"First light" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... well travelled, well conceited, and well experienced in the Italian, hath in this very kinde taken great pains, and made as great proofes of his inestimable worth. Glad would I be to see that worke abroad; some sight whereof gave me twenty yeeres since the first light to this. But since he suppresseth his, for private respects, or further perfection, nor he, nor others will (I hope) prize this the lesse. I could here enter into a large discourse of the Italian toong, and of the teachers and teaching thereof, and shew the ease and facilities ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... side, I found entrance through a disused chapel to the interior of the convent. The gates on the outside were richly sculptured, and were reverend and clean; tufts of harsh grass grew from their arches, and hung down like the "overwhelming brows" of age. Within, at first light, I saw nothing but heaps of rubbish, piles of stone, and here and there a mutilated statue. I remember two pathetic caryatides, that seemed to have broken and sunk under too heavy a weight for their gentle beauty—and everywhere ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... the place about first light. I was too sleepy to get up. I yipped and they beat it. I don't think they ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the first light of the dawn they noticed a peculiar phenomenon. Perhaps it was because of the evaporation of water under the fire of the sun, but the Heron seemed to be surrounded with a white vapor which rose shimmering in the slant rays of the morning. But even when the sun had risen well ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... With the first light of the sun on the succeeding morning, they threw their knapsacks over their shoulders, and leaving their temporary shelter to benefit any who might come after them, resumed their route. They had not proceeded far before an animal stretched on the ground attracted attention. It ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... great day arrived, and in the first light of a mid-summer dawn, a vast multitude was seen pouring along the broad highway which led, between the Long Walls, from Athens to Peiraeus. The Upper City was almost deserted by its inhabitants, for there was hardly one Athenian who had not some cherished comrade, or some near relation, enrolled ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... the first light of the cold winter morning began competing with the batteries of floodlight tubes banked around a rocky, gravel-based site in the dry bed of the Spokane River. More than three hundred men had been thrown into the experimental ...
— The Thirst Quenchers • Rick Raphael
... The first light of dawn found him a mile south of Manchester. "Guess we'd better begin to step lively, Star," he said, reaching forward and stroking the horse's neck. Star snorted and shook his head. They trotted around a bend ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop
... in the first light of the dim Antarctic glow, I crept out of my snow hut to look south with powerful glasses in order to make sure that there was no reason why ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... affected stem is put in a moist chamber made from a covered or inverted dish, there will develop an exceedingly vigorous growth of snow-white fungous mycelium which, after a few days, bears numerous round shot-like bodies, at first light-colored, then becoming smaller and dark-brown. These are the sclerotia or resting bodies of the fungus. This fungus, called Sclerotium sp., or "Rolf's Sclerotium," is noteworthy because it attacks potatoes, ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy
... at the first light, then slowly, easily it came toward the second, as if following a path of air. It touched a leaf near the lantern and settled. As Mrs. Comstock reached for it a thin yellow spray wet her hand and the surrounding ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... the patience and self-respect which induced Shakespeare to rewrite the triumphantly popular parts of Romeo, of Falstaff, and of Hamlet with an eye to the literary perfection and permanence of work which in its first light outline had won the crowning suffrage of immediate or ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... before me, for I had taken refuge on the rear platform. These lights were to warn the trains that followed. Four of these came up, and stopped when the first fog-signals went off beneath their wheels, then crept slowly forward to the first light, where a man who was stationed there explained the incident. The same lights were lit immediately for the following train, as far off as possible, and a man, proceeding beyond the lights, placed detonators on the metals. Each train that arrived ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... Prince Eugene was advancing towards Viazma, preceded by his equipages and his artillery, when the first light of day all at once discovered to him his retreat threatened by an army on his left, behind him his rear guard cut off, and on his left the plain covered with stragglers and scattered vehicles, fleeing before ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... With the first light of morning, the war-party sprang to their feet, and hastily dispatching a slight repast, they set out on their journey with renewed animation and increased rapidity. Before starting, the chief called to Mary, and again offered some food; but no reply being returned, or motion discovered under ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... The first light of dawn filtered through the blinds. He was able to make out that the only closed door was the one to Natacha's chamber. He stopped before that door, his heart beating, and listened. But no sound came to his ear. He had glided so lightly over ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... might be led by the light ... the open sepulchre would attract his eye, and he might take up the light and discover the tomb to be empty. It wasn't likely, but some such curious one might be on the prowl. Now was the only safe time to fetch the lantern. He daren't leave it.... At the first light Mary and Martha would be at the sepulchre, and the finding of a lantern by the door of the empty sepulchre ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... shattered sandbags. He went on firing Verey lights in a sort of bland ecstasy till his supply ran out, when he went to his Company Commander's dug-out for more. He filled his pockets with fresh ammunition, went back to his post, and began firing again. The first light was mauve. He almost clapped his hands at it, and fired the second. It was pink. The third was yellow, the fourth scarlet, and the fifth ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... sustenance remained free from them. One day, however, the reason of this difference became clear to me. My husband had proposed to show me Kilchurn Castle, which he was going to sketch, and we started early after the first light breakfast, with Thursday to manage the sails. On turning round Innistrynich we met a contrary wind, and had to beat against it: it was slow work, and at last I timidly suggested that it might perhaps be better to turn back to get something to eat; but Gilbert triumphantly said ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... was a verbal skirmisher! Now nothing is more to my liking than the verbal skirmish, and therefore I began one immediately. "I see you quite know," was the first light ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... went to Antwerp to see his friends with a light heart—the first light heart he had known for many months; but when he got there he was so preoccupied with what had happened that he did not ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... as a man might gaze upon a spectre; he stared at her and through her into her past; he pieced each part of the puzzle to its kindred parts until all stood complete; he read "mother" in her voice, in her caressing hands and gleaming eyes as surely as man reads morning in the first light of dawn; and he marvelled that a thing so clear and naked had been left to his discovery. The revelation shook him not a little, for he was familiar with the rumours concerning Tim's paternity, and had been disposed to believe them; but from the moment of the new ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... ways, we take it, of looking at a picture—from a purely chemical, and from a purely artistic, point of view. Regarded in the first light, it matters little whether a painting be a work of genius or a daub, provided the pigments employed on it are good and properly compounded. The effects produced are lost sight of in a consideration ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... of their own vengeance and partly to propitiate the mighty spirits that had their abode in the depths of the great lakes. He was sure that his comrades and he had landed upon a sacrificial island, and he resolved that they should depart at the very first light in the morning. ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... was dawning; the first light was uplifting. He went noiselessly within his apartment and gazed upon ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... talk and to admire the beauty of the stars, they at length began to fade away before the first light of morning. Ernest returned to us, and we awoke Jack, who had slept uninterruptedly, and was quite unconscious where he was. We returned to the pass, which now, by the light of day, seemed to us in a more hopeless state than in the dusk of evening. I was struck with consternation: it appeared ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... The first light did not prove to be the one on the private dock where they had been tied up, but the second attempt to locate it was successful, and soon they were back where they had been before. Betty laid the Gem alongside the stringpiece, ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope
... the hearth-rug looking at her, at her face that was upturned exactly like a flower, a fresh, luminous flower, glinting faintly golden with the dew of the first light. And he was smiling faintly as if there were no speech in the world, save the silent delight of flowers in each other. Smilingly they delighted in each other's presence, pure presence, not to be thought of, even known. But his eyes had a faintly ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... With the first light they resumed their journey, and an hour after setting out they sighted, as Cortlandt had predicted, another cloud of vapour. The fall—for such it proved to be—was more beautiful than the other, for, though the volume of water was not so great, it ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... perilous part of their adventures, since it was very dark, and came on to snow; also twice they grounded upon mud banks. Still guided by Nicholas, who had studied the river, they reached the galley before dawn, and with the first light weighed anchor, and very cautiously rowed out to ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... I can not stay away. This is my place. Here will I catch the first light on his sail. O Charles, dear Charles, to-morrow we shall see him! Look in his noble eyes,—ah me, what eyes! Dost not remember? Talk of him, cousin. It brings him faster to me. My heart! my heart! This waiting breaks it though 'tis but a day! An hour that keeps him from ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... shall I forget the tense strain that first night, my men standing to arms through the long hours, with their rifles pointing into the darkness beyond. But not a shot was fired, and when dawn broke all was well. True, the first light revealed the fact that I had got us all with our backs to the enemy, so that if there had been a battle it would have been between ourselves and Mr. Jones's platoon. But you can't have everything; and sense of direction never was my strong point. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 12, 1916 • Various
... I said triumphantly. "Cease action." As I spoke, the first light of the dawn, unnoticed until now, spread itself over the scene, and we witnessed then one of the strangest scenes that the Universe ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... sacred feet I cast me down? How she upraised me to her bosom fair, And from her garland shred the first light crown That ever pressed ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... I wakened at dawn and stole away to the shore before anyone else was up. I had a delightful run-away. The long, low-lying meadows between "The Evergreens" and the shore were dewy and fresh in that first light, that was as fine and purely tinted as the heart of one of my white roses. On the beach the water was purring in little blue ripples, and, oh, the sunrise out there beyond the harbour! All the eastern Heaven was abloom with it. And there was a wind that came dancing and ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... face relaxed; her mouth drooped; she lay back in the sofa-corner and shut her eyes. For what seemed a long time, there was no sound in the room. Maurice thought she had fallen asleep. But at his first light movement ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... Youth went forth from the Princess with fire aflame in his heart and spent the longest of nights hardly believing that the morn would morrow. But when day broke and the dawn came with its sheen and shone upon all mankind, he arose from his sleep and fared with the first light to the palace where the King's daughter bade the Linguist-dame introduce him, and when he came in ordered him to be seated. As soon as he had taken seat she gave her commands to the Tarjumanah, who said, "My lady directeth thee to inform her what may be the tree bearing a dozen ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... and the Girl being mightily taken with the latter Epistle, she is laugh'd out, and Uncle Edward is to be dealt with to make her a suitable Match to the worthy Gentleman who has told her he does not care a farthing for her. All I hope for is, that the Lady Fair will make use of the first light Night to show B. T. she understands a Marriage is not to be considered as ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... filled with the uncertainties of dawn. Fundy Bay revealed more and more of its clean blue-emerald level, and far eastward the glassy water shaded up to a flushing of pink. Smoke rose from the mess fires in D'Aulnay's camp. The first light puff of burnt powder sprung from his batteries, and ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... With the first light I got up quietly, glad to find the street again and the air. I stood in the crypt of the cathedral to hear the Ambrosian Mass, and it was (as I had expected) like any other, save for a kind of ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... alleged, as a cause, that his heir, being supposed to be fighting in the ranks of the Teutonic Knights against the heathen of Borussia, was, in fact, in our camp, and in our power; and, therefore, William proposed to hold these nobles as hostages for his safety. This gave me the first light on the real rank of the Knight of the Leopard; and my suspicions were confirmed by De Vaux, who, on his return from Ascalon, brought back with him the Earl of Huntingdon's sole attendant, a thick-skulled slave, who had gone thirty miles ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... these, I was aroused by the order from the officer, "Forward there! rig the head-pump!" I found that no time was allowed for day-dreaming, but that we must "turn-to" at the first light. Having called up the "idlers," namely carpenter, cook, steward, etc., and rigged the pump, we commenced washing down the decks. This operation, which is performed every morning at sea, takes nearly two hours; and I had hardly strength enough to get through it. After we had finished, swabbed ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... 12th of June, the Indians, seven hundred in number, made an attack upon Hadley, and hid themselves in the bushes at its southern extremity, while they sent a strong party around to make an assault from the north. At a given signal, when the first light of the morning appeared, with their accustomed yells, they leaped from their concealment, and rushed like demons upon the town. The English, undismayed, met them at the palisades. The battle raged for some time with ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... Indians tortured prisoners, bound to a stake in the center; but grandfather thought they merely ran races or trained horses there. Whenever one looked at this slope against the setting sun, the circle showed like a pattern in the grass; and this morning, when the first light spray of snow lay over it, it came out with wonderful distinctness, like strokes of Chinese white on canvas. The old figure stirred me as it had never done before and seemed a good omen ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... left alone Tithonus' saffron bed, And first light of another day across the world she shed. But when the Queen from tower aloft beheld the dawn grow white, And saw the ships upon their way with fair sails trimmed aright, And all the haven shipless left, and reach of empty ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... The first light of day revealed, lying in a great pool of his own blood, "Big Bill," the bull buffalo that drew the headquarters water-cart, who had ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... At first light dawned slowly; so slowly, that for a considerable time he still relished an occasional plunge into scenes of gaiety. Even after entering the Divinity Hall, he could be persuaded to indulge in lighter pursuits, at least during the two first years of his attendance; but it ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... heard, as who had not, of the brilliant young Irishman whom Napoleon had called the first light cavalryman ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... Plymouth we passed Eddystone Lighthouse. This is one of the most noted lighthouses in the world. The first light was erected here on a submerged reef in 1697. Six years after it was washed away during a great storm. It was rebuilt in wood and the structure stood the buffeting of the Atlantic until it was burned ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... "Blackwater—the old ruffian—when he was dying had a moment of remorse. He wrote to my wife and asked her to look after his girls, 'For God's sake, Lina, see if you can help Alice—Wensleydale's a perfect brute.' That was the first light we had on the situation, for Adelina had long before washed her hands of him; and we knew that she hated us. Well, we tried; of course we tried. But so long as her husband lived Alice would have nothing ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Count Herbert's Tower, in the Castle of Peronne. When the first light of dawn penetrated the ancient Gothic chamber, the King summoned Oliver to his presence, who found the Monarch sitting in his nightgown, and was astonished at the alteration which one night of mortal anxiety had made in his looks. He would have expressed some anxiety on the subject, ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... relief to man and beast and allows the stragglers to close up. After a short delay the trail is again hit off and the field streams away, but in ever-decreasing numbers, until a mere handful sight the flags which mark the finish, and ride their hardest at the final jump, the first light-weight and the first welter to cross which are thereafter entitled to sport pink and gain the honour of laying scent for the succeeding hunt. The sport is extremely good though very rough, which is mainly owing to the marshy ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... first light it is a Kingdom, in the world, though not of the world, extending through different and widely-separated countries, often seemingly divided by outward circumstances, but, in reality, having all its parts subject to the same Invisible King, governed by laws which He has given, and ...
— A Key to the Knowledge of Church History (Ancient) • John Henry Blunt
... no news; then the first fruitless descent; then men went down and brought up heavy shapes rolled in canvas and bore them to the women; and "each morning the Red Cross president, lifting the curtain of the car where he slept, would see at first light the still rows of those muffled figures waiting in the hopeless daybreak." Not yet had the body of the young superintendent been found; yet one might not hope because of that. But when one afternoon the head-lines of the papers blazed ...
— The Courage of the Commonplace • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... blaze of tapers and guarded by groups of devotees. Thence it was borne with solemn chants to the chapel of Santa Croce. A musical Mass followed, and the culla being at last deposited on the High Altar, the wearied spectators issued forth just as the dome of St. Peter's caught the first light ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... everlastingly sticky and exasperating pest in the catalogue of human torments. They fly in swarms of thousands, and go for their victim "en masse" and the face, hands and neck are soon covered as if with "hay seed." They stick where they first light, and commence operations immediately. All endeavors to shake them off are fruitless, and their combined attacks are soon most painfully realized. Their bites produce great redness and swelling, and the itching is most intolerable. Happily for the woodsman, the ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... John look up. The skies were fast beginning to brighten with the first light in the east, and large objects would be visible there. But he saw nothing against the blue save two or three captive balloons which floated not far above the trees inside the German lines. He longed for a sight of the Arrow. He believed that he would ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... when you see her, first sight. To-morrow afternoon, you say. Wish I could be there when your eyes first light on her! Mother, dearie, isn't it as much she as ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... Blackburn's fords, was believed to be the mass of the invaders. There had been a certitude that the battle would join about these fords. Beauregard's plan was to cross at MacLean's and fall upon the Federal left. Johnston had acceded, and with the first light orders had gone to the brigadiers. "Hold yourselves in readiness to cross ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... far as you can see they are just as good; they have worked terribly hard. Then you shut your teeth and go in again, working desperately from the first light to the last peep until ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick
... her mistress eyes large, dark and inscrutable as those of a sphinx. One looking upon the two, as they thus confronted each other, must have called them a strange couple. Why they should be mistress and servant was not a matter to be determined upon a first light guess. Indeed, they seemed scarcely such. From dark eye to dark eye there seemed to pass a signal of covert understanding, a signal of doubt, or suspicion, or armed neutrality, ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... not go to sleep again. Now and then he considered the possibility of its having been his own animal, somehow freed of the rope and frightened by the same thing that had frightened him. But when with the first light he went outside, his horse, securely hobbled, was grazing on the scant pasture not ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... that was nearly inarticulate with fright, 'grace to the sky, it is you! Ah, what I have endured! But you win, monsieur, you win; they fly, the laches. But listen, monsieur — I forget, it is no good; the Queen is to be murdered tomorrow at the first light in the palace of Milosis; her guards will leave their posts, and the priests are going to kill her. Ah yes! they little thought it, but I was ensconced beneath a banner, and I ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... The first light skirmish between Fran and Grace took place on Sunday. All the Gregory household were at a late breakfast. Sunday-school bells were ringing their first call, and there was not a cloud in the heavens as big as a man's hand, to furnish ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... of creation's birth, When mid the worship and surprise Of circling angels Woman's eyes First open upon heaven and earth; And from their lids a thrill was sent, That thro' each living spirit went Like first light thro' ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... bank of the river until the light should discover the road; but, pursuing a circuitous and uncertain course along the turnings and windings of that tortuous river, with the intention of crossing it as soon as the first light should discover a place convenient for the purpose he made but little progress; but wasting the day in a fruitless attempt to discover a ford, for the further he went from the sea the higher he found the banks which kept the river in its course, he gave the ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... pole vpon his shoulders: neuerthelesse it is easie to iudge that hee meaneth not to speake of this land, whereof no man is found to haue written before his time, neither yet aboue a thousand yeeres after. (M361) Christopher Colon did first light vpon land in the yeere 1592. And fiue yeeres after Americus went thither by the commandement of the king of Castile, and gaue vnto it his owne name, whereupon afterward it was called America. This man was very well ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... staircases, pushed about and squeezed, and elbowed by the poorest rabble of poor gallery scramblers—could I once more hear those anxious shrieks of yours, and the delicious Thank God, we are safe, which always followed, when the topmost stair, conquered, let in the first light of the whole cheerful theatre down beneath us—I know not the fathom line that ever touched a descent so deep as I would be willing to bury more wealth in than Croesus had, or the great Jew R—— is supposed to have, to purchase it. And now do just look ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... any rate, as being birds of evil omen, as they are in Angola. Still, by no means all the birds here only screech and squark. Several of them have very lovely notes. There is one who always gives a series of infinitely beautiful, soft, rich-toned whistles just before the first light of the dawn shows in the sky, and one at least who has a prolonged and very lovely song. This bird, I was told in Gaboon, is called Telephonus erythropterus. I expect an ornithologist would enjoy himself here, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... command from God to deliver his will unto them, which he was to deliver and they to receive upon pain of damnation; consisting of five lights. 1. "That the Sabbath was abolished, as unnecessary, Jewish, and merely ceremonial. And here (quoth he) I should put out the first light, but the wind is so high I cannot kindle it. 2. That tithes are abolished, as Jewish and ceremonial, a great burden to the saints of God, and a discouragement of industry and tillage. And here I should put out my second light, etc. 3. That ministers ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... the broad window-ledge and her cheeks against the cold steel bars which covered the window, Oliva Cresswell watched the mists slowly dissipate in the gentle warmth of the morning sun. She had spent the night dozing in a rocking-chair and at the first light of day she had bathed and redressed ready for any emergency. She had not heard any sound during the night and she guessed that van Heerden had returned ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... cross the little stream. Late in the evening, we went to the river and worked till after midnight to make or find a crossing. The water was deep and cold, and, failing to accomplish our purpose, we turned back to a haystack, and, covering ourselves with hay, rested until the first light of morning (Thursday). ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... first light dawned on the earth and the birds, awoke, and the brave river was heard rippling confidently seaward, and the nimble early rising wind rustled the oak leaves about our tent, all men having reinforced their bodies and their souls with sleep, and ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... the dawn, believing us so few, it will advance and with the first light begin to thread the swamp, and therefore we must keep five thousand archers to gall it as it comes. Still it will win through, though with loss, and find us waiting for it here shoulder to shoulder, rank upon rank with locked shields, against which horse and foot shall ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... deer's hide once perforated, the "tail" of game-keepers, beaters and volunteer hangers-on is gathered up, the comforting toothfu' of usquebaugh absorbed by the toilers of the brae, the victim "gralloched" and suspended across the inevitable gray Highland pony that makes such a capital "first light" for the foreground, and the line of triumphant march taken up for hunting-box, clachan or castle, have we not been told to repletion? The tool used on these occasions is up to the latest requirements of modern science. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... in the first light of the first day of that month celebrated as the birth-month of Him who declared long ago that war should cease, amid the dead and dying of both armies, stood two objects which should one day be carved in marble—One, ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... noiselessly. They climbed out on to the bank, and returned on foot. They would not return until dawn. They followed the river-bank. Clouds of silver ablets, green as ears of corn, or blue as jewels, teemed in the first light of day. They swarmed like the serpents of Medusa's head, and flung themselves greedily at the bread thrown to them; they plunged for it as it sank, and turned in spirals, and then darted away in ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... at first light brown or dark red, and becomes constantly darker and finally taking a velvet-black. As its stratification upon the platinum is unequal, it forms ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various
... Fire, mines on First light oils First record of an explosion Flashing-point of oil Flooding of pits Fog and smoke Foraminifera Fossil ferns ...
— The Story of a Piece of Coal - What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes • Edward A. Martin
... not having been able to see it long before, as some others had. There were some who could not see the land till an hour afterwards. The inexperienced must first learn, before they will know how to see land. The first light-house (one sixty miles from Queenstown) came into view at 9:35 a.m. We ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... The temperature of the boxes and matches was about a hundred degrees of frost, and the smallest touch of the metal on naked flesh caused a frost-bite. If you wore mitts you could scarcely feel anything—especially since the tips of our fingers were already very callous. To get the first light going in the morning was a beastly cold business, made worse by having to make sure that it was at last time to get up. Bill insisted that we must lie in our bags ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... being that of the great feast, the entire village bestirred itself with the first light of morning. Men and women put on their best garments, the lamps were kindled, the cooking-kettles put on, and preparations generally commenced on ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... one of those colored glass windows with a portrait of Washington which give to all lunch-wagons their air of sober refinement, Carl ate solemnly, meditatively.... It did not seem to him an ignoble setting for his grief; but he was depressed when he came out to a drab first light of day that made the street seem hopeless and unrested after the night. The shops were becoming visible, gray and chilly, like a just-awakened janitor in slippers, suspenders, and tousled hair. The pavement was wet. Carl crossed the ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... from the Three Bar as the first light showed in the east, and the grind of wheels on gravel died out in the distance as Harris and ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... six of us, in two boats, and to avoid suspicion we ran down after dark and dropped anchor under a projecting bluff of land known as Point Pinole. As the east paled with the first light of dawn we got under way again, and hauled close on the land breeze as we slanted across the bay toward Point Pedro. The morning mists curled and clung to the water so that we could see nothing, but we busied ourselves driving the chill from our bodies with hot coffee. ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... against the wind. It soon became clear that it was the forest on Apes' Island that had caught fire; and it was equally evident that, thanks to the long dry spell, and to the fanning of the easterly breeze, the fire was spreading with great rapidity; for within twenty minutes of the appearance of the first light film of smoke we were able to see, over the eastern extremity of Cliff Island, the flames speeding up the hill-side, toward the conical summit of the island, preceded by so vast a volume of smoke that it completely veiled the hills of West Island from our sight. While Billy and I stood watching ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... at Saint Winifred's, though in one house their influence was weakened, were determined not to see it wane throughout the school. Harpour and his associates organised a regular conspiracy against the monitors. When the first light snow fell they got together a very large number of fellows, and snowballed all the monitors except Kenrick, as they came out of morning school. The exception was very much to Kenrick's discredit, and in his heart he felt it to be ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... mingled with curiosity. The new doctor was almost too melancholy. It would not be true to say that he never smiled, but his smile was even sadder than his gravity. There was a chill in it, as there is a chill in the first light of dawn. One or two particularly impressionable people declared that it frightened them, that it was uncanny. This idea, once started, developed. It went from house to house. And so, gradually, a spirit of whispering awe arose in the little town, and the vision of human pain ceased to ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... don't know what a mother is, sweetheart. How should you? And how shall I tell you? Listen. She is the one who loves you first and last and always. When you are a babe she suckles you and nourishes you and fondles you, and watches for the first light of your smile, and listens for the first accent of your tongue. When you are a young child she plays with you, and sings to you, and tells you little stories, and teaches you to speak. Your smile is more bright to her than sunshine, and your childish lisp more ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... the first light before the glory. In the illusory revealment of it Senor Johnson's sharp frontiersman's eyes made out an object moving away from him in the middle distance. In a moment the object rose for a second against the sky line, then disappeared. He knew it to be the buckboard, ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... tremulous anxiety and aching suspense I would watch for the first light breath from her lips, the first faint tinge of carmine in her cheek, that always heralded her coming back to life. And when she opened her eyes and smiled, and stretched her long young limbs in the joy of waking, what transports ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... with Lancarote himself and the men-at-arms behind. They were steered by pilots who had been on the coast before and knew it, and it was hoped they would come upon the natives of Tider Island with the first light of dawn. But the way was longer than the pilots reckoned, the night was pitchy dark, without moon or stars, the tide was on the ebb, and at last the boats were aground. It was well on in the morning before they got off on the flood and rowed along the coast to find a landing-place. ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... ruined everything that could truly claim the name of building, but there had been blotted out (and this was of graver import) the whole body of the craftsmen, when, by the will of God, in the city of Florence, in the year 1240, there was born, to give the first light to the art of painting, Giovanni, surnamed Cimabue, of the family, noble in those times, of Cimabue. He, while growing up, being judged by his father and by others to have a beautiful and acute intelligence, was sent, to the end that he might exercise himself in letters, to a master ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari
... loathsome and dread, With a chaos of darkness our Spain overspread, Thou wast the first light which dispell'd with its flames The ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... at Ulysses' side Had been the sport of wind and tide. At last those powers of water The sea-worn wanderers bore To that enchanted shore Where Circe reign'd, Apollo's daughter. She press'd upon their thirsty lips Delicious drink, but full of bane: Their reason, at the first light sips, Laid down the sceptre of its reign. Then took their forms and features The lineaments of various creatures. To bears and lions some did pass, Or elephants of ponderous mass; While not a few, ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... With the first light of dawn he woke up Captain Jack, and put the case to him; and the elder man sat cogitating deeply, as Tom moved about making ready the ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... facts held his attention no longer: they were the mere reconnaissance of the elements—the first light attack of Nature upon her own weakness. By and by from the surging, roaring depths of the woods, there suddenly reverberated to him a deep boom as of a cannon: one of the great trees—two-forked at the mighty summit and already burdened in each half by its tons of timber, split ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... for awhile, and paced the fields till the first light glimmered on the east; and not daring to wait longer for fear of encountering early risers, she turned back to the ferry. And there, shining in the dawn, she found such a blade as made the father in her soul exult. ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... leaving the saffron bed of Tithonus, shed her radiance anew over the world; when the Queen saw from her watch-tower the first light whitening, and the fleet standing out under squared sail, and discerned shore and haven empty of all their oarsmen. Thrice and four times she struck her hand on her lovely breast and rent her yellow hair: 'God!' she cries, 'shall ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... almost directly toward its position as indicated by the fog-signal. Light-ships are more expensive to maintain than lighthouses, but they have the advantages of smaller cost and of mobility; for sometimes it may be desired to move them. The first light-ship was established in 1732 near the mouth of the Thames, and the first in this country was anchored in Chesapeake Bay near Norfolk in 1820. The early ships had no mode of self-propulsion, but the modern ones are being provided with their own power. Oil and gas have been used ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... In the first light of the morning the Ducharme woman, creeping from her room in the rear, caught sight of them. Mrs. Preston's head was lying on the doctor's arm, while he knelt beside the table, watching her pale face in its undisturbed sleep. At the footfall, he roused her gently. Mrs. Ducharme hastily ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... myself, do not condemn me, for I love Thee, O Lord. I am a wretch, but I love Thee. If Thou sendest me to hell, I shall love Thee there, and from there I shall cry out that I love Thee for ever and ever.... But let me love to the end.... Here and now for just five hours ... till the first light of Thy day ... for I love the queen of my soul ... I love her and I cannot help loving her. Thou seest my whole heart.... I shall gallop up, I shall fall before her and say, 'You are right to pass on and leave me. Farewell and forget ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the grasshoppers began to hatch as the sun warmed the earth. It was a period of intense anxiety. So many months had been spent in alternate intervals of hope and fear that now, since the test was actually and immediately to be made, the tension was terrific. Men rose as soon as the first light of day appeared and went to examine the tender grain, without which they could not remain upon the land which had cost so dear in the suffering of the ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... o'clock, with the first light of the morning, he was roused by bustle and noise under his window. He got up, and, looking out, saw two sledges standing before the inn, in the cold grey light. Men were busy harnessing a couple of horses to each, and there were a few figures, muffled ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Bight of Helgoland, and all the next day the Lurcher and the Firedrake, destroyers, scouted for submarines. On that same day sailed the first and third destroyer flotillas, the battle cruiser squadron, first light cruiser squadron, and the seventh cruiser squadron, having a rendezvous at this point on the morning ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... her peace? So he went back to bed, chilled, and was savagely glad of his discomfort. It gave him something, however trivial, to think about besides the peril of a woman who looked like motherhood incarnate, and so should have been heir to all the worship and chivalry of men. With the first light he was up and had built his fire, and Charlotte, hearing him, got, sooner than was her wont, out of her warm bed. Charlotte owned to liking to "lay a spell" in winter, to make up for the early activities of summer mornings when you must be "up ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... truly, to all them that, professing learning, inveigh against poetry, may justly be objected, that they go very near to ungratefulness to seek to deface that which, in the noblest nations and languages that are known, hath been the first light-giver to ignorance, and first nurse, whose milk by little and little enabled them to feed afterwards of tougher knowledges. And will you play the hedgehog, that being received into the den, drove out his host? {3} or ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... throb of returning life, in one great pulsation, his love rushed back to his heart, and he thought of Mercedes.... He sat up nearly all the night, and with the first light of dawn he wrote ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... her to reject, at all hazards to himself. He further begged her to come quickly to the temporary place of refuge he and her mother had found under the roof of a hill cottage, just now tenantless through the death of a relative. Thither, with heavy heart, Winifred hastened by the first light of morning. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... first light of the moon she roused him. She had put food into his fur-coat pocket, and after he had drunk a bowl of hot pea-soup, while she told him his course again, she opened the door, and he passed out into the night. ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... was taking care of the colonel and little Roger. And Lichfield, long before the lettering on Patricia's tombstone had time to lose its first light dusty gray, had accredited Cousin Lucy Fentnor with illimitable willingness to become Mrs. Rudolph Musgrave, upon proper solicitation, although such tittle-tattle is neither here nor there; for at worst, a widowed, childless and impoverished second-cousin, discreetly advanced ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... intellective power of the creature is not the essence of God, it follows that it is some kind of participated likeness of Him who is the first intellect. Hence also the intellectual power of the creature is called an intelligible light, as it were, derived from the first light, whether this be understood of the natural power, or of some perfection superadded of grace or of glory. Therefore, in order to see God, there must be some similitude of God on the part of the visual faculty, whereby the intellect is made capable of seeing ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... 3, the French were astir with the first light of the morning. A few of their number were left to guard the boats; the others, accompanied by some of the Indians, set out on foot for Hochelaga. Their way lay over a beaten path through the woods. ...
— The Mariner of St. Malo: A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier • Stephen Leacock
... the name of a building, but completely extinguished the race of artists, a far more serious matter. Then, as it pleased God, there was born in the year 1240 in the city of Florence, Giovanni, surnamed Cimabue, of the noble family of the Cimabui, to shed the first light on the art of painting. As he grew up he appeared to his father and others to be a boy of quick intelligence, so that he was accordingly sent to receive instruction in letters to a relation, a master at S. Maria ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... the money in his pocket and made ready to go. He would leave at once in quest of Darrel and take counsel of him. It was early, and he could see the first light of the sun, high in the tall towers of hemlock. The forest rang with bird songs. He went to the brook near by, and drank of its clear, cold water, and bathed in it. Then he walked slowly to Robin's Inn, where Mrs. Vaughn had begun building a fire. She observed the ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... wide-spread sea streamed the first light of morning. As it spread from one end of heaven to the other our hearts beat, our eyes ached to penetrate still quicker the fast-receding gloom. It was then that Madame spoke, beseeching me earnestly to suffer no signs of our being ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... They mounted on to her deck barefooted. Boldero was the last to leave the boat, giving her a vigorous push with his foot in the direction of the shore, from which the vessel was but some forty yards away. They descended into the hold, where they remained perfectly quiet until the first light of dawn enabled them to see what they were doing, and then moved some baskets full of vegetables, and concealed ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... pass after this. For the Moon has gone out. The very dogs are still, and I watch for the first light of the dawn before making my way homeward. Again the noise of shuffling feet. The morning call is about to begin, and my night watch is over. 'Allah ho Akbar! Allah ho Akbar!' The east grows gray, and presently saffron; the dawn wind ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... which preyed upon his spirits. The miseries of the townsfolk wrung his noble, generous heart. The utter loneliness depressed him. And over all lay the shadow of uncertainty. To the very end the possibility that 'all might be well' mocked him with false hopes. The first light of any morning might reveal the longed-for steamers of relief and the uniforms of British soldiers. He was denied even the ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... "The first light we see we'll land a hundred yards below it or above it, in a place where it's a good hiding-place for you and the skiff, and then I'll go and fix up some kind of a yarn, and get somebody to go for that gang and get them out of their ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain |
