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Dimness   Listen
noun
Dimness  n.  
1.
The state or quality being dim; lack of brightness, clearness, or distinctness; dullness; obscurity.
2.
Dullness, or want of clearness, of vision or of intellectual perception.
Synonyms: Darkness; obscurity; gloom. See Darkness.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Dimness" Quotes from Famous Books



... noise of the heavy crowbar and the dispute, I ventured to edge a bit closer, so that at last I could make out the two men, and beyond them something that looked like a figure of a woman lying under a cloak. But all was under the dimness of the stars and the twinkling dew, so that I could see ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett

... of Saint-Sernin, so that I took my departure and went in search of the cathedral. It was scarcely worth finding, and struck me as an odd, dislocated fragment. The front consists only of a portal beside which a tall brick tower of a later period has been erected. The nave was wrapped in dimness, with a few scattered lamps. I could only distinguish an immense vault, like a high cavern, without aisles. Here and there in the gloom was a kneeling figure; the whole place was mysterious and lopsided. The choir was curtained off; it appeared ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James

... bearing me up and carrying me round as in a whirlpool just once, and then I was swept into the tide-way with the water thundering in my ears, a horrible strangling sensation in my nostrils, and a dimness coming over my ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn

... of profound shock with faintness, giddiness, dimness of sight, and a feeling of great terror. The pupils dilate, the skin becomes moist with a clammy sweat, and nausea with vomiting, sometimes of blood, ensues. High fever, cramps, loss of sensation, haematuria, and melaena are among the other ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... indeed, when his parents were out of the way, and only Emily was left to take care of him, he could not resist the temptation to thrust aside the bandage, and peep at the anxious face of his little nurse. But, in spite of the dimness of the chamber, the experiment caused him so much pain, that he felt no inclination to take another look. So, with a deep sigh, he ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... In passing, my readers must not blame me if the characters whom they have encountered in these pages have not been altogether to their liking. The fault is Chichikov's rather than mine, for he is the master, and where he leads we must follow. Also, should my readers gird at me for a certain dimness and want of clarity in my principal characters and actors, that will be tantamount to saying that never do the broad tendency and the general scope of a work become immediately apparent. Similarly does the entry to every ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... The dimness of early evening was in the red-pine forest through which Tom's party had passed early in the afternoon, and the belated portageurs were tramping along the line. A man with a red head had been long crouching in some cedar bushes to the east of the "blazed" cutting. When he had watched the portageurs ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson

... hath not proved how feebly words essay To fix one spark of beauty's heavenly ray? Who doth not feel, until his failing sight Faints into dimness with its own delight, His changing cheek, his sinking heart confess The might—the majesty ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various

... the dimness of early times, we find that many of the ancients preferred green gems to all other stones. The emerald was thought to have many virtues. It kept evil spirits at a distance, it restored failing sight, it could unearth mysteries, and when it turned yellow its owner knew to a certainty that the woman ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed

... pillars of the Piazzetta did not show so grim as his wont is, and the winged lion on the other might have been a winged lamb, so mild and gentle he looked by the tender light of the storm. The towers of the island churches loomed faint and far away in the dimness; the sailors in the rigging of the ships that lay in the Basin, wrought like phantoms among the shrouds; the gondolas stole in and out of the opaque distance, more noiselessly and dreamily than ever; and a silence almost palpable, lay upon the ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... David Gillespie asked, peering at him in the night's dimness. "This is the man that helped me to get you a lock of that scoundrel's hair," he ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells

... dim, green tunnel, so artfully contrived that even without its curtain of creepers it suggested no more than a chance gap in the undergrowth. The tunnel zigzagged twice at a sharp angle, and then, quite suddenly, the dimness changed to warm sunlight, and we emerged at his heels upon a prospect that well ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... no trouble," said Mrs. Porter. The doctor spun round, startled. In the dimness of the studio he had not perceived her. "Mr. Winfield's servant has injured his knee very superficially. There is practically nothing wrong with him. I ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse

... was evidently meant to be friendly, but his expression belied it. He was slightly taller than his father, and his cast of features was altogether different. His cheeks were pale, almost sunken, his eyes were too close together, and they had the dimness of the roue or the habitual dyspeptic. His lips were too full, his chin too receding, and ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... feeling of exultation that Jill, from her elevated seat, looked down into the Arab's face, outlined in the scented dimness of the garden by the snow-white head-cloth, and her brilliant mouth widened in a low laugh of pleasure as she pulled down a bough of fluffy mimosa to sniff its perfume, and she also gave a little shriek of dismay as Taffadaln, taking matters into her own enormous feet, ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest

... These are not lessened, these are still as bright, Albeit too dazzling for a dotard's sight; And those must wait till ev'ry charm is gone, To please the paltry heart that pleases none;— That dull cold sensualist, whose sickly eye In envious dimness passed thy portrait by; Who racked his little spirit to combine Its hate of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron

... Pink-root is one of the most active and certain anthelmintics for children. It is indigenous to the United States. When taken in too large quantities, it is apt to purge, give rise to vertigo, dimness of vision, and even to convulsions; therefore, it should be combined with some cathartic. Dose—Of the infusion, one ounce at night, followed by ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... taste of the stuff, and, two or three times, to poison myself, so that I broke out all over blotches, and once lost the use of my left arm, and got a dizziness in the head, and a rheumatic twist in my knee, a hardness of hearing, and a dimness of sight, and the trembles; all of which I certainly believe to have been caused by my putting something else into this blessed drink besides the good New England rum. Stick ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... outcry, Malone rushed back. Boyd was struggling with a figure in the dimness. Malone grabbed the figure and clamped his hand over its mouth. It bit him. He swore in a low voice, and clamped the hand over the ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett

... Helen," said the Doctor; the harassed look had once again come across his face, and even Polly noticed the dimness in ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade

... classification, Christianity may be placed among the "individual" religions, since it traces its origin, like Islam and Buddhism, to an individual as its founder. This beginning is not in the dimness of antiquity nor in a multitude of customs, beliefs, traditions, rites and personalities, as is the case with the so-called "natural" religions. It is not implied that in the formation of the "natural" religions individuals ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... his counsel, with some vague notion of his resurrection from the grave, filled his mind with such a morbid and uncertain feeling of everything about him that he began to imagine himself in a dream, and that his reason must soon awaken to the terrible reality of his situation. A dimness of perception, in fact, came ever all his faculties, and for some minutes he could not understand the nature of the proceedings around him. The reaction was too sudden for a mind that had been broken down so long, and harrassed so painfully, by impressions of remorse ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton

... fact that he repeatedly represents his greatest characters, when at the point of death, as relieving their overcharged minds by prophecy. Such prophecy is the result of the light of imagination, cleared of all distorting dimness by the vanishing of earthly hopes and desires, cast upon the facts of experience. Such prophecy is the perfect ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald

... scorpions, and frogs, so that there was not a space as small as a needle's point but swarmed with his vermin. He smote vegetation, and of a sudden the plants withered.... He attacked the flames, and mingled them with smoke and dimness. The planets, with their thousands of demons, dashed against the vault of heaven and waged war on the stars, and the universe became darkened like a space which the fire blackens with its smoke." And the conflict grew ever keener ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... tenderness in her tone, the tenderness of a mother who uplifts her child through a season of pain. He felt it, and it seemed to help him to clear away some of the dimness that besieged his senses. ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... of that dense sea of heads, from either extremity of the balcony, reminded us of one of Martin's grand, gloomy pictures, and the resemblance was further increased by the semi-oriental appearance of the hall, with its long, light pillars dropping from the centre, as well as by the dimness of its illumination, the lamps, many and bright as they were, being lost in the immense ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... the contrary all is dim—the scenery natural to the animal, for it partakes of its proper colours, (and this is strictly true, as the hare and the fox conceal themselves by their assimilating earths and forms.) The spectator advances upon the scene, unaware of the stealthily lurking danger. The dimness and repose are of a terror, that contrast and forcible colour would at least mitigate; the surprise would be lost, or rather be altogether of another kind; it would arm you for the danger, which becomes sublime by taking you unprepared. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... dark and painful as those of ascetics who made self-mortification the business of life? Christ spake truly when He said, "Men love darkness rather than light." We fill the service of the Author of Light with gloom. The hermit thought he could best serve God in the chill and dimness of a cave; and the anchorite's cave has been the type of our shadowy, vault-like churches, and of the worshippers' experience ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe

... which, fading again, makes the ensuing darkness darker still. Ophelia, the sleeping Duncan, Cordelia rise to our minds. Nor need we quote the famous words of Webster's Ferdinand. It is enough that the greatest scene in Gorboduc is precisely that scene where pathos softens by a momentary dimness of vision our horror ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... touch, remember, Jules! For are not such Used to be tended, flower-like, every feature, As if one's breath would fray the lily of a creature? 145 A soft and easy life these ladies lead! Whiteness in us were wonderful indeed. Oh, save that brow its virgin dimness, Keep that foot its lady primness, Let those ankles never swerve 150 From their exquisite reserve, Yet have to trip along the streets like me, All but naked to the knee! How will she ever grant her Jules a bliss So startling ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... uncomfortably through the glass wall panel into the small dark room beyond. In the dimness, he could barely make out the still form on the bed, grotesque with the electrode-vernier apparatus already in place at its temples. Dr. Manelli looked away sharply, and leafed through the thick sheaf of chart ...
— The Dark Door • Alan Edward Nourse

... a man to slip up the stairs without being seen. She was defenceless. If she had been well, she would have gone straight along the balcony, to discover the cause of her alarm; but she was ill, and she shrank back in her chair, watching the pulsing dimness. ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton

... her last upon the Virginian. Her lips were faintly parted, and no woman's eyes ever said more plainly, "I am one of your possessions." She had forgotten that it might be seen. Her glance caught mine, and she backed into the dimness of the room. What look she may have received from him, if he gave her any at this too public moment, I could not tell. His eyes seemed to be upon the horses, and he drove with the same mastering ease that had roped the wild pony yesterday. We passed ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... convinced she hadn't in her nature those depths of unutterable thought which, when you first knew her, seemed to look out from her eyes and to prompt her complicated gestures. Those features in especial had a misleading eloquence; they lingered on you with a far- off dimness, an air of obstructed sympathy, which was certainly not always a key to the spirit of their owner; so that, of a truth, a young lady could scarce have been so dejected and disillusioned without having committed ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James

... vaulted room in the lower story of the tower was not four steps in width across, from door to door; but it was almost dark, and there the Lady Goda stopped one moment before she went out to meet the mourners. Standing still in the dimness, she pressed her gloved hands to her eyes with all her might, as though to concentrate her thoughts and her strength. Then she threw back her arms, and looked up through the gloom, and almost laughed; and she felt something just below her heart that stifled her like a great joy. Then ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford

... autumn-evening. The field Strewn with its dank yellow drifts Of wither'd leaves, and the elms, Fade into dimness apace, Silent;—hardly a shout From a few boys late at their play! The lights come out in the street, In the school-room windows;—but cold, Solemn, unlighted, austere, Through the gathering darkness, arise The chapel-walls, in whose bound Thou, ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... vessel containing a thermometer and a volatile liquid, such as ether, may be used. The vessel is gradually cooled through the evaporation of the liquid, accelerated by forcing air through a tube until a haze or dimness, due to condensation from the surrounding air, first appears upon the brighter outer surface of the glass. The temperature at which the haze first appears is the dew-point. Several trials should be made for this temperature ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner

... would stand indefinitely on the outer platform; and then, when the men in flat, narrow-peaked silk caps and grease-splotched overalls got round to it, with an air of as much personal indifference as if they were mere mechanical agencies, it would be pulled and pushed into the dimness of the interior, cool, and pleasantly smelling of pine, and hemp, and flour, and dried fruit, and coffee, and tar, and leather, and fish. There it would abide, indefinitely again, till in the same large impersonal way it was pulled and pushed out on the platform beside the track, where ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells

... reach the nostrils of the tiger, the hunter takes up his position in the edge of the clearing, or on a platform built in a tree if he believes in Safety First. For investigating the kill the tiger usually chooses the dimness of the early dawn or the semi-darkness which precedes nightfall. With no warning save a faint rustle in the undergrowth a lean and tawny form slithers on padded feet across the open—and the man behind the rifle has his chance. I have found, however, that ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... dimness of old Mrs. Maldon's sitting-room stood the youthful virgin, Rachel Louisa Fleckring. The prominent fact about her appearance was that she wore an apron. Not one of those white, waist-tied aprons, with or without bibs, worn proudly, ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett

... In the dimness of the breaking day this gathering of "Les Miserables" presented, as it seemed to me, the tragedy of Belgium in all its horror. I shall never forget the sight. Words would fail to convey anything but a feeble picture of the depths of misery and despair there. People stood ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various

... much slimmer, and her light-coloured dress, which was unfashionable in make, was pretty and became her. She was, in fact, only twenty-two years old. There were no lines of deep thought on her pure white forehead when she removed her hat; and no dimness from much reading of books in her clear hazel eyes, which seemed to Fan the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen, so much sweet sympathy did they show, and so much confidence did they inspire. In colour she was very rich, her skin ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... the gloom of the depths that Blake could take rod readings, he plunged over into the stream, with a curtly cheerful command for Ashton to prepare to follow. Too dejected even to resist, the younger man silently obeyed. When Blake signaled to him through the dimness, he held the rod on the last turning-point of the previous day, and lowered himself from the shelf down into ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet

... nutrient arteries convey impure material to the brain, the nervous and bilious headache, confusion of ideas, loss of memory, impaired intellect, dimness of vision, and dulness of hearing, will be experienced; and in process of time, the brain becomes disorganized, and the brittle thread of ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter

... to once more accustom his eyes to the dimness which now, however, was not impenetrable, as in their cell, because of the moonlight. Presently he was able to make out a long hall with only two doors breaking the double expanse of wall. One door, on the right, was massive and over it was a huge ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge

... for a while after this, smiling at each other like adventurous children who have climbed to a forbidden height from which they discover a new world. The actual world at their feet was veiling itself in dimness, and across the valley a clear moon rose ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... Alone with nature,—but it may not be; I have to struggle with the stormy sea Of human life until existence fades Into death's darkness. Thou wilt sing and soar Through the thick woods and shadow-checkered glades, While pain and sorrow cast no dimness o'er The brilliance of thy heart; but I must wear, As now, my garments of regret and care,— As penitents of old ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... had now come so near to the large vessel in front, that the latter had lost its dimness of outline and was much more plainly visible. It was evidently no Moorish craft, its large hull, its lofty masts, its tracery of spars and rigging being rather those of an English or American frigate than a product of Tripolitan dock-yards. Its great bulk and sweeping spars arose in striking contrast ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... shall tell us the ultimate bounds of these waves of light and sound? If these discernible waves can be traced till they fade into impalpable nothingness, may we not think that this other, impalpable at the beginning as they are at the end, can alone stretch into the dimness of memory? Sir Joshua's gallant compliment, that he achieved immortality by writing his name on the hem of Mrs. Siddons's garment, when he painted her as the Tragic Muse, had a deeper significance than its pretty fancy would at ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving

... happened on the hills when I was fleeing from Claverhouse, so it is now in my affairs. I am moving in a mist which folds me round like a thin garment; here and there I see the light struggling through, and it seems to me most beautiful even in its dimness; by and by the mist shall altogether pass, and I shall stand in the light, which is the shining of His face. But whether I shall then find myself at Cana of Galilee or in the Garden of Gethsemane, ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... dimness, his outstretched hands meeting a rough stone surface sloping upward. After gaining a point about eight feet above the beach he was able to look back and down through the seaward slit. Open to the sky the crevice proved a doorway to a narrow valley, not unlike those which housed ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... there stepped through the little arched doorway a respectable looking elderly woman and a childlike white-faced girl in a close black frock. That the church looked to them so dark as to be almost black with shadows was manifest when they found themselves inside peering into the dimness. The outer darkness seemed to have crowded itself through the low doorway to fill the groined ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... Major King was riding with Chadron at the head of the vanguard. They drew rein suddenly at sight of what appeared to be such a formidable force at Macdonald's back, for at that distance, and with the dimness of the scattering mist, it appeared as if ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden

... this evening as a thrilling memory, and as one which would never pass away from him throughout his life. He would always be able to call it all back. The small and dingy back room, the dimness of the one poor gas-burner, which was all they could afford to light, the iron box pushed into the corner with its maps and plans locked safely in it, the erect bearing and actual beauty of the tall form, which the shabbiness of worn and mended clothes could not hide or dim. Not ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... speaking, to gather the opinions of these gentlemen on the land question, but the quaint, foreign look of the castle, and the historic names of Butler and Bellingham, sent my mind off into the past, to the battle of the Boyne, and into the dimness beyond, when the war cry of "A Butler" was a rallying cry that had power in the green ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall

... the dimness after the golden bath of sunlight outside was like being plunged into night. For an instant all was dark before Mary's eyes, as if she had been pushed forward with her face against a black curtain. The once familiar perfume of incense came pungently to her nostrils, sweet ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... summer breeze. The murmur of the air in the far off tree-tops had a strange distinctness; it was almost articulate. One afternoon the young man came out of his painting-room and passed the open door of Eugenia's little salon. Within, in the cool dimness, he saw his sister, dressed in white, buried in her arm-chair, and holding to her face an immense bouquet. Opposite to her sat Clifford Wentworth, twirling his hat. He had evidently just presented the bouquet to the Baroness, whose fine eyes, as she glanced at him over ...
— The Europeans • Henry James

... the royal cousins met—whether the frank, kind, unconscious Princess came down under the wing of the Duchess as far as their entrance into the Clock Court; whether there was a little dimness of agitation and laughing confusion, in spite of the partial secrecy, in two pairs of blue eyes which then encountered each other for the first time; whether the courtly company ascended in well-arranged file, or in a little friendly disorder. It was fortunate that ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... the East Wellmouth road there are few dwellings, for no one but a misanthrope or a hermit would select that particular section as a place in which to live. Night was coming on and, to accent the loneliness, from somewhere in the dusky dimness a great foghorn ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln

... shadow on the day, Her smile no longer cheers; A dimness on the stars of night, Like ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... for the purpose of transmitting it. This reflector was not an eminent success, but it rendered darkness visible. At the time we write of, however, the sun having set, the kitchen was lighted by a smoky oil-lamp of classic form and dimness. Here she found Sally busy ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne

... intently on the watch, scanned the country from right to left, searching through the dimness for any moving thing; but all was motionless beneath, while overhead the stars moved slowly through the heavens, as ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher

... be worn and flannel next the skin; exposure to cold and draughts should be carefully avoided. If the more special symptoms appear, such as persistent headache, vertigo, ringing in the ears, black or bright spots floating before the eyes, dimness of vision, an abortion of miscarriage should be induced without delay. Fortunately such cases are rare and with care from the beginning seldom occur. Pregnant women should inform their family physician at the beginning of pregnancy of their condition, and in the great majority of cases serious troubles ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... foiled violences, and, more swift Than any blow which man aims against time, The invulnerable, motion that shall rift All dimness with the ...
— The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems • Aldous Huxley

... descends The autumn-evening. The field Strewn with its dank yellow drifts Of wither'd leaves, and the elms, Fade into dimness apace, 5 Silent;—hardly a shout From a few boys late at their play! The lights come out in the street, In the school-room windows;—but cold, Solemn, unlighted, austere, 10 Through the gathering darkness, arise The chapel-walls, ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold

... second attack of horror, from which he came victorious, a gleeful smile momentarily lifting the dimness ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens

... A thing said is a thing done, and stands for ever amid the irrevocable. For an instant her eyes flashed in anger; then she flushed suddenly, her lips trembled, her eyes grew dim, yet through the dimness ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... Venetian fisher-boat is like neither. The sail seems dyed in its fullness by the sunshine, as the rainbow dyes a cloud; the rich stains upon it fade and reappear, as its folds swell or fall; worn with the Adrian storms, its rough woof has a kind of noble dimness upon it, and its colors seem as grave, inherent, and free from vanity as the spots of the leopard, or veins ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin

... on Owen his lusterless sea-green eyes, faded by much grog to a dimness that reminded one of the faint lights set in ships' decks and known as "dead-eyes." "No, but your porthole idea is just the scheme to get at him and get rid of him. I can slip down a rope tonight when all is quiet ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard

... to listen to Mr. Mardon as long as Mr. Mardon would talk was not to be overcome. And presently, when the old men had departed, they were frankly telling each other stories in the dimness of the retreat. Then, when the supply of stories came to an end, Mr. Mardon smacked his lips over the last drop of whiskey and ejaculated: "Yes!" as if giving a general confirmation to all that ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... will sometimes pierce through the interstices of the dark masses, and dart for a moment the intensity of his light upon the earth, the mind of Mazereau would flash in all its youthful grandeur and power from the dimness that ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... of Heraclitus of Ephesus (535-475 B.C.) to the Mysteries is plainly given us in a saying about him, to the effect that his thoughts "were an impassable road," and that any one, entering upon them without being initiated, found only "dimness and darkness," but that, on the other hand, they were "brighter than the sun" for any one introduced to them by a Mystic. And when it is said of his book, that he deposited it in the temple of Artemis, this only means that initiates ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner

... broadside on to the mouth of the cave. Not a man stirs out without killing me," old Jem shouted; and to hear a plain voice was sudden relief to most of them. In the wavering dimness they laid the pinnace across the narrow entrance, while the smugglers huddled all together in their boat. "Burn two blue-lights," cried old Jem; and ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... A dimness came before his eyes. He attempted to curse at this weakness, but in place of the blasphemy something swelled in his throat, and a still, small music filled his heart. And when at last he was able to speak his lips framed a vow like that of ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand

... sweetness; the difference consisted mainly in the closer union of the individual spirit with the spirit of the universe; it was so close that it was difficult to understand where the individual ceased and the universe began. I felt at the same time it was upon that very dimness of the boundary that the happiness of this other life rested, as the being did not live in opposition or exclusion but in harmony with his surroundings, and thus lived with the whole power ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... her with a shiver. The wind that shook the birches had grown perceptibly colder: the gloom beneath them deepened rapidly, and there was a doleful wailing amidst the swinging boughs. Beyond the bluff the white wilderness, sinking into dimness now, ran back, waste and empty, to the horizon. Miss Schuyler was from the cities, and the loneliness of the prairie is most impressive when night ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss

... Sniff the sweet scent of the grass, The sweet scent of the wild vines That are twisted by Waikoloa, By the winds of Waiopua, My flower! As if a mote were in my eye. The pupil of my eye is troubled. Dimness covers ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... illness. It is a resurrection of all nature. But somehow or other I was not satisfied with the daisies. They did not seem to me so lovely as the daisies I used to see when I was a child. I thought with myself, "This is the cloud that gathers with life, the dimness that passion and suffering cast over the eyes of the mind." That moment my gaze fell upon a single, solitary, red-tipped daisy. My reasoning vanished, and my melancholy with it, slain by the red tips of the lonely beauty. This was ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald

... quickly, and to lift one of his hands repeatedly close to his face, as if there was something in it he wished to look at. I presently saw that it held a miniature of a fair haired, blue—eyed Scandinavian girl; but apparently he could not see it, from the increasing dimness of his eyes, which seemed to distress him greatly. After a still minute, during which no sound was heard but his own heavy breathing, he again began to speak very rapidly, but no one in the room could make out what he said. I listened attentively—it ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... enter the dark vault of the observatory you saw him being by lighting a candle. To see the star with? No; but to adjust the instrument to see the star with. It was the star that was going to take the photograph; it was, also, the astronomer. For a long time he worked in the dimness, screwing tubes and polishing lenses and adjusting reflectors, and only after much labor the finely focused instrument was brought to bear. Then he blew out the light, and left the start to do its ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond

... what he saw before him lit up his sadness with a new fire. She stopped too, and did not offer to draw away, but looked back with all her heart. They were alike in many ways; her skin was also of that olive color, but her face was sweet as a beautiful summer night, and her black eyes showed no dimness, and the smile on the scarlet lips was like a flame when it brightens a dark ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen

... stairs," whispered Cherry, feeling her way cautiously to the foot of the rickety flight; and the cousins mounted carefully, the dun light, which they did not see—only the reflections it cast brightening the dimness—going on before, until they reached an upper chamber, the door of which stood wide open, a soft radiance shining out, whilst a strange ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... with you will you lead me to that Madam Taylor, the friend of my father, beautiful Sue?" I asked of her. "It makes happy my heart to see one who loved him." And as I spoke, the longing for my father that will ever be in my heart made a sadness in my voice and a dimness in my eyes. ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess

... another continent, was only trailing the leader. It moved and paused like the first, but the recurrent scrutiny of the farther gloom by its paddlers was that of men who saw only a meaningless, monotonous bulk of buttresses and trunks and tangle of looping lianas. In this dimness and bewildering chaos the trio might as well have been blind. The eyes of the tiny fleet were in ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... as dark as a cave, for the moon was yet two hours below the horizon. Somehow the trail turned to the right along that tremendous cliff. We thought we could make out its direction, the dimness of its glimmering; but equally well, after we had looked a moment, we could imagine it one way or another, to right and left. I went ahead to investigate. The trail to left proved to be the faint reflection of a clump ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White

... over Suabia's realm, That power produc'd, which was the third and last." She ceas'd from further talk, and then began "Ave Maria" singing, and with that song Vanish'd, as heavy substance through deep wave. Mine eye, that far as it was capable, Pursued her, when in dimness she was lost, Turn'd to the mark where greater want impell'd, And bent on Beatrice all its gaze. But she as light'ning beam'd upon my looks: So that the sight sustain'd it not at first. Whence I to question her ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... yet to come, I doubt whether the tale of "The Scarlet Letter" would ever have been brought before the public eye. My imagination was a tarnished mirror. It would not reflect, or only with miserable dimness, the figures with which I did my best to people it. The characters of the narrative would not be warmed and rendered malleable by any heat that I could kindle at my intellectual forge. They would take neither the glow of passion ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... of moonlight that gave me another chance. It was only for a moment or two that the moonlight lasted, yet long enough for me to make out within a hundred feet of me a biggish piece of wreckage—which but for that flash I should not have noticed, or in the dimness would have taken only ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier

... for even in that dimness I had not failed to recognize the short, erect figure which ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish

... along, inspection plate B-36. He grabbed the hand-hold by the plate before he swirled past, loosened the plate, lifted it only enough to be sure that the room was empty, and then pushed it off, pulled himself through, and emerged into the whining dimness of Compressor Room 9, next to the machine shop. The low whine assaulting his ears was that created by the air compressors that fed the jets that drove ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond

... dryness changes it in colour. In like manner it may thus appear through the visual organ, that is, the eye, which on account of some infirmity, or because of fatigue, is changed into some degree of dimness or into some degree of weakness. So it happens very often, owing to the membrane of the pupil becoming suffused with blood, on account of some corruption produced by weakness, that things all appear of a red colour; and therefore the star appears so coloured. ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri

... separate thinking had grown rusty, and as she sat before the hearth ideas came slowly. The room was dim—lighted only by the firelight; and in that dimness her mind began to stir and stretch and yawn itself awake, like a creature that had been hibernating through a long, dark winter. Suddenly the widow of the Richest Trustee broke out into a feeble little laugh—a convalescing laugh that acted as if it was just ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer

... was explaining to Morrow, a woman passed us in the hall with a little boy. In the dimness, the lad ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach

... great relief to me, personally, who had lived in the palace of Irish art for a time, and had even contributed a little to its dimness, to hear outside the walls a few years ago a sturdy voice blaspheming against all the formula, and violating the tenuous atmosphere with its "Insurrections." There are poets who cannot write with half their being, and who must write ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell

... places, associated with powers more mysterious and ages more remote, as the gate of Lions at Mycense, or the relics yet standing (and perhaps to stand for ever) of Cyclopian cities, forms of art that for thousands of years have been dying away through dimness of outlines and vegetable overgrowth into forms of nature—yet in Athens only is there a great open museum of such monuments. The Athenian buildings, though none of them Homeric in point of origin, are old enough for us. Two-and-a-half millennia satisfy our grovelling aspirations. And Mr. ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey

... stood for a moment straight and slim, but with such an eased heart as might come from answered prayer in the cloistered dimness of a cathedral. ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... painted window-panes. If one looks from the square into the church, Dusk and dimness are his gains— Sir Philistine is left in the lurch. The sight, so seen, may well enrage him, Nor any ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald

... comparatively short time. The title of the story was "His Wife's Deceased Sister"; and when I read it to Hypatia she was delighted with it, and at times was so affected by its pathos that her uncontrollable emotion caused a sympathetic dimness in my eyes, which prevented my seeing the words I had written. When the reading was ended, and my wife had dried her eyes, she turned to me and said, "This story will make your fortune. There has been nothing so pathetic since Lamartine's ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... him alert, savage. A moment later, his head pushing up to the level of the shoulder of the mountain, he saw his quarry. In the dimness of that early dawn he made out the form of a sleeper huddled in blankets, but it was enough. That must be Riley Sinclair. It could not be another, and all his premonitions ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand

... prophecy is that of the civil wars, and of the death of the two young princes. No place, no name is now noted: and all is seen through the dimness of figurative expression: ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray

... gratitude to God that the deceased lived so long; that he did so much for himself, his friends, the country, and the world; that his lamp went out, at last, without unsteadiness or flickering. He continued to exercise every power of his mind without dimness or obscuration, and every affection of his heart with no abatement of energy or warmth, till death drew an impenetrable veil between us and him. Indeed, he seems to us now, as in truth he is, not extinguished or ceasing to be, but only ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... about to slide them open. The lamps of the roadster made little showing now as he rolled it in. Then these were switched off and everything down there was dark as a pocket. For a time I sat and waited for him to light up and call me, then started down. The fog was making the kind of dimness that has a curious, illusory character. I suppose I had gone half the distance of the garden walk, when, thrown up startlingly on the obscurity, I saw a square of white, and across that shining screen, moved the silhouette of a human head. The whole thing ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan

... truth could not come; and this might be one of them. Though all the world blamed her lover, she would excuse him. Her heart might ache, her eyes might weep, but in that aching heart and in those weeping eyes, his splendid image would live in that radiant dimness which makes the unseen face, often more real ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr

... our experience through the ages to come. Our advance from our former ignorance can measure but a small portion of the distance that lies, and must ever lie, between our childishness and his manhood, between our love and his love, between our dimness and his mighty vision. To him ere long may we all come, all children, still children, more children than ever, to receive from his hand the white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... there is not the least danger. The beaux yeux de ma casette are not brilliant enough to make amends for the spectacles which must supply the dimness of my own. I am a little deaf, too, as you know to your sorrow when we are partners; and if I could get a nymph to marry me with all these imperfections, who the deuce would marry Janet McEvoy? and from Janet McEvoy Chrystal Croftangry will ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott

... that length of time before the nails could again get hold. Vermin did not molest me; the dampness of my den was inimical to them. My limbs never swelled, because of the exercise I gave myself, as before described. The greatest pain I found was in the continued unvivifying dimness in which I lived. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... be a bride at morn, Ere the chimes rang out I'd say, "Not roses red, but goldenrod Strew in my path today! And let it brighten the dusky aisle, And flame on the altar-stair, Till the glory and light of the fields shall flood The solemn dimness there." ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn

... black furniture, seemed to be of medium size. The walls were hung in some dark, unfigured tapestry, which added to the somberness of the apartment, and tended to spread over all an air of gloom. The dimness of the place was in some degree relieved by a crackling fire burning upon the hearth, and two silver candelabrums holding lighted tapers, stood upon an oaken table occupying the middle of ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley

... not distinguish the objects within, for a mist was over my sight, which deepened the shadows of the dungeon walls. But as my eye became accustomed to the dimness, I saw a tall, emaciated figure rising from the bed, which nearly filled the limited space which inclosed us. A narrow aperture in the deep, massy stone, admitted all the light which illumined us after the ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... A dimness clouded Margaret's beautiful eyes as this bitter picture— she had watched it—was again reviewed. She murmured "Oh, Bill!"; stretched her soft arms to the night; moved her pretty lips in a message to her lover; snuggled ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... dumb, as one who in the dark and storm sees by the sudden glare of lightning a chasm yawning under foot. It was amazement and dimness of anguish;—the dreadful words struck on the very centre where her soul rested. She felt as if the point of a wedge were being driven between her life and her life's life,—between her and her God. She clasped her hands instinctively ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... in the mouth and throat, and afterwards in other portions of the body, with sore throat, pain over the stomach, and vomiting; dimness of vision, dizziness, great prostration, loss of sensibility and delirium. Treatment: An emetic and then brandy in tablespoonful doses, in ice-water, every half hour; spirits of ammonia in half teaspoonful doses in like manner; the cold ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... round which, in precise order, were ranged the cosmetics and the unguents—the perfumes and the paints—the jewels and combs—the ribands and the gold pins, which were destined to add to the natural attractions of beauty the assistance of art and the capricious allurements of fashion. Through the dimness of the room glowed brightly the vivid and various colourings of the wall, in all the dazzling frescoes of Pompeian taste. Before the dressing-table, and under the feet of Julia, was spread a carpet, woven from the looms ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... the olive-tree; to have loved it for Christ's sake, partly also for the helmed Wisdom's sake which was to the heathen in some sort as that nobler Wisdom which stood at God's right hand, when He founded the earth and established the heavens. To have loved it, even to the hoary dimness of its delicate foliage, subdued and faint of hue, as if the ashes of the Gethsemane agony had been cast upon it for ever; and to have traced, line by line, the gnarled writhing of its intricate branches, and ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin

... are one or two cataracts several feet high, and the perpetual sound of their fall, and the coolness they spread around, are exquisite luxuries—in the heat of day, or in the dimness of evening. There are two or three Cafes constructed somewhat differently from those just described: a low gallery divides the platform from the tide; fountains play on the floor, which is furnished with very plain sofas and cushions; and music ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... yellow carpet adorned the spot in front of the bed—instead a soft thick carpet of mossy green covered the floor, and Theodore had pleased himself in gathering many a dainty trifle with which to beautify this one room that he called home. To-night the drop-light was carefully shaded, and in the dimness Theodore had to look twice before he distinguished McPherson mounted on guard in the rocking-chair beside the bed, while on it lay, sunken in heavy sleep, ...
— Three People • Pansy

... breakfast table, and climbed to the deck. It was four o'clock of the summer's morning; the sun had not yet reddened the east, but the stars were extinct, or glimmered faint points immeasurably withdrawn in the vast gray of the sky. At that hour there is a hovering dimness over all, but the light on things near at hand is wonderfully keen and clear, and the air has an intense yet delicate freshness that seems to breathe from the remotest spaces of the universe,—a waft from distances beyond the sun. On the land the leaves and grass are soaked ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells

... change seats," said Lannes, struggling against the dimness that was coming over his eyes and the weakness permeating his whole body. "Be careful, Oh, be careful as you can, and then, in your American language, a lot more. Slowly! Slowly! Yes, I can move alone. Drag yourself ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler

... the pleasant dimness of it on hot summer days; how the varnished boats lay side by side all down its length, and how the light canoes rested against the walls as it were on shelves. How, when the big doors were opened on to the raft and the slowly moving river without, bright circles ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... knew not which way we faced. Only that Cyneward was yet with me, and that out of the dimness came against us Jomsburgers clad in outlandish armour, and with shouts to strange gods as they ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler

... songs, the songs of our own land, You warbling ladies in white. Dimness conceals the hunger in our faces, This wall of faces risen out of the night, These eyes that keep their memories of the places ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon

... was, I couldn't see any way out. I marched in the dimness with the rest, and we managed to make surprisingly little noise. Wohlen's animals were active and stirring, anyhow, and ...
— The Man Who Played to Lose • Laurence Mark Janifer

... paralyzed where I had jumped. Paulette's snowshoes dropped clattering on the cave floor. Dudley Wilbraham, whom the wolves had eaten—little, fat, with a face more like an egg than ever, but whole and alive—stood in the dimness of the cave behind the fire and ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones

... too minute and circumstantial in its descriptions. Yet the habitudes of a past and peculiar generation, fast fading from remembrance, are worthy of being preserved, though little accordant with romance, perhaps with poetry. So rapid has been our progress as a people, that dimness gathers over the lineaments of even our immediate ancestry. Yet traits at one period despised, or counted obsolete, may at another be ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney

... pieces are only valuable when they display what we can only express by the contradictory phrase of innate experience. We copy one of the shorter poems, written when the author was only fourteen. There is a little dimness in the filling up, but the grace and symmetry of the outline are such as few poets ever attain. There is a smack of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... blank twilight of the heart, which mars All sweetest colors in its dimness same; A soul-mist, through whose rifts familiar ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow

... stroke the wicks of the lamps had caught, and I had turned out the electric light. In the dimness of the struggling lamps, and after the bright glow of the electric light, the room and all within it took weird shapes, and all seemed in an instant to change. We waited with our hearts beating. I know mine did, and I fancied I could ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker

... dying has been considerately delineated by Chaucer. Death creeps from the feet upwards to the breast—it creeps up and possesses the arms. But the intellect which dwelled in the heart 'gan fail only when the very heart felt death. Then dimness fell upon the eyes, and the breath faltered. One more look—one more word—and the spirit has forsaken its tenement. Dryden generalizes all this particularity—and therein greatly errs. But the last four flowing verses of the death-scene ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... hung over the water! The road which passed the castle joined, beyond these fields, the path which traversed them. It took, I well remember, a certain solemn and mysterious interest from the ruin. The shadow of the archway, the discolorizations of time on all the walls, the dimness of the little thicket which encircled it, the traditions of its immeasurable age, made St. Quentin's Castle a wonderful and awful fabric in the imagination of a child; and long after I last saw its mouldering roughness, I never read of fortresses, or heights, or spectres, or banditti, ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... see, in the dimness of the carriage, that she had flushed quickly, and he did not know that she disliked to be reminded of certain things which, for her, were mitigations of the hard feminine lot. But the passionate quaver with which, a moment later, she answered him sufficiently assured him that he had touched ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James

... mother, stepping lightly, brought a glass shade and set it over the silver stick. Small moths flew in and out, and like a distant ground swell came the noise of the fevered town. The house itself was quiet after the turmoil of the day; large halls and stair in dimness, the ill or wounded quiet or at least not loudly complaining. Now and then a door softly opened or closed; a woman's figure or that of some coloured servant passed from dimness to dimness. They passed and the whole was quiet again. Mother and son spoke low. "I will ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... just in the middle of the bad place that dread came to him. What if anything had happened to her? It was dusk here, and never had the weeds seemed so thick, dimness so dismal, the tendrils of the vines so gin-like. Then he lost his way—he who was so sure of his way always! The hunter's instinct had been crossed, and for a time he went hither and thither helpless as ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... most simple expressions of melody to be heard, and scuds away, and I see it is the veery, or Wilson's thrush. He is the least of the thrushes in size, being about that of the common bluebird, and he may be distinguished from his relatives by the dimness of the spots upon his breast. The wood thrush has very clear, distinct oval spots on a white ground; in the hermit, the spots run more into lines, on a ground of a faint bluish white; in the veery, the marks are almost obsolete, and a ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... started. And it was the quiet voice of the Virginian that told me he was sorry to have accidentally disturbed me. This disturbed me a good deal more. But his steps did not go to the bunk house, as my sensational mind had suggested. He was not wearing much, and in the dimness he seemed taller than common. I next made out that he was bending over Dr. MacBride. The ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various

... darkest places bright and the dullest eyes clear. We live in the evening of time! We grope in the gray dusk, carrying each our poor little taper of selfish and painful wisdom, holding it up to the great models and to the dim idea, and seeing nothing but overwhelming greatness and dimness. The days of illumination are gone! But do you know I fancy—I fancy"—and he grew suddenly almost familiar in this visionary fervour—"I fancy the light of that time rests upon us here for an hour! I have never ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James

... lit the lamp of learning for six idle children, no other cause for dimness need be sought. No, I was well and wicked in the height of the pain, and long after it wore out—for wear out it did—and I am glad he is too wise to set it going again. I don't like emotions. I only want to be let alone. Besides, he has got into such a region of goodness, that ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... answering. The evening dimness among the trees, which obscured his face, made his silence ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... whether it should be called dimness of understanding, or rather perverse ingenuity, that men reason thus, when the facts are: So general is the disposition to abuse power, that wherever it is accumulated, it will surely be abused; accordingly it must be distributed as equally as possible. If ...
— The Growth of Thought - As Affecting the Progress of Society • William Withington

... the other; and just as the moth was wheeling round and round, irresolute which to choose for its funeral pyre, both candles were put out. The fire had burned down low in the grate, and in the sudden dimness my father's soft, sweet voice came forth, as if from an invisible being: "We leave ourselves in the dark to save a moth from the flame, brother! Shall we do less for our fellow-men? Extinguish, oh! humanely extinguish, the light of our reason when the darkness ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... wearing an odd smile—had already begun to grow less distinct. It seemed as if the light surrounding him had faded, though everywhere else in the cabin it still gleamed with its accustomed brilliance. And as this light around him began to blur into a russet dimness, forming a sort of screen between him and visibility, the definition of his outlines began ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... to an irascibility all out of proportion to the real provocation. In many cases there is dizziness, and frequently noises in the head, ringing in the ears, spots before the eyes, twitching of the muscles, eyelids or eye muscles, and at times dimness of vision, or sudden spells when the sight is not satisfactory. At times there is a feeling of discomfort, as if the quantity of good air were not sufficient to aerate the blood, and there is sighing ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... where the devoted girl closed her earthly sorrows. Spirits are ever hovering near the scene. The laugh of the Dahcotah is checked when his canoe glides near the spot. He points to the bluff, and as the shades of evening are throwing dimness and a mystery around the beauty of the lake, and of the mountains, he fancies he can see the arms of the girl as she tosses them wildly in the air. Some have averred they heard her voice as she called to the spirits ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman

... for I could make out a score of men, some standing in groups, some resting on the ground, and the dark shapes of the pack-horses showing larger in the dimness. There were a few words of greeting muttered in deep voices, and then all was still, so that one heard the browsing horses trying to crop something off the turf. It was not the first cargo I had helped to run, and I knew most of the men, but did not speak ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner

... narrator's cigar waxed, a pin-point of light in a world of dimness and mystery. Subdued breathing made our silence rhythmic. When I found my voice, it was hardly more than ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... how and when he should ever possess another penny was even unimaginable. Shargar's shilling was likewise spent. So Robert could but go on pocketing instead of eating all that he dared, watching anxiously for opportunity of evading the eyes of his grandmother. On her dimness of sight, however, he depended too confidently after all; for either she was not so blind as he thought she was, or she made up for the defect of her vision by the keenness of her observation. She saw enough to cause her considerable annoyance, though ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... instant the young man, who must just have come in from the outside sunshine, blinked into the dimness. Newmark, too, blinked back, although he could by ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White

... my fingers. A light pall of dust had settled over the worn little garment, but I knew each worn place, each ink-spot, each scorch or burn from pipe or cigarette. I passed my hands over it reverently and gently, and then, in the dimness of that quiet little room I laid my cheek against the rough cloth, so that the scent of the old black pipe came back to me once more, and a new spot appeared on the coat sleeve—a damp, salt spot. Blackie would have hated my doing that. ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber

... the Young Doctor and the others had accustomed themselves to the dimness, they saw at the end of the chamber—for such, in effect, it had been made with its trappings and decorations—a figure seated upon the ground. Near by the figure, on either hand, there were standards bearing banners, and the staffs holding the banners were, bound in white silk, with ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... thick in his throat. The dimness of Councillor Mikulin's eyes seemed to spread all over his face and made it indistinct to Razumov's sight. He ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad

... Bread to lie to mould and spoil, he must keep his Vessels close stopped, and his Bottles sweet, his Cellars clean washed, and his Buttery clean, and his Bread-Bins wholsom and sweet, his Knives whetted, his Glasses clean washed that there be no dimness upon them, when they come to be used, all his Plate clean and bright, his Table, Basket and Linnen very neat, he must be sure to have all things of Sauce ready which is for him to bring forth, that it may not be to be fetched when it is called ...
— The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet • Hannah Wolley

... de Lyons; and by the afternoon of the next day when they got into Italy, England, Frederick, Mellersh, the vicar, the poor, Hampstead, the club, Shoolbred, everybody and everything, the whole inflamed sore dreariness, had faded to the dimness of a dream. ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim

... acknowledge genius in a painter when, over and above masterly technical power, he presents to us a view of life or of nature which we may never have seen, but which we are convinced is the vision of deeper eyes than our own, and is true. The seer has seen it, and it is only because of the dimness or narrowness or worldliness of our outlook that we do ...
— Rembrandt • Mortimer Menpes

... who had paid the last honours to his remains and those of Hadassah, and to whose care she believed that she owed her own freedom and life. If there was something more than gratitude in the maiden's feelings towards the Greek, it was a sentiment so refined and purified by grief that it cast no dimness over the mirror ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker

... their cool slightness, he drew her to him. She rested with the fragrance of her cheek against his face, with her hands pressed to his breast. They stood motionless; he closed his eyes, and she was gone. He was confused in the dimness empty except for himself, and fumbled with, his gloves. Susan's wrap lay limply over a chair; the damp bonnet ribbons trailed toward the floor. He looked slowly about, noting every object—a pile of folded yellow papers, the stove, ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... ladies. But she was not proud of the admiration of Dolly Longstaff. She was here among strangers whose ways were unknown to her, whose rank and standing in the world were vague to her, and wonderful in their dimness. She knew that she was associating with men very different from those at home where young men were supposed to be under the necessity of earning their bread. At New York she would dance, as she had said, with bank clerks. She was not prepared to admit that a young London lord was better than a New ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... his wits steadied themselves and his breath returned to him. He looked about and above him. The daylight in the hold was dimmed and clouded by the thick, chaff-dust thrown off by the pour of grain, and even this dimness dwindled to twilight at a short distance from the opening of the hatch, while the remotest quarters were lost in impenetrable blackness. He got upon his feet only to find that he sunk ankle deep in ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... pass very near, but the distance was not bad for them; it kept them sixty or sixty-five years back in the past where they belonged, and in its dimness I could the more distinctly see Don Quixote careering against them, and Sancho Panza vainly warning, vainly imploring him, and then in his rage and despair, "giving himself to the devil," as he had so often ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... usually located in the back of the head, and may be accompanied by dizziness, noises in the ears, or dimness of sight. There may be a feeling of unsteadiness when walking, or a sense of being in motion when at rest. The headache varies in intensity; it is worst in the morning, is increased by thinking, diminished after eating, often improves ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs



Words linked to "Dimness" :   fogginess, semidarkness, faintness, dim, blurriness, duskiness, indistinctness, softness



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