"Starlight" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not see the cause for alarm, but presently he discerned the slow moving figure of the sentry as it passed between them and the house. The man was walking leisurely along, and even in the starlight they could see the short rifle slung at his shoulder. They waited until he had disappeared round the corner of the house, and then crossed the remaining space of lawn. T. B. had been carrying a little canvas ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... On Kingston Bridge the starlight shone Through hurrying mists in shrouded glow; The boding night-wind made its moan, The mighty river crept below. 'Twas All Souls' Night, and to and fro The quick and dead together walked, The quick and dead together ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... the mountain, and, riding rapidly, soon found himself upon the road to Roselands. It was also the Greenwood road. Between the two plantations lay a deep wood, and as he emerged from this, he saw before him in the dim starlight a horseman, coming towards him from Roselands. "Is that you, Mocket?" ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... all at home in their quarters; and although it was a starlight night they were having no celebration. Everything about the plantation seemed particularly quiet. And no sounds at first came to the ears of the brother and sister from ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... neatness and comfort. Her visitors enjoy the most perfect liberty; what she claims for herself she allows them. I rise at my own hour, breakfast alone (she is up at five, takes a cold bath, and a walk by starlight, and has finished breakfast and got to her work by seven o'clock). I pass the morning in the drawing-room—she, in her study. At two o'clock we meet—work, talk, and walk together till five, her dinner-hour, spend the evening together, when she converses fluently and abundantly, and with the ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... out on the rock was starlight. Darkness covered the blurred outline of Oraibi's houses, with only an occasional point of light here and there, or the sudden glow from some kiva as the opening reflected the fire at ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... we reached Autun, not too late, however, to receive a right cordial welcome from the author of 'Round my House,' who had ridden from his country home in the starlight ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... tore her way through the darkness, steered by the tow-headed youth who knew every foot of the river and who guided his course by the loom of the banks in the dim starlight. A smart breeze, kicking up spiteful wavelets on the wider reaches, splashed them with sheeted water as well as fine-flung spray. And, in the face of the warmth of the tropic night, the wind, added to the speed of the boat, chilled them through ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... pointing hand with my eyes, and just descried among the grass two gleaming objects, seen under the hollow of one of the waggons. Two: then two; then two again; and behind, whole pairs of them. They looked like twin stars; but they were eyes, black eyes, reflecting the starlight and the red glare of the camp-fire. They crept on tortuously in serpentine curves through the long, dry grasses. I could feel, rather than see, that they were Matabele, crawling prone on their bellies, and trailing their snake-like way between the dark jungle. Quick ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... blossoms. "See! a star falls!" said the people; "From the sky a star is falling!" There among the ferns and mosses, There among the prairie lilies, 20 On the Muskoday, the meadow, In the moonlight and the starlight, Fair Nokomis bore a daughter. And she called her name Wenonah, As the first-born of her daughters. 25 And the daughter of Nokomis Grew up like the prairie lilies, Grew a tall and slender maiden, With the beauty of the moonlight, ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... finally, showering francs and compliments; but I crawled out a decrepid wreck, and refused pitilessly to do more than view the exterior of other chateaux. It was evening when we saw our white hotel once more, and a haze of starlight dusted the sky and all the ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... frightened eyes that looked across at him, and the white, staring face he recognized as the eyes and the face of a woman. For a moment he was unable to move or speak, and the woman raised her hands and pushed back her fur hood so that he saw her hair shimmering in the starlight. She was a white woman. Suddenly he saw something in her face that struck him with a chill, and he looked down at the thing under his hand. It was a long, rough box. ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... we danced until morning, And you were the gayest of all the gay crowd - With only that shortness of breath for a warning, How could I know that you danced for a shroud? Whirling and whirling through moonlight and starlight. Rocking as lightly as boats on the wave, Down in your eyes shone a deep light—a far light, How could I know 'twas the light to ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... In the starlight he saw a barn, and he raced toward that. Someone else plunged out of the woods toward him. The helicopter-engine was still roaring faintly in the distance. Then a thin ...
— Morale - A Story of the War of 1941-43 • Murray Leinster
... kitchen. Some of the appliances were gone, but the stove and the refrigerator were still there. The back doorway had an odd bluish cast that caused the framework to shimmer. The door itself was open, and he could see starlight lying softly on ...
— The Servant Problem • Robert F. Young
... had the plundering of Keith; other Austrians, not of Croat kind, carried the dead General into Hochkirch Church: Lacy's emotion on recognizing him there,—like a tragic gleam of his own youth suddenly brought back to him, as in starlight, piercing and sad, from twenty years distance,—is well known in Books. On the morrow, Sunday, October 15th, Keith had honorable soldier's-burial there,—'twelve cannon' salvoing thrice, and 'the whole Corps ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... Mrs. Rannock, but she sobbed in her sleep all night and I could not close my eyes, So I thought of the Spring Waiontha, and the next instant was on my way there, feeling the path with naked feet through the starlight, and dropped my clothing from me in the darkness and sank into the cool, sweet pool. Oh, it was heaven, Euan! I ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... Thank heaven," rejoined the stranger, "I have travelled here, on horse and afoot, far and wide. But just look at this weather! One cannot keep the road. Better stay here and wait; perhaps the hurricane will cease and the sky will clear, and we shall find the road by starlight." ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... a brilliant night, calm, serene and starlight. As Carson lay awake at midnight, thanking God for what he had been enabled to accomplish, it must have been an hour of sublimity to him, such as is rarely experienced on earth. While most of the numerous party were sleeping soundly around him, nothing could be heard but the howling of packs ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... up-country fashion; but Stephen was in his minstrel's raiment, save that he bore no fiddle, and had a heavy short-sword girt to him under his cotehardy. The night was moonless, but there was little cloud, so that there was a glimmer of starlight. As they opened the door, came forth from the ingle a tall man, unarmed as it seemed, and clad as a gangrel carle, and Stephen without more ado stretched out his long arm and caught him by the breast of his coat. The man stirred not ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... Alexander, the new Bishop of that see. This is delightful, for he is a good man, a clever man and an industrious man." And Baron Bunsen, speaking of the same occasion, said, "Never was heard a more exquisite speech, It flowed like a gentle, translucent stream. We drove back to town in the clearest starlight; Gladstone continuing with unabated animation to pour forth his harmonious thoughts in melodious tone." And Mr. Gladstone himself writes later; "Amidst public business, quite sufficient for a man of my compass, I have, during the whole of the week, perforce, been ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... of a great canyon, for in the darkness it would have been dangerous to follow the trail along the cliffs. In half an hour it was black night in the gorge. The vertical walls of rock shut out even the starlight, and we could not see more than ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... particular day's journey; that it lies in the twilight at the conclusion of twenty miles of dusty road; that it lies one hour nightward of a blow-out. I would make it neighbor to an appetite gratified and a thirst assuaged, a cool bath, a lazy evening with starlight and country sounds. Is not this better than a ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... It was a clear starlight night, but towards the village all was bathed in the dancing ruddy light of the bonfire. It was burning on a little mound at the upper end of the green, just below where Isabel stood, and a heavy curtain of smoke ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... throng upon me, as I turn over these leaves! This scene came into my fancy as I walked along a hilly road, on a starlight October evening; in the pure and bracing air, I became all soul, and felt as if I could climb the sky, and run a race along the Milky Way. Here is another tale, in which I wrapt myself during a dark and dreary night-ride in the month of ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... is natur', and has done its work!" he said, nodding to the exulting Paul, with a smile of approbation. "I thought it would be hard for those, who had so often met in fair and foul, by starlight and under the clouded moon, to part at last in anger. Now is there little time to lose in talk, and every thing to gain by industry! It cannot be long afore some of yonder brood will be nosing along the 'arth for our trail, and should they find it, as find it they surely will, and should ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... him sleep and rest him after so many toils and hardships, saying that they were not tied to an hour to be back in Burgdale; but he said: 'Nay, the moon is high, and it is as good as daylight to me, who could find my way even by starlight; and your tarrying here is nowise safe. Moreover, if I could find those folk and bring them part of the way by night and cloud it were well; for if we were taken again, burning quick would be the best death by which we should die. As for me, now am I strong with meat ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... reigned supreme. It seemed to have been devoured at a gulp. The heavenly lights had lost all power in face of this earthly glory. A mist of smoke had switched off the gleam of starlight, and the moon and mock-moons wore the tarnished hue of silver that has lost its burnish. The ghosts of the aurora no longer trod their measure of stately minuet. They had passed into the world of shadow to ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... west. Nocturnal magic conjured the least meadow into an unmeasured sea of vapour; awoke naiads in the waters and dryads in the woods; transformed the solemn organ music of great beetles into songs of a roaming spirit; set unseen shapes stirring in the starlight; whispered of invisible, enchanted things, happy and ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... made a collection of all the matches in the party, Whistling Dick contributing his quota with propitiatory alacrity, and then they departed in the dim starlight in the ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... window, and both leaned their arms on the sill, and both inclined their heads towards the open lattice. They saw each other's young faces by the starlight and that dim June twilight which does not wholly fade from the west till dawn begins to break ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... Soon, perhaps, the moon shall rise, and in her gentler light the valley shall be mellowed and misted, and here and there a wisp of silver cloud upon a hilltop, and here and there a warmly glowing window in a house, between fire and starlight, kind and homely in ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... are on York Terrace, overlooking the Thames embankment. The elm trees and the beeches stand about like green ghosts in the pale night. At the edge of the water Cleopatra's Needle is a black silhouette. We should like to walk through the Gardens in the starlight, but the formidable iron gates are locked against us. So we turn up Robert Street into Adelphi Terrace. We lean for a moment ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... dwarf stories are those which are told in the island of Rugen, in the Baltic Sea. These stories are of three kinds of dwarfs: the White, and the Brown, and the Black, who live in the sand-hills. The white dwarfs, in the spring and summer, dance and frolic all their time in sunshine and starlight, and climb up into the flowers and trees, and sit amongst the leaves and blossoms, and sometimes they take the form of bright little birds, or white doves, or butterflies, and are very kind to good people. In the winter, ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... she had grown from an awkward girl into a lovely woman. Thick waves of dark hair, disarranged with much tossing on her pillow, fell upon her shoulders and straggled over the lace upon her bosom. The face they framed was pale in the starlight, but the lips were red, and the black eyes ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in great strips. By day a reflective surface was uppermost, and at sundown caterwheel trucks hooked on to towlines and neatly pulled it over on its back, to expose gridded black-body surfaces to the starlight. And the gridding was precisely designed so that winds blowing across it did not make eddies in the grid-squares, and the chilled air in those pockets remained undisturbed and there was no conduction of heat ...
— Sand Doom • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... darksome glade And sweeten every breeze that blows. Anpetusapa! wilt thou give The promise that shall make me live As I have never lived before? I love thee, and the powers divine Shall teach thy heart to pulse with mine, And bless our union evermore While moons shall pass or starlight shine." ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... not returned to us, but the first flutterings of panic have subsided. People are beginning to respire freely again; and such another space of time would have cicatrized our wounds—when, hark! a church bell rings out a loud alarm;—the night is starlight and frosty—the iron notes are heard clear, solemn, but agitated. What could this mean? I hurried to a room over the porter's lodge, and, opening the window, I cried out to a man passing hastily below, "What, in God's name, is the meaning of this?" ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... pillows; She gives them pleasant dreams, Grey-green with leaves of willows, And cool with sound of streams, Or big with tranquil billows, On which the starlight gleams. ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... was good-natured, and Tidy was quite fascinated with her. It was so new to have an associate of her own age too; and so it came to pass that almost immediately they were fast friends. Now, as they strolled along in the starlight, under the great spreading pines which stood as sentinels here and there along their path, Tidy drank in eagerly all her companion said, and in a little while had gathered all the interesting points of information concerning the place and the people. Frances told her how hard and ...
— Step by Step - or, Tidy's Way to Freedom • The American Tract Society
... before him. He groped about for a firm place to stand on, and had no idea which way to move. At last, without his having felt a breath of wind, he found that the clouds had parted to the right, making a chink through which he saw the Cibao peaks standing up against a starlight sky; and, to the left, there was, on the horizon, a dim white line which he could not understand, till the crescent moon dropped down from behind the cloudy canopy, across a bar of clear sky, and into the sea. This made him look whether the church of Saint Hilaire was not close ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... day hath Opechancanough made me war chief again. We have smoked the peace pipe together—my father's brother and I—in the starlight, sitting before his lodge, with the wide marshes and the river dark at our feet. Singing birds in the forest have been many; evil tales have they told; Opechancanough has stopped his ears against their false singing. ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... auspicious way possible. Rachel, backed by Rendel's advice, showed fight a little longer and left the victory to Sir William in the end after a desperate struggle. The hour of departure came. Rachel and her husband both went downstairs with Sir William. They opened the door. It was a bright, starlight night. Sir William announced his intention of walking to a cab, and with his coat buttoned up against the east wind, started off along the pavement. Rachel turned back into the house with a sigh ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... their way, Peters acting as pioneer. They soon passed beyond the region of sidewalks and curbstones, and began picking their steps through a narrow, humid lane, where the water lay in slimy pools, and the tenement houses on each side blotted out the faint starlight. The night was sultry, and door and casement stood wide, making pits of darkness. Few lights were visible, but a continuous hum of voices issued from the human hives, and now and then a transient red glow ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... whence the guards had fled, and in a moment more she was above the staircase that led down to the temple behind the palace. There was no one there as yet, as far as she could see in the starlight. The doors were shut, and the massive square building frowned through the gloom, blacker than its ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... place of all, according to their thinking, close to the emblems of deity, they had set this grievous perversion of the holy and the pure. Right on the topmost pinnacle of everything known as religious there they had enthroned it, and robed it in starlight and crowned it as queens are crowned. "Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness!" "One thing have I desired of the Lord . . . to behold the fair beauty of the Lord"—such words open chasms of contrast. ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... tank the golden dragon dreamed: and a little way out from the coast all that the dragon dreamed showed faintly in the mist that lay over the sea. He never dreamed of any rescuing knight. So long as he dreamed, it was twilight; but when he came up nimbly out of his tank night fell and starlight glistened on ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... a rum thing, Christianer—hey? To think o' the miles I've vamped o' starlight nights these last thirty year, courting, or trading, or for doctor, or for nurse, and yet never had the least notion o' that till now, or feeled my soul rise so much as an inch above ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... once "when the books came rolling in on every side."' 'Your house and library' (says the dedication of a book to Pieresc) 'are a firmament wherein the stars of learning shine; the desks are lit with starlight, and the books are in constellations, and you sit like the sun in the midst, embracing and giving light to them all.' 'The library is to be open to all the world without the exception of any living soul; readers were to be supplied with chairs ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... though an earth-clogged fancy is laboring with these conceptions, and an earthly hand will write them down, for mortal eyes to read, still their essence flows from as airy a ghost as ever basked in the pale starlight, at twelve o'clock. Judge them not by the gross and heavy form in which they now appear. They may be gross, indeed, with the earthly pollution contracted from the brain, through which they pass; ...
— Other Tales and Sketches - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... starlight, be it moonlight, In these vales below, When the earliest beams of sunlight Streak the mountain's snow, Crisps the hoar-frost, keen and early, To our hurrying feet, And the forest echoes ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... street without a turning—but beyond them the thought of Virginia lay always like an enclosed garden of sweetness and bloom. To think of her was to pass from the scorching heat of the day to the freshness of dew-washed flowers under the starlight. ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... happened to go into the garden after the household was asleep, and had come upon the toy water-wheel, working away in starlight or moonlight, how little, even if he had caught sight of the nearly invisible thread, and had discovered that the wheel was winding it up, would he have thought what the tiny machine was about! How little would he have thought that its business ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... Lady Lily on a ranche in Texas, whither she had followed Jack Crawley, who was to become famous throughout the States as "The Cowboy King." I forget about the Duke and Duchess, but a lover was to be found on the ranche for Fanny Starlight; and Red Indians were to carry off Webb, who was to be rescued by the Cowboy King; and so on. There were, in short, signs that Enid had not only read the feuilletons in the picture papers but had been to the Movies too. But no matter what had influenced her, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various
... found a wreath of roses round the tablet, and the next, and the next. So day after day the passion of her heart was fed by love-gifts offered at that shrine, where, by the silver starlight, they had met, and ONE at ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... It was a clear, starlight night, up above the multitudinous flashes of British and Italian guns. At close quarters these flashes were blindingly bright, and flung up showers of red sparks. In the intervals of a few seconds between flashes, if one stood with one's eyes fixed ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... over. His body was sewn up in a piece of canvas with a bar of lead at the foot and laid away in his bunk. It was in vain that we asked when he was to be buried, as we could get no satisfactory answer to our queries, but the next night, when the starlight lay like a silver mantle on the face of the waters, the steamer stopped for a moment, a splash followed, and the body of the Hindoo sank down into the dark waters, and in a few days the episode had been forgotten. Such ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... crazed household-clock with its whirr Rang midnight within as he stood, He heard the low sighing of her Who had striven from his birth for his good; But he still only asked the spring starlight, the breeze, What great thing or small thing his history would borrow From that Game with Death he ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... difficulty, he rose, and they stood looking at each other through the starlight, bewildered and uncertain. The cobbler was the first to ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... path, trampling on thistles, In sudden race to leave the ghostly trees. And: 'Soon I'll be in open fields,' he thought, And half remembered starlight on the meadows, Scent of mown grass and voices of tired men, Fading along the field-paths; home and sleep And cool-swept upland spaces, whispering leaves, And far off the ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... the majestic river floated on, Out of the mist and hum of that low land, Into the frosty starlight, and there moved, Rejoicing, through the hush'd Chorasmian waste, Under the solitary moon;—he flow'd Right for the polar star, past Orgunje, Brimming, and bright, and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... insoluble questions that, in our inner life, have puzzled us more than once, my own, or my bright twin-spirit of the morn," he added, brightening. "We can only see and look no further (when our mood is so) than from the cloudless sky to the sunbeams or starlight reflected in our own eyes. Yes, beloved, I have earned my rest; my spirit has at last found its mate. You will make my life perfect, love, by giving yourself to me. To-morrow, come down quietly to the rectory, our old friend will make us one. My place at ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... seizes her by the wrist and drags her roughly to him, looking closely and fiercely at her to satisfy himself as to her identity; for it now begins to darken rapidly into night, the red glow over the vineyard giving way to clear starlight.) ...
— The Man of Destiny • George Bernard Shaw
... starlight night, and the mother wrapped the shawl close round her child, as, perfectly quiet with terror, he clung round ...
— Pictures and Stories from Uncle Tom's Cabin • Unknown
... corner of the cabin, beneath the shade of the chesnut, of which I have before spoken, looking earnestly towards the distant woods, she saw, or thought she saw, something emerge from their shadow. Whatever it was, it vanished instantly. She kept her eyes fixed on the spot. A bright starlight enabled her to discern objects distinctly, even at a distance, especially when her faculties were roused and stimulated, both by hope and fear. After some time, she again and plainly saw a human figure. It rose from ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... Twilight, starlight- Gloaming at the close of day, And an owl calling, Cool dews falling In a wood of oak ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... his way, inch by inch, to his feet, his slender figure rigid as steel, and closed in upon the other; but Murphy writhed out of his grasp, as a snake might. The younger man realized now to the full his peril, and his hand slipped down to the gun upon his hip. There was a sudden glint in the faint starlight as he struck, and the stunned maniac went down quivering, and lay motionless on the hard ground. For a moment the other remained standing over him, the heavy revolver poised, but the prostrate figure lay still, and the conqueror slipped his weapon back into its leather ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... strongly as they do, that there is less passion in the giving than in the taking, that mother-love is the greatest thing they ever know. Some day, she would convince him that he was wrong; but now—At last he looked up, with an expression in his eyes, dimly seen in the starlight, which brought fresh tears to hers, but new courage to her ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... the sunshine, and all the alternations of light and shade; the wonders of form, and the depth and harmony of colour; the blue sky by day, with its glories of sunrise and sunset; the dark sky by night, with its moonlight and starlight—the sky always! that cloudland to which, when we are wearied by the more monotonous earth, we had only to lift our eyes and there the scene is changing ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... from that direction. A report of some force of the enemy in their front made me order another detachment to their support after nightfall. The detachment had been told off and ferried across in small boats. They were dimly seen marching in the starlight up the river after landing, when suddenly a shot was heard, and then an irregular volley was both seen and heard as the muskets flashed out in the darkness. A supporting force was quickly sent over, and, no further disturbance occurring, a search was made for ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... field, I remember, were three faint points of light, three telescopic stars infinitely remote, and all around it was the unfathomable darkness of empty space. You know how that blackness looks on a frosty starlight night. In a telescope it seems far profounder. And invisible to me because it was so remote and small, flying swiftly and steadily towards me across that incredible distance, drawing nearer every minute by so many thousands ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... his engagements would allow him to claim? Might she not, as an extraordinary favour, admit him to partake with her the comforts of her own little fire, if winter it be, or, in summer-time, to join her at her chamber-window and pass away the starlight hour in the ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... dinner—fish, crabs, oysters, and water-fowl, forming a large portion of the bill of fare. Luscious, freshly gathered fruits composed the dessert. After dinner, as the evening was clear and bright, the wind fresh and the waters calm, they went for a sail down to Silver Sands, and returned by starlight. ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... fine starlight night—the air cool and refreshing, and a wild abandonment seized Lilian Rosenberg. She would have supped with the devil had ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... by the frosty starlight the outline of the great snow-laden trees and the wide sweep of white drive were still dimly visible. All was silent without as within. Not a branch moved or let fall its freight of snow. There was not a breath of wind ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... far window, drew a curtain back softly, and stood looking out at the starlight over the deserted street. Once, finding him so still, she ventured a hasty glance at him over the edge of the sheet. But she could see nothing. And after a time he turned and came to his accustomed place beside her. In twenty minutes at latest, she knew, much to her chagrin, that ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... tending the smoking heap, the charcoal-burner watched out the long winter nights while the stars drifted over the leafless trees, till the grey dawn came with hoar-frost. He liked his office, but owned that the winter nights were very long. Starlight and frost and slow time are the same now as when the red deer and the wild boar dwelt in the forest. Much of the charcoal was prepared for hop-drying, large quantities being used for that purpose. At one time ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... had closed by the time he got into the street again, and he walked down and watched with much solemnity the reflection of the quay lamps in the dark water of the harbour. The air was keen and the various craft distinct in the starlight. Perfect quiet reigned aboard the Seabird, and after a vain attempt to screw up his courage to see the victim taken aboard he gave it up and ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... As the starlight was so vague he could not make out more than that here and there a figure was mounted on a galloping horse, with several unridden animals trailing along behind, as though ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... whispered John Barleycorn. "The Solano runs all night. There are railroad men on the wharf. They will hear you, and come out in a boat and rescue you, and you don't want to be rescued." I certainly didn't. What? Be robbed of my hero's death? Never. And I lay on my back in the starlight, watching the familiar wharf-lights go by, red and green and white, and bidding sad sentimental farewell to them, ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... in the dim starlight for a moment before he found courage to reply. "You know so much better than I do," he said at last. "And I am not the ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... I stood motionless and invisible in the deep shadows of the clump of bush, soft swishing sounds in the long grass grew increasingly frequent all round me, and in the misty starlight I caught frequent sudden glimpses of indeterminate forms gliding ghost-like toward the water, which was evidently the recognised drinking place for most of the game in the neighbourhood. And at length, when I had been standing there for about twenty minutes, two pairs of lambent ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... torpor came at last; the fingers lost their tension, the arms unbent; then the little head fell away from the bosom, and the blue eyes of the child opened wide on the cold starlight. At first there was a little peevish cry of "Mammy," as the child rolled downward; and then, suddenly, its eyes were caught by a bright gleaming light on the white ground, and with the ready transition of infancy it decided the light ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... she dared not show her grief before her parents, and the only relief she could find from her sorrow was to swim over by starlight to the island where she had been accustomed to meet her lover, and there, calling upon his name, bewail the loss of him who was dearer to ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... to the fact that I had been born shortsighted. I bad had a year in the army, and when we were at the targets, or were out at judging-distance drill, I was aware that I did not see things at all as the musketry instructor represented them. But it happened one starlight night, after I had returned to civilian life, that a companion of little more than my own age, who had always worn spectacles in my remembrance of him, began to talk about the splendid brilliance of the heavens. I could ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... said Tom, as the gate closed on the Captain, and they turned back into the quadrangle, "let us take a turn or two;" so they walked up and down the inner quad in the starlight. ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... great variation during the whole time we spent at these elevations. The clouds were rare, and always light and high, except a little fleecy spot of vapour condensed close to the summit of Paras-nath. Though the nights were clear and starlight, no dew was deposited, owing to the great dryness of the air. On one occasion, this drought was so great during the passage of a hot wind, that at night I observed the wet-bulb thermometer to stand 20.5 degrees ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... out through a spot she had rubbed clean on the frozen window-pane, and saw that it was bright starlight. The fog had gone. That boy—he was asleep at the twopenny doss, and the trousers were drying. What a good thing that he should be totally insensitive to atmosphere, as ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... not hear the monotonous roar that fills The ravine where the Yassin river sullenly flows; He did not see the starlight on the Laspur hills, Or ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... gaze, as though it was his mother's spirit watching and warning. How clear the night was! How keen the stars shone; how ceaseless the rush of the flowing waters; the old home trees whispered, and waved gently their dark heads and branches over the cottage roof. Yonder, in the faint starlight glimmer, was the terrace where, as a boy, he walked of summer evenings, ardent and trustful, unspotted, untried, ignorant of doubts or passions; sheltered as yet from the world's contamination in the pure and anxious bosom of love.... The clock of ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... know what time it was when Don Antonino gently stirred them with his big foot. They sprang up wide awake and saw in the starlight that he had a pair of oars and a coil of rope in ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... night and snow lay smoothly upon the campus. Only the walks and the cemented place about the fountain were cleaned. Tony Foyle had made his last rounds and put out the lights; but although there was no moon the starlight on the snow made the campus silvery in spots. But the leafless trees, and the buildings about the ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... an object in the snow. He stooped to examine it in the starlight, and was horrified to discover the ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... Virginia was not at the moment with her. It gave him the sense of another bond between them that this tragic hour should belong to him and her alone—this hour of destiny when their lives swung round a corner beyond which lay wonderful vistas of kindly sunbeat and dewy starlight stretching to the horizon's edge ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... plunging up the hill, snorting now and then, swerving sharply away from rock or bush that threatened them with vague horrors in the clear starlight. Behind them surged the clamor of many voices shouting, the confused scuffling of feet, a revolver shot or two, and threading the whole the shrill, upbraiding voice of ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... moment when Jenny was dying, and Theophil had thrust Isabel away into the furthest, highest, starlight of memory, she was thinking how real their union ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... through the trees, and the roughest part of our journey was done. We saw the ship riding to her anchors in shore a mile away, and a weird enough object she was under the faint starlight. We made our way to her ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... elliptical halls has its ceiling immensely far off, and of the deepest black, until our feeble little lights strike upon innumerable points, when it shines forth like a dark starlight night. The stars are faint, but they look so exceedingly like the heavens that one easily forgets that it ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... not see him for the darkness, was short and fat, and his little pig's eyes were glazed with fear. But there came other sounds; and a black figure heaved itself above the wall, on the outer side, against the starlight, and tottered insecurely there. And then that armed man squealed, and cast his weapon on the ground, and knelt; and this also she could not see. Nor could she hear the words which the black figure on the wall flung down, nor what was answered, abjectly, ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... himself to his journey, he was now approaching that part of the path where the trees recede a little, leaving a considerable space unoccupied at either side of his line of march. Here there was faint moonlight and starlight, very welcome; but a little in advance of him, where the copsewood closed in again, just above those stone steps which Lake and his sister Rachel had mounted together upon the night of the memorable rendezvous, he fancied that he again saw the gray figure cowering among the ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... strange and grotesque creatures in the starlight; and truly they seemed to smell their way as beasts smell; and they were as light-footed and as noiseless, slinking from bush to bush, lurking motionless in shadows, nosing, listening, prowling on velvet pads to the very edges of our ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... tinges of romance, that streak and flush the horizon, neither fade into the grayness of fact, nor die into the darkness of neglect, but now broaden and deepen into the blue of meridian assurance, now clarify and ascend into the starlight of faith and mystery. The conditions that originally inspired the confiding and admiring sympathy become, with the lapse of time and the progress of acquaintance, more pronounced and more adequate, and insure a union ever fonder ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... they all said again and again, as they gathered at the door in the starlight; and Jean stood looking after them with happy eyes as they marched off through the snow, gaily ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... it was a passionate, tender night, and Ruth, with her face raised to the holy beauty, was a dreamy part of it. Against the black lace about her head her face shone like a cameo, her eyes were brown wells of starlight; she scarcely seemed to breathe, so still she sat, her slender hands loosely clasped in ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... the stars that gem the sky, Far apart, though seeming near, In our light we scattered lie; All is thus but starlight here. ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... normal condition is sympathetically attuned to the vibrations of starlight. Your consciousness is located in your brain, and so long as those vibrations continue to strike with sufficient force upon the optic nerve, you will be conscious of the light. But suppose the machinery of your body were finer—suppose your senses were absolutely in accord with those ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... sun set and flamed in the village windows, and a chill went over the world, and in some small garden a woman sang; and Tharagavverug lifted up his head and starved, and his life went from his invulnerable body, and Leothric lay down beside him and slept. And later in the starlight the villagers came out and carried Leothric, sleeping, to the village, all praising him in whispers as they went. They laid him down upon a couch in a house, and danced outside in silence, without psaltery ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... is surely on the door feeling for the wooden latch. We mentally say, "You have made too much noise, Mr Thief, for your purpose, and you are discovered." Soon the door opened a little. As it was a beautiful starlight night, the form of a tall man was plainly visible in the opening. Covering him with my rifle, and about to fire, quick as a flash came the thought, "Better be sure that that man is a horse-thief, or is intent on evil, ere you fire; for it is at any time a serious ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... dancing were over, it might be about four o'clock. The little people then disappeared, and went each about their work or their pleasure. After supper they sported and danced in the same way; and at midnight, especially on starlight nights, they slipped out of their hills to dance in the open air. John used then, like a good boy, to say his prayers and go to sleep, a duty he never neglected either in the evening or ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... decision being among the qualities which are natural to the successful circuit-rider, he sprang at the thief and knocked him down. The operator in horse-flesh speedily regained his feet, however, and as he closed with the preacher the latter saw, under the starlight, ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... the involuntary cry of warning that rose in his throat. Copper! His muscles tensed as her arm came up and down—a shadow almost invisible in the starlight. The leaning figure of Douglas collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been suddenly released. The torch dropped from his hand and went bouncing and winking down the wall of the pit, followed by Douglas—a limp bundle of arms and legs that rotated grotesquely as he ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... standing at the Starlight bar, was raising a glass to his lips. But at the greeting he set down the liquor untasted, turned his head, and looked into the face ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... swell. Claudius walked aft, and was going to sit down for a few minutes before turning in, when he was suddenly aware of a muffled female figure leaning against the taffrail only a couple of paces from where he was. In spite of the starlight he could not distinguish the person. She was wrapped closely in a cloak and veil, as if fearing the cold. As it must be one of the three ladies who constituted the party, Claudius naturally raised his cap, but fearing lest he had chanced on the Duke's sister, ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... the hour, I stepped out of the dugout and looked at the silent sky toward the front. Not even a star shell disturbed the blue black starlight. The guns were quiet. Five minutes more and all this was to change into an inferno of sound and light, flash and crash. There is always that minute of uncertainty before the raiding hour when the tensity of the situation becomes almost painful. Has the enemy happened to become aware ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... and was gone. Smith opened the door and we stepped into the studio. Our plans had been well considered, and in accordance with these, I now moved up beside my friend, who was dimly perceptible to me in the starlight which found access through the glass roof, and pressed the catch of my ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer |
