"Dim" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... may see in the northern tower, Over yonder precipice, A lone, dim light at the midnight hour Shine down the dark abyss. And over the chasm's dungeon-gloom Shall a slender ladder hang; And if alone he dare to come,— ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... alive at all throughout this white land, but you must never trust to that in the wild. Things there are very rarely what they seem. For instance, Gulo came into a clearing, dim under the night sky, though it would never be dark that night. To the ear and the eye that clearing was as empty as a swept room. To Gulo's nose it was not, and he was just about to crouch and execute a stalk, when half the snow seemed to get up and ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... general impression that inspired in Ryabovitch alarm and a desire to hide his head. Like a lecturer making his first appearance before the public, he saw everything that was before his eyes, but apparently only had a dim understanding of it (among physiologists this condition, when the subject sees but does not understand, is called psychical blindness). After a little while, growing accustomed to his surroundings, Ryabovitch saw clearly and began to observe. As a shy man, unused to society, what struck ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... from leaves above a pool. Again and again the sweet round notes fell on the meditations of the King, and he remembered with entrancement that this was the tender signal by which he was summoned to the Pond. So, rising silently, he wandered through the trees, and keeping his eyes fixed on the soft dim turf, lest some new beauty should tempt him to speech, he went across the open hill the Pond. Here he knelt down again, listening to the childlike bird, until at last the young piping ceased with a joyous chuckle. And at that instant, reflected in the Pond, he ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... beautified his face, and said—"I need scarcely say, all good be with you, for I feel it must be so. There are many stern natures in this world, but none cruel enough, I am sure, to betray so trusting a heart, or cause such cloudless eyes to grow dim in tears; you never will deceive or injure any, and, therefore, will deceits and wrong fall harmless round you. Your own frank and unsuspecting goodness will be as invincible armor upon you, and fear not, therefore, when you find yourself in the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... eyes from him for a minute. The sick man gazed and gazed at him, and kept moving his lips from time to time, with great effort, as though he wanted to say something, and an expression of extraordinary tenderness passed over his eyes now and then, as they continued to grow smaller and more dim. And that night the boy watched with him until he saw the first rays of dawn gleam white through the windows, and the sister appeared. The sister approached the bed, cast a glance at the patient, and then went away with rapid steps. A few moments later she reappeared with the assistant doctor, ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... staggered home, related the accident as it had occurred, and laid himself down gently upon his bed. Decline then set in, and the handsome and high-spirited Torley O'Regan, lay patiently awaiting his dissolution, his languid eye dim with the shadow of its approach. From the moment it was ascertained that his death, early and unexpectedly, was known to be certain, the grief of his parents transcended the bounds of ordinary sorrow. It was indeed, a distressing thing to witness their sufferings, ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... saw the equestrian statue of the Duke of Orleans silhouetted against the mosque. The port, to the east, was quiet at this hour, and the shipping lay dreamily in the moonlight. Far away one could see the dim outlines of the Kabyle Mountains, and the vague melting of sea and sky into a near horizon. The undefinable smell of the East was in ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... The sudden shower down-pouring on my head, Though in the distance all is loveliness. Thither, in vain, with rapid step I've sped. I liken this to Hope: although with sorrow The heart is overcast, and dim the eye; Delusive Hope—not present, ever nigh, Presages gladness on a coming morrow, And lures us onward, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... his answer while wiping his sword with a small lace kerchief. The action brought a dim confused memory to Robin. The lad finally looked him again ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... kelp-furnaces,—things which have now become comparatively rare along the coasts of the Hebrides. There was the low rush of tides all around, and the distant voices from the shore, but no other sounds; and, dim in the moonshine, we could see behind us several spectral-looking sails threading their silent way through the narrows, like twilight ghosts traversing some ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... The weak support that holds up life! to bear A few short moments more, its weight of woe, Its loss of thee! Oh, turn away those eyes! Nor with that look melt down my fix'd resolve! And yet a little longer let me gaze On that loved form! Alas! I feel my sight Grows dim, and reason from her throne retires: For pity's sake, let go my breaking heart, And leave me ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones
... own dim life should teach me this, That life shall live for evermore, Else earth is darkness at the core, And dust and ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... The heavy wax candle which was in the candlestick was burned down about a finger's breadth more than the others, for these were all exactly of a height. Muller bent still nearer to the candlestick, but he saw that the dim light in the church was not sufficient. He went to one of the smaller side altars, took a candle from there, lit it with one of the matches that he found in his own pocket and returned with the ...
— The Case of The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
... which had plunged me into senselessness had imparted to me the sinking sensation which I have feebly endeavoured to depict, so did the first dim ray of returning consciousness bring with it the feeling that I was again being buoyed upwards through the thick waters that had enveloped me, to their surface, where intelligence and ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... felt himself ready to give up the world.... But these heroic outbursts do not, as a rule, keep up very long in natures so changeable and impressionable as Augustin's. Yet they are not entirely thrown away. Thus, in early youth, come dim revelations of the future. There comes a presentiment of the port to which one will some day be sailing; a glimpse of the task to fulfil, the work to build up; and all this rises before the eyes in an entrancement of the whole being. Though the bright image ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... through the garden, that lay dim and desolate in the dusk. The fires of sunset had paled beyond ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... pitch any part of that game," they were saying. "He was afraid, and he knew it would dim his glory if Harvard won. He has his record, and you won't see him pitching out any games in order to pull Yale ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... boat before another sea broke into her. Thus on they rushed amid the dark, foam-crested waves; several times they were treated in the same manner, but as quickly as the water entered it was hove out again. The darkness increased, and the dim outline of the mountain alone could be seen, its lofty summit towering to the clouds. Green was unwilling to keep farther off the island than was necessary; but, at the same time, he thought it possible that a reef might ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... on a sparkling gold ground had a long veil of dim blue falling over her head and shoulders, and wore a dress of dull-red wool with faint golden reflection. It was a Raphael dress, and had a band of fine gold embroidery across the neck ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... Vietnam who wished to force Communist rule on their own people. But their progress was slight. Their hope of success was dim. Then, little more than 6 years ago, North Vietnam decided on conquest. And from that day to this, soldiers and supplies have moved from North to South in a swelling stream that is swallowing the remnants of revolution ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... and began to have dim perceptions that she might have been doing mischief with the ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... for a hot day. The blue lake, dotted with white sails and an occasional trail of smoke, lay shimmering under the broiling sun. Over the water, through the distant summer haze, there could be seen the dim ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... rested slightly on her hand with a droop that spoke of weariness or of weakness. So she sat looking down the road, and the sweet October light was all over her and all around her. Mrs. Sandford watched her, till the light lost its brightness and grew fair and faint, and then began to grow dim. Daisy sat still, and Mrs. Sandford looked at her, till a step within the room drew her ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... identified as Vrain. He was very like Clear in figure and manner; but, of course, the resemblance in the face was not very close, as Clear had been clean shaven, whereas the real Vrain wore a beard. The eyes were dim and weak-looking, and altogether Lucian saw that Vrain was not fitted to battle with the world in any way, and quite weak enough to become the prey of villains, as had been his ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... of course, that those old heathens understood all this clearly. You will see, by the latter part of my sermon, why they could not understand it clearly. But there must have been some sort of dim, confused suspicion in their minds that it was wrong and cruel to treat human beings like brute beasts, which made them set up that strange old custom of letting their slaves play at being free once ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... dim ones. Then blazing fires—Ragged Men, camped without the walls of Rahn or in some gold-walled courtyard where the jungle thrust greedy, invading green tentacles. The air fleet circled noiselessly in a huge batlike ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... records of them better than any detail of his own personal affairs; for years now he had lived in spirit with Washington, through all the hours of the Mount Vernon day; his life was ruled by one great ghost, so that everything actual was comparatively dim. Boyson too, a fine soldier and a fine intelligence, had a mind stored with Washingtoniana. Every now and then he and the curator fell back on each other's company. They knew well that the others were not worthy of their opportunity; although General Hobson, seeing that most ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was quite different from anything Mr. Carlton had outlined. It was after midnight when the special arrived at the dim little station, and even before the train came to a stop its solitary passenger sprang impatiently ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... tintless space; the low hills drawing farther off in the melancholy light; the sky sinking nearer; clouds, unsteady all day, softened at last into a thoughtful purple, and couching themselves slowly in the hollows of the horizon; the sweep of cornfields and woods and distant farms growing dim,—daguerreotype-like; the tinkle of the sheep-bells on the meadows, the shouts of the boys in camp yonder, the bass drone of the frogs in the swamp dulling down into the remoteness of sleep. The Doctor slackened his sharp, jerking stride, and fell ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... the key. The door was unlocked, and the light established. The party entered a large and lofty chamber with ceiling of elaborate plaster work and silver-grey walls, the paper on which was somewhat tarnished. A pattern of dim, pink roses as large as cabbages ran riot over it. A great oriel window looked east, while a smaller one opened upon the south. Round the curve of the oriel ran a cushioned seat eighteen inches above the ground, while on the western ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... monkey, scolding and chattering in the upper terraces of the forest, saw him pass. Long had it been since he had thus beheld the great Tarmangani naked and alone hurtling through the jungle. Bearded and gray was Manu, the monkey, and to his dim old eyes came the fire of recollection of those days when Tarzan of the Apes had ruled supreme, Lord of the Jungle, over all the myriad life that trod the matted vegetation between the boles of the great trees, or flew ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the Difference is dim: 'Tis settled by the Moderator's Whim: Perchance the Delta on your Paper marked Means that his Lunch ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... in reflecting on the mysteries and religious ceremonies of the nation, we are apt to endow the priests and other participators with a degree of austerity wholly unjustified by facts. We picture the priest chanting his formulae in the dim light of the temple, the atmosphere about him heavy with incense; and we imagine him as an anchorite who has put away the things of this world. But in reality there seems to have been not even such a thing as a celibate amongst ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... lips betokened that Phil's health with all the honours was being celebrated. For myself, I was really so engrossed by my narrative, and so excited by the "ponche," that I saw or heard very little of what was passing around, and have only a kind of dim recollection of being seized by the hand by "Feargus," who was Beamish's brother, and who, in the fullness of his heart, would have hugged me to his breast, if I had not opportunely been so overpowered as to ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... Ambrose's dim thought was: "If somehow I could only send her real self a message while her head-strong, unreasonable self is asleep, maybe she'd confess the truth when ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... ground between the hillside on which it was encamped and a little brook which covered the English front. Leslie's horse was far in advance of the main body, and it had hardly reached the level ground when Cromwell in the dim dawn flung his whole force upon it. "They run, I profess they run!" he cried as the Scotch horse broke after a desperate resistance, and threw into confusion the foot who were hurrying to its aid. Then, ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... passions and evil doing of the world outside that we cling so closely here to our own doctrine of isolation. Whatever she may have suffered, Isobel will learn to forget here. In the blessed years which lie before her, the memory of her unhappy pilgrimage will grow dim and faint. It may even be for the best that she has realized for a moment the shadow of ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... forward Louis bridged his dim eyes with his hand, and under the shadow Lessaix saw the thin mouth open and shut convulsively; but when the hand was lowered the King's face ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... stalactites resembling great organ-pipes, altars, mutilated statues, hideous monsters carved in stone, and even a complete pagoda, which, however, occupied but a very small space in the vast enclosure. Fancy such a scene in an appropriate setting, the whole lit up with a dim and wavering light, and you can perhaps form some idea how it struck me when it first ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... stillness of the elements, as if it had not joined the chorus of the tempest on the night before. As first rays of dawn appear in the eastern sky and awaken the phosphorescent myriads in the water, long, grey shadows appear in the dim distance, almost on the border of the horizon. They are shadows of fishermen's boats at work drawing ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... each hold one of his dying hands, feeling his pulse anxiously and exchanging looks of intelligence. At the foot of the bed stands a woman about fifty years of age, her hands clasped, her eyes raised to heaven, in an attitude of resigned grief: this woman is the queen, No tears dim her eyes: her sunken cheek has that waxen yellow tinge that one sees on the bodies of saints preserved by miracle. In her look is that mingling of calm and suffering that points to a soul at once tried by sorrow and imbued with religion. After the lapse of an hour, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... tones. The knowledge that he had refused all pay, while enduring more than any other man in the room, gave added weight to every word. In proof of the good faith of Congress he began reading a letter from one of the members, when, finding his sight dim, he paused and took from his pocket the new pair of spectacles which the astronomer David Rittenhouse had just sent him. He had never worn spectacles in public, and as he put them on he said, in his simple manner and with his pleasant smile, ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... that stern old lion, Oliver Cromwell, crushed the butterfly named Charles Stuart at Worcester in the dim dawn of the third day of September, 1651, and utterly routed the army of that unhappy prince, one Thomas Stewart fell into the hands of the Roundheads, as, indeed, did near seven thousand others of the Royalist army. Now this Thomas Stewart had very foolishly left a pretty estate in Kincardine, ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... slept when she awoke, tense and listening, sitting bolt upright in bed. Moonlight flooded the room through the windows thrown wide to admit the chill night air. Beyond the valley floor, green with the luxuriant second crop of alfalfa, she could see the mountains looming dim ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... were distinctly seen, the phantoms vanished. Or, if such beings do exist, it has experienced the peculiar hardship of never having met with any, in whom both the purpose and the power were fully united. Therefore, with hands wearied with labour, eyes dim with watchfulness, veins but half nourished, and a mind at length subdued by intense study and a reiteration of unaccomplished hopes, it was driven by irresistible impulse to end at once such a complication of evils. The knowledge was imposed upon it ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... the dream grew dim, Feast and courtiers vanished quite, Diamond ring and lover too Softly faded from her sight; And the only prince she saw (She was once more wide-awake) Was a little prince of mice Nibbling ...
— Harper's Young People, March 2, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... night, in the blasty month of January, I mind it well. The snow had fallen during the afternoon; or, as Benjie came in crying, that "the auld wives o' the norlan sky were plucking their geese"; and it continued dim and dowie till towards the gloaming, when, as the road-side labourers were dandering home from their work, some with pickaxes and others with shools, and just as our cocks and hens were going into their beds, poor things, the lift cleared up to a sharp freeze, and the well-ordered ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... what a rich combination of nature and art! And what a world of colour, with the clear blue sea in the distance! Altogether, that one day at Genoa—though but a succession of glimpses formed a bright spot in my life, that neither time nor distance can dim ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... dim Valhalla beyond, how the archer of Pharaoh, the swordsman from the plains before Troy, and the Roman legionary will greet the hurrying souls of the aviator, the bomb-thrower, and the bayonet-man with, "Brother, ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... my own disorder, opens comfortably off the sitting-room. A lamp with a green shade stands invitingly on the table shedding a circle of light on the books and papers underneath, but leaving all the remainder of the room in dim pleasantness. At one side stands a comfortable big chair with everything in arm's reach, including my note books and ink bottle. Where I sit I can look out through the open doorway and see Harriet near the fireplace rocking and sewing. Sometimes she ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... waters into the Fairy Rocks. There was neither moon nor stars visible, but in the bay the experienced eye could discern the mysterious lugger. There she lay, hove to, or anchored below the Dean House, which could be seen peeping out between two sandy hills. A dim light—which, to the uninformed, would have conveyed the impression of a light in a cottage window, but which was really a signal to the smugglers that the coast was clear—flickered in a line with the sandy valley; ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... Molly bringing up the rear, the wedding party followed the padre down a long adobe hallway across a courtyard where palms still shaded a trickling fountain, into a dim chapel, with grim adobe walls and pews hacked and ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... her heart stood still again. From her higher place in the saddle, well back in the outskirts of the throng, in the dim light she made out a figure crouching on the roof; then another, and another, and a fourth. She suffered an agony of fear in the few heart-beats before they began to slip away. Her eyes swept the faces near her. One and all they were turned upon the struggling mass of humanity at ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... people had already gathered. They were strangers mostly, or, at least, people that they did not know very well; and, a little shy and unaccustomed to a crowd, they went into the kirk and sat down near the door. It was a very bright, pleasant house, quite unlike the dim, dreary old place they were accustomed to worship in; and they looked round ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... morning, for a dim sort of light was beginning to be perceptible in the east, we were wakened up by ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... to her car, but she forbade him, saying that it would not help matters to have him seen and possibly recognized by the taxicab driver; and so she went out of the grounds alone. Within another hour and a half she was set down unobserved in a dim side street in Brooklyn. Thence she made her way on foot to the Subway and rode home. If the police had noticed her absence and should question her, she could refuse to answer, or say that she had been visiting late with a ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... poor prisoner was most afraid of during this walk, which he considered as leading him to the end of the journey of life, was to see Gryphus and not to see Rosa. What savage satisfaction would glisten in the eyes of the father, and what sorrow dim those ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... the river, and after a day or so the head of another dead man will be found eddying and floating around the rolling piers near the Battery, his face a pulp, and no longer recognizable. The sun shines down on the plashing water, but the eyes are sightless, and never another sun can dim their brilliancy or splendor. It is only another missing man without watch, pocket-book, ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... Ancient British copper coin. Probably time of Caractacus. Very dim. Inscription, "Victoria ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... assertion of popular right, Pythagoras was driven away by Cylon, the then imperfect effort of self-government fell through. But little understood, its then dim light faded. ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... and I sought Aunt Mercy, who was preparing the Sunday's dinner. Twilight drew near, and the Sunday's clouds began to fall on my spirits. Between sundown and nine o'clock was a tedious interval. I was not allowed to go to bed, nor to read a secular book, or to amuse myself with anything. A dim oil-lamp burned on the high shelf of the middle room, our ordinary gathering-place. Aunt Mercy sat there, rocking in a low chair; the doors were open, and I wandered softly about. The smell of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... Jackson himself turned, and rode back with his staff at a quick trot. But in the dim light his men mistook the little party for a company of Federals charging, and they fired. Many of his officers were killed, Jackson himself was sorely wounded and fell from his horse into the arms of ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... loves are like the breath of a man upon steel, which no sooner lighteth on but it leapeth off, and their passions are as momentary as the colors of a polype, which changeth at the sight of every object. My breath waxeth short, and mine eyes dim: the hour is come, and I must away: therefore let this suffice, women are wantons, and yet men cannot want one: and therefore, if you love, choose her that hath eyes of adamant, that will turn only to one point; her heart of a diamond, that will receive but one form; ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... only a pale-bright belt along the ocean to the eastward showed the far-off coming of the day. The shore and the village looked black as night. We were already several hundred yards from the wharf. A smart, cold breeze gushed out of the north-west. The huge, dim-white sails were filling: "The Curlew" gathered way, and stood out to sea. The chilling breeze, the motion, the ink-black waves, and their sharp cracking on the beach, were altogether a little disheartening at first, coming so suddenly from ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... Behind her lay the dark and silent garden, beyond it the house, with its wide-open drawing-room windows, and the stream of yellow light from the lamp within, lying in a golden streak across the lawn. She leant over the gate; an archway of greenery, dark in the night's dim light, was above her head, and clusters of pale, creamy roses hung down about her ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... up the staircase, which was panelled off into spaces like so many mourning tablets, into a dim bed-chamber, the floor of which had gradually so sunk and settled, that the fire-place was in a dell. On a black bier-like sofa in this hollow, propped up behind with one great angular black bolster like the block at a state execution in the good old times, sat his mother ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... dark. I do not think I have ever experienced a darker night. We could hear the sea roaring on our left, and could see, when we looked back, a dim glow here and there from the windows of our houses; but it was quite impossible to see ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... more had been said, or less! If only more had been denied, or granted! There is forever imprinted on the brain some one especial look which time can never dim—some special word whose burden nor sleep nor ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... spirits, managed to laugh in the midst of their work. At Christmas-time captain Wolseley and two of his friends determined to have a plum-pudding, so that they might feel as if they were eating their Christmas dinner in England. It is true that they only had dim ideas how a plum-pudding was to be made, and nothing whatever to make it with, but when one is young that makes no difference at all. One of the three consulted a sergeant, who told him he thought it would need some flour and some raisins, as well as some suet; but as none of these ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... handful of waste and began to polish the hood and fenders of the car. His mother would want to drive, and she always made a fuss if he left any dust to dim its glossy splendor. He walked around behind and contemplated the number plate, wondering if the man who was said to be "hep" would remember that there were three ciphers together. He might see only two—being in a hurry and excited. He rubbed the plate thoughtfully, trying to guess just ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene, Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast— Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low In adoration, upward from thy base Slow traveling with dim eyes suffused with tears, Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud, To rise before me—Rise, O ever rise! Rise like a cloud of incense, from the Earth! Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills, Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven, Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... times and seasons when the imagination shoots with the greatest vigour, whether at the summer solstice or the equinox, sagaciously observing how much the wild freedom and liberty of imagination is cramped by attention to established rules, and how this same imagination begins to grow dim in advanced age, smothered and deadened by too much judgment. When we talk such language, or entertain such sentiments as these, we generally rest contented with mere words, or at best entertain notions ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... The dim little glow in the sky between the jungle leaves kept up. It was bright, and slowly growing brighter. There was a sudden flickering and even the jungle grew light for an instant. A few seconds later ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... something far more terrific and trying to the nerves in a night action than in one fought by day. The dark, mysterious form of the enemy, the flashes of the guns, the irregular glare, the dim light of the fighting lanterns, the cries and groans of the wounded, the uncertainty as to who is hit or what damage has been done, all combine to produce an effect which the most desperate fight by ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... one. And afterwards there was exploring to be done about the little yard and orchard and up and down the road, in the dim, sweet twilight, with the Talented One at ...
— Four Girls and a Compact • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... tribe which seems to retain ancient practices the women still actually take part in these ceremonies.[277] It seems to have been much the same in Europe. We observe, too, both in the Celtic pantheon and among Mediterranean peoples, that while all the ancient divinities have receded into the dim background yet the goddesses loom larger than the gods.[278] In Ireland, where ancient custom and tradition have always been very tenaciously preserved, women retained a very high position, and much freedom both ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... and quickly done. Scarce has the ambuscade been set, when the trampling of horses heard down the defile tells of a cavalcade coming up, and presently the foremost files appear rounding an angle of rock. Dim as is the light, the horseman leading can be told to be the young Tovas cacique, while the one immediately in his rear is recognisable as Rufino Valdez. At sight of the latter the gaucho, who is close to Kaolin, feeling all his ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... still clinging to him, with the ardent fervour of her own passion, she felt the rigid tension of his arms relax, the power of his embrace weaken, the wild love-light become dim in his eyes. ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... it rings for me. In moods of humility I can be a Sizar, or a Servitor. When the peacock vein rises, I strut a Gentleman Commoner. In graver moments, I proceed Master of Arts. Indeed I do not think I am much unlike that respectable character. I have seen your dim-eyed vergers, and bed-makers in spectacles drop a bow or curtsey as I pass, wisely mistaking me for something of the sort. I go about in black, which favours the notion. Only in Christ Church reverend quadrangle I can be content ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... the young people went away down the avenue of shade trees, dim in the gathering twilight. Mamercus stood ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... thou art worn and hard beset With troubles that thou wouldst forget, Go to the woods and hills! No tears Dim the sweet look ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... been, the night air felt chill, and a heavy dew began to fall, showing me the wisdom of substituting woollen for cotton garments. I could see the dim outlines of the high hills, which shut in our happy valley on all sides, and the smell of the freshly-turned earth of a paddock near the house, which was in process of being broken up for English grass, came stealing towards me on the silent ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... brethren are; yea, some are so swallowed up with God, and love to his word and ways, that they are fit to be a pattern or example in holiness to all that are about them; and some again have their light shining so dim, that they render themselves suspicious to their brethren, whether they are of the number of those that have grace or no.[1] But being gracious they shall not be lost, although such will at the day of reward suffer loss; for this is the will of the Father that sent the Son to be the Saviour ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... little less than three leagues and back, which he reckoned to accomplish in two hours, though the night was moonless and the way rugged. He rushed against the still cold air till it felt like a wind upon his face. The dim homestead sank below the ridges at his back, and fresh ridges of snowlands rose out of the obscure horizon-level to drive past him as the stirless air drove, and sink away behind into obscure level again. He took ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... language to which he owes so much; historiographers bind together the fleeting elements of story, and treasure them up for immortality in the temple of Mnemosyne. Legends, ballad-stories, and traditions must be excluded from such original history; they are but dim and hazy forms of historical apprehension, and therefore belong to nations whose intelligence is but half awakened. Here, on the contrary, we have to do with people fully conscious of what they were ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... it does steam away more then burn; I could tell you of the dim burning of a Candle, the longer the snuff be which arises from the abundance of vapours out of the higher parts ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... Bane and Antidote are both before me. This in a Moment brings me to an End; But This informs me I shall never die. The Soul, secur'd in her Existence, smiles At the drawn Dagger, and defies its Point. The Stars shall fade away, the Sun himself Grow dim with Age, and Nature sink in Years; But thou shalt flourish in immortal Youth, Unhurt amidst the War of Elements, The Wrecks of Matter and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... for himself, he found no delight in himself. Walking the rosy paths of the fig tree garden, sitting in the bluish shade of the grove of contemplation, washing his limbs daily in the bath of repentance, sacrificing in the dim shade of the mango forest, his gestures of perfect decency, everyone's love and joy, he still lacked all joy in his heart. Dreams and restless thoughts came into his mind, flowing from the water of the river, sparkling from the stars of the night, melting from ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... the veldt to a faint, dim line of blue beyond, and dwelt upon it wistfully. "Don't you think it depends upon the husband?" ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... of which he was paying journey-money to each boy, comparing by the light of a solitary dip the dirty, crabbed little list in his own handwriting with the Doctor's list and the amount of his cash; his head was on one side, his mouth screwed up, and his spectacles dim from early toil. He had prudently locked the door, and carried on his operations solely through the window, or he would have been driven wild and lost all ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... had long since looked forth from the clear heavens and inundated the steppe with his quickening, warming light. All that was dim and drowsy in the Cossacks' minds flew away in a twinkling: their hearts ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... which were antagonistic to the creed and usages of a past that was identified in their eyes with the Papacy. Such questions could hardly fail to find an echo in the people at large. To the bulk of men ecclesiastical institutions are things dim and remote; and the establishment of ecclesiastical independence, though it gratified the national pride, could have raised little personal enthusiasm. But the direct and personal interest of every man seemed to lie in the right ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... and old, There are seven columns, massy and gray, Dim with a dull, imprisoned ray— A sunbeam that hath lost its way, And through the crevice and the cleft Of the thick wall is fallen and left Creeping o'er the floor so damp, ...
— Rollo in Geneva • Jacob Abbott
... quite an old fossil," dowager lady Chia observed. "I'm no good whatever. My eyesight is dim; my ears are deaf, my memory is gone. I can't even recollect any of you, old family connections. When therefore any of our relations come on a visit, I don't see them for fear lest I should be ridiculed. All I can manage to eat are a few mouthfuls of anything tender ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... risen and no other traveler was on the road, nor could he see through the dim light of dawn a house or watch-tower where he might ask aid. But as he wept he heard a distant sound that was sweeter ...
— The Story-teller • Maud Lindsay
... solid earth, while rows upon rows of sandbags were piled outside the entrance to guard against splinters and stray bullets. The weighty roof was supported, as an additional precaution, on the inside by three stout wooden posts, which, together with the rather dim light, most apparent when descending from the brilliant sunshine outside, gave the bomb-proof the appearance of a ship's cabin; in fact, one of my visitors remarked it much reminded him of the well-known print of the Victory's cockpit when Nelson lay a-dying. The interior panelling was painted ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... interesting to trace the history of the doctrine among the ancient peoples—away back into the dim recesses of the past. It is difficult to ascribe to any particular time, or any particular race, the credit of having "originated" Reincarnation. In spite of the decided opinions, and the differing theories of the various writers on this subject, ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... immediately appeared in the adjoining room, and the bishop found himself completely encircled by lights, which shone upon the worn, haggard face of the duchesse, revealing every feature but too clearly. Aramis fixed a long ironical look upon her pale, thin, withered cheeks—her dim, dull eyes—and upon her lips, which she kept carefully closed over her discolored scanty teeth. He, however, had thrown himself into a graceful attitude, with his haughty and intelligent head thrown ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... present state, Comparing it with my forepassed days, New heaps of cares afresh begin t'assay My pensive heart, as when the glittering rays Of bright Phoebus are suddenly o'erspread With dusky clouds, that dim his golden light: Namely, when I, laid in my widow's bed, Amid the silence of the quiet night, With curious thought the fleeting course observe Of gladsome youth, how soon his flower decays, "How time once past may never have recourse, No more ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... given on earth through which men could be delivered. Indeed, if not, how is the Messiah of such exclusive and paramount importance to man? The Messiah was as yet (viz., in Abraham's time) a prophecy—a dim, prophetic outline of one who should be revealed. But if Abraham and many others could do without Him, if this was a dispensable idea, how was it in any case, first or last, indispensable? Besides, recur to the theory of Christianity. Most undeniably it ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... out a rabbit the tool is very apt to catch under a root, when an ordinary spade may bend and become useless. The 'navigator' will stand anything, and being narrow is also more handy. All these implements Little John has prepared by the dim light of a horn lantern in the shed at the back of his cottage. A mug of ale while we get our guns greatly cheers ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... general principle to all matters of love and matrimony, it went down to the very ground straightway, and sent the light cause of the younger gentleman flying upwards to the ceiling. Mr Chester was not the kind of man to be by any means dim-sighted to Mr Willet's motives, but he thanked him as graciously as if he had been one of the most disinterested martyrs that ever shone on earth; and leaving him, with many complimentary reliances on his great taste and ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... and then Bonaparte, sharing his mood, would growl like a small thunderstorm. The seat was well chosen, for the cowering trees are like a shed over it, and there is a pleasant landscape in front (though that mattered little to Andy), a landscape of dim green moors—with brown stains on them where sedge grows and black shadows where bushes huddle in clefts—chequered by a grey net of low walls, dotted with the white gables of cabins, and framed by a wavering line ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... rout of the gallant Highlanders seemed to be imminent. Their retirement, however, was due mainly to sudden panic, the consternation and amazement at the murderous outburst, blazing as it did in the dim deceitful dusk, from the unsuspected trenches. These, it must be owned, were most skilfully concealed at the foot of a series of kopjes. They were screened from sight by a tangle of brushwood and scrub, while round ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... step back you take. But now, take a matting brush, with a film so thin that it is hardly more than dirty water; put it on the back of the glass (so as not to wash up your outline); badger it flat, so as just to dim the glass less than "ground glass" is dimmed;—and you will find your outline look almost the same at each distance. It is the pure light that plays tricks, and it will play them ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... fathers. We sat down in the Potter pew a few minutes before the service began. There were, by actual count, forty-nine people gathered around the altar of the old church, and behind us a great emptiness and the ghosts of the dead. In my boyhood I had sat in its dim light, with six hundred people filling every seat to the doors and a man of power ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller
... particularly fearful in death. I may truthfully say that I have several times met death face to face squarely and feared not. On these occasions I tried not to escape what seemed to be my final doom, but in the dim consciousness of mind that I should be dead long enough anyway, I tried to delay my departure to a better life as long as possible, exerting myself exceedingly to accomplish this purpose. Undoubtedly this must have made me a very undesirable person to contend with in ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... paces interval, each platoon keeping in touch with the one in front by means of connecting files. We passed rows of ruined cottages where only the scent of the roses in neglected little front gardens reminded one of the home-loving people who had lived there in happier days. Dim lights streamed through chinks and crannies in the walls. Now and then blanket coverings would be lifted from apertures that had been windows or doors, and we would see bright fires blazing in the middle ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... servant girl, had finished the house-work for the day, and sat down to do a little mending with her needle. The fire in the range, which for hours had sent forth such scorching blasts, was now burning dim; for it was early in October, and the weather was mild and pleasant. The floor was swept, and the various articles belonging in the room were arranged in their proper places, for the night. The mistress of the kitchen,—for ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... a little more 'personable' to find favour in the eyes of a publisher. Accordingly, blotted sheets were hastily re-copied, new articles introduced, and passages of dubious interest omitted, husband and wife working together at this remodelling until their fingers ached and their eyes were as dim as an owl's in sunshine. Their labours were rewarded by the acceptance of the work by Bentley and Colburn, and its triumphant success with both critics and public, seven editions being called for in the first few months of ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... after breakfast, the next day. Amelia had risen very early in the morning, and packed her little trunks with the greatest alacrity, while Osborne lay in bed deploring that she had not a maid to help her. She was only too glad, however, to perform this office for herself. A dim uneasy sentiment about Rebecca filled her mind already; and although they kissed each other most tenderly at parting, yet we know what jealousy is; and Mrs. Amelia possessed that among other virtues ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dim and lonely, Still the plashing fountains play, But the past with all its beauty, Whither has it fled away? Hark! the mournful echoes say, Fled ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... features. For some minutes he gazed at the expanse before him, as if taking a last look at some ship disappearing in the distance. Then his eyes became dim; he recovered himself in a moment, and without a word or look, set off at ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... behind the range and darkness began to fall on the immense plain, but aloft on the topmost edge the pure white of the jagged crest-line glowed for an instant in many-coloured silver, and then the lonely peaks grew dark and dim. ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... cousin Estelle plunged the three children into the deepest grief. Alan's sole consolation was that he was allowed to be of the search-party as soon as he was well enough. Marjorie had not this consolation. Georgie had some dim idea of creeping away all by himself to search all their haunts on the common, or in the woods round St. Cecilia's Well; but a timely remembrance of how stern his father could be prevented him. ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... was not purblind, yet he was short or weaksighted; and where he fixed his eyes at the beginning of his sermon, there they continued till it was ended: and the Reader has a liberty to believe, that his modesty and dim sight were some of the reasons why he trusted Mrs. Churchman to ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... can have happened? They should have been here two hours ago. It is now three o'clock." Then he alighted and strode about for half an hour over the dim-lit sward, thrusting out his head every few seconds, in the direction from which the party should come. But still no sound, no sight, of any horseman. He now began to storm and blaspheme, and would remind anybody who saw him of some wild beast foiled of his prey. Presently, he observed ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... punctus oculi, whence sehan, videre. In the Semitic languages, as well as in the Greek and Latin, the origin of the term is the same, and gives no clue to the meaning of the Saxon term. Thus, in the Hebrew [Hebrew: 'IYSHWON], dim. of [Hebrew: 'IYSH], homunculus, the small image of a person seen in the eye. In Arabic it is the man or daughter of the eye. In Greek we have [Greek: kore, korasion, korasidon]; and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 193, July 9, 1853 • Various
... vain; Fear lurk'd behind in that sepulchral court, In its mute avenue and grave-like grass; And to proceed—where led my onward way? Ranges of doorways branch'd on either side, Each like the other:—one I oped, and lo! A dim deserted room, its furniture Withdrawn; gray, stirless cobwebs from the roof Hanging; and its deep windows letting in The pale, sad dawn—than darkness drearier far. How desolate! Around its cornices Of florid stucco shone the mimic flowers Of art's device, carved to delight the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... were of a gentle, pale-faced woman, who, when her blue eyes were dim with coming death, had shudderingly turned away from him, as if his presence brought her more of pain than joy. Memories, too, there were of another—a peerlessly beautiful creature who, ere he had sought the white-faced woman for his wife, ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... Saxon listened, in a maze, to what almost seemed a wild farrago, save that the strange meaningless phrases were fraught with dim, mysterious significance. She caught glimmerings of profounds inexpressible and unthinkable that hinted connotations lawless and terrible. The woman's speech was a lava rush, scorching and searing; and Saxon's cheeks, and forehead, and neck ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... told of "the dim moral perceptions" of the people of India, and as many of those who will read this volume may be disposed to think that the cause of poverty lies in some deficiencies in the character of the Hindoo, it may not be improper, with a view to ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... evening blending With the dim and shadowy light, Bring us dreams of bliss unending In the Haven, calm and bright— Oh! how sweet the thought—"for ever 'Mong the sinless we shall stand, There united, ne'er to sever, In the bright and better land:" And e'en then, ...
— Lays from the West • M. A. Nicholl
... facade of Smolny blazed with lights as we drove up, and from every street converged upon it streams of hurrying shapes dim in the gloom. Automobiles and motorcycles came and went; an enormous elephant-coloured armoured automobile, with two red flags flying from the turret, lumbered out with screaming siren. It was cold, ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... around, and half grows alarmed. Quickly he wraps a dressing-gown about him, and hastily walks back and forth to still the agony of feeling and the bitter phantoms of his dreams. How haggard and wild he looks by that dim candle-light. ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... rode the whole of this morning and afternoon about the mountain in different directions, in fruitless search after the shady and conspicuous rock of Naszeb. Towards the evening we met him, so much exhausted with thirst, that his eyes had become dim, and he could scarcely recognise us; had he not fallen in with us he would probably have perished. My companions laughed at the effeminate Egyptian, as they called him, and his presumption in travelling alone in districts with which he was unacquainted. At ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... blue frock! who told you of the young woman, Linda?" He came and knelt beside her as he asked the question, leaving his watch for the moment; and she could see by the dim light of the lamp outside that there was a smile upon his face,—almost joyous, ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... the fluttering tapestry,—all forming together a curious chiaroscuro, from which the massive figure of Zephoranim stood out in bold and striking prominence against the white and silver background of his throne. Vaguely bewildered and lost in a dim stupefaction of wonderment, Theos looked upon everything with an odd sense of strained calmness, . . the glittering saloon whirled before his eyes like a passing picture in a magic glass...and then...an imperative knowledge forced itself upon his mind,—HE HAD WITNESSED THIS SELF-SAME ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... communicated to them as it is communicated to us. While we are confined in the prison of the body, we see only with our eyes and hear with our ears; hence our faculties of vision and hearing are very limited. Compared with the heavenly inhabitants, we are like a man in a darksome cell through which a dim ray of light penetrates. He observes but few objects, and these very obscurely. But as soon as our soul is freed from the body, soaring heavenward like a bird released from its cage, its vision is at once marvelously ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons |
