he faced her. How strange the blaze in his differently colored eyes! "Lucy Bostil, there's been thet done an' said to me which I'll never forgive. I'm no good in Bostil's Ford. Mebbe I never was much. But ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey

... was so low that he could scarcely see the armchairs of the presiding judge and his two assessors. Then he was struck by the profusion of old oak panels, balustrades and benches, which helped to darken the apartment, whose wall hangings were of olive green, while a further display of oak panelling appeared on the ceiling above. From the seven narrow and high-set windows with scanty little white curtains there fell a pale light which sharply divided the ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... on principles. It often happens that the result of their knowledge breeds confusion and universal indecision; for their facts, often contradictory, only raise up doubts. The superfluous and the frivolous occupy the place of what is essential and solid, or at least so overload and darken it that we must sail with them in a sea of trifles to get to firm land. Those who only value the philosophical part of history fall into an opposite extreme; they judge of what has been done by that which should be done; while the others always decide on what ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... sight of other sleighs were lost. The cloud was not dark; the snow fell in such small flakes that it did not seem that even an infinite number of them could bury the world; the wind drifting them together, though strong, was not boisterous; the March evening did not soon darken: and yet there was something in the determined action of cloud and wind and snow, making the certainty that night would come with no abatement, which caused even the inexperienced Englishman to perceive that he was passing into the midst of a ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall

... their tramp is in the valley, And they hem the forest round! The burthened boughs with pale scouts quiver, The echoing hills tumultuous ring, While, across the eddying river, Their barks, like foaming war-steeds, spring, The bloodhounds darken land and water, They come—like ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis

... of dread: sometime of the biting of a wood hound, or some other venomous beast: sometime of melancholy meats, and sometime of drink of strong wine. And as the causes be diverse, the tokens and signs be diverse. For some cry and leap and hurt and wound themselves and other men, and darken and hide themselves in privy and secret places. The medicine of them is, that they be bound, that they hurt not themselves and other men. And namely, such shall be refreshed, and comforted, and withdrawn from cause and matter of ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele

... he had gone she stood, listening for a shot—wondering, breathless at moments, whether de Spain could get past the waiting traps. The moon came up, and still lingering, torn with suspense, she watched a drift of fleecy clouds darken it. She scanned anxiously the wrinkled face of the desert which, with a woman's craft, hides at night the accidents of age. It seemed to Nan as if she could overlook every foot of the motionless sea for miles before ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman

... above. My heart went out in wonder at the thought of the unknown lives lived in this place, the past joys, the forgotten sorrows. What did it mean for me, the incredible and caressing beauty of the scene? Not only did it not comfort me, but it seemed to darken the gloom of my own unhappy mind. Suddenly, as with a surge of agony, my misery flowed in upon me. I clutched the rail where I stood, and bowed my head down in utter wretchedness. There came upon me, as with a sort of ghastly hopefulness, the temptation to leave it all, to put my ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... villages. On the 29th of December, 1862, after 215 years of perfect inaction, it again suddenly burst forth, blowing up and completely altering the appearance of the mountain, destroying the greater part of the inhabitants, and sending forth such volumes of ashes as to darken the air at Ternate, forty miles off, and to almost entirely destroy the growing crops on that and ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... an hour or so we'll ride fur it. The night will darken up more then, an' it will give us a better chance for lookin' an listenin'. I'll be mightily fooled if we don't find out a ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler

... holy prayer from my thoughts hath pass'd, The prayer at my mother's knee— Darken'd and troubled I come at last, Thou ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... through easily, knock your wooden-spoon against the side of your sieve; put it in a clean stew-pan with the head, and season it by adding to each gallon of soup half a pint of wine; this should be Madeira, or, if you wish to darken the colour of your soup, claret, and two table-spoonfuls of lemon-juice, see No. 407*; let it simmer gently till the meat is tender; this may take from half an hour to an hour: take care it is not over-done; ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... the third day came in most auspiciously, so far as the wind was concerned; but by mid-day heavy rain clouds began to darken the weather horizon, and by their aspect, threatened to mar the pleasure of the proceedings. The race, however, had started long before this. More than ordinary excitement was felt concerning it, as the prize was to be a splendid ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith

... his cards had been thumbed to pieces, and begged them to let him have a few more packs. His friends established a telegraph by means of which they conversed with him across the lines of sentinels. From a window in the top story of one of the loftiest of those gigantic houses, a few of which still darken the High Street, a white cloth was hung out when all was well, and a black cloth when things went ill. If it was necessary to give more detailed information, a board was held up inscribed with capital letters so large that they could, by the help of a telescope, be read on the ramparts of the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... definition has no need of explanations: it is either understood at once, or it is not understood. The man who has loved understands it; and he who has not loved will never understand it. He who has loved knows that a shadow in the heart of the beloved one would darken his own: he knows that he would reckon no means too costly—watchings, labors, privations—by which to create a smile on the lips of the sorrowful; he knows that he would die to redeem a forfeited life; he knows that he would be happy in another's welfare, ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville

... whose excitement could hardly be controlled, and whose attitude and gestures while singing were very fine,—and over all, the red glare of the burning pine-knot, which shed a circle of light around it, but only seemed to deepen and darken the shadows in the other parts of the room,—these all formed a wild, strange, and deeply impressive picture, not soon to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... London had made his manuscript more saleable and had sold it without rendering an account of the profits, and for that he had been ready to curse humanity. Black, horrible, as the memory of a stormy day, the rage of his heart returned to his mind, and he covered his eyes, endeavoring to darken the picture of terror and hate that shone before him. He tried to drive it all out of his thought, it vexed him to remember these foolish trifles; the trick of a publisher, the small pomposities ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen

... You speak so much . . . as if you knew everything. It makes me sick to listen to you . . . you darken my soul . . . I should be better pleased if you were silent. Who are we, eh? Why have we no prophets? Ha, ha! . . . Where were we when Christ walked on this earth? Do you see? And you too, you are lying . . . Do you think that all die ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky

... sin to be the cause of many mental woes that darken the world, and the principal cause of the greater proportion of sufferings that fall to the lot of man. He believes that a virtuous course of conduct, guided by the burning lamp of revelation, leads to those joys that ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods

... not here! Once a carpenter's axe slipped from his hand at this spot, and it took it seven years to touch bottom." The bird the travellers saw was none other than the ziz.[132] His wings are so huge that unfurled they darken the sun.[133] They protect the earth against the storms of the south; without their aid the earth would not be able to resist the winds blowing thence.[134] Once an egg of the ziz fell to the ground and ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... down the other side, still at a gallop, and you brace your feet to keep from pitching over the driver's head. You would notice the dogs first were it not for the smells. But as it is, you cannot even see until you get your salts to your nose. The odors are so thick that they darken the air. You are disappointed in the dogs, however. There are quite as many of them as you expected. You have not been misled as to the number of them, but nowhere have I seen them described in a satisfactory way—so that you knew what to expect, I mean. In the first place, they hardly look like ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell

... Providence or any distinct hope for the future. The artificial optimism of the Stoics is alien from his whole temper; and his practical acquiescence in the existing system under the reign of Domitian only added bitterness to his inward revolt from it. The phrases of religion are merely used by him to darken the shades of his narrative; Deum ira in rem Romanam, one of the most striking of them, might almost be taken as a second title for his history. On the very last page of the Annals he concludes a brief notice of the ruin and exile of Cassius Asclepiodotus, ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail

... to-day and cast aside to-morrow! You would have me renounce my family, my betrothed, my religion, my honor and my reputation, to become the creature of your pleasures until you weary of me! Vile wretch! you are a greater villain than I thought. Go, and never again darken my ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith

... General Montcalm, who has just arrived in the colony. Bigot and his gay set are not likely to be there. My mother insists that I shall never darken the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Children may darken the hearts and lives of their parents. How many times is the mother-heart or father-heart grieved by the conduct of the children! It may be that they are only thoughtless, or they may be disobedient and wilful. Young people, cherish your parents, try to make their lives as bright as you ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor

... therefore a man is come to such a pass that he is subject neither to the one nor the other of these (both of which, through the prevalence of custom, and an evil education, cloud and darken the reason,) ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... ye, Ivan, though ye be my son, never mair shall I call ye so, if ye join the rabble that young scamp has got together, and never mair shall ye darken the doors of Dunmorton if ye gae wi' him. Noo choose between that young ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy

... opinion, sir, you are no better than some of your friends, and for my part I will never darken your door again!" ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... fear of pursuit, she would dart off again, perhaps retreading the rough path she had left. At last, she sat down, exhausted, at the foot of a tree, and looked around in bitter despair as she saw the woods darken overhead, and felt a soft storm of snow flakes floating ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens

... house at which he will not be welcome; one man who will not acknowledge him, who will not cross the threshold of Sir Stephen Orme's brand-new palace, or invite him to enter his own. He shall not darken the doors of ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... which they engage us, can fill up but a few moments in human life. On too frequent a repetition, those pleasures turn to satiety and disgust; they tear the constitution to which they are applied in excess, and, like the lightning of night, only serve to darken the gloom through which they occasionally break. Happiness is not that state of repose, or that imaginary freedom from care, which at a distance is so frequent an object of desire, but with its ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.

... coldly. "You will have it when I am ready to give it," she said, and his face lightened for a moment, only to darken again. ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... 'Darken'd so, yet shone Above them all the archangel; but his face Deep scars of thunder had intrench'd, and care Sat on his ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... lowly Baby Was the bright and morning star, He who came to light the Gentiles, And the darken'd isles afar? And we too may seek his cradle, There our heart's best treasures bring, Love, and Faith, and true devotion, For our ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various

... more than she values mine," cries the first woman who spoke. "I have kept as good company as the lady, I believe, every day in the week. Good woman! I don't use to be so treated. If the lady says such another word to me, d—n me, I will darken her daylights. Marry, come up! Good woman!—the lady's a whore as well as myself! and, though I am sent hither to mill doll, d—n my eyes, I have money enough to buy it off as well as ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... Ferrara is lovely. It wears in the tomb the sunset hues of beauty. Its streets run out in straight lines, and are of noble breadth and length. Unencumbered with the heavy arcades that darken Padua, the marble fronts of its palaces rise to a goodly height, covered with rich but exceedingly sweet and chaste designs. On the stone of their pilasters and door-posts the ilex puts forth its leaf, and the vine its grapes; and the carving is as fresh and sharp, in ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... bumpkins must not have a new made food For laughter at our misadventure here, Hence it were wise to send this fellow off As if he in the path of duty treads. Nor must we breathe but that his quick return Will fill expectant hearts with honest joy, Thus may we darken shades of memory. ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)

... moralist, elegiast, very intelligent and highly polished, whose Essay on Criticism and Essay on Man were remarkably utilised by Voltaire; Edward Young, whose Night Thoughts enjoyed the same prodigious success in France as in England, and who contributed in no small measure to darken and render gloomy both literatures; MacPherson, who invented Ossian, that is, pretended poems of the Middle Ages, a magnificent genius, be it said, who exercised considerable influence over the romanticism ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet

... the woods, the she-bear bereaved of her whelps: but there is in man a hatred crueller than that. Dumb, out of suffering now, as pale swoln corpses, the victims tumble confusedly seaward along the Loire stream; the tide rolling them back: clouds of ravens darken the River; wolves prowl on the shoal-places: Carrier writes, 'Quel torrent revolutionnaire, What a torrent of Revolution!' For the man is rabid; and the Time is rabid. These are the Noyades of Carrier; twenty-five by the tale, for what is done in darkness comes to be ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... always was about Fielding! How jealousy, spite, and the confusion of mind that befogs a prig when he is not taken seriously, do darken the eyes of the author of "those deplorably tedious lamentations, 'Clarissa' and 'Sir Charles Grandison,'" as Horace ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang

... face to come back when she had shut every other door. My father never made ony sic wark wi' me that bade wi' him respectable a' my days; but hear ye to me, Mistress Colville, I will never darken their doorstep till the day of my death." So she ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... be a great deal better. But I put on these things to please Ellen. She thought it would be showing great disrespect to mother if I didn't, and rather than argue about it I did as she wanted me to. But I don't intend to darken the place around me by dressing in mourning, child; and I'm glad you don't want me to. I like bright, happy things. And, besides, Leslie, dear, your grandmother was a bright, happy woman herself once when she was young, before she was sick and had trouble; and I like to remember her that way, ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill

... electric light which reaches every corner of the stage, has put it into the power of the stage-manager to modify his illumination at will, and to be confident that no gesture will be lost no matter how he may arrange his groups against his background. He can darken the whole stage, slowly or suddenly, as he sees fit. Much of the intense effect attained by Sir Henry Irving in the trial-scene of the 'Bells' was due to the very adroit handling of the single ray of light that illumined the haunted burgomaster, while the persons ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews

... learn; they have no ears to hearken. They turn their faces from the eyes of fate; Their gay-lit halls shut out the skies that darken. But, lo! this dead man knocking at the gate. Not one, not one, nor thousands must they slay, But one and all if they would dusk ...
— Chants for Socialists • William Morris

... in high esteem, but he found it necessary afterwards to change his opinion. He was able to throw a flood of new light on the characters of the men who took part in the struggle, and if the facts tended to darken the fair fame of some of them, the historian certainly ought not to be censured for it. The tendency of the book was decidedly in opposition to the ideas entertained to this day by the partizans of the "Old Family Compact" on the one side, and also to the ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent

... archangel, "the rude tribes of the North, the fishermen of the river that flows beneath, and the hunters of the forests that darken the mountain tops with verdure! these be thy charge, and their destinies thy care. Nor deem thou, O Star of the sullen beams, that thy duties are less glorious than the duties of thy brethren; for the peasant is not less to ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... is mad," reflected the poet; "he lives in his own bright world, sufficient to himself. May Zeus never send storms to darken it! For to bear disaster his ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... at her side and Joyce opposite to her, Joan fell to her food in her customary workmanlike fashion, and between helpings answered questions in a fashion which only served to darken the mystery ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... firmament, guide of our Nation, Pride of her children, and honored afar, Let the wide beams of thy full constellation Scatter each cloud that would darken a star! Up with our banner ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan

... land, bounded by the frontier mountains of Portugal, about eight leagues distant. The convent is shut out from a view of the vineyard of Palos by the gloomy forest of pines already mentioned, which cover the promontory to the east, and darken the whole landscape ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... procession, its waving branches, its joyful shouts, in which S. John, then young and vigorous, had delighted to take part. Then the beginning of sorrow, the days of wonder, and of terror, and of gloom, begin to darken round the old man's sight. The night comes back to him when the dear Hands of Jesus washed his feet, and when, at that sad and solemn parting feast, he had lain close to the loving Heart of the Master. Once more he ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton

... does not seem "to fall,"—to descend over the many-peaked land: it appears to rise up, like an exhalation, from the ground. The coast-lines darken first;—then the slopes and the lower hills and valleys become shadowed;— then, very swiftly, the gloom mounts to the heights, whose very loftiest peak may remain glowing like a volcano at its tip for several minutes after the ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... was. She took the dreary veil, A hopeless girl! and the bright flush grew pale Upon her cheek: she felt, as summer feels The winds of autumn and the winter chills, That darken his fair suns.—It was away, Feeding on dreams, ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart

... then, break your knots, Shoot out yourselves at length, as your forced stings Would hide themselves within his maliced sides, To whom I shall apply you. Stay! the shine Of this assembly here offends my sight; I'll darken that first, and outface their grace. Wonder not, if I stare: these fifteen weeks, So long as since the plot was but an embrion, Have I, with burning lights mixt vigilant thoughts, In expectation of this hated play, To which at last I am ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson

... Doggery!" and similar fine epithets, addressed to Wilhelmina and the Crown-Prince, fly about; not to speak of occasional crockery and other missiles. Friedrich Wilhelm has forbidden these two his presence altogether, except at dinner: Out of my sight, ye Canaille Anglaise; darken not the sunlight ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... a certain sense not wholly unfounded, is shown by Grimm's own letters to Madame d'Epinay. He disapproved of her installing Rousseau in the Hermitage, and warned her in a very remarkable prophecy that solitude would darken his imagination.[304] "He is a poor devil who torments himself, and does not dare to confess the true subject of all his sufferings, which is in his cursed head and his pride; he raises up imaginary matters, ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... that passion was the worst of all," he went on, speaking slowly. "I told her if she married young Raleigh, she should never darken my doors again—never again. And she took me at my word though she might have known it was nothing but father's hot temper. Darken my doors! Why, the brightest sunshine I could have 'ud be to see her come smiling into my shop, like she used to ...
— Alone In London • Hesba Stretton

... Cephas, in a hoarse voice—"get out of here! Get out of this house, an' don't you ever darse darken these doors again while the Lord Almighty reigns!" The old man was almost inarticulate; he waved his arms, wagged his head, and stamped; he looked like a ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... prayer was wont to be made,' in chambers on the 'third loft,' often in the streets, often in the market-place, in the fields and by solitary waysides, on shipboard and by the sea-shore, 'in the midst of Mars Hill' at Athens, and, when persecution began to darken, amid the deep gloom of the sepulchral caverns of Rome. The time had evidently come, referred to by the Saviour, when neither in the temple at Jerusalem, nor on the mountain deemed sacred by the Samaritans, was the Father to be worshipped; but all over the world, 'in ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... and leafless forests slowly yield To the thick-driving snow. A little while And night shall darken down. In shouting file The woodmen's carts go by me homeward-wheeled, Past the thin fading stubbles, half-concealed, Now golden-gray, sowed softly through with snow, Where the last ploughman follows still his row, Turning black furrows ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... sin. By our will we either open or close our heart toward God. The will is the entrance and door. The grace of God is free, and more abundant than the sunshine that lights and warms this earth. All of this sunshine may be kept out of the room if we will to have it so. We can darken the windows and doors, and keep every ray of light out, or we can have abundant sunshine if we will, by simply removing the obstacles. So it is with the illimitable grace of God. If we open up wide the door of our heart—our will—and keep it open continually, the grace will ...
— Sanctification • J. W. Byers

... wedding is quite pretty if you darken the rooms and have lights—you're going to do ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter

... secret of the matter?" and so saying he winked and made signs at the Porter. So they questioned the man but he replied, "By the All might of Allah, in love all are alike![FN185] I am the growth of Baghdad, yet never in my born days did I darken these doors till to day and my companying with them was a curious matter." "By Allah," they rejoined, "we took thee for one of them and now we see thou art one like ourselves." Then said the Caliph, "We be seven men, and they only three women without even a ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... great mystery, and one which people in these days are afraid to look at; and darken it of their own will, because they will neither believe their Bibles, nor the ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley

... it, to make a new chapter of human experience. The past may suggest, but it can do little either in directing or deterring. There is nothing in the gloomy vaticinations of Tocqueville, wise and benevolent as he is, which should be permitted to darken our future. The mediaeval antagonisms of races, when Christianity threw but a partial light over mankind, and before commerce had unfolded the harmony of interests among people of diverse origin or condition, determine ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... gaunt shoulders at him. "You think you can bully everybody and make them crawl to you,—but there's no good your trying it on with me," she had told him, and he had pushed his way out of the shop almost stamping his feet. It was clear to him at that moment that he would never darken ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... only by wit that genius offends: flowers of imagination, flights of oratory, great passages, are more admired by the critic than relished by the worthy baronets who darken the porch of Boodle's—chiefly answering to the names of Sir Robert and Sir John—and the solid traders, the very good men who stream along the Strand from 'Change towards St. Stephen's Chapel, at five o'clock, to see the business of the country done by the ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous

... yet to darken her door. The little room had been carefully fitted, however, to receive her Knight when the great event of his coming should ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon

... safety to the lost, Without Thee on a sea of darkness tost! Sovereign of grace, and kindness so sublime, Thou view'st with pity their ungrateful crime, Who, while they load Thee with degrading praise, Would darken in thy crown its heavenly rays. And O! how truly pitiable are those, By nature mild, nor truth's intended foes, Whose strange illusion yet miscalls Thee, man, Tho' chosen to fulfil redemption's plan! Who of Thy Godhead want that sacred sense, That cordial glow of gratitude ...
— Poems on Serious and Sacred Subjects - Printed only as Private Tokens of Regard, for the Particular - Friends of the Author • William Hayley

... the Duke and Duchess of Ellswold were to become nestlings in thy cradle of love?" The King's face darkened, but for a moment only, as the sunshine of full coffers had penetrated the vista of his needs, and a cloud even though it bore the after-rain was not to darken his expectations. "I beg thine indulgence to allow me to presume upon fancy. Supposing Sir John Penwick was alive and had committed a crime that made it impossible for him to seek the aid of his beloved King; that the said Sir John has vast possessions in the New World that rightfully belonged to ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... deer'st Perdita, With these forc'd thoughts, I prethee darken not The Mirth o'th' Feast: Or Ile be thine (my Faire) Or not my Fathers. For I cannot be Mine owne, nor any thing to any, if I be not thine. To this I am most constant, Though destiny say no. Be merry (Gentle) Strangle ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... embers stirr'd. Fair science unmolested left the land, That she had nurtured with maternal hand; And wandered forth some genial spot to find, Where she might rear her altar to the mind. "Long thro' the darken'd ages of a world, Back to primeval chaos rudely hurled, She journey'd on amid the gath'ring gloom, A spectre form emerging from the tomb. Earth had no resting place—no worshipper— No dove returned with olive branch to her: Her lamp ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho

... pearls that gleam in the billow, But darken the gloom of the deep— And laughter plants the pillow With thorns, where ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich

... room, breathe the same air, obey his wishes, help him with his work, was all she desired; and being at heart an incurable little optimist, she was content to weave her rose-coloured dreams, spin her shining web, with no anxiety about the future to shadow and darken her thoughts. ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... injured as Mrs. Jeffrey herself, Theo began to cry, while Maggie, with a few masterly strokes, succeeded in so far appeasing the anger of her grandmother that the good lady consented for the young gentlemen to stay to breakfast, saying, though, that "they should decamp immediately after, and never darken her doors again." ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... how long do you expect thus to dare the vengeance of heaven? You have stained your soul with crimes that would darken the pit of night; you have committed robberies, and thefts, and murder! Ay, start and turn pale when your crimes stare you in the face, you have done so before, and you will again. You thought there was no eye to witness your plotting deeds, no ear to ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison

... Then Mars cried out aloud, with such a shout As if nine thousand or ten thousand men Should simultaneous raise their battle-cry: Trojans and Greeks alike in terror heard, Trembling; so fearful was the cry of Mars. As black with clouds appears the darken'd air, When after heat the blust'ring winds arise, So Mars to valiant Diomed appear'd, As in thick clouds lie took his heav'nward flight. With speed he came to great Olympus' heights, Th' abode of Gods; and sitting by the throne Of Saturn's ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... there was no cloud to darken the horizon of their exuberant happiness and they gave full rein to ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... grew sleepy and had to be taken away. Then the little party broke up and separated. The old prince went to his rooms to read and doze for an hour. Corona was called away to see one of the numberless dressmakers whose shadows darken the beginning of a season in town, and Giovanni took ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford

... bar-ships sailing from the Haven of Good Hopes straight to Four Winds Harbor with precious burthen. For Anne was again a dreamer of dreams, albeit a grim shape of fear went with her night and day to shadow and darken her visions. ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... These tokens of pre-eminence on man Largely bestow'd, if any of them fail, He needs must forfeit his nobility, No longer stainless. Sin alone is that, Which doth disfranchise him, and make unlike To the chief good; for that its light in him Is darken'd. And to dignity thus lost Is no return; unless, where guilt makes void, He for ill pleasure pay with equal pain. Your nature, which entirely in its seed Trangress'd, from these distinctions fell, no less Than from its state in Paradise; ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... shaken them from their cradle. Still the trouble was more in apprehension than in reality. As yet it had not caused the sufferers to change any one of the domestic habits which had grown second nature to them. It had not induced them to darken the sunny sky over their young daughters' heads with a shadow of the clouds which were already looming black on the parents' horizon. It may be said at once, that Dr. and Mrs. Millar, though they were reckoned clever, sensible people enough by their contemporaries, ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler

... and positive. It is necessary to keep the gray tones pretty distinct to prevent the relation of values being injured, for while the gray tones darken in proportion to the degree of reduction, the blacks cannot, of course, grow blacker. A gray tone which may be light and delicate in the original, will, especially if it be closely knit, darken and thicken in the printing. ...
— Pen Drawing - An Illustrated Treatise • Charles Maginnis

... general's voice they soon obey'd Innumerable. As when the potent rod Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day, Wav'd round the coast, up call'd a pitchy cloud Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind, That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung Like night, and darken'd all ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... miles by seventy, for the current of the river proper loses itself in countless channels through reed-grown swamps and turquoise lakes, where the white pelicans stand motionless as rocks and the wild birds gather together in flocks that darken the sky and have no fear of man. Between Lake Winnipeg and Cumberland Lake one can literally paddle for a week and barely find a dry spot big enough for a tent among the myriad lakes and swamps and river channels overwashing the dank goose grass. ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut



Words linked to "Darken" :   change, murk, alter, cloud over, benight, shadow, overcast, darkening, shade, modify, dusk, cloud, defile, shade off, black out, maculate, brighten, stain, dim, overcloud, lighten, blacken out, embrown, cloud up, bedim, tarnish, sully, dun, blind



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