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Darkening   /dˈɑrkənɪŋ/  /dˈɑrknɪŋ/   Listen
Darkening

noun
1.
Changing to a darker color.  Synonym: blackening.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Darkening" Quotes from Famous Books



... depart with the passing of the darkness. Something was wrong, radically wrong at the Echo Creek ranch house. Since the unexpected home coming of Red Reckless there had been a subtle difference, a ruffling of the waters which usually ran so placidly at the country home, a darkening and disturbation of the surface which hinted at hidden whirlpools and ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory

... reflected Dick, looking back at the dejected figure in the darkening room. Being a simple youth, he felt vaguely uncomfortable at the sight of such trouble over the doings of one who was no relation, and began to take a little blame to himself for thinking ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone

... COLONEL, darkening, 'Steve knows what it is; Amy doesn't as yet. The simple soul has given herself away so innocently that it is almost a shame to take notice of it. But I must, Steve. Come, man, it can't be difficult ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie

... become a rule, and finally an imperious governor, the resolves and impulses of former days faded imperceptibly out of being, and at last almost out of recollection. It is at best so easy to forget our youth; in his case it was but natural that his own sufferings and the mystery darkening the fate of his family should move him less and less as, in hope at least, he approached nearer and nearer the goals which occupied all his visions. Only let us ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... thoughts buffeted each other, and the Bishop sighed, and threw away his cigar, and then stopped and stared out at the darkening, great ocean. The steady rush and pause and low wash of retreat did ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... overrun, and the ports of Dungarvan, Youghal, and Cork, being also taken and garrisoned by the founder of the earldom of Desmond, easy entrance and egress by sea could always be obtained for his allies, auxiliaries, and supplies. It was when these dangers were darkening and menacing on every side that the family of McCarthy, under a succession of able and vigorous chiefs, proved themselves worthy of the headship of the Eugenian race. Cormac McCarthy, who had expelled the first garrison from Waterford, ere he fell in a parley before Cork, had defeated the ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... Problems" lay open on the desk before him, but he looked instead beyond through the clear curving glass windows toward the sweep of green hills and darkening sky and the shadows of the lower forests that gave Fair Oaks its name. Beside him unfinished lay the summaries of the day's experiments, and the unorganized, hurriedly jotted notes for tomorrow's work. The old intellectual alertness was gone. Delight in changing theory, in careful ...
— Security • Ernest M. Kenyon

... infirmity of their colouring matter. On the other hand, pigments and bases are subject to deoxidation, or to a loss of oxygen, in which case the colour is apt to deepen. Pigments generally are more affected by oxidation and fading in a water vehicle, and by deoxidation and darkening ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field

... Union blue. With a little band of heroes about him, he is posted on a projecting rock, which is scarred with bullets, and in full view of both armies. His head is uncovered, his hair streaming in the wind, his face upturned in the darkening daylight, and from his soul is going up a prayer,—a prayer for Sheldon and Cranor. He turns his eyes to the northward, and his lip tightens, as he throws off his coat, and says to his hundred men,—"Boys, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various

... said Sir Nicholas. Mr. Stewart did not speak. Lady Maxwell looked up quickly at him as he sat on her right facing the window; and saw an expression of slight disturbance cross his face. He was staring out on to the quickly darkening terrace, past Sir Nicholas, who with pursed lips and a little frown was stripping off his grapes from the stalk. The look of uneasiness deepened, and the young man half rose from his chair, and ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... of utter loneliness, All hope of safety, all desire of peace, All but the loathed forefeeling of blank death,— Part of that spirit which doth ever brood In patient calm on the unpilfered nest Of man's deep heart, till mighty thoughts grow fledged To sail with darkening shadow o'er the world, 300 Filling with dread such souls as dare not trust In the unfailing energy of Good, Until they swoop, and their pale quarry make Of some o'erbloated wrong,—that spirit which Scatters great hopes in the seed-field ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... the west prairie and the sunset, and slowly they passed out of its passing radiance down to the darkening spaces of ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter

... revelry! Soon night Drew his murky curtains round The world, while a star of lustre bright Peep'd from the blue profound. Yet what cared we for darkening lea, Or warning bell remote? With rush and cry we scudded by, And seized ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... of barren rock and glacial cleft, now purpling and darkening as the sun mellowed in its decline, lay the kingdom of Jugendheit; and toward this the wayfarer gazed meditatively, absorbing little or nothing of the exquisite panorama. By and by his gaze wavered, and that particular patch ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath

... openly accused certain "important organs" of deliberately darkening the truth and falsifying the facts. The audience thereupon gave three groans for a paper called the "Times," once respectably edited, now deservedly held as cheap as an epigram of Mr. Carlyle's or a promise to pay dated at Richmond. He showed the monstrous absurdity ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... with saffron and transcendental green, and half the lake shone in ethereal splendor; the other half was dim and bordered with the sharply-cut shadows of the trees. Except for the lap of water upon the pebbles and the wild cry of a loon that rang like a peal of unearthly laughter out of a darkening bay, there was nothing to break the deep stillness of ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss

... burden of her cargo, while I lived the life of youth in ignorance and hope. She lumbered on through an interminable procession of days; and the fresh gilding flashed back at the setting sun, seemed to cry out over the darkening sea the words painted on her stern, 'Judea, London. Do ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad

... whole peoples have been robbed of that last and dearest possession!" said Paulo, his brow suddenly darkening, "and not, as in your case, to save life and liberty, but for the purpose ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... sun blazed low in the west in a notch of the canyon ramparts, and one wall was darkening into purple shadow while the other shone through a golden haze. It was a weird, wild world to Shefford, and every few strides he caught his breath and tried to realize actuality ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... was on her plate, did not perceive the sudden astonished darkening of Wilmot Allen's face, nor that the interest which he had hitherto only feigned in her new model had ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris

... her into the little skiff in silence; and as the Sea Foam glided over the rippling waters a profound stillness seemed to descend over the darkening landscape. ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice

... west, the pomp of the then lonely woods of Richmond, were before us, behind and about us the darkening room, and on the stony face of the sufferer—for the character of his face, though still gentle and sweet, was changed—rested that dim, odd glow which seems to descend and produce, where it touches, lights, sudden though faint, which are lost, ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... down upon the forest pond, An elfin tarn green-shadowed in the fern; Nine yews ensomber the wet bank, beyond The autumn branches of the beeches burn With yellow flame and red amid the green, And patches of the darkening ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer

... he uttered, but all in the same subdued tone of tenderness. In the presence of helpless suffering, and in the fast-darkening shadow of the Destroyer, he forgot all but his Christian humanity, and cared more about consoling his fellow-man than ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... I settled down in our nursery, and through the darkening of that first evening she talked to me of my mother. It seems to me very wonderful how one woman can so devotedly love the children of another, but was it not greatly for the love of that other woman that Nannie loved us so much? It is her figure, I know, that Nannie sees when she shuts her eyes ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss

... the train is considered a ship. It is a case of going to "Sick Bay" and of "out pipes" at nine o'clock. They talk of "darkening the ship" when the blinds are pulled and the lights covered. We arrived at Hull when it was dusk, and at the station was, among other persons, Lady Nunburnholme, whose husband is the chief owner of the Wilson Line of steamships, and who takes a deep interest in the ambulance trains ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall

... guard to take good care of his luggage, hurled a shilling at the porter, and ran for a carriage. At that moment he became aware of Dobson hurrying through the entrance. He must have met Leon and heard news from him, for his face was red and his ugly brows darkening. ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan

... Chief Magistrate, Counsellors, Judges, Senators, and Representatives of the nation, distinguished officers of the army and the navy, and the honored Ambassadors from foreign powers,—these symbols and badges of a universal mourning, darkening this hall into sympathy with our sorrow, leave no place for the question, 'Know ye not that a prince and a great man is fallen in Israel?' Near to us, indeed, has come the invisible hand of the Almighty—that hand in which is the soul of every living thing, and the breath ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... as he rode down the steep declivity that day, loomed a very different Torn from that which he had approached sixteen years before, when, as a little boy he had ridden through the darkening shadows of the night, perched upon a great horse behind the little old woman, whose metamorphosis to the little grim, gray, old man of Torn their advent to the castle ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... clouds as he resumed in earnest his weary journey. Each yard of ground passed was now a battle gained—every breath drawn a sobbing groan. Hills and dales rose successively before him, clothed in the dead-white snow that had become a nightmare to his darkening sight. He reeled sometimes as he walked, dizzy from lack of sleep; a thousand fantastic fancies flitted through his hot brain; a deadly lethargy began once more to creep over his senses, but he gnawed the flesh of his lips to keep back consciousness. And still, when will grew powerless, ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne

... the least of it) was grisly. At last they found the remains; they were old, which was all I cared to be sure of; it seemed a strangely small "pickle-banes" to stand for a big, flourishing, buck-islander, and their situation in the darkening and dripping bush was melancholy. All at once, I found there was a second skull, with a bullet-hole I could have stuck my two thumbs in—say anybody else's one thumb. My Samoans said it could not be, there were not enough bones; I put ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... as in a vice, and his blood tingled pleasantly through him. There was one large piece of the jar where there had been three, and above them the shadowy outline of the entire vessel. He could see the veranda through it, but it was thickening and darkening with each beat of his pulse. Yet the jar—how slowly the thoughts came!—the jar had been smashed before his eyes. Another wave of prickling fire raced down his neck, as ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... however, persuaded that it adds to their charms to give the eyes a long, almond shape—after the Egyptian type—while very many are persuaded that the eye is not seen to advantage unless its apparent size is increased by the darkening of the lids. Both these effects are produced by kohl, a black powder, which may be procured at the chemist's, and is mixed with rose-water and applied ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous

... to London. "Well—yes, sir," he said, with an unaccountable kind of reluctance. "It is going to London; but——" It was just starting, and I jumped into the first carriage; it was pitch dark. I sat there smoking and wondering, as we steamed through the continually darkening landscape, lined with desolate poplars, until we slowed down and stopped, irrationally, in the middle of a field. I heard a heavy noise as of some one clambering off the train, and a dark, ragged head suddenly ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton

... was an envelope, robbed of its contents, evidently not sent through the mails as it had not been stamped, but across its face was plainly written, "Miss Christie Maclaire." He stared at it, his lips firm set, his gray eyes darkening. If he possessed any doubts before as to her identity, they were ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish

... through lanes and streets, Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land, With the pomp of the inlooped flags, with the cities draped in black, With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veiled women standing, With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night, With the countless torches lit, with the silent ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... everything would take on for me a different meaning. The look of the old birch trees, with the one side of their curling branches showing bright against the moonlit sky, and the other darkening the bushes and carriage-drive with their black shadows; the calm, rich glitter of the pond, ever swelling like a sound; the moonlit sparkle of the dewdrops on the flowers in front of the verandah; the graceful shadows of those flowers where they ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy

... heart on his flock, and who had seen with great grief the realization of his fears at the revival of the stocks; seen that a spirit of discontent was already at work among the peasants, and that magisterial and inquisitorial designs were darkening the natural benevolence of the Squire; seen, in short, the signs of a breach between classes, and the precursors of the ever inflammable feud between the rich and the poor, meditated nothing less than a great Political Sermon—a sermon that should extract from ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... resolved to quit her hiding-place, and venture forth on her way. Lightly, tremulously holding her breath, which ever and anon broke forth in quick convulsive gasps—now gliding by the flower—wreathed columns that bordered the peristyle—now darkening the still moonshine that fell over its tessellated centre—now ascending the terrace of the garden—now gliding amidst the gloomy and breathless trees, she gained the fatal door—to find it locked! We have all seen that expression ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... Mammon, piled from the earnings of groaning Labour and cemented with blood and tears. But I looked farther, and saw, in the rear, chains sharpened into swords, misery ripening into justice, and famine darkening into revenge; and I laughed as I beheld, for I knew that the day of the ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... never join together altogether. And so this Love, which claims to be constant and even eternal, ought to be, if it would prolong itself, a continual act of faith, and hope, and charity. To believe in it in spite of its darkening and falling away; to hope its return, often against all evidence; to pardon its injustices and sometimes its foul actions—how many are capable of such abnegation? Augustin went through all that. He was in despair about it. And then, ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... have her joyous face lifted to mine, to hear her clear voice repeating my mother's songs, restored my faith in the logic of human life. True she interrupted my work and divided my interest, but she also defended me from bitterness and kept me from a darkening outlook on the future. My right to have her could be questioned but my care of her, now that I had her, ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... reserved for the European nations to put the final touches of gloom and horror upon the canvas. It may be sufficient to refer this to the more sombre imagination of Western peoples. But we ought not to overlook the influence of the Catholic Church in darkening the general tone of the imagination, and particularly the tone of the fairy sagas, by the absolute and unquestioned supremacy she demanded, and the frightful penalties, temporal and spiritual, she invoked upon those who dared to indulge in ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

... consistently culminating in total destruction of life." He then quotes apparently the language of the text, "He consumed his body by Agni (the fire of) Samadhi," and says it is "a common expression for the effects of such ecstatic, ultra-mystic self-annihilation." All this is simply "a darkening of counsel by words without knowledge." Some facts concerning the death of Ananda are hidden beneath the darkness of the phraseology, which it is impossible for us to ascertain. By or in Samadhi he burns his body in the very middle of the river, and then he ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien

... slow, as in a dream of bliss The speechless sufferer turned to kiss Her shadow as it falls Upon the darkening walls." ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... mankind in the very important circumstance of not being idolaters. He looks around upon every other country of the earth, where he discovers superstitions of the most hateful and degrading kind, darkening all the prospects of the human being, and corrupting his moral nature in its very source. He observes that some of these nations are far advanced in many intellectual accomplishments, yet, being unable to shake off the tremendous load of error by which they are pressed down, are ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... gone down to dress for dinner, which was being sent in, thank goodness, I still sat on the parapet and watched the darkening river. I felt terribly lonely, all at once, and sad. There wasn't any one any nearer than father, in the West, or mother in Bermuda, who really cared a rap whether I sat on that parapet all night or not, or who would be sorry if I leaped to the dirty bricks ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... buzzing in their heads, as if something sonorous had escaped from the fixed eyes of each of them. They were hand in hand now, and the past, the future, reminiscences and dreams, all were confounded in the sweetness of this ecstasy. Night was darkening over the walls, on which still shone, half hidden in the shade, the coarse colours of four bills representing four scenes from the "Tour de Nesle," with a motto in Spanish and French at the bottom. Through the sash-window a patch of dark sky was ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... a property exposing her to the machinations of prowling selfishness! Would it atone for the wrong of depriving her of one uncle, to take the other from her, and so leave her defenceless with a burden she could not carry? Must I take so-called justice on myself at her expense—to the oppression, darkening, and endangering of her life? Were I accused, I would tell the truth; but I would not volunteer a phantasmal atonement. What comfort would it be to my brother that I was hanged? Let the punishment God pleased come upon me, I said; as far as lay in me, ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald

... thou returned to me, poor boy," she said, "for thy mother's path has gone darkening onward, till now the end is death. Son, son, I have borne thee in my arms when my limbs were tottering, and I have fed thee with the food that I was fainting for; yet I have ill-performed a mother's part by thee in life, and now I leave thee no inheritance ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... did not quite leave him, for he knew that he was trying to crawl through what seemed to him to be something like soft liquid opal, with its wonderfully bright tints before his eyes, bluish, golden, creamy, fiery, and pale, then there was a darkening around them as if he were crawling into shadow; and again, directly after, as it appeared, he could see a bright glow, toward which he involuntarily struggled, for it was an instinctive effort ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn

... meadows toward the darkening distance; the other, passing over rough stones and rugged, brown furrows, lost itself in ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott

... bring forth the religion of Antichrist. Cecco d'Ascoli had already blasphemously calculated the nativity of Christ, and deduced from it his death upon the Cross. For this he was burnt at the stake in 1327, at Florence. Doctrines of this sort ended by simply darkening men's whole perceptions ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... happy household. Such was the disposition of Lady Trevelyan that these tokens of disinterested friendship could never be forgotten, but steadily shone as a bright light to cheer her daily path, undimmed by any darkening visions of disappointed hopes or ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour

... in darkening shadow by the inky clouds concealed, Bold and bright in open sunshine radiant ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous

... hymn was finished, as if they lingered where the last vibrations had been. But as a general stir among the hymn party proclaimed that they would soon be on the move, the two who had watched them, as if by consent, turned short about and silently picked their way back through the darkening wood to the nearest point of road they could reach. It was far from home, and even out of the wood the light was failing; they walked with quick steps. Mr. Simlins could get glances now at Faith's face, but though it was quiet enough, he seemed for some reason or other in a disagreeable ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... of the difference in latitude was the darkening of the nights. It may be admitted that continual daylight would be unpleasant in the long run ashore, but aboard ship an everlasting day would certainly be preferred, if such a thing could be had. ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... the larvae in the ground; the only change was a semi-transparent appearance which allowed of a movable black spot to be seen in the body. On the 8th June about fifty per cent. of the larvae had cast a skin and assumed the pupal state in their little cells: the color yellowish-brown, darkening to gray in the more advanced insect. About one per cent. of the cells, in which were two skins and an aperture to the surface, showed the perfect insect to have already come out of them. A gray pupa I was holding in my hand suddenly burst its envelope, and in halt a minute on its legs ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various

... under the shadow of a great tree in a solitary field. So fine was the season, that for three successive weeks he was able to travel thus without inconvenience, lying down when the sun grew hot in the forenoon, and generally waking when the first faint stars were hesitating in the great darkening heavens that covered and shielded him. For above every cloud, above every storm, rise up, calm, clear, divine, the deep infinite skies; they embrace the tempest even as the sunshine; by their permission it exists within their boundless peace: therefore it cannot hurt, ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald

... a peal of thunder from an unclouded summer sky. It was the knell of newly-awakened hopes—the darkening of newly-opening prospects. Silently I turned away under the cutting rebuke, ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... can no longer see," said Jeanne, seated near her on a low chair. And then, dropping her work, the child gazed at Paris, which was darkening over with the shadows of night. She rarely romped about, and her mother even had to exert authority to induce her to go out. In accordance with Doctor Bodin's strict injunction, Helene made her stroll with her two hours each day in the Bois de Boulogne, and ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... into a flood of details about keeping the men neat for the sake of their morale. It was interesting; but Marjorie thought afterward that perhaps it was because anything would have been while she was whirring along through the darkening woods in the keen, sharp-scented air. She loved it more and more, the woods and the atmosphere, and the memory of the little cabin. She promised herself that she would try some day to find the place by herself. Maybe she could borrow ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer

... him did not suggest a new avenue for Messianic work, it only brought before his mind the influence which was to be his in the world which these inquirers represented, and immediately with the thought of his glorification came that of the means thereto,—the cross whose shadow was already darkening his path. Excepting Gethsemane, no more solemn moment in Jesus' life is reported for us. A glimpse is given into the inner currents of his soul, and the storm which tossed them is seen. It is in marked contrast to the calmness of his controversy with the leaders, and ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees

... The hours were fast darkening into despair. Messengers were anxiously sent to the Palais Royal, the sumptuous city residence of the duke, to ascertain if he had arrived. No tidings could be heard from him. The domestics seemed to be packing up the valuables in preparation for removal. The ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... the face. Was it the storm of restrained passions; was it some power coming from the depths of the soul, which enlarged the pupils in full daylight as they sometimes in other eyes enlarge by night, darkening the azure of those ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac

... He sees us all; Lifting our pallid faces towards the rain, Searching the sky, and going our ways again, Standing in doorways, waiting under the trees . . . There, in the high bright window he dreams, and sees What we are blind to,—we who mass and crowd From wall to wall in the darkening of a cloud. ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken

... into an easy chair, leaning her head on her hand, as old women do, and she gazed at the darkening sky. Thoughts gloomy and tormenting gave no respite, and there was an indefinable something caused her to ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef

... jewelled cup from which the dusk was pouring; the air was crisp with the compelling tang of the sea, and the whole landscape was infused with the subtleties of a sea evening. A few dim sails drifted along the darkening, fir-clad harbor shores. A bell was ringing from the tower of a little white church on the far side; mellowly and dreamily sweet, the chime floated across the water blent with the moan of the sea. The great revolving light on the ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... a white face and staring eyes. Then he looked quickly round over the darkening landscape. There was no one in sight. This was one of the waste places of the world. Larralde seemed to remember the Eye that seeth even there, and crossed himself as he slipped from the saddle to ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... waited, one hand on the door-knob, squaring his jaw over his muffler, and listening with a darkening face to the interminable succession of purchases. After a time he released the door-knob, loosened his muffler, and sat down heavily, his eyes fixed on ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield

... to do battle with their nearest neighbor. I have observed them in summer, when every other one had a long and bloody scar upon his back, where the skin was gone, the mark, perhaps, of some fierce encounter. Sometimes the fry, not an inch long, are seen darkening the shore ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... fallen. From the German trenches a thin luminous thread stole up into the darkening sky, leaned over, drooped, and burst into dazzling brilliance over the British parapet. Simultaneously a desultory rifle fire crackled down the lines. The ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... the dinner away; she found little tasks to fill the darkening hours, and with eagerness prepared the tray for Davy and took it aloft at sundown. By that time the wind was almost a hurricane; and before it were driven sharp sheets of snow that cut and sounded as they sped madly landward. ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock

... pressed deeply into the Grande Isle beach. The day had been tropically warm; we had sought the shore for a breath of living air. Sunset came, and with it the ponderous heat lifted,—a sudden breeze blew,—lightnings flickered in the darkening horizon,—wind and water began to strive together,—and soon all the low coast boomed. Then my companion began his story; perhaps the coming of the storm inspired him to speak! And as I listened to him, listening ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn

... a scene of moral grandeur unsurpassed by anything in the annals of war. There, on that still, cool evening, when the sky was darkening into night, were assembled some eight thousand men; very many of whom would never look upon the glorious sunset again. From the humble cottages in the quiet valley of the Connecticut—from the statelier mansions of the sunny South—at ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson

... bottom of the box about a dozen of old books, which had been on the chest of drawers since long before Annie could remember. She, poor child, let her do as she pleased, and asked no questions; for the shadow in which she stood was darkening, and she did not care what came next. For an hour the box stood on the floor like a coffin, and then Betty came, with red eyes and a red nose, and carried it downstairs. Then auntie came up again, dressed in her Sunday clothes. She put on Annie's best frock and bonnet—adorning ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... across the white fields of youth; who, later on, in dreams but never by day, overtakes us with unbearable happiness in his hand in which to steep our exhaustion on the hillside; who when our hair is grey comes to us still in dreams but never by day, down the darkening valley, to tell us that our worn out romantic hopes are but the alphabet of ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... with master in the cart when he wanted a bit of mahogany wood for Mrs Goodenough's chairs. It is a long way," said Johnnie, looking wistfully at the darkening window; "but I'll do ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge

... or whatever it was, ought now to be within the range of our vision, and Murdock intently scrutinised the darkening sea ahead for some sign of it, but in vain. Then he turned his glances shoreward and saw Cunningham standing on the verge of the bluff, vigorously ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood

... occurred. His whole character appeared to have undergone a change. He was totally different. The old Barry had been neither hard nor cynical, the new Barry was both. In the last few weeks she had had ample opportunity for judging. She perceived that a heavy shadow lay upon him darkening his home-coming—she had pictured it so very differently, and she sighed over the futility of anticipation. His happiness meant to her so much that she raged at her inability to help him. Until he spoke she could do nothing. And she knew that ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... or not, was the largest in Green Bay. Its lawn sloped down to the Fox River. It was a huge square of oak timbers, with a detached kitchen, sheltered by giant elms. To this day it stands defying time with its darkening frame like some massive rock, the fan windows in the gables keeping guard north ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... never so happy as in the opportunity thus graciously given me of vindicating, in instances almost innumerable, the serious principles and various excellences of my revered Dr. Johnson from the clouds so frequently involving and darkening them, in narrations so little calculated for any readers who were strangers to his intrinsic worth, and therefore worked upon and struck by what was faulty in his ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... they loved that name, for it carried with it a mystic privilege not granted to any others of the children of this world. Which was this: whenever one of these came to die, then beyond the vague and formless images drifting through his darkening mind rose soft and rich and fair a vision of the Tree—if all was well with his soul. That was what some said. Others said the vision came in two ways: once as a warning, one or two years in advance ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... and he called again, this time his handsome face darkening. He had seen her from a distance outside the house, so there was no doubt of her ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... through life. He has not depressed the soul to despondency and indifference. He has every where inculcated study, labour, and exertion. Nay, he has shewn, in a very odious light, a man whose practice is to go about darkening the views of others, by perpetual complaints of evil, and awakening those considerations of danger and distress, which are, for the most part, lulled into a quiet oblivion. This he has done very strongly in his character of Suspirius[636], from which ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... desires, appetites, passions; or—to use the word which refined people are so afraid of, although the Bible is not, 'lusts—which war against the soul,' and which need only a touch of fire to flare up like a tar-barrel, in thick foul smoke darkening the heavens. There are fiery darts that strike these animal natures of ours, and set ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... the jest was over. There would be little more laughing among the courtiers, when they saw the face of Charles grow grave. He took the new-comer aside, perhaps to that deep recess of the window where in the darkening night the glimmer of the clear, flowing river, the great vault of sky would still be visible dimly, outside the circle of the blazing interior with all ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... for a moment as though paralysed; then Adrea turned slowly round with darkening face. "I did not! I thought ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... counsels of lofty-thundering Jove, which he hath himself undertaken for me, and confirmed. And thou exhortest me to obey the wing-expanding birds; which I very little regard, nor do I care for them, whether they fly to the right towards the Morn and the Sun, or to the left towards the darkening west; but let us obey the will of mighty Jove, who rules over all mortals and immortals. There is one augury, the best, to fight for our country.[401] Why dost thou dread the war and conflict? For although all the rest of us should perish round the ships of the Greeks, there is no fear that thou ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... again. The sky was fast darkening, and a deep grayness was spreading from the east. And now, without turning, ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum

... could not control, Eric put his arm about her and kissed her red, trembling mouth. She started back with a little cry. A burning colour swept over her face, and the next moment she fled swiftly up the darkening lane. ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... was much different, because the city was in darkness. The system of darkening adopted was rather amusing, as all the squares and circuses, which in other times were most brilliantly illuminated, now were darker than the streets, the contrast making them, to an aviator, as distinguishable as before. Later on more judgment was used in the ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... more. Cecilia Boyson looked out of the window at the darkening landscape, thinking with malice of Daphne's dealings with the male sex. It had been a Sleeping Beauty story so far. Treasure for the winning—a thorn hedge—and slain lovers! The handsome Englishman would try it next, no doubt. All young Englishmen, ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... milk-white face, sparkled between two dark wings of hair. Her mouth smiled its enchanting and enchanted smile. She was aware that her husband and John watched her from stair to stair; she was aware of their men's eyes, darkening. Then suddenly she ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair

... be got rid of so easily as you suppose," he said, his face darkening menacingly. "Do you think I believe in your going out alone from this hotel and living by yourself in a strange city? Come! ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw

... however, that she was nothing the worse. If the darkening of the sun keep the fruits of the earth from growing, the earth is surely the worse, though it be blackened by no deposit of smoke. And where good things do not grow, the wild and possibly noxious will grow more freely. There may be no harm in the yellow tanzie—there is much ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... things, Lady Harden knew when to be silent, and now, having made her speech, she sat watching Cleeve, as, aghast, he dropped his rod until its flexible tip lay on the darkening water, and stared off toward ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... touched our guide on the shoulder with my hunting-whip, pointing in the direction of the danger. If you ever saw a wing-tipped mallard's flurry when the retriever comes upon him unawares, you will have a good idea of how the valiant Walter "squattered" through the ford. The twilight was darkening fast, and, in the shadow of the ravine, we were almost safe from the eyes of our pursuers; but I marvel that even at such a distance their ears were not attracted by the flounder and the splash. My ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... disciple, fulfilling in righteousness and love a Christian duty, then slavery is right; if slavery is wrong, then every slave-holder is a manstealer, and should be excommunicated as such without asking any further questions. Two statements more palpably illogical were never put forth for the darkening of counsel. But each extreme was eager to sustain the unreason of the opposite extreme as the only alternative of its own unreason, and so, what with contrary gusts from North and South, they fell into a place where two seas met and ran the ship aground. The attempts made from 1836 to 1840, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... opium had lost a part of its symbolic meaning. It now seemed even a little rash when he could find an immediate highly profitable market—the opium had cost him seven hundred dollars in China. But he must, he realized, be firm. Afterwards, in his room facing away from the street over darkening yards and gables and foliage, he stood gazing at the chest of mango wood that held the drug. Edward Dunsack unlocked and lifted the lid. On the tray before him were twenty balls, each the size of his two fists, wrapped in a ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer

... barbarian derision. But the colonists, unconscious of the ridicule to which they were exposed, continued their course, and came to anchor in Narraganset Bay just as the twilight of Saturday evening was darkening into night. It was too late then to land, and the next day being the Sabbath, they all remained on board their vessels, in the sacred observance of the day. All of Monday, and until late in the ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... empty, darkening with the shadows of approaching night; the lamplighter went by with his cresset, and Gamelin ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... a rosy-and-golden haze. The spires Shine, and are changed. In the valley Shadows rise. The lark sings on. The sun, Closing his benediction, Sinks, and the darkening air Thrills with a sense of the triumphing night - Night with her train of stars And her great ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley

... different. When John comes, he is cold and unkind—he won't open to me the old sights. He shows me things instead that shake me with misery—that kill me. My brain is darkening—its powers are dying out. That means that I must let this life go—I must pass into another. Some other soul must give ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... bend perhaps back to the very same position as at first it was so hard to bend it from, with this one wide difference, that in the first case it was so in its own will, but now in His will. Perhaps thou thinkest I am darkening counsel: I do not wish to do so, but write just how things have happened to me in my small way. Ought we not to be willing to be bent or unbent any way? and if a bow is to "abide in strength," it must be unbent when it is not wanted. But as we have all different places to fill, and ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall

... associated with the rainy season, and it may have been assumed, therefore, that the thunder god was powerless against the sandstorm demon, who was chased, however, by the moon, and finally overcome by the triumphant sun when it broke through the darkening sand drift and brightened heaven and earth, "netting" the rebellious demon who desired to establish the rule of evil over ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... darkening one"), the son of Nuk-khu. He is supposed to have been the viceroy of Khumbaba, and led the attack ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous

... reach Morelia, we did not leave San Bartolo till four in the afternoon, and enjoyed a pretty ride through a fertile and well-wooded country, the road good and the evening delightful. As the sun set, millions and tens of millions of ducks, in regular ranks and regiments, darkening the air, flew over our heads, changing their quarters from one lake to another. Morelia is celebrated for the purity of its atmosphere and the exceeding beauty of its sky; and this evening upheld its reputation. Toward sunset, the whole western horizon was covered with myriads ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... presence of some impending evil, to their dens and coverts, there to await, cowering and silent, the dreaded outbreak. Slowly, but steadily, the lurid storm-clouds were gathering in the heavens, bringing shade after shade over the darkening wilderness. Low, hollow murmurs in the troubled air were now heard, ominously stealing along the wooded hills; and now, in the sharp, momentary rattling of the seared beech-leaves, the whole forest seemed shivering in the dead chill that was settling over the earth. ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... her. Wherever there's a poor girl lying in her shame she'll be there, I'll go bail on that. And yourself—I'll be seeing yourself, sir, whiter, maybe, and the sun going down on you, but strong for all. And when any poor fellow has had a knock-down blow, and the world is darkening round him, he'll be coming to you for light and for strength, and you'll be houlding out the right hand to him, because you're knowing yourself what it is to fall and get up again, and because you're a man, and Grod has made friends ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... with the terrors of its alarms and the power of its venom; the opossum, soon to become as celebrated for the care of its offspring as the fabled pelican: the noisy frog, booming from the shallows like the English bittern; the flying squirrel; the myriads of pigeons, darkening the air with the immensity of their flocks, and, as men believed, breaking with their weight the boughs of trees on which they alighted,—were all honored with frequent commemoration, and became the subjects of the strangest tales. The concurrent relation of all the Indians justified the belief that, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... text comes in here. Beauty, intellect, power, goodness; all go down into the dark. The sun sets, and there is left a sad and fading glow in the darkening pensive sky, which may recall the vanished light for a little while to a few faithful hearts, but steadily passes into the ashen ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... grey grave heights, High-thoughted seers with heaven's heart-kindling lights Hold converse: and the herd of meaner things Knows or by fiery scourge or fiery shaft When wrath on thy broad brows has risen, and laughed Darkening thy soul with shadow ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... heavy, sharp crack a puff of white smoke darted from the muzzle and began to expand forward like a grey balloon, obscuring everything from the sight of the lookers-on for about a minute, before it rose clear, and then the darkening sea was ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn

... desk. It did not contain the names of his contributors, but what in the traditions of his office was accepted as an equivalent,—a revolver. He had never yet presented either to an inquirer. But he laid aside his proofs, and, with a slight darkening of his youthful, discontented face, said, "What do you ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte

... Moreover, the Hebrew word ophal, which in the LXX. answers to the Greek, signifies any darkness; and the Evangelists, who have modelled the sense of their expressions by those of the LXX., must have taken it in the same latitude. This darkening of the sky usually precedes earthquakes. (Matt. xxvii. 51.) The Heathen authors furnish us a number of examples, of which a miraculous explanation was given at the time. See Ovid. ii. v. 33, l. xv. v. 785. Pliny, Hist. Nat. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... rafters of the roof, the very little counsel drops, and the fog knows him no more." "Mr. Vholes emerged into the silence he could scarcely be said to have broken, so stifled was his tone." "Within the grill-gate of the chancel, up the steps surmounted loomingly by the fast-darkening organ, white robes could be dimly seen, and one feeble voice, rising and falling in a cracked monotonous mutter, could at intervals be faintly heard . . . until the organ and the choir burst forth and drowned it in a sea of music. Then the sea ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell

... hard by the rivulet darkening and stealing away, till your sight, though not your ear, lost it among ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 533, Saturday, February 11, 1832. • Various

... Maisons, and, on his arrival there, crossed the railway bridge, and found himself almost alone in the broad avenue which runs through the park. As he walked on through the rapidly darkening shadows, he began to feel a strange sensation, as if nothing had happened, and as if he were shaking off, little by little, a hideous nightmare. In a sort of voluntary hallucination, he imagined that he was going, as in former ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... replied Hornecht positively, a frown darkening his brow. But, restraining himself, he added as if apologizing: "Her heart is as soft as wax, and the Hebrew youth—you saw him yesterday. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the three Mullahs looked on as such men would—old practitioners in fraud and deceit, dealing with the ignorant superstitions of their tribes—their swarthy faces darkening in contempt, treating it all as a piece of jugglery on the part of a Frankish ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn

... of chance drew her attention to a small, dark shape, with one staring red eye, that was stealing quietly across the Sound in the middle distance—of indefinite contour against the darkening waters, but undoubtedly a motor-boat, since there was no wind to drive any sailing vessel at its pace, or indeed ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... are patriotic young Albanian noblemen of ancient family and great possessions. But Zena Beg has the advantage of living in Yugoslavia, outside the atmosphere of corruption which is darkening his native land. Ahmed Beg, who in 1920 was Minister of the Interior, Minister of War, Governor of Scutari and Director (in mufti) of the military operations against the Yugoslavs, did not accept Italian bribes, but he was surrounded by those who did, and thus the gentle and industrious ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... instant he was back again, drawing long breaths of misery. He passed his tongue over his lips, and opened his eyes on the darkening apse before him. The organ was silent now, and the choir was gone, and the lights out. The sunset colour, too, had faded from the walls, and grim cold faces looked down on him from wall and vault. He was back again on the surface of life; the vision had melted; he scarcely knew what ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson

... rocks, and continuing to show my confidence in the unresponsive trout. The way grew wilder and more grewsome. The thunder began again, rolling along over the tops of the mountains, and reverberating in sharp concussions in the gorge: the lightning also darted down into the darkening passage, and then the rain. Every enlightened being, even if he is in a fisherman's dress of shirt and pantaloons, hates to get wet; and I ignominiously crept under the edge of a sloping bowlder. It was all very well ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... merry Colonel Mac-Ivor and you used to be in our house!' And the good-natured widow shed a few natural tears. As there was no resisting her claim of acquaintance, Waverley acknowledged it with a good grace, as well as the danger of his own situation. 'As it's near the darkening, sir, wad ye just step in by to our house and tak a dish o' tea? and I am sure if ye like to sleep in the little room, I wad tak care ye are no disturbed, and naebody wad ken ye; for Kate and Matty, the limmers, gaed aff wi' twa o' Hawley's ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... growing quite dark as they drove to the hotel, but still was light enough to show the river rustling, the Ponte Vecchio spanning its little storeys across the flood, on its low, heavy piers: and some sort of magic of the darkening, varied houses facing, on the other side of the stream. Of course they were ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... at her across the room. The light was beginning to fade, but still the awnings were drawn down beyond the windows, darkening the large bare room. He saw her as a study in gray and white, with colorless, unshining hair, a body so thin and flexible that it was difficult to believe it contained nerves like a network of steel and muscles capable of prolonged endurance, a face that was haggard ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... this time at hand. The application of the spectroscope to the direct examination of the sun's surface dates from March 4, 1866, when Sir Norman Lockyer (to give him his present title) undertook an inquiry into the cause of the darkening in spots.[461] It was made possible by the simple device of throwing upon the slit of the spectroscope an image of the sun, any part of which could be subjected to special scrutiny, instead of, as had hitherto been done, ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... drying of the oil colours, it had been necessary to add a varnish to them, which consisted of oil boiled with a resin. Owing to the dark colour of this varnish, in which amber, or more frequently sandarac, was used, this plan, from its darkening effect on most colours, had hitherto proved unsuccessful. The Van Eycks, however, succeeded in preparing so colourless a varnish that they could apply it without disadvantage, to all colours. In painting a picture they proceeded ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton

... aiming to show how life,—perfect life,—could be the only perfect manifestation of it. Then she spoke of the individual as surrounded, however, by prose,—so we may here call the manifestation of the temporary, in opposition to the eternal, always trenching on it, and circumscribing and darkening. She spoke of the acceptance of this limitation, but it should be called by the right name, and always measured; and we should inwardly cling to the truth that poesy was the natural life of the soul; and never yield inwardly to the common notion that ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli



Words linked to "Darkening" :   obfuscation, change of color, dark, darken



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