"Midnight" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... throughout the Somali country; slung over the other is a Wesi or wicker bottle containing water for religious ablution. He is accompanied by some men who carry a little stock of town goods and drive a camel colt, which by the by they manage to lose before midnight. ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... upon 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. ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... round the pole The sullen Bear is seen to roll; And mortals, wearied with the day, Are slumbering all their cares away; An infant, at that dreary hour, Came weeping to my silent bower, And waked me with a piteous prayer, To shield him from the midnight air. "And who art thou," I waking cry, "That bid'st my blissful visions fly?" "Ah, gentle sire!" the infant said, "In pity take me to thy shed; Nor fear deceit; a lonely child I wander o'er the gloomy wild. Chill drops the rain, and ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... measure the distances between the earth and the stars by means of mathematical calculations. You should procure some work on astronomy. There is a nice little book published in our office called "The Heavens and the Earth," and another, rather larger, called "The Midnight Sky;" both ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various
... down out in the snow to dream that whips have been abolished and hauling is discarded for ever, sleeping peacefully until morning, unless indeed some band of wolves should prowl around and, scenting campfire, howl their long chorus to the midnight skies. ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... by dynamite of the militiamen who perished at midnight in shaft No. 7 of the Wahoo Fuel Company's mines, I take full responsibility. I have assumed a leadership in a strike which caused these deaths. I shirk no whit of my share in this outrage. Yet I preached only peace. I pleaded ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... Well accordingly he went out rather airly in de evenin', and laid up behind de mow, for a long while, till he got rather tired and sleepy, and thought 'twaunt no use a watchin' no longer. It was gittin' pretty handy to midnight, and he thought how he'd goo home to bed. But jest as he was upon de move he heerd a odd sort of a soun' comin' toe-ards the barn, and so he stopped to see what it was. He looked out of de strah, and what should he catch sight an but ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... Instinctively they felt each other's presence, felt each other's thought coming to them through the thin partition. It was charming; they were perfectly happy. There in the stillness that settled over the flat in the half hour after midnight the two old people "kept company," enjoying after their fashion their little romance that had come so late into the lives ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... the dogs about the place came running to meet him, softly patting over the sand, and it was on this group, standing under her window in the midnight stillness, that Riette looked out a ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... never looked more beautiful. She was clad in a simple white satin, her dazzling arms were bare, but she wore not a single bracelet; her hair was carried back from her temples, and powdered until it resembled a midnight strewed with star-dust—but not a single jewel glittered above her imperial brow, or on her neck. She looked like an uncrowned queen, and took her place as one ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... Weeping Water at last, although it was full midnight, and they were far behind time, and together they ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... It was near midnight of the day when the sale of Mr Rothwell's effects had taken place at "The Firs." A candle twinkled still in the cottage of Mrs Forbes, for there was work to be sent home early on the morrow, and neither lateness nor weariness might suspend ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... Adams also had given office only to Federalists. Jefferson thought it was absolutely necessary to have some officials upon whom he could rely. So he removed a few Federalist officeholders and appointed Republicans to their places. Adams had even gone so far as to appoint officers up to midnight of his last day in office. Indeed, John Marshall, his Secretary of State, was busy signing commissions when Jefferson's Attorney General walked in with his watch in hand and told Marshall that it was twelve o'clock. Jefferson ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... not a little emblematical of the dubious fortunes of its inmates. It seemed more like traversing a convent than a palace. I ought to have mentioned that in ascending the grand staircase we found the portal at the head of it, opening into the royal suite of apartments, still bearing the marks of the midnight attack upon the palace in October last, when an attempt was made to get possession of the persons of the little Queen and her sister, to carry them off.... The marble casements of the doors had been shattered in several places, and the double doors themselves pierced all over with bullet holes, ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... sick, and I got him to bed and gave him some hot milk,"—the thought flashed from one to the other almost palpably, "That is what Mother would have done"—"and he went to sleep—he was perfectly worn out. I went downstairs to find Father. It was after midnight. He was walking around the house into one room after another and out on the porch and even out in the garden, as fast as he could walk. He looked so—" She shuddered. "I went up to him and said, 'Father, Father, what ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... smaller animals, but had seen none of the animals themselves save one fine deer, and our sleep had been wholly undisturbed by prowlers; so we sank to rest on Grand Island with no fears of invasion. At midnight the occupant of the Kleiner Fritz was aroused by a scratching upon the side of the canoe and low, whining howls. He partially arose, confused and half asleep, in doubt as to the character of his disturber, which went forward, climbed upon ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... Marriage to a rich woman could alone snatch him from the social abyss, and the prospect became doubly alluring when it took the guise of Cynthia. He would restore her to a disconsolate chaperon some time before midnight, and he was cynic enough to admit that if he had not then succeeded in winning her esteem by his chivalry, his unobtrusive tenderness, his devoted attentions—above all, by his flow of interesting talk and well-turned epigram—the ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... closed? Or, rather, what was it that she saw?