"Midnight" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 'Then,' said he, 'things must take their course.' I turned the conversation to something else, and soon took my leave. It was the first time in our lives we had ever parted with any thing like dissatisfaction. And then followed those scenes of midnight appointment, which have been condemned by all men. The last day of his political power, the last hours, and even beyond the midnight, were employed in filling all offices and especially permanent ones, with the bitterest ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... west to mark his resting place. Night came on serene and still, and the quiet moon ascended her heavenly throne, while the refreshing dews fell upon the flowers, whose leaves opened to receive them, parched, as they were with the burning lustre of the mid-day sun. Midnight had already passed; and all was as silent as if no living or created thing existed upon the earth to mar its splendid beauty with the wild indulgence of its fiercer passions. A strong light was gleaming from ...
— Ellen Duncan; And The Proctor's Daughter - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... the midnight intruder, being determined in her own mind, that he was an emissary from the medium, Madame Parlato, whom Zizi regarded as an absolute fake. To prove this was a desire of Zizi's mind as well as to solve the ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... you, relying upon your honor. About two years ago, I accompanied Alvarez to Havana, upon some business relative to Clara's estate. While returning late one evening to our hotel, we heard in a retired street the cries of a woman in distress. Midnight outrages were then very common in the city, and usually the inhabitants, if they were not themselves interested in the issue, paid very little attention to calls for assistance, and Alvarez, upon my suggesting to him to go with me to the aid of the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... knew that she was listening—listening in dread—for a footstep in the house. That again was absurd. Arthur was staying with friends on the further side of the country, and was to leave them after dinner by motor. He could not be home till close on midnight; and there would be no chance of her seeing him—unless she sent for him—till the following morning, after the arrival of the letter. Then—she ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... hung back. Perhaps they guessed that the garrison were in want of provisions, and had wisely determined to starve them out. Their proceedings were evidently conducted by chiefs who well understood the art of savage warfare. Midnight arrived; the faint moon, though it had lasted longer than on the previous night, had disappeared. Archie proposed again leading out a party to obtain water, and he was on the point of starting, when one of the sentries cried out, "The enemy are coming!" ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... tale of the preacher Trigland, who told it to Prince Maurice, and has preserved it in his chronicle—to cause to be seized at midnight from their beds four men whom he considered the ringleaders in this mutiny, to have them taken to the place of execution on the square in the midst of the city, to have their heads cut off at once by warrant from the chief tribunal without any previous warning, and then to summon all ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... nothing very odd in my feeling nervous when I happen to lie awake and get listening for sounds. Just keep your ears open any time after midnight, when you are lying in bed in a lone attic of a dark night. What horrid, strange, suggestive, unaccountable noises you will hear! The stillness of night is a vulgar error. All the dead things seem to be alive. Crack! That is the old chest of drawers; you never hear it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... was next day to have an interview with Bismarck at Meaux. Eager to anticipate the Republican Foreign Minister he promptly took the night train for Paris. No trains were running beyond Amiens and he did not reach Meaux until midnight of the 19th, to learn that Bismarck and the headquarters had that day gone to Ferrieres. At 10 A.M. of the 20th he reached that chateau and appealed to Count Hatzfeld, now German Ambassador in London, for an immediate ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... night, he hied him, much perplexed in mind, into the inn, and supped with his servant. The bedroom assigned him was almost at the top of the house, and the bed was none of the best. Thoughts many and disquieting haunted his mind, and his supper had been but light. Whereby it befell that midnight came and went, and Tedaldo was still awake. As thus he watched, he heard shortly after midnight, a noise as of persons descending from the roof into the house, and then through the chinks of the door of his room he caught the flicker of an ascending light. Wherefore he ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... over it again and his face lightens up and he exclaims, "I see it. I see it," and he sees Jesus and believes and is saved and knows he is saved there on the spot. What has happened? Simply this, the Holy Spirit has borne His testimony and what was dark as midnight before is as clear as day now. This explains also why it is that one who has been long in darkness concerning Jesus Christ so quickly comes to see the truth when he surrenders his will to God and ...
— The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit • R. A. Torrey
... dead o' night, When han's o' clocks do stan' upright, By candle-light, do soon consume The feaece's bloom, an' turn it white. An' light a-cast vrom midnight skies Do blunt the ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... Mela had worn off for Kendricks, and she found him, as she frankly told him, not half as entertaining as he was at Mrs. Horn's; but she did her best with him as the only flirtable material which had yet come to her hand. It would have been her ideal to have the young men stay till past midnight, and her father come down-stairs in his stocking-feet and tell them it was time to go. But they made a visit of decorous brevity, and Kendricks did not come again. She met him afterward, once, as she was crossing the pavement in Union Square ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... we teach London the great lesson it so much needs. No cause is without its martyrs. Let us be the martyrs of the great religion of Anarchy. I have left in my room papers telling just how and why we died. At midnight these sheets will be distributed to all the newspapers of London, and to-morrow the world will ring with our heroic names. I will now put the motion. All in favor of this signify it by the usual ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... for the morbid vanity of Jean Jacques, we may entirely believe him when he says that the book captivated the reading public. One lady, he tells us, had dressed after supper for the ball at the Opera House, and sat down to read the new novel while waiting for the time to go. At midnight she ordered her carriage, but did not put down the book. The coach came to the door, but she kept on. At two her servants warned her of the hour. She answered that there was no hurry. At four she undressed, and continued to read for the rest of the night. On the first appearance of the story ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... past midnight when Cain, worn out with the conflicting passions of the day, fell into an uneasy slumber. His dreams were of Francisco's mother—she appeared to him pleading for her son, and Cain 'babbled in his sleep.' At this time Francisco, with Pompey, had softly crawled ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... with the midnight the cedars were sleeping, Their shadowy tresses outlined in the bright Crystal, moon-smitten mists, where the fountain's heart, leaping Forever, forever burst, full with delight; And its lisp on my spirit Fell faint as that near it Whose ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... now nearly midnight, and, as Captain Derevaux suggested, it would be wise to go through the town without ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... what power can guide the maiden Through veils of midnight darkness in the town To the eager heart with loving fancies laden, And ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... At midnight the peaceful inhabitants of that small town, which lies nestled among precipitous mountains in the interior, were startled from their sleep by loud yells and cries of "Long live Puerto Rico independent! ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... assented the young man, firmly. "I shall take the midnight train, and telegraph as soon as I have seen my ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... this deep guilt. I cheerfully share in the opprobrium, how great soever it may be, which is cast on those who feel and manifest an anxious concern that all who had a part in planning, or a hand in executing, this deed of midnight assassination, may be brought to answer for their enormous crime at ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... one that is weak. When one meets a large tree that is known, one should walk round it. One should also, when coming upon a spot where four roads meet, walk round it before pursuing one's journey. At midday, or at midnight, or at night in general, or at the two twilights, one should not proceed to spots where four roads meet. One should never wear sandals or clothes that have been worn by another. One should always observe the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... much in need of a trifle, with which to pay Bishop Hughes for praying a recently-deceased brother through purgatory, a service he never performed without feeling the money safe in his palm. All at once they set up a howl like midnight wolves, which so alarmed me that I hastened into the street, where my companion soon joined me, saying it was a way they had of expressing a joke. Not being accustomed to the ways of working politicians of the New York school, I made my way as fast as possible into Broadway, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... refused to the second, and the marquise was specially struck thereby, for M. de Marillac was of her own family, and she was very proud of the connection. No doubt she was unaware that M. de Rohan had received the sacrament at the midnight mass said for the salvation of his soul by Father Bourdaloue, for she said nothing about it, and hearing the doctor's answer, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... with no immediate suffering, and your losses came to you only by intelligence. Like fire at a distance you heard not even the cry; you felt not the danger, you saw not the confusion. To you every thing has been foreign but the taxes to support it. You knew not what it was to be alarmed at midnight with an armed enemy in the streets. You were strangers to the distressing scene of a family in flight, and to the thousand restless cares and tender sorrows that incessantly arose. To see women and children wandering ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... Amy sat up till midnight, talking the matter over and wondering what could be done for Eva, and ending up after each suggestion by deciding ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... Dinner and the subsequent stroll by moonlight—a dream, on Strether's part, of romantic effects rather prosaically merged in a mere missing of thicker coats—had measurably intervened, and this midnight conference was the result of Waymarsh's having (when they were free, as he put it, of their fashionable friend) found the smoking-room not quite what he wanted, and yet bed what he wanted less. His most frequent form of words was that he knew himself, ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... time I wandered aimlessly up and down, and about midnight I started off for home; I was very calm and very tired. My concierge[9] opened the door at once, which was quite unusual for him, and I thought that another lodger had no doubt ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... About midnight the party stopped on the crest of a flinty ridge to give their horses breath and to estimate their progress. The night was fine and clear; outlined against the sky were the stalks of countless sotol-plants standing slim and bare, like the upright lances of an army at rest; ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... Quai de l'Ecole over the Pont Neuf to the great parvis of Notre Dame. Arrived at the Cathedral, the Suisse, in scarlet velvet and gold lace, gave them places over against the choir, where they could hear and see all that passed. Though 'twas midnight, the great church was filled with a throng of worshippers, who knelt and rose and knelt again as mass proceeded. From the altar rose clouds of incense from censers swung by acolytes; now and then could be heard the ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... Grey Friar brought his comrade, bravely attired with a crimson satin doublet, and the lady was well pleased with him. And as soon as he was come the betrothal took place, and, immediately after midnight, a mass was said and they were married. Then they went to bed together until daybreak, when the bridegroom told his wife that to escape discovery he must ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... an escort (not through "underground dens," as one paper reported it) after ten at night; and the vices that I saw were innocent, mild, pallid, compared to the white-man vices of Little Italy, New York, or Upper Broadway. We must have visited in all a dozen gambling joints, two or three midnight restaurants, half a dozen opium places and two theaters; and the only thing that could be remotely constructed into disrespect was the amazement on one drunken white face on the street that a white woman could be going through Chinatown with ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... go to make all necessary preparations," said Lestocq. "At midnight I will come for you. Be ready at ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... Governor's last dispatches into Chinese territory, where his machine was interned. That day and night saw no cessation of the firing, the guns of the defenders still roaring at intervals. About an hour after midnight the first impulse of the general attack took effect. While a particularly heavy artillery fire kept the Germans in their bomb-proof shelters, the central redoubt of the first line of defence, which had been badly shattered by the bombardment, was rushed by ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... not burn him. The men, women and children danced around him, and yelled and hooted and screamed and made faces, switched him and slapped him, until midnight. They wanted to make the most of him, so they untied him and hustled him on into the town, ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... But at midnight the King came with a lamp in his hand and a big bunch of keys, and carried off the white bear. He passed along gallery after gallery through doors and rooms, up-stairs and down-stairs, till at last he came to a pier which ran out into the sea. Then the King began to pull and haul at ...
— East of the Sun and West of the Moon - Old Tales from the North • Peter Christen Asbjornsen
... 18th of February, the G.O.C. returned from a week's visit to France, and gave us a lecture upon the very latest things, we knew we might go at any time. Actually at noon on the 25th we got the order to entrain at Harlow at midnight, and the next morning we were ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... Rhone, blue and swift as its traditions demanded, kept us close company much of the way; the whole range of country was made for summer, and the wintry conditions under which we saw it seemed all the more improper. It must have been near midnight when our train rolled into the station at Marseilles, and my pleasure in "sitting up late" had ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... 29th Dec.—At midnight the river made a bend westward, which continued for about fifteen miles. The wind being adverse, at 5 A.M. we found ourselves fast in the grass and floating vegetation on the lee side. Two hours' hard work at two ropes, alternately, fastened to the high grass ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... 'before morning, my fifty and The White Ship shall overtake the swiftest vessel in attendance on your father the King, if we sail at midnight!' ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... LXVI.—About midnight a few of their men who had gone some distance from the camp to fetch water, being taken by our horse, Caesar is informed by them that the generals of the enemy were drawing their troops out of the camp without noise. Upon this information Caesar ordered the signal to ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... a very hard-working woman, sewing all day long and knitting through the twilight, and then again resuming her needle by candle-light and sewing until midnight—and yet Marah Rocke made but a poor and precarious living for herself and son. Needlework, so ill-paid in large cities, is even worse paid in the country towns, and, though the cottage hearth was never cold, ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... be done upon that score that night. He went on brooding over his situation until midnight, when he repaired again to the Palmer House. He wondered what the morning would bring forth, and slept anything but soundly upon it. Next day he went again to the office and opened his mail, suspicious and hopeful of its ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... sometimes more valuable than a gold-mine. Therefore, in getting, get information: it will help you to untold wealth. My object, you see, is knowledge, for which I hunger and thirst. I search for it by night as well as by day. Therefore, gentlemen, before we quit the scene of our midnight labours, let us drink to the acquisition ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... cent I've got is yours and the child's, and you know it, Mary Carew," and the good-hearted chorus-lady, with a reproachful backward glance at her room-mate, flounced out the door, leaving the re-assured Mary to sew, by the light of an ill-smelling lamp, until her return from the theatre near midnight. ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... Pizarro, knowing the importance of despatch, sent forward Carbajal with a party of light troops to overtake the fugitives. That captain succeeded in coming up with their lonely bivouac among the mountains at midnight, when the weary troops were buried in slumber. Startled from their repose by the blast of the trumpet, which, strange to say, their enemy had incautiously sounded,6 the viceroy and his men sprang to their feet, mounted their horses, grasped their arquebuses, and poured ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... looked at his watch. It was close to midnight. In that hour his nerves had been keyed to a tension that was almost at the breaking point. Not a sound came from off the Barren or from out of the scrub timber that did not hold a mental and physical shock for him. He believed ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... form. But—sufficiently Asiatic, eh? Truly Asiatic. And—something much more unfortunate—you see that table? It happened the Russian New Year Eve, at supper. All the beauty, the whole capital, was here. Just at midnight the orchestra struck up the Bodje tsara krani* to inaugurate the joyful Russian New Year, and everybody stood up, according to custom, and listened in silence, as loyal subjects should. Well, at that table, accompanying his family, there was a young student, a fine fellow, very correct, ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... soon as I could collect myself sufficiently to form an idea at all, were my midnight sensations as I sat up in my bed, with my chin on my knees, my hair on end, my body bedewed with cold perspiration, and my limbs trembling from the tips of my fingers to the points of ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... down the deep decline of life, the years move so swiftly you cannot see the spokes in the wheels, which are the days we number so sadly. What glorious resolutions I made the first months of my residence here! How I would read and write and burn the midnight oil, and astonish the world, and grow from dignity to dignity into an honored old age! Alas! circumstances are too much for us all, and here I am, in my seventieth year, poor old Daddy Dan, with no great earthly trouble, indeed, and some few ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... was kind to her, feeding her mother love with small social triumphs. For one, Lola was chosen to sit with three other tots, the most beautiful of Tewana's children, at the feet of the Virgin in the Theophany of the "Black Christ" at the eastern fiesta. From morning to mirk midnight, it was a hard vigil. By day the vaulted church reeked incense; by night a thousand candles guttered under the dark arches, sorely afflicting small, weary eyelids; yet Lola sat it out like a small thoroughbred, ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... from a handful of big notes, and the thought of my own empty pockets for a moment damps me. However, when we rise to go, it is well after midnight, and I am in a pleasant daze. The rest of the evening may be summed up in the ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... returned to him his vivid, dreadful memory of how she had started on that midnight drive with her car ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... was relieved in colourless gloom against a sky of sheer night. Opposite, the shapes of poverty-eaten houses and grimy workshops stood huddling in the obscurity. From near at hand came shrill voices of children chasing each other about—children playing at midnight ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... waits, (dear reader, you do not need to be told what these are? Wordsworth has immortalized them;) simple, rude, and inharmonious as they would be in the clear, truth-telling daylight, but strange, witching, and half unearthly, when heard between the pauses of some fantastic dream in the deep midnight; when, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... regarded him seriously. "It couldn't be done, padre," he said, "not at this hour of the morning. I left Ealing about midnight more or less, got sandwiched in the Metro with a Brigadier-General and his blooming wife and daughters, and had to wait God knows how long for the R.T.O. If I couldn't get a seat and a break after that, I'd be a ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... will not enter, for I have nothing to do within; but I shall remain here; to await your return. After you have handed over the patient to the doctor, you will procure paper and write—-now pay great attention—that on November 20th, 1658, about midnight, you, aided by an unknown man, carried to this house, the address of which you will give, a young man whom you call the Chevalier de Moranges, and pass off as ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... I received the original letter from Anna St. Ives, of which the inclosed is a copy; and on the following day about a quarter of an hour before midnight my mother expired. I mention these circumstances together because they were noticed, by those who were necessarily acquainted with them, as having a relation to each other; whether real or imaginary, much or little I do not pretend to determine; ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... worthy magistrates—even the regulation of street traffic—these and numberless other duties so completely absorbed his attention that, in spite of indifferent health, they often kept him at severe labour from early morning till long after midnight. His position indeed often necessitated his presence at games and shows, but on these occasions he occupied himself either in reading, or being read to, or in writing notes. He was one of those who held ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... strained eye-balls glowing with intemperance; their oaths, their gestures, their very voices having something terrible in them. The mockery soon disgusted me, and I moved away, again to wander about without object or direction through the weary streets. It was past midnight when I found myself, without knowing where I was, in a large open space, in the midst of which a solitary lamp was burning. I approached it, and, to my horror, saw that it was the guillotine, over which, in mournful cadence, a lantern swung, creaking its ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... when he came, the fishmonger, and the grocer's boy. By noon all the village had heard the tale, and farmers' wives for ten miles round were shuddering over these horrible facts, that three men in black masks, with knives as long as your arm, had broken into Mr. Gray's house at midnight, gagged the family, stowed the silver and money in pillow-cases, token the little boy from his bed,—that pretty little boy with curly hair, you know, my dear,—and, paying no attention to his screams and cries, had carried him off nobody ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... with a full determination to do that which had often been resolved but never accomplished, that is, to rise with the dawn; the resolution had nearly defeated the purpose, inasmuch as the mind being surcharged with the past and the expected, there was little inclination to sleep until after midnight. But a full and fixed determination of the will overcomes greater difficulties, and the first streak of light at break of day found me up and dressed, and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... prevented the testing. Had Andre been rowed ashore by British tars they could have taken him back to the ship at his command before daylight. As it was the American boatmen, suspicious perhaps of the meaning of this talk at midnight between an American officer and a British officer, both of them in uniform, refused to row Andre back to the ship because their own return would be dangerous in daylight. Contrary to his instructions and wishes ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... long time. When at last she arose from her knees it was long past midnight, and she was tired and weak, but the thought had not been ...
— Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... to your own room at midnight, locked the door, pulled down the blind, and SNEEZED, Mrs. Lynde would ask you the next day how ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... late, and the young bridegroom entered, accompanied by his friends, who were carrying big red candles in front of him, and sending off fire-crackers. They did not leave the young people till after midnight, and not before having tried to get hold of as many of their belongings as possible. These they endeavoured to hide, and a good thing it was that the bride had got plenty of sweets, peanuts, beans, etc., for all the stolen articles had to be ...
— Everlasting Pearl - One of China's Women • Anna Magdalena Johannsen
... that heart of iron, firm as the iron that had just tolled the call of time upon eternity. The minutes slowly passed, one after the other. Perhaps a cloud was passing between earth and moon, for Roland fancied that the shadows deepened. Then, as midnight approached, he seemed to hear a thousand confused, imperceptible sounds, coming no doubt from the nocturnal universe which wakes while the other sleeps. Nature permits no suspension of life, even for repose. She created her nocturnal ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... from Spain was such that Mazarin, upon receiving it after midnight, hastened to the bedchamber of the queen with the announcement. As he entered, the queen rose upon her pillow, and the ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... with a scrap of evidence on this point lately, as I was driving at midnight on a sudden call to visit a dying man. The nightingales were singing in full choir, when my servant, an intelligent young man from the country, remarked, "A cheerful little bird the nightingale, Sir. It is beautiful to hear them singing when one ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various
... comparatively was not new. Mairan had attempted it in those papers in which he developed his bizarre ideas as to central emanations of heat. Euler had brought his profound mathematical genius to bear on the topic, evolving the "extraordinary conclusion that under the equator at midnight the cold ought to be more rigorous than at the poles in winter." And in particular Richard Kirwan, the English chemist, had combined the mathematical and the empirical methods and calculated temperatures for all latitudes. But Humboldt differs from all these predecessors ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... long procession through the midnight, Man that was ether, fire, sea, germ and ape, Out of the aeons blind of slime emerging, Out of the aeons black where ill went groping, Finding the fire, was fused ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... night, sometimes dozing a little on his chair, with the ability of the man often called at night to take little snatches of sleep here and there, but Madge was at all times wide awake. Some time after midnight Hugo appeared to be sleeping quietly. The valuable candles had been extinguished, of course, but the little lamp was burning, shaded on one side by a piece of birch bark. Stefan had gradually curled up on ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... listening they saw and heard, they assembled in the kitchen, and together rehearsed the strange story, wondering if none of the tempting supper prepared with so much care would be touched by the whites. If not, they, of course, had the next best right, and when about midnight Mrs. Worthington passed hurriedly through the dining-room, the table gave evidence that somebody had partaken of the marriage feast, and not very sparingly either. But she did not care, her thoughts ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... in the habit of allowing. The pencil scrawl supplied food enough for conjectural thought. The writing was undoubtedly fresh, and this was the 26th of the month. Some appointment was made for midnight by the words pencilled on the boat, and the journalist determined that he would be there to see. The question was, should he go alone? He watched Sidney Carew walking somewhat heavily along in front ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... disheveling the flowers, daunting every singer in thicket or forest, and pouring blackness and darkness across the land and up the mountains. Did ever so many hearts, in so brief a time, touch two such boundless feelings? It was the uttermost of joy; it was the uttermost of sorrow—noon and midnight, without a space between. ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... and mothers, in all societies, want their children to be educated, and live free from poverty and violence. No people on Earth yearn to be oppressed, or aspire to servitude, or eagerly await the midnight knock ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... They received his visions simply, and discussed them rationally, deeming them worthy of study rather than of ridicule or vulgar incredulity. To their requests the spirits were docile. Sitting by his side at midnight, they watched while he summoned from unknown realms long-vanished shades. William Wallace arose from his "gory bed," Edward I. turned back from the lilies of France, and, forgetting their ancient hate, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... was very much his own idea, and in it he took occasion to show a midnight bread-line, the misery of the slums, and various forms of social injustice. It isn't that he thinks himself called to uplift and reform, but, as he expresses ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... with him the first thing yesterday morning by the prisoner. Testimony of a policeman that he had noticed the man Evan several times in Glove Lane, and twice moved him on from sleeping under that arch. Testimony of another policeman that, when arrested at midnight, Evan had said: "Yes; I took the ring off his finger. I found him there dead .... I know I oughtn't to have done it.... I'm an educated man; it was stupid to pawn the ring. I found him with his pockets ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... well past midnight, and the group that shortly would become the crew of the Lord Nelson filtered out of the building and into the cool spring air. Each man had a fairly good idea of his job and each man knew the dangers involved. ...
— The Judas Valley • Gerald Vance
... the day he became unconscious, and the prayers for the dying were said; but again he revived. About midnight the death agony came on: it was the night of the Agony in Gethsemane. It lasted till after two: then there was another interval of comparative ease, and he was able to speak. The Superior asked him whether ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... near the midnight hour when the horse, panting for breath, paused at a lonely rickety old station. The men alighted. "Hit's jes' twenty minutes pas' eleven," said Bob Jones glancing at his watch. "Now that train's comin' long here in er few minutes. Jes' git er board an' treat de ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... flashed from bay to bay Round the summer capes of time and winter headlands keen and bare Whence the soul keeps watch, and bids her vassal memory watch and pray, If perchance the dawn may quicken, or perchance the midnight spare. Silence quells not music, darkness takes not sunlight in her snare; Shall not joys endure that perish? Yea, saith dawn, though night say nay: Life on life goes out, but very life enkindles everywhere Light that leaps and runs ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... which pale passion loves! Moonlight walks, when all the fowls Are warmly housed, save bats and owls! A midnight bell, a parting groan— These are the sounds we feed upon: Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley, Nothing 's so dainty sweet ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... past midnight. The moon had fallen to the western horns. Orion's belt lay bar-like on the opening of the pass, and Sirius shot flame on the Seehorn. A more crystalline night, more full of fulgent stars, was never seen, stars ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... crowd, composed not only of the rascality of Paris, but of a number of shopkeepers and respectable citizens whom the rumour of the fire and the arrest of the notorious deputy had called on the scene at this midnight hour. Many of the faces lit up by the lurid glare of the flames were haggard and uneasy, as if they belonged to those who, like me, found a crowd the safest hiding-place in those days. A few seemed drawn together by a love of horror ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... precisely the creature depicted in the royal arms of Great Britain, and endeavour to secure a specimen or two. Accordingly, after spending a very enjoyable evening in the music-saloon, the ladies retired to rest about midnight, while the men, producing their large-scale map of Africa, carefully laid down upon it the course, and measured off the distance necessary to carry them to the point which they desired to reach. This ascertained, Mildmay—who usually performed the duties of navigator—ascended to the pilot-house ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... the Church that had precipitated matters and decided him to take the step. He was a delightful companion, too, intelligent, courageous, humorous and modest, and Anthony thought his own labour and danger well repaid when, a little after midnight, he heard his confession and received him into the Church. It was impossible for Mr. Kirke to receive communion, as he had wished, for there were wanting some of the necessaries for saying mass; so he promised to ride ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... at night from end to end with artificial stars of gold; of the great churches, wise universities, brave armies, and untold money lying stored in vaults; of the high-flying vice that moved in the sunshine, and the stealth and swiftness of midnight murder. I have said he was sick as if for home: the figure halts. He was like some one lying in twilit, formless preexistence, and stretching out his hands lovingly towards many- coloured, many-sounding life. It was no wonder he was unhappy, he would go and tell the fish: they ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... come to, and begun to ask questions—as ugly as ever, only as weak as a baby. 'Bout midnight I was comin' out of his room, and I seen the missus in a gray dress, with her eyes shinin' like coals of fire, dive out of her room and up the stairs, and nobody never seen her afterward. The next morning the supercargo was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... was in her boy. She often feared that she loved him too much—more than God Himself—yet she could not bear to pray to have her love for her child lessened. But she would kneel down by his little bed at night—at the deep, still midnight—with the stars that kept watch over Rizpah shining down upon her, and tell God what I have now told you, that she feared she loved her child too much, yet could not, would not, love him less; and speak ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... owed everything to you, Mr. Verrian," and while he desisted from searching the book-shelves, she stood looking anxiously at him, with the pulse in her neck visibly throbbing. Her agitation was really painful, but Verrian did not attribute it to her finding herself there alone with him at midnight; for though the other guests had all gone to bed, the house was awake in some of the servants, and an elderly woman came in presently bringing a breadth of silvery gauze, which she held up, asking if it ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... were about to separate, long before midnight, without a single spirited controversy, they looked at one another sadly, as men who felt the ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... future similar times. The magazine-day of that April month, I remember, fell upon a Saturday, and the previous evening had brought me a peremptory summons: "Meet me at the Shakspeare on Saturday night at eight; order your horse at midnight, and ride back with me." Which was done accordingly. The smallest hour was sounding from St. Paul's into the night before we started, and the night was none of the pleasantest; but we carried news that lightened every part of the road, for the sale of Nickleby had reached that day the astonishing ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... been a result of persecution that the persecuted cause has made progress—naturally so, for trial and suffering winnow out the chaff and leave the good seed to flourish with increased vigour. Few false professors attended those midnight meetings, which were so full of joy and danger, and none of these ever got the length of Ranavalona's fiery stakes or the fearful "rock ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the world! In the heart of the remotest mountains rises the little Kirk; the Dead all slumbering round it, under their white memorial-stones, 'in hope of a happy resurrection:'—dull wert thou, O Reader, if never in any hour (say of moaning midnight, when such Kirk hung spectral in the sky, and Being was as if swallowed up of Darkness) it spoke to thee—things unspeakable, that went into thy soul's soul. Strong was he that had a Church, what we can call a Church: he stood thereby, though 'in the centre of Immensities, in the conflux ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... help in his necessity. As he lay there lame, and deprived of all strength, he wept bitterly, moaned, and prayed with a sore heart that the dear King Olaf would help him. Now when this wounded priest was sleeping after midnight, he thought he saw a gallant man coming to him, who spoke these words, "Thou art ill off, friend Richard, and thy strength is little." He thought he replied to this assentingly. Then the man accosted him again, "Thou requirest compassion?" ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... absences and sudden reappearances, using sometimes the means of exit which Father Holt had employed, though how often the little window in the Chaplain's room let in or let out my lord and his friends, Harry could not tell. He stoutly kept his promise to the Father of not prying, and if at midnight from his little room he heard noises of persons stirring in the next chamber, he turned round to the wall, and hid his curiosity under his pillow until it fell asleep. Of course he could not help remarking that the priest's journeys were constant, and ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... to travel in the night; we accordingly departed from Funingkedy in the afternoon, accompanied by about thirty people, carrying their effects with them into Ludamar, for fear of the war. We travelled with great silence and expedition until midnight, when we stopped in a sort of enclosure, near a small village; but the thermometer being so low as 68 degrees, none of the negroes could sleep on account ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park |
