"Glimmer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... that their attention was roused by a strange, crackling noise. On going to the door of their cell they could see nothing, but they heard the noise approaching. After a little there appeared at the opposite end of the cloister a faint glimmer of white light, then the red glare of torches, and at last a crew the sight of which made their flesh creep and their hair stand on end—he-devils with birds' heads, horses' tails, and tinsel of all colours; she-devils or abducted shepherdesses in white and pink dresses; and at the head of ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... windows cheerful lights could be seen. A rumor spread that they were to have a hot supper, and, sure enough, they were marched in, dividing on each side of four long tables that stretched into spectral distance, in the feeble glimmer of the oil-lamps hanging from the ceiling. Most of the men in Jack's company, at least, were gently nurtured, but the steaming oysters, cold beef, and generous "chunks" of bread, filled their eyes with a magnificence and their stomachs with a gentle repletion no banquet ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... hand to hand by the Afghan defenders, who had recovered from their surprise. Nothing could be distinctly seen in the narrow gorge, but the clash of sword blade against bayonet was heard on every side. The stormers had to grope their way between the yet standing walls in a dusk which the glimmer of the blue light only made more perplexing. But some elbow room was gradually gained, and then, since there was neither time nor space for methodic street fighting, each loaded section gave its volley and ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... the rest of his tribe, could more readily renounce sweetness than light, and light soon became a serious matter. The American demands a flood of light, and wonders at the English don who pursues his investigations by the glimmer of two candles. It was hard to go back to primitive tallow dips. Lard might have served, but it was too precious to be used in lamps. The new devices were dismal, such as the vile stuff called terebene, which smoked and smelt more than it illuminated, such ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... in the room. He wondered if one might not be Hauptmann Schneider, for two of them were captains. The girl he judged to be of the intelligence department—a spy. Her beauty held no appeal for him—without a glimmer of compunction he could have wrung that fair, young neck. She was German and that was enough; but he had other and more important work before him. He wanted ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... muttered thunder, resounded in his ears, followed by dead silence. Then his arm was closely grasped again, and he was led on, on and on, along what seemed to be an interminable distance, for not a glimmer of light could be seen under the tight folds of the bandage across his eyes. Presently the earth shook under him,- -some heavy substance was moved, and there was another booming thunderous noise, accompanied by ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... the misty chill morning, all damp and miserable, with the trees standing about like ghosts. There was a dripping thaw after a frost, and the air was raw and the prospect dismal; but even that was less wretched than the glimmer of the shaded lights, the muffled whispering and stealthy footsteps indoors. He took a few turns up and down the terrace, trying to reason himself out of this misery. How was it, after all, that the little figure of this infant should overshadow ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... destroys countries by the fire of war, comp. remarks on Rev. viii. 8. The Prophet is just about to announce to the hostile kings their impending overthrow; for this reason, he calls them ends of firebrands, which no longer blaze, but only glimmer. He calls them thus because he considers them with the eye of faith; to the bodily eye a bright flame still presented itself, as the last words: "For the fierce anger," &c., and vers. 5 and 6 show. Chrysostom remarks: "He calls these ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... fell about them, an afterglow of sunset trembling upon the violet sea. Above the heights of Capreae a star began to glimmer; and lo, yonder from behind the mountains rose the great orb of the moon. They were in the harbour at last, but had to wait on board until a messenger could go to the village and a conveyance arrive. The litter came, with a horse for Basil; Felix, together with Aurelia's grey-headed porter ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... this one startled us both. I instinctively picked up the ruler from the table, and Waterford took my arm and motioned me close to the wall beside him. Another creak came presently and then another. Evidently some one was coming down the stairs cautiously, and in the dark too, for we saw no glimmer of a light through the partly-opened door. We were behind it, so that if it opened we should be quite hidden unless the ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... foot through quiet country lanes. Through the trees, the glimmer of the searchlights' flashes comes and goes like giant fireflies. The clear notes of a nightingale ring out in the stillness of the night. Nestling in the valley lies a large town, which only a fortnight ago was filled with civilians, 'redeemed ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... the boy saw the glimmer of a lamp down where the man was, and saw that it was moving about on the bottom. Lights, of course, do not show in water as they do in air, and so it was only a faint ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... little to compensate for such defects. He meanders on through hackneyed pastoral landscapes haunted by hackneyed shepherds. It is only on rare occasions that a refreshing glimmer of poetry revives the reader. In lines such as ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... up without her candle, and the only light in the room was a cold glimmer from the snow outside. But she must find a light, for she must write a letter. By much groping, she found some matches, and then lit one after another while she searched in her untidy drawers for an ink-bottle and a pen ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... with some children we had to spend the day with us at Hamilton House," Angelica said. "We took them into a dark room—the long room, you know, Aunt Fulda; and Diavolo rubbed a match on the wall at the far end, and I explained that that was a glimmer of hell-fire at a great distance off; and then we told them if they didn't keep quite still the old devil himself would come creeping up behind without any noise, and ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... head was laid for that elusive glimmer in the sky, which began already to pale in lustre and diminish in size, as the stain of breath vanishes from a window pane. At the same time she was reefed ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... would be seen before sunset, and the Coral held to her course toward the southwest, not only for that day and night, but for the two succeeding ones. But it is useless to dwell upon the search made by the smaller vessel, which was without the faintest glimmer of success. ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... dull glimmer of a lantern, turned low, being borne toward them by an unseen hand. Then the figure of the girl appeared, and soon the lantern's rays lighted up vaguely the interior ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... that it could not be a ghost, since it came down on the ground with such a heavy jump; she prayed to God, therefore, to help her in discovering this matter, and as she could not sleep, rose before the first glimmer of daylight to examine this hole which lay so close to Sidonia's chamber, and there truly she discovered the trap-door, and having opened, found that it lay right over a large coach in the ducal stables; thereupon ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... the daughter of the light; Well pleased to recognise in lowliest shade Some glimmer of its parent beam, and made By daily draughts of brightness, inly bright. The taste severe, yet graceful, trained aright In classic depth and clearness, and repaid By thanks and honour from the wise and staid— By pleasant skill to blame, and ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... darker grew the day. They sat in a close, unearthly twilight. Though the huge entrance-door was flung wide, no breath of air reached them, no song of birds or sound of moving leaf. Once Olga turned her eyes to the far glimmer of the east window, but she turned them instantly away again, and looked no more. For it was as though a hand were holding up a dim lantern on the other side to show her the dreadful scene, casting ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... his back as if in final denial of her plea, yet now, after a momentary pause, he turned back again and she thought that there was something like a glimmer of relenting back of his gruffness as he gave curt permission: "Go ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... crept along the corridor until he came to the entrance of the great hall. He drew aside the arras hangings and peered into the deserted room. All was silent as the grave. The crackling embers of the fire gave but a sorry light, with only a fitful glimmer that rose now and again from some half-consumed pine log. But with the feeble moonbeams, that shone through the thin films of skin that in those days — except in the churches — did service for glass, there was still light enough in that vast room to show ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... imitated, but fit only to be shunned, where else shall the world look for free models? If this great Western Sun be struck out of the firmament, at what other fountain shall the lamp of liberty hereafter be lighted? What other orb shall emit a ray to glimmer, even, on the darkness ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... and slashed in the face by the recoiling boughs which they could not see, they soon lost their way, fell into confusion, and came to a stand, in a mood more savagely desponding than before. But soon a glimmer of returning day came to their aid, and showed them the dusky sky, and the dark columns of the surrounding pines. Menendez ordered the men forward on pain of death. They obeyed, and presently, emerging from the forest, could dimly discern the ridge of a low ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... especially where the cases are attended by a physician, the eyes of all newborn babies are treated with either argyrol or silver nitrate. Just as soon as defective sight is discovered in the child the eyes should be examined at once and proper glasses fitted. While the glimmer and shimmer of moving pictures may seriously interfere with the child's vision, on the other hand, this very thing often discovers the defect in the eyesight earlier than it would otherwise ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... of better adaptation to environment constitutes progress. Such modification is caused by the action of various mental stimuli. The people of a hill village for generations have been contented with poor roads and rough side-paths, along which they find an uneasy way by the glimmer of a lantern at night. They are unaccustomed to sanitary conveniences in their houses or to ample heating arrangements or ventilation in school or church. They have thought little about these things, and if they wished to make improvements they would be handicapped by small numbers ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... ship's top above the swelling mainsail. On the narrow platform, with the stars above, the dim tracery of the wide sail, the still dimmer tracery of the long ship below, they seemed transported to another world. Far beneath by the glimmer of the lanterns they saw the rowers swaying at their toil. In the wake the phosphorous bubbles ran away, opalescent gleams springing upward, as if torches of Doris and her dancing Nereids. So much had admiral and ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... I seen your eyes attracted there continually? Of course, there's the glimmer of her lamp!) high on the breezy cliff, with the pure sea wind blowing around her, the light and joy of her father's home, and soon to fly across the valley and lighten up ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... among the pine trunks. A few yards away, the trees got blurred and melted into the encircling gloom. In one place, however, there was an opening, and when he turned his back to the light, he saw a faint glimmer in the mist that indicated the frozen lake. Although he was used to the wilds, he felt the silence ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... the dark, the night throbs with mystic presences; the hills glimmer with an inward life; whispering voices hurry through the air. Another and magical land awakes in the dark, full of a living restlessness; sleepless as the ever-moving sea. Everywhere through the night-shrouded woods, the shadowy trees seem to interrupt their secret whispers till you ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... that she was more than any other the centre of admiration. Blame her who may, the world was a very splendid vision as it opened before her eyes in its long vista of pleasures and of triumphs. How different the light of these bright saloons from the glimmer of the dim chamber at The Poplars! Silence Withers was at that very moment looking at the portraits of Anne Holyoake and of Judith Pride. "The old picture seems to me to be fading faster than ever," she was thinking. But when she held her lamp before the other, it seemed to her that ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... little, Susie being already enrolled in the great doctor's cause. This came out at least in her glimmer of reproach. "Does it scare us to enlist us ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... in the other, Young Perch disconsolately in her wake, yawning, with another candle. Young Perch called this "Prowling about the infernal house all night"; and one office of the prowl appeared to Sabre to be the attendance of pans of milk warming in a row on oil stoves and suggesting, with the glimmer of the stoves and the steam of the pans, mysterious oblations ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... the man on my way down, I waited till he had disappeared within the door of his room. That door, with the width of the house between, was directly opposite mine. As it opened, there came to me the first glimmer of the light which was to burst on me in all its terrible force a ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... Nothing would be easier if a glimmer of reason were to aid them. Through the wire network, over which they have so often strayed, they have seen, outside, the free soil, the promised land which they long to reach. A hundred times if once have they dug at the foot of the rampart. There, in vertical ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... space. with ease. Yet the tedious delay of it all irked him and fanned to a blind fury his rage against Milo. Moreover, now, he could not hope to reach the hidden path before real darkness should set in. And he did not relish the idea of traversing its blind mazes without a glimmer of daylight to ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... The faint glimmer of reason which still lighted M. de Sairmeuse's mind, checked the still more insulting reply that rose to his lips. Trembling with suppressed rage, he made the circuit of the room several times, and finally paused before ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... reply, until a week had passed, but no word came from him. In passing the house at different times, however, I observed some signs of life within it—a blind open that had been closed the day before—a faint glimmer of light on the trees in the rear of the grounds at night, which might have come from the back windows. Even this slight encouragement was gratifying, but as time passed without bringing any reply to my letter I began to think that, after all, my hopes rested on very shadowy foundations. ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller
... Chelonites' 620 Promontory, which o'erlooks the isles that groan Under the Briton's frown, and all their waters Then trembling in the splendour of the moon, When as the wandering clouds unveiled or hid Her boundless light, he saw two adverse fleets 625 Stalk through the night in the horizon's glimmer, Mingling fierce thunders and sulphureous gleams, And smoke which strangled every infant wind That soothed the silver clouds through the deep air. At length the battle slept, but the Sirocco 630 Awoke, and drove ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... too, the legal bully, Who limits all his battles to the bar And senate: when invited elsewhere, truly, He shows more appetite for words than war. There was the young bard Rackrhyme, who had newly Come out and glimmer'd as a six weeks' star. There was Lord Pyrrho, too, the great freethinker; And Sir ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... brilliant sunshine to pitchy darkness. So rapidly had the darkness come on us that no one was prepared, and no matches or lights were forthcoming; so there we stood in a room in absolute darkness, no glimmer of light even revealing where the windows were situated in the room. Though all doors and windows were closely shut, we could feel the dust entering in clouds through the cracks, making it quite unpleasant breathing. When the storm caught us we had ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... Street very seldom met together; each one remained in his own booth, which was closed early enough in the evening, and then it looked dark and dismal out in the street. Only a faint glimmer of light struggled through the horn panes in the little window on the roof, while within sat the old clerk, generally on his bed, singing his evening hymn in a low voice; or he would be moving about in his booth till ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... the lifting power of a plane of great superficial area could be obtained by dividing the large plane into several parts arranged on tiers. This may be regarded as the germ of the modern aeroplane, the first glimmer of hope to filter through the darkness of experimentation until then. When Wenham's apparatus went against a strong wind it was only lifted up and thrown back. However, the idea gave thought to ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... window-curtains from the midst of a garden, all trim borders and greenhouses and carefully kept walks. On the other side, the villas are more thronged together, and they have arranged themselves, shelf after shelf, behind each other. I see the glimmer of new buildings, too, as far eastward as Grimaldi; and a viaduct carries (I suppose) the railway past the mouth of the bone caves. F. Bacon (Lord Chancellor) made the remark that "Time was the greatest ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... bed, lit her lamp again and began to dress. She turned her light down to a dim glimmer, however, for she did not want her aunt to look out of the window of her bedroom on the other side of the parlor and catch a glimpse of ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... whippletree out on the lawn. It was the Colonel's buckboard which stood in need of oiling; I recognized the sound. Curiosity was too much for me this time. I slipped out of bed and hurried to the window. It was pretty dark outside, but there was a faint glimmer of starlight. ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... registration day; the place was a a small town in Southern Illinois. There was no girl. He was a gentleman of color, and the registrar was having considerable trouble explaining the whys and wherefors of the registration. At last Rastus showed a faint glimmer of intelligence. ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... darkness, the darkness of death, and in utter silence, the silence of the dead. No glimmer of light, and yet to Alan it seemed as though he could feel the flash of the crystal eyes of Little Bonsa, and of all the other eyes set in the masks of those departed men who once had been the husbands of the bloodstained priestess of the Asiki, till one by one, as she wearied of them, ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... relates to Stevenson's human soul. I find Mr Symons says, at p. 243, that Stevenson "had something a trifle elfish and uncanny about him, as of a bewitched being who was not actually human—had not actually a human soul"—in which there may be a glimmer of truth viewed from his revelation of artistic curiosities in some aspects, but is hardly true of him otherwise; and this Mr Symons himself seems to have felt, when, at p. 246, he writes: "He is one of those ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... despair. His mind renewed that horrible mechanical wandering through the dismal circle of might-be's which still survived amid the chaos of his thoughts. Once or twice there seemed to gleam upon him a stray glimmer of light through a loophole, but only to throw him back again into the darkness. Now and then he roused himself with a look of real terror in his face, when there came a noise outside. What he was afraid ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... occupied only the extreme corners of his mind, the main portion of which was entirely filled with the chilling fear that that man might be the Keswick he was looking for. Of course, there was a bare chance that it was not, for there might be a numerous family, but even this little stupid glimmer of comfort was extinguished when Mr Brandon familiarly addressed the ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... murmured before him? Or was it the friendly and familiar face of his cousin Janet, whose eyes he knew, would be filled with a constant wonder if she saw such diamonds, and silks and satins? Or was it that ignis fatuus—that treacherous and mocking fire—that might at any time glimmer in some suddenly presented face with a new surprise? Had she deceived him altogether down at Prince's Gate? Was her real nature that of the wayward, bright, mischievous, spoiled child whose very tenderness only prepared her ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... been accumulated, split and halved into chunks for the shark-hooks, and Wilbur, baiting one of the huge lines that had been brought up on deck the evening before, flung it overboard, and watched the glimmer of the white fish-meat turning to a silvery green as it sank down among the kelp. Almost instantly a long moving shadow, just darker than the blue-green mass of the water, identified ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... their right hands on their hearts, without once regarding anything about them. They had all the livid paleness of death; their eyes, deep-sunk in their sockets, resembled those phosphoric meteors that glimmer by night in places of interment. Some stalked slowly along, absorbed in profound reverie; some, shrieking with agony, ran furiously about like tigers wounded with poisonous arrows; whilst others, grinding their teeth in rage, foamed along, more frantic ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... needs a deep, rich, moist soil, and an open situation, to insure the full degree of stateliness, but it will make a very good figure in any border where it can enjoy a glimmer of sunshine. There are several distinct varieties, the flowers of which range in colour from palest yellow to the deepest shade of orange and reddish buff, and there are others which have variegated leaves. ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... club-dinner, and was relative to which of the two had the largest quantity of game on his estates. Infuriated by wine and passion, they retired instantly into an adjoining room, and fought with swords across a table, by the feeble glimmer of a tallow-candle. Mr. Chaworth, who was the more expert swordsman of the two, received a mortal wound, and shortly afterwards expired. Lord Byron was brought to trial for the murder before the House of Lords; and it appearing clearly, that the duel was not premeditated, but fought at once, and ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... volunteered Joe. He had to work the dark, as a glimmer of light would show that the cabinet had been moved, and the audience would suspect that something was wrong. But Joe knew every inch of the cabinet, for he and the professor had worked this trick out between them. In an instant he had twisted the ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... unperceived, and the Arabs knew that their terrible antagonists crouched on the ridge waiting for the morning; For a while the suspense was prolonged. At last, after what seemed to many an interminable period, the uniform blackness of the horizon was broken by the first glimmer of the dawn. Gradually the light grew stronger until, as a theatre curtain is pulled up, the darkness rolled away, the vague outlines in the haze became definite, and the whole ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... downstairs dressed to go out. Her mother was lighting a glimmer of gas in the lobby. Ere Mrs. Lessways could descend from her tiptoes to her heels and turn round Hilda said ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... some glimmer of human feeling awoke in Brande. He said in a low, abstracted voice: "My life fittingly ends now. To keep you, Natalie, would only be a vulgar murder." The old will power seemed to come back to him. He looked into ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... grown perceptibly colder. The haze crystallized on the rigging, the rail was white with rime, and the deck grew slippery, but they left everything on the Selache to the topsails, and she crept on erratically through the darkness, avoiding the faint spectral glimmer of the scattered ice. The breeze abeam propelled her with gently leaning canvas at some four knots to the hour, and now and then Wyllard, who hung about the deck that night, fancied he could hear a thin, sharp crackle ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... space of time—which may be days or weeks or months in duration—through its secret chambers steals a thrill of sentient emotion; it recognizes its own existence, and the dawn of that eternal life for which it was created. Slowly one sight after another begins faintly to glimmer before it, as objects emerge from the gloom of some darkened cell to eyes that are becoming accustomed to the darkness. Anon, low, faint murmurs of sound steal in upon it, far distant at first, but gradually swelling as it approaches, till at last, around the freed spirit peals the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... allowed—not even a cigar; the engine-room hatch-ways were covered with tarpaulins, at the risk of suffocating the unfortunate engineers and stokers in the almost insufferable atmosphere below. But it was absolutely imperative that not a glimmer of light should appear. Even the binnacle was covered, and the steersman had to see as much of the compass as he could through a conical aperture carried almost ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... was considering and reading him, too. She liked him better, because, since that first night of Mr. van Cannan's departure, he had absented himself from the dinner-table. That showed some glimmer of grace in him. Still, there was far too much arrogance in his manner, she thought, and decided that he had probably been spoiled by too facile women. Nothing blunts the fine spiritual side of a man's character so rapidly as association with women of low ideals. ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... my side it is so well apparell'd, So clear, so shining and so evident, That it will glimmer through a ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... when the feeble light admonished her that she would soon be in darkness, she retreated to her own room, and the first glimmer of day struggled in at her window as she knelt ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... speculative AEneas pursues shadows more fleeting than the Stygian ghosts, and the grasp of the metaphysician closes on shapes whose embrace is vacancy. The bark that ploughs within this mystic expanse, sheds from its cleaving keel but coruscations of phosphorescent sparkles, which glimmer and quench in a gloom that Egyptian seers never penetrated, and modern guessers cannot conjecture through. There is, indeed, 'oak and triple brass' upon his breast who steeps his lips in the chalice of the Rosicrucian, and the doom of Prometheus is the fabled defeat which is waiting for the ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... rusted with the not-far-away sea-air; and a good strong pull, from four not very strong hands, was necessary to admittance. Darkness was inside, except the light that we let in. We stood a little, to accustom our eyes to the glimmer of rays that came down from the high-up window, and those that went up from the open door. At length they met, and mingled in a half-way gloom. There were broad winding stairs, with every inch of standing-room well used; for wherever ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... portico, Lifting their glittering and impatient hooves, Corinth's fierce steeds shall bound;[2] And at thy name, the hymn of future wars, From their funereal caves The bandits of the waves Shall fly in exile;[3] brought from bloody fields Hard won and lost in far-off Palestine, The glimmer of a thousand Arab moons Shall fill thy broad lagoons; And on the false Byzantine's towers shall climb A blind old man sublime,[4] Whom victory shall behold Amidst his enemies with thy sacred ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... disturbance broke out in the castle of Mazzini. On the night so fatal to the hopes of Hippolitus and Julia, when the tumult was subsided, and all was still, a light was observed by a servant as he passed by the window of the great stair-case in the way to his chamber, to glimmer through the casement before noticed in the southern buildings. While he stood observing it, it vanished, and presently reappeared. The former mysterious circumstances relative to these buildings rushed upon his mind; and fired with wonder, he roused some ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... up the companionway and put out his head. There were both weight and menace in the wind which hooted past his ears. The fog was gone, but the night was black, without glimmer of stars. The white crests of the waves which galloped alongside flaked ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... In the uncertain glimmer of light cast by the shaded kerosene lamp, sat the doctor, Bradford and Aunt Timmie, each with eyes on the little sufferer. They did not look up, and he passed through, standing with his hands clasped behind his back, ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... when I was at the most critical stage of my illness, during a lucid interval, I caught sight of Edmee in my room. At first I thought I was dreaming. The night-light was casting an unsteady glimmer over the room. Near me was a pale form lying motionless on an easy chair. I could distinguish some long black tresses falling loosely over a white dress. I sat up, weak though I was and scarcely able ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... knowing how. You, who saw me disappear from my room one evening, may be able to explain it; but I can not. I can only tell you that, suddenly, there was no mirror before me and no dressing-room. I was in a dark passage, I was frightened and I cried out. It was quite dark, but for a faint red glimmer at a distant corner of the wall. I tried out. My voice was the only sound, for the singing and the violin had stopped. And, suddenly, a hand was laid on mine ... or rather a stone-cold, bony thing that seized my wrist and did not let go. ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... in thicker gloom the distant bound. Each swelling height is clad with dimmer shades, And deeper darkness marks the hollow glades. The moon in heavy clouds her glory veils, And slow along their passing darkness sails; While lesser clouds in parted fragments roam, And red stars glimmer thro' ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... Section. At night, this great space was lit by only one light, a battered electric reading-lamp standing on a kind of laboratory table in the center of the floor, and window curtains of dark-blue cambric, waving mysteriously in the night wind, were supposed to hide even this glimmer from the eyes of raiding Zeppelins. Looking down, early in the evening, into the great quadrangle of the institution, one saw the windows of the opposite wing veiled with this mysterious blue, and heard ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... his brow a last kiss, it struck me, for a moment, that the touch was not that of a dead man's skin. But I looked again at the deadly wounds of head and breast, and thought it would be but cruelty to strive to bring back the glimmer of life only to—to see the ruin of his house; and all that he could not be saved from. O Richard, to no man in either host could the day of Evesham have been so sore, as to me, who had to sit in the gate, to gladden men's hearts, like holy ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... previous to the battle of Trenton, when affairs were most gloomy, and not a single star appeared to give the faintest glimmer of hope, Reed appeared despondent: "He felt the game was up, and there was no use of following the wretched remains of a broken army; he had a family, and it was but right that he should look after their ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... returned to his seat with an altered manner. And as his host entered, he for the first time surveyed him closely. The imperfect glimmer of the half-dying and single candle threw into strong lights and shades the marked, rugged, and ferocious features of the cottager; and the eye of the traveller, glancing from the face to the limbs and ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of God was to be celebrated, but the young priest had not yet settled how to produce a flame which should at the same time emit an agreeable odor. At last it occurred to him to combine the two, as he possessed a few fumigating pastils, which diffused a pleasant fragrance with a glimmer, if not with a flame. Nay, this soft burning and exhalation seemed a better representation of what passes in the heart, than an open flame. The sun had already risen for a long time, but the neighboring houses concealed the east. At last it glittered above the roofs: a burning-glass was at ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... the grave!—that their death should so much resemble their life in its changes and vicissitudes, its partings and its meetings, its inquietudes and its persecutions!—that mistaken zeal should follow them down to the very tomb—as if earthly passion could glimmer, like a funeral lamp, amid the damps of the charnel-house, and "even in their ashes bum ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... both bare, And, jealous of the listening air, They steal their way from stair to stair, Now in glimmer, and now in gloom, And now they pass the Baron's room, And still as death, with stifled breath! And now have reach'd her chamber door; And now doth Geraldine press down The rushes ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... an acute withering pain, as if something or somebody were sewing the sewer and pierced her with a needle sharp and burning, made the room swim and the straw in the corner glimmer; and the girl dropped the work and closed her eyes—the cheeks were black and hollow beneath them—and she gasped and panted, and leaned back, while the roar went on, and the hot sun glared, and the neighboring church clock, striking the hour, seemed to beat on her ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... are apples of gold in pictures of silver. As I walk in these sunken roads, and between these high walls, the orange boughs everywhere hang over; and through the open gates of villas I look down alleys of golden glimmer, roses and geraniums by the walk, and the fruit above,—gardens of enchantment, with never a dragon, that I can see, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... monotonous tread of the sentinels pacing to and fro before the palace; and across the Piazza, those of the guard before the closed entrance of the Fortress of Famagosta where their Queen and the infant Prince were in residence, echoed them back. From the Duomo San Nicolo shone the faint twilight glimmer of the tall candles that were ceaselessly burning about the tomb of Janus—each pale flame wafting a prayer for absolution from the broken heart of the Queen, who before her illness had brought them daily with her own hands: and far down upon the shore was dimly ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... final glimmer of a tottering reason was fast leaving the poor, aching head she was too young to realise. Madness was a word that had only a vague meaning for her. Though she did not understand her father at the present moment, though she was half ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... rendered more dreary by the occasional glimmer of the lamps at the distant station, which seemed about to be extinguished by every new ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... tame and spiritless, but I doubt, whether in a new edition I shall change my translation, "the lights in heaven shine forth," for what the American Professor suggests: "asheen shines out in the sky," or "gleams glimmer ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... half after four, and the increasing echoes of troika bells without, announced the advance of the fashionable driving-hour, Sosha entered with tea, and lighted the big table-lamp that presently mingled its soft radiance with the last glimmer of the dead day. Then, when the old servitor had shuffled out, Ivan rose, cigarette in hand, and, gazing down upon the stranger's white ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... phantoms, shades Of what were men till hunger made them less Than man can be and still know uprightness; And whom she spake with kindly words and cheer In him the light of hope began to peer And glimmer in his eyes; and him she fed And nourisht, then sent homeward comforted A little, to endure a little more. Now among these, hard by the outer door, She marked a man unbent whose sturdy look Never ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... answer to their cries, and a glimmer of light showed in the darkness. It was the lad with the lantern. As she had surmised, he had failed in his mission. She moved swiftly to the river, splashed into the water, and, reaching the canoe, threw back the cover under which the men were sleeping, ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... looked the lights went out, or appeared to, and there was only the glimmer of the unfamiliar constellations of the heavens over the ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... the hours of the night passed, and searching as best they could by the glimmer of flashlights, stopping to shout Bud's name now and then, they did not ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker
... green plains of youth, And searched for Pleasure. On a distant height Fame's silhouette stood sharp against the skies. Beyond vast crowds that thronged a broad high-way I caught the glimmer of a golden goal, While from a blooming bower smiled ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... dark, with as yet no glimmer of the coming dawn, no faintest light to show where the closed curtains join, too indolent to rise and light the lamp, too sleepy to put one's foot out of the well-warmed bed, praying fruitlessly for that sleep that will not come—it is at such moments ...
— How I write my novels • Mrs. Hungerford
... sight in their sky now was Saturn. At the comparatively short distance this great planet was from them, it cast a distinct shadow, its vast rings making it appear twice its real size. With the first glimmer of dawn, the fire-balls descended to the surface of the water and disappeared within it, their lights going out. With a suddenness to which the explorers were becoming accustomed, the sun burst upon them, rising as perpendicularly as at the earth's equator, and more than twice as fast, having ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... towards the solitary house; from whose small upper window came the faint glimmer, cast through the slits in the shutter, by the dim light of the ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... necessary precaution of suppressing names, places, and days of the month. Taken in connection with a certain inquiry which is just now occupying the public mind, these fragments may throw some faint glimmer of light on events which are at present ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... garden-patch opposite, and that a bat had circled slowly up and down the lane, until he heard the clocks striking three. At the same time the faint light of dawn made itself felt almost imperceptibly; the classic statues on the roof of the schools began to stand out against the white sky, and a faint glimmer to penetrate the darkened room. It glistened on the varnished top of his violin-case lying on the table, and on a jug of toast-and-water placed there by his college servant or scout every night before he left. He ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... into her hand, with a smile; but Sophie's eyes were too deep and dark for any smile to glimmer through. As she opened it he turned his back upon her, and saw out of the window the sinking sun redden the ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... some already setting briskly to work. On the walls, among a number of quotations, "Help one another!" stared her in the face with tragic significance, and again: "How far high failure overleaps the bounds of low successes." Failure! She lifted the paper again, and decided with a glimmer of hope that she could answer at least one question, set to work, and scribbled for life until the last moment of the prescribed three hours! What exhaustion! What collapse! Positively one's legs wobbled beneath one as one trailed wearily Newnhamwards. What a comfort to be fussed over ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... At the end of one of the cross galleries we could already see a flickering glimmer of torches. There, evidently, was held the council. We stole on tiptoe in that direction, and ensconced ourselves behind a long file of empty bottle-shelves, worn out after long service and leaning against ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... part of the night went by without bringing Roland any news. He tried to sleep, but succeeded ill. He fancied every minute that he heard some one at the door. The day was just beginning to glimmer through the shutters when the door did actually open. Michel and Jacques were returning, and this is what had happened ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... landscape in its shimmering light. To the right lay the open country, broad plains with clumps of woodland, and the towers of castles pricking out from above the groves. A heavy bell was ringing in some monastery, and its dull booming came and went with the breeze. On the left, but far away, lay the glimmer of Paris. They were leaving it rapidly behind. Whatever his destination, it was neither the capital nor Versailles. Then he began to count the chances of escape. His sword had been removed, and his pistols were still in the holsters beside his unfortunate horse. He was unarmed, then, even if he could ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of words, nothing, somehow, had ever come out to throw the least glimmer of light either on his character, personality, or walk of life. Not bad, all right, useful, rather wonderful, but quite ordinary and nothing particular, were some of the phrases she recalled. She had never been told anything about his age, nor ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... him to a low level, he could make fast his own power over them, and that he could best do this by cutting off the heads of all who stood a little higher than their neighbors. He might thus produce tranquillity, and security to himself and others. Some glimmer of an idea of an Augustan rule was present to him; and with the view of producing it, he re-established many of the usages of the Republic, not reproducing the liberty but the forms of liberty. It seems ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... and only recognition of the dangers of the unforeseeable future was to drill deep in my brain these directions. For instance," and he pointed to a boxed device, "that thing is an infra-low frequency amplifier. Now, I haven't much more than a faint glimmer of what the thing is and how it differs from a standard amplifier, but I know that it must be built precisely thus-and-so, and finally it must be fitted into the machine per instructions. Look, Mrs. Bagley." James picked up a recently-received package, swept ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... be a rather less reasonable step than suicide, and I have always declined to discuss suicide. One must see some glimmer of rationality in a project to be able to discuss it, and in this notion of yours I can see none, ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... anything at all but starkly her employer and her financier; if she's had the faintest glimmer of him as one who held for her any personal feelings whatever, she never would have suggested as an alternative to her bringing the patterns here to rehearsal, his coming up to her room ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... street she could see the glimmer of a light summer dress in Lord Cranston's apartment. It moved restlessly backwards and forwards from one window to the other: now it shone out in the balcony above the street: now it retired into the darkness of the room. Clarice gauged Lady Cranston's ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... down to work till he had taken a couple of glasses of sherry from the decanter in the cupboard. Even as he did so he wondered if the shadow of the sword disturbed him so much, how he would be affected if it ever was his lot to face the glimmer of its naked blade. ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... turning up first one side and then the other, in search of the cleanest spot. Had the skull been then there, of course I could not have failed to notice it. Here was indeed a mystery which I felt it impossible to explain; but, even at that early moment, there seemed to glimmer, faintly, within the most remote and secret chambers of my intellect, a glow-wormlike conception of that truth which last night's adventure brought to so magnificent a demonstration. I arose at once, and putting the parchment securely away, dismissed all further ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... have had some weight with her at the outset," admitted Godfrey, "but they couldn't have driven her to the length to which she has gone. And about the will. If Vaughan had not been killed, if he had been found insane, the will would have been at once invalidated. Don't you get the glimmer of a motive for his ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... feel nothing, save a vague instinct of repulsion, then the seed of victory might be sown. This is hard indeed to do; yet if we ponder upon a chapter of ancient or mediaeval history, it seems to me some glimmer of a chance of doing so breaks in upon us. Take for example a century of the Byzantine Empire, weary yourselves with reading the names of the pedants, tyrants, and tax-gatherers to whom the terrible chain which long- dead ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... upon his danger. He was near the tavern, he was passing the end of a court. From the blackness there men rushed upon him. They managed it well. He was almost borne down by the first onset, but hearing something in time, seeing a glimmer of steel, he swung aside and staggered back into the kennel slashing at them with his stick. They were borne past him by their vehemence, but he carried no sword and their swords were all about him. There was no hope. Two blades seared ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... The cabin was dark. Three round ports glimmered greenly beyond the staircase on the cabin's forward side. The glimmer was occasioned by the refracted rays of the Hankow's dazzling searchlight. But these were ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... By the glimmer of the carriage lamps she could see the wagons going to and fro, some filled with empty coffins, some with mangled sufferers. Now and then weary, spent soldiers sat on the roadside, or struggled on toward the city which they had saved, with their ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... glimmer nigh! They once were friendship, truth, and love! Oh, die to thought, to mem'ry die, Since lifeless to my ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... shadowy pleasure in the mere proximity. Within, about one-half of the great shed was densely packed with people. In the midst, on the royal dais, the lantern luminously smoked; chance rays of light struck out the earnest countenance of our Chinaman grinding the hand-organ; a fainter glimmer showed off the rafters and their shadows in the hollow of the roof; the pictures shone and vanished on the screen; and as each appeared, there would run a hush, a whisper, a strong shuddering rustle, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the silver morning is a-glimmer With gleaming spears of great Apollo's host, And the night fadeth like a spent out swimmer Hurled from the headlands of some shining coast. O, happy soul, thy mouth at last is singing, Drunken with wine of morning's azure deep, Sing on, my soul, the world beneath thee swinging, ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... to heed the awful cost at which their testimony is given. Moreover, to use a well-known phrase, the game hardly seems worth the candle. The area they influence is so limited, the souls affected so few, the glimmer of their light, like a street-lamp in a fog, hardly reaches across the street or to the ground. Sometimes it appears only to make the darkness denser and thicker. In many cases, the saints of God have burnt down to the last film of vital energy and expired, and there has been no shining ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... glimpse of the kopjes they were to attack, and wondering when the Boers would open fire upon them. They had not long to wait. Towards 4 a.m., when the outlines of the hills began dimly to appear against the first glimmer of dawn, a violent burst of musketry rang out. Each rifle as it flashed against the dark background showed where it had been discharged. The enemy were thus seen to be dotted at irregular intervals in two tiers on the skyline and the upper slopes of ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... were, the two boys offered no resistance, and they soon found themselves in complete darkness, save for a faint glimmer of light that came through a little port-hole ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... look! for all the world like a drowned rat. Can't you dry those weeping eyes and speak to a fellow for a few minutes? It is dreadful being treated to a regular shower-bath in this cold weather," and Dick tried to conjure up the faintest glimmer of a ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... Onward moved the chosen and ill-fated band, making the earth tremble under the heavy and monotonous tread of the dense mass of thousands of men. Wagner lay black and grim in the distance, and silent. Not a glimmer of light was seen. Not a gun replied to the bombs which our mortars still constantly hurled into the fort. Not a shot was returned to the terrific volleys of the giant frigate Ironsides, whose shells, ever and ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... now. Below him, Jan could see the pale glimmer of ice and snow, where in summer there was a small lake. Desperately the caribou made an effort to reach this lake. The wolves drew in. The moon-shape of their bodies shrunk until it was nearer a circle. From the plain side the leading ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... even the milky scent of the full-uddered cows gave him keen enjoyment. The cows were going home from pasture, up shady barn-lanes, into the grayer shadows about the houses on either side of the road, in whose windows lights were beginning to glimmer. Solid old homesteads they were, stone or brick, never wood. Out in these Western settlements, a hundred years ago, they built durable homes, curiously enough, more than in the Northern States; planted oaks about them, that bore the strength of the earth up to heaven in sturdy arms, shaming the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... followed her. She glided through several winding rooms, and at length he lost sight of her, and the light gradually fading away, he was involved in deep darkness.—He groped along, and at length saw a faint distant glimmer, the course of which he pursued, until he came into a large room, hung with black tapestry, and illuminated by a number of bright tapers. On one side of the room appeared a hearse, on which some person was laid: he went up to it—the first object that ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... crew began to man the capstan-bars. I might have been twice as weary, yet I would not have left the deck; all was so new and interesting to me—the brief commands, the shrill note of the whistle, the men bustling to their places in the glimmer of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson |
