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noun
Darkness  n.  
1.
The absence of light; blackness; obscurity; gloom. "And darkness was upon the face of the deep."
2.
A state of privacy; secrecy. "What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light."
3.
A state of ignorance or error, especially on moral or religious subjects; hence, wickedness; impurity. "Men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." "Pursue these sons of darkness: drive them out From all heaven's bounds."
4.
Want of clearness or perspicuity; obscurity; as, the darkness of a subject, or of a discussion.
5.
A state of distress or trouble. "A day of clouds and of thick darkness."
Prince of darkness, the Devil; Satan. "In the power of the Prince of darkness."
Synonyms: Darkness, Dimness, Obscurity, Gloom. Darkness arises from a total, and dimness from a partial, want of light. A thing is obscure when so overclouded or covered as not to be easily perceived. As tha shade or obscurity increases, it deepens into gloom. What is dark is hidden from view; what is obscure is difficult to perceive or penetrate; the eye becomes dim with age; an impending storm fills the atmosphere with gloom. When taken figuratively, these words have a like use; as, the darkness of ignorance; dimness of discernment; obscurity of reasoning; gloom of superstition.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Darkness" Quotes from Famous Books



... tremendous, and on every side floes heaped up their debris on each other, and pinnacles forced into collision were ground into common ruin. Now shut out from view in darkness and storm, and now close at hand in the multitudinous shiftings of the ice, the immovable and gigantic buttresses of the ice-pool ground into powder acres of level floe, and bergs containing hundreds of thousands ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall

... grew the sky, and the wind soon blew in furious gusts, raising a sea so heavy that the Saxons were obliged to lay in their oars. By nightfall it was blowing a furious gale. In the gathering darkness and the flying scud the ships of the Danes were lost sight of; but this was of little consequence now, for the attention of the Saxons was directed to their ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty

... darkness of the night the same thought rose in my mind as in the bright light of noontide. What is there which I have not used to strengthen the ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies

... and silver-grey, high and close-set: and so on and on he went as one going by a well-known path, though there was no path, till all the moonlight was quenched under the close roof of the beech-leaves, though yet for all the darkness, no man could go there and not feel that the roof was green above him. Still he went on in despite of the darkness, till at last there was a glimmer before him, that grew greater till he came unto a small wood-lawn whereon the turf grew again, though ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... zigzag course to avoid the thirty or forty shell holes that our guns had made, and as he wormed himself forward the darkness of the night and the strange silence of the enemy batteries on that sector confirmed him more than ever in his conviction that ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry

... avoid certain attacks of fate, or can one escape from one's destiny? When a solitary, abandoned woman, without children and with a careless husband, always escapes from the passion which a man feels for her, as she would escape from the sun, in order to live in darkness until she dies? ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... shall be thus no more! too long, too long, 775 Sons of the glorious dead, have ye lain bound In darkness and in ruin!—Hope is strong, Justice and Truth their winged child have found— Awake! arise! until the mighty sound Of your career shall scatter in its gust 780 The thrones of the oppressor, and the ground Hide the last altar's unregarded dust, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... would meet with anywhere, but in extreme cases he would tell the truth, and the present case was an extreme one. Philip was merciful; he allowed Barton to remain in his tent all day, and gave him his dinner. When darkness came he escorted him to the tent of the men from Nyalong, and was introduced to them by his new friend. Their names were Gleeson, Poynton, Lyons, and two brothers McCarthy. One of these men was brother-in-law to Barton, and had been ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... not outer, without gnash of teeth Or weeping, save quiet sobs of some who pray And feel the Everlasting Arms beneath,— Blackness of darkness this, but not for aye; Darkness that even in gathering fleeteth fast, Blackness of blackest darkness close to day. Lord Jesus, through Thy darkened pillar cast, Thy gracious eyes all-seeing cast on me Until this tyranny be overpast. Me, ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti

... common calamity to the world. Our country mourns a father. The Almighty Disposer of human events has taken from us our greatest benefactor and ornament. It becomes us to submit with reverence to Him 'who maketh darkness His pavilion.' ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... made me feel that I daren't go down that place again, even if it was to save my life. There, I'm sorry I made such an exhibition of myself. I did try to be plucky; but that place below there, with the water trying to sweep you off into the black darkness and the end, was too much for me. I believe I nearly lost my senses once. Well," he cried, half-fiercely, after a short pause, during which he looked keenly at first one and then the other of the boys, "you've ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn

... tread of their own feet and the musical ripple of water in the creek there was scarcely a sound in this first hour of the night. In Jolly Roger there rose something of exultation, for Nada's warm little hand lay in his as he guided her through the darkness, and her fingers had clasped themselves tightly round his thumb. She was very close to him when he paused to make sure of the unseen trail, so close that her cheek rested against his arm, and—bending a little—his lips touched the soft ripples of her hair. ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood

... fresh meat, nor a thousand other features which it would be impossible to enumerate without recapitulating the whole of Henri Fabre's work and completely altering the proportions of the present essay. But here such silence and such darkness reign that we have nothing to hope for. There exists, so to speak, no bench-mark, no means of communication between the world of insects and our own; and we are perhaps less far from grasping and fathoming what takes place in Saturn or Jupiter ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck

... regions of barbarism—their very passions helping to this end, for nothing can be more clear than that ambitious aggression has led to the civilization of many countries. Such is the process which seems to form the destined means for bringing mankind from the darkness of barbarism to the day of knowledge and mechanical and social improvement. Even the noble art of letters is but, as Dr. Adam Fergusson has remarked, "a natural produce of the human mind, which will rise spontaneously, ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers

... gust of wind roared round the house and alarmed me still more. I had a painful, horrible foreboding; when, of a sudden, the windows and window-shutters were all blown in, the light was extinguished, and I was left in utter darkness. I screamed with fright—but at last I recovered myself, and was proceeding towards the window that I might reclose it, when whom should I behold, slowly entering at the casement, but—your father,— Philip!—Yes, Philip,—it ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... imperfectly the conversation of the men, the lad separated the painter with a sharp knife, and at the same time dropping his foot down, gave the bow of the boat a shove off, which made it round with the stream. The tide was then running five or six miles an hour, and before the corporal, in the utter darkness, could make out what had occurred, or raise his heavy carcase to assist himself, he was whirled away by the current clear of the vessel, and soon disappeared from the sight of Smallbones, ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... given. If the boys hoped to gather from the Headmaster's speech an intimation of where they would meet him after Christmas they were disappointed. The government had as yet no communication to make. Next morning, in the darkness before dawn, the special train carried them to their homes, to await with curiosity ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine

... other tribes in 1202, we are told that Sengun, the son of Aung Khan, when sent to meet the enemy, caused them to be enchanted, so that all their attempted movements against him were defeated by snow and mist. The fog and darkness were indeed so dense that many men and horses fell over precipices, and many also perished with cold. In another account of (apparently) the same matter, given by Mir-Khond, the conjuring is set on foot by the Yadachi of Buyruk Khan, Prince of the Naiman, but the mischief ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... stupor of blind despair he slowly fumbled his way up to his room, entered, and threw himself across the bed without undressing. It was one thing to preach, another to face the thing itself alone in the darkness. ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon

... I? I was racing parallel with the cattle, with my head down on the horse's neck, letting him pick his way through the scrub in the pitchy darkness. This went on for about four miles. Then the cattle began to get winded, and I dug into the old stock-horse with the spurs, and got in front, and began to crack the whip and sing out, so as to steady them a little; after awhile they dropped slower and slower, and I kept the whip ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... Darkness closed in about Kit Carson before he could reach his camp; and, indeed, the sky was so cloudy that it was with great difficulty he found his way to it. The idea of sending out a pack animal for the elk was out of the question; therefore, the whole party went, supperless, to bed. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... Light, toward that star, blazing in the distance, which is an emblem of the Divine Truth, given by God to the first men, and preserved amid all the vicissitudes of ages in the traditions and teachings of Masonry. How far you will advance, depends upon yourself alone. Here, as everywhere in the world, Darkness struggles with Light, and clouds and shadows intervene ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... was cloudy, and it looked as if a storm was coming; so, as it was dark and blustering, we remained within doors the rest of the evening. A fine drizzling rain began to fall, and the darkness ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes

... one think of the wilderness with the bright hop-fields of Kent chasing past the windows? Then came the mass-meeting of brick houses that skirt London, and finally the tunnel which is the approach to the terminus. As the wheels rumbled through the darkness of it they suggested some lines of stray ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott

... Through the threefold darkness of night, clouds, and rain they hurried on towards that fearful beacon light which flamed on the edge of ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... hundred or six hundred feet deep, with sides so precipitous that we could scarcely find a place to descend, that, towards sunset, I turned directly in towards the river, and, after nightfall, entered a sort of ravine. We were obliged to feel our way, and clear a road in the darkness; the surface being much broken, and the progress of the carriages being greatly obstructed by the artemisia, which had a luxuriant growth of four to six feet in height. We had scrambled along this gulley for several hours, during which we had knocked off the ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... however, certain fairly definite types of opal and jewelers should learn to apply correct names to these types. Most prominent among the opals of to-day are the so-called "Black opals" from New South Wales. These give vivid flashes of color out of seeming darkness. In some positions the stones, as the name implies, appear blue-black or blackish gray. By transmitted light, however, the bluish stones appear yellow. Owing to the sharp contrast between the dark background and the flashing spectrum colors, black opals are most ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade

... the occupant of the bedroom that lay in darkness beyond the half-opened door to the right. He lived, when at home, in a big, rambling house in the Berkshires, a house from the windows of which one could see into three states and overlook a wonderful expanse of wooded hill and sloping meadow; ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour

... I can remember, past five o'clock when I turned along Praed Street. The darkness was coming on, and there was a slight rain falling, and a tendency to fog. However, I noticed something—I am naturally very quick of observation. As I passed the end of the street which goes round the back of the Grand Junction Canal basin, the street called Iron Gate Wharf, I saw ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher

... never in a hurry. The breadth of the great room immediately before her showed very bright with candle-light and lamplight. But that died away, through gradations of augmenting obscurity, until the extreme end, towards the western bay, melted out into complete darkness. This produced an effect of almost limitless length which moved her to a childish, and at first pleasing, fancy of vague danger—an effect heightened by the ranges of curious and costly objects standing against, or decorating, the walls in a perspective of deepening gloom. Turquoise-coloured, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... bottom of the lighter when the hatches overhead were being nailed down. Yet by an odd chance the young Capuchin and Leroy, who had been companions in the chain, were not separated even now. Amid the human welter in that agitated place of darkness, the cries and wails that rang around him, Leroy recognized the voice of the young friar exhorting them ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini

... when he left his lodgings in Alfred Place, and it was after nine when he stood at the corner where the main-road passes by the entrance to Brook Green. He had never once looked behind him; and, even if he had, he would scarcely have detected in the darkness the figure which dogged his steps with ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... at the speaker, uncertain of his seriousness. He seemed in earnest, however. "The dark is easy to drive away in this house," she replied. "It is so interesting, just like a treatment. The room seems full of darkness, error, and I just turn the switch," she illustrated with thumb and finger in the air, "and suddenly—there isn't any darkness! It's all bright and happy, ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham

... had gone two steps in the darkness there would be a sense of something following close behind, and then all was over, and nothing to be seen but a panic-stricken little boy rushing along with his hands held over his ears. How foolish! you will say. Very foolish, indeed, and so said all the other children, ...
— The Hawthorns - A Story about Children • Amy Walton

... that seemed, in the dusk, refined and kindly, though seared with many wrinkles. I watched the silent figure at the window unnoticed by him, for he gazed with intentness at the vine-adorned front of the old Unitarian Church at the corner, until the real darkness came ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump

... cannot—not now. I am like one staggering along, following a dim light that leads hither and thither, and which may any moment go out and leave me in utter darkness." ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith

... the highest peaks, it reached an elevation of several thousand feet. This steep ascent, though not to its full height, indeed, was now to be surmounted. The difficulties of the ground, broken up into fearful chasms and water-courses, and tangled with thickets, were greatly increased by the darkness of the night; and the soldiers, as they toiled slowly upward, were filled with apprehension, akin to fear, from the uncertainty whether each successive step might not bring them into an ambuscade, for which the ground was so favorable. More than once, the Spaniards were thrown into a panic ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... without "revealed religion" mankind would sit in eternal darkness makes us think of the fable of the man who planted potatoes, hoed them, and finally harvested the crop. Every day while this man toiled, there was another man who sat on the fence, chewed a straw and looked on. And the author of the story says that if it were not for the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... the darkness is grown deep. That Emperour, rich Charles, lies asleep; Dreams that he stands in the great pass of Size, In his two hands his ashen spear he sees; Guenes the count that spear from him doth seize, Brandishes it and twists it with such ease, That flown into the sky the flinders ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous

... entered his room that night, Gerfaut went straight to the window. He could see in the darkness the light which ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... appointed time, all is ruined. The faintest sound, as of the cackling of the geese in the Capitol, the least departure from some ordinary routine, the most trifling mistake or error, mars the whole enterprise. Add to which, the darkness of night lends further terror to the perils of such undertakings; while the great majority of those engaged in them, having no knowledge of the district or places into which they are brought, are bewildered ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli

... turn round, just at the very moment when Bramble, attempting to lower the gas still further, turned it right out. The effect was remarkable. No one and nothing was visible, but out of the black darkness came the ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed

... so the reaping, Shame on us who overreach, While our eyes yet smart with weeping, Hearts so all our own to teach, Better they and we lay sleeping where the darkness ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... was frank, open, and pleasant, though grave and somewhat careworn, so that it did not appear to Cousin Giles that he had any sinister motive for his conduct. Our friends were so much interested with all they saw, that quick-gathering darkness alone reminded them that it was time to return to their hotel. They had even then seen but a very small portion of the fair. Cousin Giles had before this lost sight of the mujick. They were on their way to the upper town, and were passing through a street, if so it might be called, ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston

... gathering fast; the room, with its pale-toned hangings and faded tapestries, was sinking into the arms of gloom. Aunt Marie was no doubt too terrified to stir out of her kitchen; she did not bring the lamps, but the darkness suited Armand's mood, and Jeanne was glad that the gloaming effectually hid the perpetual blush ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... with hospitable haste, and started as if another ghost had come to surprise her, for there stood a tall bearded gentleman, beaming on her from the darkness ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... the details of such societies in all countries are essentially the same—that there are certain practical jokes of initiation—tossings in blankets, layings in coffins, dippings in cold water, stringent catechisms, moral exhortations, with darkness and sudden light and mysterious voices from forms invisible, and then mystic signs and clasps and mottoes, "the whole to conclude" with the best supper that the treasury can afford. Literary brotherhood, philosophic ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis

... scarcely reach our ears, while in Heaven they ring out clear, and sweet, and sorrowful,—"Sweet Jesus! merciful Jesus! suffering, calumniated dying Jesus, pity me—rescue me," she murmured, folding her cold hands together. Far away fled the powers of darkness, and left only the sweetness and peace of that potent deliverer, JESUS, in her soul. Once more the angels of her life looked up rejoicing, and spread their wings of light about her way. Without, there had been an exterior calm; ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey

... thou, friend! And is it a mere slumber, A fleeting trance, a pleasant dream of battle, With which the spear's impregnated in Nastroud? Ha! whom it slays wakes never up in Valhall; In mist and darkness must he lie for ever. From gods and men alike for ever parted, Must Balder be ...
— The Death of Balder • Johannes Ewald

... I had the voice of Orpheus, who made even the rocks to follow him, that I might persuade thee; but now all that I have I give, even these tears. O my father, I am thy child; slay me not before my time. This light is sweet to look upon. Drive me not from it to the land of darkness. I was the first to call thee father; and the first to whom thou didst say 'my child.' And thou wouldst say to me, 'Some day, my child, I shall see thee a happy wife in the home of a rich husband.' And I would answer, 'And I will ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church

... by persistent cold and relatively narrow annual temperature ranges; winters characterized by continuous darkness, cold and stable weather conditions, and clear skies; summers characterized by continuous daylight, damp and foggy weather, and weak cyclones with rain ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... remember that they have a mighty struggle to sustain, but their resources are inexhaustible. They have to contend with the powers of darkness and the corruptions of nature. In the issue of this contest heaven and hell are interested; the one, that you should fail; the other, that you should come off "more than conquerors." Angels are waiting on the shores of immortality to see the ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... the decree was posted on the walls of Rome. It was observed, however, amidst the growing darkness; and no sooner was the word amnesty read than a cry of enthusiasm was heard. People hastened from their houses in all directions, the passers-by stopped in crowds to read, by torchlight, the cabalistic words. Among ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... heard with what toil Secunder penetrated to the land of darkness, and that, after all, he did not ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... translated turned, e.g., as in Mark v. 30: "Jesus ... turned him about in the press." Acts xvi. 18: "But Paul ... turned and said." Matt. xii. 44: "I will return into my house." Acts xxvi. 18: "To turn them from darkness to light." And so in many other places. It is plain, then, that the meaning of the word is a turning or facing about—a returning, or a changing of direction—as if a traveler, on finding himself going the wrong way, turns, returns, changes his course, comes ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding

... for this warl', my freen'. It's comin'—the hoor o' darkness. But the thing 'at's true whan the licht shines, is as true i' the dark: ye canna work, that's a'. God 'ill gie me grace to lie still. It's a' ane. I wud lie jist as I used to sit, i' the days whan I men'it fowk's shune, an' Doory happent to tak awa' the licht for a moment;—I ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... the boundless spirit of Nature or Freedom or Love, his one place of rest and the one source of his vision, ecstasy, and sorrow. He sang to this, and he sang of it, and of the emotions it inspired, and of its world-wide contest with such shapes of darkness as Faith and Custom. And he made immortal music; now in melodies as exquisite and varied as the songs of Schubert, and now in symphonies where the crudest of Philosophies of History melted into golden harmony. For ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher

... truth as we shall see, that they with their bare legs enjoyed better health than those who wore breeches and warm clothing. At Louisbourg they did well. At Quebec a Highland officer's knowledge of French proved a great boon. When, in the darkness of the momentous morning of September 13th, 1759, Wolfe's boats were drifting down with the tide close to the north shore near Quebec, intending to land and scale the heights at what is now Wolfe's Cove, a French ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong

... spirit I fitfully ponder, Where shall I pass after death from this light; Do Heaven's bright glories await me, I wonder, Or Lucifer's kingdom of darkness and night? ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams

... without bringing some new astronomical discovery to light, which we must fain receive at second hand from Europe, are we not cutting ourselves off from the means of returning light for light while we have neither observatory nor observer upon our half of the globe and the earth revolves in perpetual darkness to our ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Quincy Adams • John Quincy Adams

... 174, ante, we learn that the Iroquois believed that when Joskeha renewed the world, after the great battle with Darkness, he learned from the ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... one window or another, and they saw in the gathering darkness a sudden blast of flame and white hot particles shooting into the air and spreading out like an ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith

... In the darkness he walked about it, running his hands along the edge. It measured about ten feet by fourteen feet, he decided. Then he climbed in and felt of the bottom. At one corner there was a hole. The boat had probably been washed loose from its mooring during some previous flood time, and had come ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop

... someone's hand in order to go into a trance. She holds the hand several minutes, silently, in half-darkness. After some time—from five to fifteen minutes—she is seized with slight spasmodic convulsions, which increase, and terminate in a very slight epileptiform attack. Passing out of this, she falls into a state of stupor, with ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage

... next night that she heard anything, and then, in the darkness, he began, "Susan, thou art a good wife and ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... through two successive tarpaulin-covered hatches, by holes just big enough to pass, pushing aside the tarpaulin with one hand while the other steadied yourself. And if there were no moon, how black the outside was, to an eye as yet adjusted only to the darkness visible of the lanterns below! Except a single ray on the little book by which the midshipman mustered the watch, no gleam of artificial light was permitted on the spar—upper—deck; the fitful flashes dazzled more than they helped. You groped your ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... corroboration of this opinion, to Dr. Campbell, who in his "Philosophy of Rhetoric," says: "I know no style to which darkness of a certain sort is more suited than to the prophetical: many reasons might be assigned which render it improper that prophecy should be perfectly understood before it be accomplished. Besides, we are certain that a prediction may be very dark ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray

... land—greatly as she is amazed by the irrepressible elasticity with which you rise from under the heel of oppression, with fortitude increased under sufferings, with assurance growing stronger as the darkness grows deeper [cheers], still, it is not one or all these qualities combined that can lead her to swerve from her dignity as an independent State to the mere worship of man. [Applause.] No! But it is because she views you as the ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth

... far-sighted good-will, that can abandon to the adversary all the ground of tradition and common belief, without losing a jot of strength. It sees to the end of all transgression. George Fox saw "that there was an ocean of darkness and death; but withal, an infinite ocean of light and love which flowed ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... quadrangle, walled in with darkness and worn with the tread of numberless women's feet, showed silver-grey in the light of a moon nearing the full; and above it, in a square patch of sky, stars sparkled with a veiled radiance like diamonds ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... over; he was tired and the prospect of his comfortable bed was very alluring. It was some distance to the shack, and before he was halfway through the pine woods that separated Aldercliffe from Pine Lea darkness had fallen, and he was compelled to move cautiously along the narrow, curving trail. How black the night was! A storm must be brewing, thought he, as he glanced up into the starless heavens. Stumbling over the rough and slippery ground on he ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett

... caraway seeds. A great bowl of blue hepaticas, fresh from the forest, stood on the table; and the hepaticas were the exact colour of Anna's eyes. When Letty saw her mother's handwriting she turned cold. It was the warrant that was to banish her from Eden, casting her back into the outer darkness of the Popular Concerts and the literature lectures. She was in the act of raising a spoonful of pudding to her already opened mouth, when she caught sight of the well-known writing. She hesitated, her hand shook, and finally ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp

... at length, at the foot of the hills, the "town of nate Clogheen, where Sergeant Snap met Paddy Carey." As far as the darkness permitted us to see, Clogheen is still neat Clogheen. A little further west is the classic little town of Ballyporeen, which has danced to music that was not wedding music more than once ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall

... night. He lingered around the wharves, gazing into the deep waters, and was restrained from the deed only by the memory of the last loving voice he had heard. One gloomy evening, when even this memory had faded, and he awaited the approaching darkness to make his design secure, a hand was laid on his arm. A man in the simple garb of the Friends stood beside him, and a face which reflected the kindness of the Divine Father looked upon him. 'My child,' said he, 'I am drawn to thee by the great trouble of thy mind. Shall ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... valley, about three miles from James town, and about two miles from his late residence at Longwood, under the peaceful shade of three weeping willows, and which also, (as in respect to his dust,) lend a solemn air of reverential darkness to the memorable well, from which, during his pilgrimages, he was wont to ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to India; of a Shipwreck on board the Lady Castlereagh; and a Description of New South Wales • W. B. Cramp

... ridden pell-mell through their camp and got away with our own horses as well as theirs. We at once circled the horses around toward the south, and after getting them on the south side of Clear Creek, some twenty of our men—just as the darkness was coming on—rode back and gave the Indians a few parting shots. We then took up our line of march for Sweetwater Bridge, where we arrived four days afterward with all our own horses and about one hundred ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... veiled their course by their misty incense to the heavens—wreath after wreath of vapor creeping upwards; and as the distances faded into indistinctness, the bold headlands seemed to grow and prop the clouds; the heavens let down the pall of mystery and darkness with a tender, not terrific, power; earth and sky blended together, softly and gently; the coolness of the air refreshed us, and yet the stillness on that high point was so intense as to become almost painful. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... and, before many minutes had elapsed, it proclaimed itself no longer a mere spark, but a blaze of light, with its own luminous halo around it. The gradual chastening of colour in the western sky, along with the increased darkness of the atmosphere around it, would account for this change in the appearance of the light. So reasoned the spectators,—now more than ever convinced that what they saw was the ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... came across and looked past his shoulder. There was certainly the head of a staircase before him, and a few stairs to be seen before darkness swallowed up the rest—but the darkness was deep and the atmosphere that came up from ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher

... with your hammer three great blows upon my head, the least of which would have made an end of me if it had hit me. But in the darkness I managed each time to bring a mountain between me and your hammer without your seeing it; and if you want to see the marks you made in it you have but to look at that mountain above my city, with its top cloven ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton

... unfit he was to bear the bitter cold. David was thinking how the rain, that had been falling so heavily all the afternoon, must have gullied out the road down the north side of Hardscrabble hill, and hoping that old Don would prove himself sure-footed in the darkness. ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson

... noise, away up the corridor. I was immediately conscious of a queer prickling sensation about the back of my head, and my hands began to sweat a little. The following instant, the whole end of the passage flicked into sight in the abrupt glare of the flashlight. There came the succeeding darkness, and I peered nervously up the corridor, listening tensely, and trying to find what lay beyond the faint glow of my dark-lamp, which now seemed ridiculously dim by contrast with the tremendous blaze of ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson

... the darkness was great, yet the Rabbi could see, when it occasionally brightened, that he was in a place strange to him. "I thought," said he, "I knew all the country for leagues about Cairo, yet I know not where I am. I hope, young man," said he to his companion, "that thou hast not missed the way;" and his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various

... and I observed the effect of secrecy even upon quite innocent persons, that one after another showed in the chink of the door a face as white as paper. We slipped out of the side postern into a night of darkness, scarce broken by a star or two; so that at first we groped and stumbled and fell among the bushes. A few hundred yards up the wood-path Macconochie was waiting us with a great lantern; so the rest of the way we went easy enough, but still in a kind of guilty silence. A little beyond the abbey ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson

... stable door to, and took me by the hand. I heard the inner door open quietly, and we stepped cautiously forward. We had gone some five or six yards in the darkness when I felt something cold touch the wrist of the hand by which I was being led. There was a loud click, my hand was dropped, and I felt my wrist held fast, while I could hear my late guide ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... stops at window L.) Wait a minute! (Goes back, turns out light, then goes through window, closing it after him.) (Footsteps begin on steps off stage as O'MARA pulls down window.) Stage is in darkness but for the moonlight that streams in through window L. Steps sound closer. Key rattles and door is unlocked. Door R. opens just a bit at first, then GOLDIE ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... and some were worn away by their distempers, and had nothing remaining to be buried, but as soon as ever they fell were entirely macerated; some were choked, and greatly lamented their case, as being also stricken with a sudden darkness; some there were who, as they were burying a relation, fell down dead, without finishing the rites of the funeral. Now there perished of this disease, which began with the morning, and lasted till the hour of dinner, seventy thousand. Nay, the angel stretched out his hand ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... if he were about to speak, but he altered his mind, and the three pupils left the room, Distin going up to his chamber without a word, while attracted by the darkness Gilmore and Macey strolled out through the ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn

... conjecture concerning this remarkable appearance, some regarding it as a new world in process of creation, others as a sun on fire, Tycho Brahe held to the belief, though unable to prove it, that it was a star with a regular period of light and of darkness, caused possibly by its nearness to, or distance from, the earth. When the telescope was invented, forty years later, the accuracy of this theory was known. At the spot carefully mapped out by Tycho Brahe, a telescopic star was found, undoubtedly ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... and prose-writers of the Ciceronian age are equally imperishable in fame, the latter but represent the culmination of a broad and harmonious development, while of the former, amidst but apart from the beginnings of a new literary era, there shine, splendid like stars out of the darkness, the two immortal lights of ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail

... incidents of the story were these: Henry's conversion took place after a year and a half of hard work on the part of a missionary, who finally had the satisfaction of bringing little Henry "from the state of grossest heathen darkness and ignorance to a competent knowledge of those doctrines necessary to salvation." This was followed immediately by the offer of Henry to give all his toys for a Bible with a purple morocco cover. Then came the preparations for the teacher's departure, when she called him to her room and catechized ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey

... His cap of darkness might be of service to him here, but since the fiasco of the self-supplying tables he had been distrustful of any article supplied by the Astrologer Royal. However, it seemed as though the sudden decay of the tables had been due less to any malicious revenge on Xuriel's part than ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey

... The darkness of the night had closed upon this disastrous day, and a doleful night was it to the shipwrecked Pavonians, whose ears were incessantly assailed with the raging of the elements and the howling of the hobgoblins that infested this perilous strait. But when the morning dawned the horrors of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... companions were in the projectile he closed the opening by means of a strong plate screwed down inside. Other closely-fitting plates covered the lenticular glasses of the skylights. The travellers, hermetically inclosed in their metal prison, were in profound darkness. ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne

... climbing up, and then descending, was truly frightful; not a gleam of sky was to be seen, all was a mass of gigantic trees, straight and lofty, their wide spreading branches mingling overhead, and producing throughout the forest an endless darkness and ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle

... and fro. I found a friendly and communicable man who offered to take me over it; we climbed a dizzy little winding stair, with bright glimpses at intervals, through loop-holes, of sunlight and wheeling birds; then we crept along the top of a vaulted space with great pockets of darkness to right and left. Soon we were in the gallery of the lantern, from which we could see the little people crawling on the floor beneath, like slow insects. And then we mounted a short ladder which ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson

... awoke, My first observation was in regard to the intensity of the light. I keep on fearing, day after day, that the extraordinary electric phenomenon should become first obscured, and then go wholly out, leaving us in total darkness. Nothing, however, of the kind occurs. The shadow of the raft, its mast and sails, is clearly distinguished on ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne

... he had shaken hands, and then, with the long stride characteristic of him, went to the window and, drawing aside the curtain, peered into the darkness beyond. He stood listening until the purr of a great motor rose and died on the snow-muffled air. "He's gone!" he said, and turned back into the room. He spread his arms out and dropped them to his sides. "Swastika!" he said. "And God keep us ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... course, from his way of looking at it, I can't blame him so very much," admitted Eph Somers, as he leaned over the rail, watching Mr. Mayhew going back through the darkness. "But Jack—great old Jack!—having any liking at all for mixing up in saloons and such places on shore! Ha, ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham

... simplicity, poverty were alone true science. They alone led to heaven. Before the tribunal of Christ, the schoolmen would be condemned, "and, with their dark logic (opinionibus tenebrosis) shall be plunged into outer darkness with the spirits of the darkness." They were devilish, and would perish with ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... light from the matches, the boys were in darkness, so that they were not able to observe that the opening to the cave had closed. A strong breeze, swaying the upper limbs of the tree, had dislodged the stones and allowed the roots to slip quietly into place again. The boys, without knowing ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin

... came through the rock gap. "Hey—he's here all right, but he's hurt!" Nye's grasp on him brought the pain in Drew's side to an agony he could no longer stand. He was crushed down into darkness. ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton

... a clever base-ball machine. He is very much more than this: he is an unusually bright and intelligent man. As a class, base-ball professionals are either dull brutes or ribald brutes; ignorance as dense as Egyptian darkness has seemed to constitute one of the essentials to successful base-ball playing, and the average professional occupies an intellectual plane hardly above that of the average stall-fed ox or the fat ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... sensualized, formalized, buried under a debris of priestcraft, infidelity, idolatry and corruption; and yet this prophet stands upon the hills and dreams—dreams against the present, dreams through all the darkness environing him—and sees the day when the faith of Israel shall be the faith of the world; when the law of Israel shall dominate the conscience of the world; when the Savior of Israel shall be the Savior of the world, and when the Jehovah of Israel shall be the Jehovah of ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins

... spun, and perhaps shaped, by her own hands, could not entirely conceal. At such times of excitement, there was something in her appearance both striking and singular—Indian-like, one might almost have said. Such an epithet might have been borne out by the wildness of her looks, the darkness of her eyes, the simple arrangement of her coal-black hair—which instead of being confined by comb or fillet, was twisted round a thorn cut from the nearest locust-tree—and by the smallness of her stature, though the lightness and European tinge ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... Gesu, a very rich church, belonging to the Jesuits, to officiate at Vespers, and we followed. The music was beautiful, and the effect of the church, with its richly-painted dome and altar-piece in a blaze of light, while the assembly were in a sort of brown darkness, was very fine. ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... meeting," she said to herself. "How long ago that strange interview with him seems!—yet it was only yesterday. How utterly the whole of life has changed for me since then! The universe seems larger, God nearer, and life grander. I am as one who slept and dreamed of darkness and sorrow, and ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... abounding, for when iniquity abounds "the love of many shall wax cold," Matt. xxiv. 12. Oh! that is our temper or rather our distempered nature,—love cold, and passion hot! When charity goes away, these wild and savage beasts of darkness come forth, viz. bitter envying and strife, rigid censuring and judging, unmercifulness and implacableness of spirit upon others' failings and offences. Self love, that keeps the throne, and all the rest are her attendants. For where self ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... grasp. Perched thus upon a single shaft, on a narrow strip of sand far out in the great water, the many thoughts born of solitude crowded my mind, when my reverie was abruptly broken by an exclamation from Captain Hatzel, who threw open the door, and exclaimed, with beaming eyes peering into the darkness as he spoke, "I see it! Yes, it is! Hatteras Light, thirty-five miles away. This night, December 13th, is the first time I have caught its flash. Tell it to the Hatteras keeper when ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop



Words linked to "Darkness" :   blackness, foulness, iniquity, semidarkness, value, lightness, scene, in darkness, duskiness, black, unenlightenment, complexion, condition, blackout, skin color, status, swarthiness, wickedness, Prince of Darkness



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