—for this seemed to be a picture in music. She saw a small chapel far away up in the mountains, the trembling red rays in the windows looking strange above the snow. She heard the monks at their midnight chanting—low, and sad, and distant. And then it seemed, as she listened, as if the stars overhead were being blurred out, and a murmuring wind came down the gorge, and the air grew cold. The darkness deepened; the wind ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... accompanied the army. One night Grant gave verbal orders to the staff officer on duty. Three days later these orders appeared in a Richmond paper. Shortly afterwards, in the midst of the Wilderness battle, Swinton was found eavesdropping behind a stump during a midnight conference at headquarters. Sent off with a serious warning, he next appeared, in another place, as a prisoner condemned to death for spying. Grant, satisfied that he was not bent on getting news for the enemy in particular, but only for the press in general, ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... at Madge in amazement. But in the single moment when Mr. Brown's captive started to leave the room, the little captain had seen the tips of his pointed ears. She had caught the wild, almost animal gleam in his eyes. She recalled the midnight visitor to their chaperon on the first night their houseboat had rested at anchor. She remembered Miss Jenny Ann's curious behavior, and how she had absolutely refused to give the name of her caller. All this swept through Madge's mind and now she understood Miss Jenny Ann's poverty, her ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... a simpler way. Thy mind ever runs on the bowstring and the sword. These are great, but there is a greater. It is the mocking finger. At midnight, when Kaid goes to the Mosque Mahmoud, a finger will mock the plotters till they are buried in confusion. Thou knowest the governor of the prisons—has he not need of something? Hath he never sought ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... only come to be evil spoken of. This is what I do not desire, but am not able to avoid. In the case of a man, who gets up at cock-crowing to practise what is good and continues sedulous in the endeavour till midnight, and says at the same time that he does not wish men to know it, lest they should praise him, I must say of such a man, that, if he be not deceitful, he is stupid."' Another day, the duke asked Tsze-sze, saying, ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... At about midnight, the sleepless young watcher, lying on the edge of the hay just above the empty manger over which a lantern swung, lifted himself on his elbow at the sound of a long, low, shuddering groan, and in another moment, Harry knew that poor Brindle had ceased to suffer the effects ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... about midnight, perceiving the water all at once to be discoloured, we sounded, and had 25 fathoms, on which we stood out from the land, but did not deepen our water in five leagues. This bank must lie very near the entrance into the Straits of Magellan. On this bank we saw ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... but nothing happens. At midnight he departs; scarcely has he left the Chapel when, to his great surprise, ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... his vestments on. We sailed first for Ireland, but the wind coming ahead we ran instead for the Isle of Man. The first night at sea the very tall undergraduate as second mate had the 12 P.M. to 4 A.M. night watch. The tiller handle was very low, and when I gave him his course at midnight before turning in myself, he asked me if it would be a breach of nautical etiquette to sit down to steer, as that was the only alternative to directing the ship's course with his ankles. No land was in sight, and the wind had died out when I came on deck for my ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... About midnight I was awakened by a noise; I started up and listened; it appeared to me that I heard voices and groans. In a moment I had issued from my tent—all was silent—but the next moment I again heard groans and voices; they proceeded from ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... here to induce mothers to be faithful to their children. I wish to ask mothers if they have ever gone at the midnight hour and awoke their children by a mother's tears while pleading with God for ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... silence words that wary are and wise; The voice which drives from me all other care; And the dark prison which that fair light hides: As midnight on our hills the violets; And the wild beasts within the walls who dwell; The kind demeanour and the dear reserve; And from two founts one stream which flow'd in peace Where I desire, collected where I would. Love and sore jealousy have seized my heart, ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... wide window of her bed-chamber, on that third midnight at Gosnold House, in a state of lawless exaltation not less physical than spiritual and mental, a temper ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... met her at the Rochester station with wrapper, slippers and comfortable things for the sickroom, and she learned that her brother was still alive. Telegrams came to her at intervals during the journey, and, after a most distressing delay at Kansas City, she finally reached Leavenworth at midnight, May 14, and was gladly received by her brother who had watched the clock and counted her progress every hour. The shooting had grown out of some criticisms in his paper. The ball had fractured the clavicle and severed the ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... the rapids there was an old logging road, if they could but find it in the dark. The last mile could be covered more quickly by this route than by following the tump trail past the rapids, and it would lead them straight to the camp. The moon would not be up until after midnight and the tote road promised a more noiseless approach for the preliminary reconnoitring that was necessary to carry out the ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... humbly to confess that without God's help I was helpless, I vowed a vow in the forest solitudes that I would confess his aid before men. Silence, as of death, was round about me; it was midnight; I was weakened by illness, prostrated by fatigue, and wan with anxiety for my white and black companions, whose fate was a mystery. In this physical and mental distress I besought God to give me back my people. Nine hours later we were exulting with a rapturous joy. In full view ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... representative of an American firm. The following evening we held the first meeting of the arbitrators and the Chinese and Mongolian representatives. It was passionate and stormy, so that we foreigners lost all hope of the success of our mission. However, at midnight when the speakers were tired, we secured agreement on two points: the Mongols announced that they did not want to make war and that they desired to settle this matter in such a way as to retain the friendship of the great Chinese people; while the Chinese Commissioner acknowledged ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... poor, and freed the wronged. Better than pattering Paters, that!" said Cigarette, who thought a midnight mass at Notre Dame or a Salutation at the Madeleine a pretty coup de theatre enough, but who had for all churches and creeds a serene contempt and a fierce disdain. "Go to the grandams and the children!" she ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... unanimously bestowed on his cook; and the dexterous Leo insensibly acquired the trust and management of his household. After the patient expectation of a whole year, he cautiously whispered his design to Attalus, and exhorted him to prepare for flight in the ensuing night. At the hour of midnight, the intemperate guests retired from the table; and the Frank's son-in-law, whom Leo attended to his apartment with a nocturnal potation, condescended to jest on the facility with which he might betray his trust. The intrepid slave, after sustaining this dangerous raillery, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... by trade, working all day long and never addressing a word to anyone, not even during the meals. He only became a sociable being on holidays, on which occasions he would spend his time with his friends in some tavern, coming home at midnight as drunk as a lord and singing verses from Tasso. When in this blissful state the good man could not make up his mind to go to bed, and became violent if anyone attempted to compel him to lie down. Wine alone gave him sense and spirit, for when sober he was incapable ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the Count of Puymaigre, who, in virtue of his office as Prefect of the Oise, dined with the King, as well as the Bishop of Beauvais and the general commanding the sub-division. "M. de Cosse-Brisac, the first steward, had punch served, and we continued the ecarte till midnight or one o'clock, when we could play more liberally, the Dauphiness having limited the stakes to five francs. The Duchess of Berry was less scrupulous. After the withdrawal of the princes we were glad to be more at ease; the talk became gay and even licentious, and I will say here that all the ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... companionship was a little easier, but under the circumstances the one topic most on the mind of each was carefully avoided. At midnight they stopped at the crossing of a stream to water and feed, and Abe showed his companion how to make a nosebag out of the sack in which ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... moon that was just surmounting the buildings of the piazza in front of the Old Palace within the hour of midnight, did not make the usual broad lights and shadows on the pavement. Not a hand's-breadth of pavement was to be seen, but only the heads of an eager struggling multitude. And instead of that background of silence in which the pattering ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... and she met a dog. So she said to him, "Dog! dog! bite pig; piggy won't go over the stile; and I shan't get home till midnight." ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... a few minutes with him, he being careful not to remove from his head and face the cloak that covered them. It was then past midnight and he was eighty, but, boylike, after he got Mrs. Gladstone safely home he had determined to see ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... upward for the True; Seeking through change, growth, death, in new and old The full in few, the statelier in the less, With patient pain; always remembering this— His hand, who touched the sod with showers of gold, Stippled Orion on the midnight blue. ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... midnight will fall down on their knees before the manger. The next turn brings us to the Otter rushing along some forty feet below with angry stream.' Almost at the mouth of the river is the village of Otterton, and here was a Benedictine Priory, founded in the reign of King John. ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... you know it. Did my heart quail on that midnight sea when I was face to face with four ruffians and quelled their mutiny? You have already told me that it ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... interest, as a reference to the Causes Celebres and the Memoirs of Vidocq illustrate. A friend of mine, returning from a trip to Lyons, became acquainted in the rail-car with an English gentleman, and when they reached the station, just before midnight, the two left for their hotels in the same cab. After a short drive, the vehicle suddenly came to a halt, the cabman sprang to the ground, and his passengers were left to surmise the occasion of their abrupt abandonment: presently a crowd collected, a shout ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... remembered that night well. Tom was the only man who dared run the bar in the dark, and that last time, between nightfall and the dawn, with a southeaster breezing up, he had sailed his schooner in and out again. There had been no warning of his coming—a clatter of hoofs at midnight, a lathered horse in the stable, and Tom had appeared, the salt of the sea on his face as his mother attested. An hour only he remained, and on a fresh horse was gone, while rain squalls rattled upon the windows and the rising wind moaned through the redwoods, the memory of his visit ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... detail, both concerning your mode of life, and concerning the people who live with you, and concerning how you fare with them. I should so like to know! Yes, you must write again. Tonight I have purposely looped the curtain up. Go to bed early, for, last night, I saw your candle burning until nearly midnight. Goodbye! I am now feeling sad and weary. Ah that I should have to spend such days as this one has been. ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Meade, reaching his headquarters about midnight. I explained to Meade that we did not want to follow the enemy; we wanted to get ahead of him, and that his orders would allow the enemy to escape, and besides that, I had no doubt that Lee was moving right then. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... poor lady's preconceived ideas, the mistake was not unpardonable. In those surroundings, against that flickering light, standing, straight and silent in her short skirt and moccasins, her leaf-brown hair tied with bracken and turned to midnight black by the shadows, her grey eyes mysterious under their dark lashes, and her lips unsmiling, Desire might well have been some beauty of that vanishing race. A princess, perhaps, waiting with grave courtesy for the welcome due her ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... until midnight, when the forest woman reined in and directed a ray of light against ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... the company standing, with three times three. Then followed the health of the worthy vice-president (proposed by Mr. Heber), which, it is scarcely necessary to observe, was drunk with similar honours. . . . The president was succeeded in the chair by Lord Gower, who, at midnight, yielded to Mr. Dent; and that gentleman gave way to the Prince of Bibliomaniacs, Mr. Heber. Though the night, or rather the morning, wore apace, it was not likely that a seat so occupied would be speedily deserted; accordingly, the "regal purple ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... stag at eve had drank his fill, When danced the moon on Monan's rill, And deep his midnight lair had made In lone Glenartney's hazel shade. * * * Roused from his lair, The antler'd monarch of the waste Sprang from his heathery couch in haste. * * * With one brave bound the copse he clear'd, And, stretching forward free and far, Sought the ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... difficulty—but with how little suspicion that all the time I wished him gone! I went to bed only to lie listening for my uncle's return. It was long past midnight ere he came. ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... stubble crackling beneath his outrageous belly; yonder the foredoomed sailor promptly fulfills his own prediction, falling from the yard-arm into the Bay of Biscay; anon the ghastly visage of Mrs. Herne, of the Hairy Ones, glares for a moment out of the midnight hedge; again, a mysterious infatuation drives the wealthy idler from his bed out into the inclement darkness, and up to the topmost bough of the tree, which he must "touch" ere he can rest; and now, in the gloom of the memorable dingle, the horror of fear falls upon the amateur tinker, the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... in another direction. "If the roads are as bad as they were last year," said she, "we shall not be able to attend the midnight mass. And yet I should so much have liked it this time, and ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... seven in the evening before we were ready to start. At that hour we quietly slipped our anchor and glided out of the harbor. We all thought we would be in France before midnight. The trip across the Channel in ordinary times is not often more than two and a half hours. We had no bunks allotted to us, and didn't think that any would be needed. We all lay around in any old place, and in any old attitude. I, for one, devoted most of the time during ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... yours, Miss Grebby"—an amused look in his eyes. "Instead of feeding chickens I feed my friends—lunches, dinners, midnight suppers—all of which pall terribly after a time. Instead of dusting my house I leave it to accumulate dust, while I wander abroad. A home is a dull ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... revolver behind me. I was betrayed! I remember only a flash and an explosion—a deathly sensation, a whirl of the rocks and trees about me, a hideous imprecation from the lips of my murderer, and I fell senseless to the earth. When I awoke to consciousness it was past midnight. I looked up at the stars, and recognized Lyra shining full in my face. That constellation, I knew, passed the meridian at this season of the year after twelve o'clock, and its slow march told me that many weary hours would intervene before daylight. ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... O king, to pierce thy son. Then many warriors on thy side, accompanied by a large force, rushed impetuously and surrounded thy son (for rescuing him). Then commenced a fierce battle between thy troops and theirs, O Bharata, at that dreadful hour of midnight, increasing the population of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... At midnight, Leonard took his turn to watch. It was a bright moonlight night, but though he occasionally looked out into the street, and perceived Flitcroft below, he gave no intimation of his presence. All at once, however, he was alarmed ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... midnight with his guides and the remaining part of his army, and ordered the Turks to be attacked the next morning. In this battle, as in the preceding ones, the attack, the encounter, and the rout were occurrences of a moment, and the result of a single movement on the part of our troops. The whole Turkish ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... shore, first kindled a fire to cook their supper. This they intended to despatch earlier than usual, so as to give them the early part of the night for their swan hunt, which they expected to finish before midnight. Lucien did the cooking, while Norman, assisted by Basil and Francois, made his preparations for the hunt. Francois, who was more interested in the result than any of them, watched every movement of ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... of sufferers, made all speed to the nearest port, and reached Portsmouth in safety, shortly after midnight, on the 3d of March, 1825, the accident having taken place on the 28th of February. Wonderful to tell, fourteen of the poor creatures, left on the Kent, were rescued by another ship, the Caroline, on her passage from ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... party returning will leave Granada at four o'clock Monday afternoon and arrive at the steamer about midnight. The Moltke ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... a smile, "and as you say, it did sound like far-away thunder. I saw you peeking out, but didn't say anything, for old Steve was sleeping fine, and I didn't want to wake him up. After you went off again I crept outside for an observation. It was around midnight then." ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... suppose so, after a sort. I don't mean to make myself ill with midnight oil and that sort of thing," he said (he was not at all clear in his mind as to how the midnight oil was applied), "but if Mr. May can get it into me, I'll give him leave; for one thing, I suppose there will be nothing else ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... making provision. This is as natural, as for birds to fly, or fishes to swim. For this the scholar and the philosopher, who think it consists in knowledge, pore over their books and their apparatus, light the midnight lamp, and keep frequent vigils, when the world around them is asleep. For this the warrior, who thinks that happiness is inseparably united with fame, pursues that bubble through the gory field of conflict, and is as lavish of his life, as if it were not worth a soldier's pay. The ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... moon's pale beams the mountains and valleys fill, And midnight's dew is falling on grove and hill; Then will we sit, O Thorstein, above our pillows, And talk about the future, ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... midnight when a slight noise, a sound of stealthy footsteps, made her turn. Madame Leon was leaving the room, and a moment later Marguerite heard the house-door leading into the garden open and shut again. There was nothing ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... tamarisks, on Pedn-glas, the northern point of a small sandy cove, much haunted of old by smugglers, but now left to the peaceful boats of the Polkimbra fishermen. In my grandfather's time however, if tales be true, Ready-Money Cove saw many a midnight cargo run, and many a prize of cognac and lace found its way to the cellars and store-room of Lantrig. Nay, there is a story (but for its truth I will not vouch) of a struggle between my grandfather's lugger, the Pride of Heart, and a certain Revenue cutter, and of an unowned ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of a merry jest; and you will be shocked to discover that to the new-comer it is a stern and cold reality. I use the latter adjective deliberately and advisedly. There will surely come an awful night when you will get home from New York with Mrs. Modestus in the midnight train, too tired for anything but a drowsy chat by the lingering embers of the library fire over the festivities of the evening. You will open your broad hospitable door, and enter an abode of chill and darkness. Your long-slumbering household has let fires and ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... black-face monologue artist; a white-face ditto, at Tony Pastor's, Miner's and Niblo's of the old days; a comic lead; co-star and star in such melodramas and farces as "The Danger Signal," "The Two Johns," "A Tin Soldier," "The Midnight Bell," "A Green Goods Man" (a farce which he himself wrote, by the way), and others. The man had a genius for the kind of gayety, poetry and romance which may, and no doubt must be, looked upon as exceedingly middle-class but which nonetheless had as much charm as anything ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... After midnight, these gloomy, narrow streets became the haunt of numerous homeless vagabonds, and escaped criminals and malefactors, moreover, made the quarter their rendezvous. If the day had been a lucky one, they made merry over their spoils, ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... Direach Ghlinn Eitidh, the Desert Creature of Glen Eiti, which, one-handed, one-eyed, one-legged, seems exactly to answer to the Arabian Nesnas or Empusa. Nicolo Conti in the Chaldaean desert is aroused at midnight by a great noise, and sees a vast multitude pass by. The merchants tell him that these are demons who are in the habit of traversing the deserts. (Schmidt's San. Setzen, p. 352; V. et V. de H. T. 23, 28, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... must have been near midnight—I was in Miss Collingham's dressing-room with Miss Patricia, who intended to watch by her through the night. We were talking by the fire, of the snow-storm which still continued, and of the hindrance it ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Midnight. At Miss Bailie's home for English governesses. Two comedies & some songs and ballads. Was asked to speak & did it. (And ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... a visitor; it was a bear, and no doubt the very bear for which he had set his snare. But the bear, in approaching, did not notice the man until it was almost on top of him, and then it became so frightened that it tore up into a neighbouring tree and there remained for hours. By midnight, however, it came down, and then it was the suffering hunter's turn to become alarmed, for the big brute passed very close to him before it finally walked away. A little after sunrise the hunter's son arrived, but not being able ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... intelligent face or felt more immediately at home with an utter stranger. He began his story in a low, musical voice,—Italian loses none of its softness in the mouth of a Sicilian,—and I had followed him through a midnight ride over a wild and solitary road before I began to suspect how it was to end. Then came the details: a sudden meeting,—angry words, heating to madness blood already too hot,—a shot,—a body writhing ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the care of the siege, for he abode himself in the city of Riblah. The names of these generals who ravaged and subdued Jerusalem, if any one desire to know them, were these: Nergal Sharezer, Samgar Nebo, Rabsaris, Sorsechim, and Rabmag. And when the city was taken about midnight, and the enemy's generals were entered into the temple, and when Zedekiah was sensible of it, he took his wives, and his children, and his captains, and his friends, and with them fled out of the city, through the ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... could hear the pounding of wooden drums, mingled with shrill yells that split the night-air like so many war-missiles. Only those above, upon the platform, could mind these things; for the bustle within the enclosure below continued unabated until long after midnight. ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... Long after midnight the lamp was burning in Sanin's room. He sat down to the table and wrote to 'his Gemma.' He told her everything; he described the Polozovs—husband and wife—but, more than all, enlarged on his own feelings, and ended by appointing a meeting with her in three ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... schoolfellows' pillows, and that it was impossible for him to resist stealing, even when his pockets were full. If he had not stolen some article before going to bed, he was unable to sleep, and when midnight struck, he felt obliged to take the first thing that came to his hand, destroying it frequently as soon ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... night I suffered much from "the blues." My spirits were out of tune. The scanty hospital fare that was offered me I sent away untouched, and sleep refused to bury my senses in forgetfulness until long after the midnight hour. This, however, might have been partly owing to the involuntary groans and murmurs of unfortunate sufferers in my immediate vicinity. That first day and night wore a sombre aspect, ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... down to the ground. And overthrown by the powerful Kichaka, Bhima quickly rose up like Yama himself with mace in hand. And thus that powerful Suta and the Pandava, intoxicated with strength and challenging each other, grappled with each other at midnight in that solitary place. And as they roared at each other in wrath, that excellent and strong edifice began to shake every moment. And slapped on the chest by the mighty Bhima, Kichaka fired with wrath moved not a single pace. And bearing for a moment ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the battalion of clerks was to leave for Western Virginia to meet the raiders. After keeping them in waiting till midnight, the order was countermanded. It is said now that Gen. Lee has sent three brigades after Averill and his 3000 men, and hopes are entertained that ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... more plainly unfolded his plan. It was that Isabel should go to Lord Angelo and seemingly consent to come to him as he desired at midnight; that by this means she would obtain the promised pardon; and that Mariana should go in her stead to the appointment, and pass herself upon Angelo in the dark ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... bee-line from Lewes to Dover, and plenty of public-houses on the road. No Englishman could do it under eight hours on a hot day. If your romance-man gets there by midnight, he'll do well—and still ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... propinquity of the low rabble, yet, considering the circumstances, he did not regret his absence, since he was required for my lady's protection, and, no doubt, two fond hearts had been made happy. Then, in the midnight alarm, when the young nobleman had been disabled, Delaford had been the grand champion:—he had roused the establishment; he had calmed every one's fears; he had suggested arming all the waiters, and fortifying the windows; he had been the only undaunted representative of the British Lion, ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... understand you rightly," I inquired, "that this musical programme covers the entire twenty-four hours? It seems to on this card, certainly; but who is there to listen to music between say midnight and morning?" ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... was late in the night, and arriving at Harmatus on the continent opposite Methymna, dined there; and swiftly passing Lectum, Larisa, Hamaxitus, and the neighbouring towns, arrived a little before midnight at Rhoeteum. Here they were now in the Hellespont. Some of the ships also put in at Sigeum and at other places ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... Come Thomas, come Luke, come Clara. Us might be a barn full of broody hens the way we be set around of this here table. 'Twill be midnight afore the things is cleared away ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... being translated, the face of Maximus assumed an expression of deep gravity mingled with sadness. His mind flew to the far north, and he thought of the midnight assault and the death-cry of women and children. The nature of the Esquimau was too noble and generous to be easily ruffled by the contemptuous tone of such a man as Meestagoosh; but his heart sank within him when he thought of the power as well as the will ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... but the reverse; for if Yussuf Dakmar should miss you after midnight he would go in search of you, with those five in turn tracking him. And as for finding you, that would be a simple matter, for every night thief and beggar waiting for the dawn would give attention to such a big man as you ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... found dead in his official palace in the Piazza Navona. He had dined at the Quirinal and remained there for the opening of the State Ball, therefore he could not have reached the Palazzo Braschi before eleven or twelve o'clock. Two shots had been heard about midnight, and the body had been ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... that very night, for, instead of the regular cool wind coming down the upper valley, a fierce hot gust roared from the other direction like a furnaces-blast from the plains; and at midnight down came the most furious storm the most travelled of the officers had ever encountered. The lightning flashed as if it were splintering the peaks which pierced the clouds, and the peals of thunder which followed ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... woes, and has no musical utterance, vocal or instrumental,—then, if she is of the real woman sort, and has a few heartfuls of wild blood in her, and you have done her a wrong,—double-bolt the door which she may enter on noiseless slipper at midnight,—look twice before you taste of any cup whose draught the shadow of her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... baron's surcoat once, On many a beauty's wimple—would proceed No poison-tree, to thrust, from hell its root, Hither and thither its strange snaky arms. Why came I here? What must I do? [A bell strikes.] A bell? Midnight! and 'tis at midnight.... Ah, I catch —Woods, river, plains, I catch your meaning now, And I obey you! Hist! ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... assented grimly. Perhaps disappointment had made me brutal. "There's almost nothing, from the Alps at midnight to Royalty down a coalmine, with which it would not be equally safe and appropriate to compare it. Only, as I gather that this involves its continued existence for a further indefinite period, my one request is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 11, 1920 • Various
... At midnight the House presented a spectacle calculated to interest a stranger. The great galleries were still thronged—though only with men, now; the bright colors that had made them look like hanging gardens were gone, with the ladies. The reporters' gallery, was merely occupied ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... and many others as well, have been told to the wondering boys and girls of that country, who, as they hear them, picture their native land as one of roses and tulips, where beautiful fairies build their castles in the rosy morn, and black gnomes fly around in the darkness of midnight. ...
— The Cat and the Mouse - A Book of Persian Fairy Tales • Hartwell James
... They said they would not fight for Cleopatra. Why should they fight indeed, to make her conquer, And make you more a slave? to gain you kingdoms, Which, for a kiss, at your next midnight feast, You'll sell to her? Then she new-names her jewels, And calls this diamond such or such a tax; Each pendant in her ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... the father of the Colonel, lived, and were now once more on the north side. From an open knoll I pointed out to my friend, by the apple and pear blossoms whitening the deserted orchards, the site of the Palatines' village where Daisy's father had been killed, fifteen years ago, in the midnight ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... be, there is something in the old mythological way of putting the case, which describes the situation in eclipses, far better than our arid scientific prose. I shall not easily forget, how, as we slid like ghosts at midnight, through the middle of the desert, along the Suez Canal[2], I watched the ghastly pallor of the wan unhappy moon, as the horrible shadow crept slowly over her face, stealing away her beauty, and turning the lone and level sands that stretched away below to a weird and ashy blue, as though ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain
... When we arrived, midnight was already past, and we were obliged to waken one of the servants to give us admittance. I found that Mr. Forester had left a message for me, in consideration of the possibility of my arrival during the night, directing me immediately to go to bed, and to take care that I did not come weary and ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... by fierce joy, I set out in quest of a tavern. As it was past midnight some were closed; this put me in a fury. "What!" I cried, "even that consolation is refused me!" I ran hither and thither knocking at the doors of ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... servants, who went with ropes upon their heads to their enemies for mercy. The woman of Canaan also, that would not be daunted though called a DOG by Christ, and the man that went to borrow bread at midnight, were also great encouragements ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... I written without prescience! The night of the awful silence which succeeded the thunderstorm was also the eve of the Chinese New Year, and Captain Shaw gave permission for "fireworks" from 7 P.M. till midnight. The term "fireworks" received a most liberal construction. The noise was something awful, and as it came into the lonely Stadthaus, and red, blue, crimson, and greenish-yellow glares at short intervals lighted up the picturesque Malacca steam and its blue and yellow houses, with their ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... vigorously he reached the bridge at midnight, and to his surprise and satisfaction found it without a guard; that which protected the workmen during the day, having been withdrawn at night. The bridge was set on fire and in three hours thoroughly destroyed—no interruption to the work was attempted by the enemy. The damage inflicted ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... him. If she had earned her living before, she could again. More than once she had thought of doing this, but always the hope of a child had shone like a tiny bright star through the midnight of her trials. Since she had endured so much, why not endure a little longer and reap a dear reward? Then, too, she could never quite bring herself to face the pictures her imagination conjured of Martin, struggling along uncared for. Now, as her heart hardened ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... in these three series attained a reputation which he probably increased by his delightful studies of pure humour, among which "Modern Midnight Conversation," "The Sleeping Congregation," "Strolling Players in a Barn," "The Laughing Audience," "The Enraged Musician," and "The Distressed Poet" are to be especially commended, as well as that fine series of "The Four Times of the Day," in which last "Morning" (of which I am able to ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... indeed, who would come here at midnight? But Startsev waited, and as though the moonlight warmed his passion, he waited passionately, and, in imagination, pictured kisses and embraces. He sat near the monument for half an hour, then paced up and down the side avenues, with his hat in his hand, waiting and thinking of the many women ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Impossible for the Princess Juliana to dispense with, as the rules on this subject were precise. At eight o'clock in the evening, Fleur-de-Marie kneeled down on the stone pavement in the church. Until midnight she continued praying. But at this hour, overcome by her weakness, the horrible cold, and her emotion, for she wept long and silently, she fainted. Two nuns, who by the Princess Juliana's order had watched with her, took her up, and carried ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... irreducible nine hours were severely mutilated by the sudden and by no means noiseless incursion of a pyjama- clad figure into Waldo's room at an hour midway between midnight ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... thinking of a large rock within sight of his own gates and how he would lean Jesus against it, if he managed to carry him so far. He stopped at sight of something, something seemed to slink through the pale, diffused shadows in and out of the rocks up the hillside, and Joseph thought of a midnight wolf. The wolves did not venture as near the city, but—Whatever Joseph saw with his eyes, or fancied he saw, did not appear again, and he picked up his load, thinking of the hopeless struggle it would be between him and a grey ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... 7 A. M. In this set were employed six or seven clerks who worked under the superintendant's direction, and who performed practically the same kind of work that he did. It was their duty to properly record all registered matter that arrived in Cincinnati between 4 P. M. and midnight from the various railroad lines centering there, rebill it and pouch it in the through registry pouches to be ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... dungeon from Wednesday morning till Saturday night, how they were famished with hunger and beaten with a grievous crab-tree cudgel till they were not able to turn, with many other sufferings too many and too terrible to be told which they endured till Saturday about midnight, when they began to pray, and continued in prayer till almost break of day;—John Bunyan is surely the best story-teller in all the world. And, then, over and above that, as often as a boy reads Giant Despair and his dungeon to ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... [79] The Midnight Bell, a German story (London, 1798), is ascribed in the Dictionary of National Biography to Francis Lathom. This book is mentioned in chapter ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... suffered shipwreck had it not taken refuge near those tutelary towers where are suspended the memorial deeds of the sainted heroes whose armor was sackcloth, whose watchword the sigh of repentance poured out in the lonely midnight. ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... went to meet them. "I must be careful how I speak," she said, addressing Mrs. Carleton, "for I feel sure Cora understands much more than she can find language to express, but I have to tell you that ever since about an hour after midnight I have been all ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul
... as it will, our lovers, though real voluptuaries, amidst the first transports of their enjoyment did not neglect the great political aim of their conjunction. Teresa's bedchamber, to which our hero constantly repaired at midnight, was the scene of their deliberations, and there it was determined that the damsel, in order to avoid suspicion, should feign herself irritated at the indifference of Ferdinand, her passion for whom was by this time no secret in the family; and that, with a view to countenance ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... tell, none of the boys were feeling at his best, just then. Dick's glance passed the face of the clock, showing the hour to be just midnight. ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... undiminished zeal of the singers, and particularly of Tichatschek, who seemed to grow lustier and cheerier the longer it lasted, as an amiable trick to conceal from me the inevitable catastrophe. But my astonishment at finding the audience still there in full muster, even in the last act—towards midnight— filled me with imbounded perplexity. I could no longer trust my eyes or ears, and regarded the whole events of the evening as a nightmare. It was past midnight when, for the last time, I had to obey the thunderous calls of the audience, side by side ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... captive father probably believed to be in safety with her sensible sister, was at a post of danger, and only a woman's eye could judge whether it would do to yield to Eva's wish, which the housekeeper had just told her mistress, and allow her—it was already past midnight-to remain longer at ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... "do you just go down to Spring-in-rock and stay there. Them folks won't be here tell midnight. I'll come fer you at nine with my roan colt, and I'll set you down over on the big road on Buckeye Run. Then you can git on the mail-wagon that passes there about five o'clock in the mornin', and go over to Jackson County and keep shady till we want you to face ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... solitary thought! that keeps thy vigils, Thy solemn vigils in the sick man's mind; Communing lonely with his sinking soul, And musing on the dim obscurity around him! Thee! rapt in thy dark magnificence, I call At this still midnight hour, this awful season, When on my bed in wakeful restlessness, I turn me, weary: while all around, All, all, save me, sink in forgetfulness, I only wake to watch the sickly taper that lights, Me to my tomb. ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... than spiritual: the Horse—"hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?"—he "laughs at the shaking of the spear!" Such living likenesses were never since drawn. Sublime sorrow, sublime reconciliation; oldest choral melody as of the heart of mankind;—so soft, and great; as the summer midnight, as the world with its seas and stars! There is nothing written, I think, in the Bible or out of it, of equal ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... from this diagram that civil time commences at midnight and runs through 12 hours to noon. It then commences again and runs through 12 hours to midnight. The Civil Day, then, is from midnight to midnight, divided into two ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... happened already, that one wished to lead me privately to some sick person. Accordingly I resolved to go; nevertheless, as a precautionary measure, I put on the sabre which my father had given me. As it was fast approaching midnight, I set out upon my way, and soon arrived at the Ponte Vecchio; I found the bridge forsaken and desolate, and resolved to wait until it should appear who ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... "There is midnight," she said. "You shall go, now, Stephen Holmes,—quick! before your sovereign lady fades, like Cinderella, into grayness and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... goes to its rest; The hills are asleep in the noon; And life is as still in its nest As the moon when she looks on a moon In the depths of a calm river's breast As it steals through a midnight in June. ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... practice or fatigue or resolution begins by going to sleep as usual: and gets a nap in advance of Anxiety. But she soon comes up with him and jogs his shoulder, and says, "Come, my man, no more of this laziness, you must wake up and have a talk with me." Then they fall to together in the midnight. Well, whatever might afterwards happen to him, poor little Pen was not come to this state yet; he tumbled into a sound sleep—did not wake until an early hour in the morning, when the rooks began to caw from the little wood beyond his bedroom windows; and—at that very instant ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "Before midnight, if the wind holds," said the skipper. We breakfasted on deck beneath an awning. The vessel scarcely seemed to move as she cut her way through ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... midnight, Hurtling and thundering on, The night express from the outer world Speeds for the ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... "for it must be now near midnight. She is a fascinating little woman," I continued in voiceless soliloquy; "her image forms a pleasant picture in memory; I know she is not what the world calls pretty—no matter, there is harmony in her aspect, and I like it; her brown hair, her blue eye, the freshness of her cheek, ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... remember, it was almost midnight when we took our leave. We had had some biscuit and dried fish for supper, and Steerforth had produced from his pocket a full flask of Hollands, which we men (I may say we men, now, without a blush) had emptied. We parted merrily; and as they all stood crowded ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... already 3 o'clock. It seemed to me that I had not been asleep five minutes. The aide said: "It is about 1 o'clock. A deputation from the civil authorities has just informed General Worth that Santa Anna's army evacuated the city before midnight, and they offered to surrender the city. They have been passed on to General Scott, at Tacubaya; and General Worth wishes to see you ...
— Company 'A', corps of engineers, U.S.A., 1846-'48, in the Mexican war • Gustavus Woodson Smith
... seemed to eat their way into the sky. Around him, the night life of the great city spread itself out in waves of gilded vice and black and sordid crime. Its many voices fell upon deaf ears. Until long past midnight, he sat engrossed in a ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "Midnight.—Midwinter came to see me as he promised. An hour has passed since we said good-night; and here I still sit, with my pen in my hand, thinking of him. No words of mine can describe what has passed between us. The end of it is all I can write in these pages; and the end of it is that he has shaken ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... they were obliged, on their return home, to quell any secret feeling of horror by eating plentifully of rice tinted blood-color by an admixture of salted plum juice.. Even more difficult things might be demanded of a very young boy,—to go alone at midnight to the execution-ground, for example, and bring back a head in proof of courage. For the fear of the dead was held not less contemptible in a samurai than the fear of man. The samurai child was pledged to fear nothing. In all such tests, the demeanor exacted ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... meal, and built ourselves a fire. About midnight we heard the sounds of horses rapidly approaching. Immediately we leaped from our bunks and seized our rifles, peering anxiously into the darkness. A moment later, however, we were reassured by a shrill whistle peculiar to Buck ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... rises early, disposes of his correspondence, never failing to answer a letter as briefly as possible the same day that he receives it; reads the paper; lectures and coaches all the morning; attends meetings in the afternoon; coaches again till dinner; and after dinner reads in his rooms till midnight. He seems to have perfect bodily health and vigour, and he has never been known to neglect or to defer anything that he undertakes. In fact, he is a perfectly useful, ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... sleeping. Sometimes I'm wakeful, and if he pommels my pillow good, brings me a drink, and rubs my head a few strokes with his strong, cool hands, I can settle down and have a good night's rest. I was awake when he came, or I'd never have known. It was almost midnight; but they sat two hours at the table, and then all of ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... are on a basis of real understanding; and two or three days later, when you meet her again, you find all the blocks lying around in disorder. Instead of a friend, one is an esteemed acquaintance. The only way to win her, I suppose, would be to call at dawn and stay until midnight. It would be a bit trying, but I get awfully "fed up" (as they say over here) with being constantly recalled to ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter |
