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Darken   /dˈɑrkən/   Listen
Darken

verb
(past & past part. darkened; pres. part. darkening)
1.
Become dark or darker.
2.
Tarnish or stain.
3.
Make dark or darker.



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"Darken" Quotes from Famous Books



... I gave her distinctly to understand that at my death, Prince would inherit every iota of my estate, and that my will had cut them off without a cent. I meant it then, I mean it now. I swear that lowborn fiddler's brood shall never darken these doors; but somehow, I am unable to get rid of the strange, disagreeable sensation the girl left behind her, as a farewell legacy. She stood there at that glass door, and raised her hand like a prophetess. 'General Darrington, when ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... sight of you. But the light suddenly dies on his face, and darkness comes up out of his heart at his sudden glimpse of you. What is the matter? you ask yourself as he scowls past you. What have you done so to darken any man's heart to you? And as you stumble on in the sickening cloud he has left behind him, you suddenly recollect that you were once compelled to vote against that man on a public question: on some question of home franchise, or foreign war, or ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... melancholy fate. I never remember a countenance more expressive of intellectual refinement; but there was a look of strange and feverish restlessness in his large grey eye, almost ominous of his future career. He was still young, though he had already gone through vicissitudes enough to darken the longest life. He had been, a few years before, called to the bar, the favourite profession of the Irish gentry, where he had exhibited talents of a remarkable order; but an impatience of the slow ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... a silver knife, so as not to stain or darken the product. The quickest and easiest way to peel peaches is to drop them into boiling water for a few minutes. Have a deep kettle a little more than half full of boiling water; fill a wire basket with peaches; put a long-handled spoon ...
— Canned Fruit, Preserves, and Jellies: Household Methods of Preparation - U.S. Department of Agriculture Farmers' Bulletin No. 203 • Maria Parloa

... Wednesday, July 6th, commenced one of those eras in the world's history in which private life would vainly boast that it overrules Life Public. How many private lives does such a terrible time influence, absorb, darken with sorrow, ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... yellow skin of death, You dream yourselves discoverers of the skull That old memento mori of our faith; Lest it be you who hunt a flying wraith Through this dissolving stuff of hill and cloud; Lest it be you, who, at the last, annul Your covenant with your kind; Lest it be you who darken heart and mind, Sell the strong soul in bondage to a dream, And fetter us once more to things ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes

... always ready to think that people mean to insult us or injure us, and makes us moody, dark, peevish, always thinking about ourselves, and our plans, or our own pleasures, shut up as it were within ourselves—all these sins, in proportion as anyone gives way to them, darken the eyes of a man's soul. They really and actually make him more stupid, less able to understand his neighbours' hearts and minds, less able to take a reasonable view of any matter or question whatsoever. You may not believe me. But so it is. I know ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley

... upon the three, and all was still save that Eva trembled greatly. But ere long Bove Derg spake. Fierce and angry did he look, as, high above his foster-daughter, he held his magic wand. Awful was his voice as he pronounced her doom. 'Wretched woman, henceforth shalt thou no longer darken this fair earth, but as a demon of the air shalt thou dwell in misery till the end of time.' And of a sudden from out her shoulders grew black, shadowy wings, and, with a piercing scream, she swirled ...
— Celtic Tales - Told to the Children • Louey Chisholm

... studying the chief's face anxiously. As she looked, Leif's gaze suddenly met hers, and she had the discomfort of seeing a recollection of their last encounter waken in his eyes. Yet they did not darken to the blackness that had lowered from them at the cliff. They took on more of an expression of quiet sarcasm. Turning where the Norman stood, a silent witness of the scene, ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... darken such a truth; no sophism can confute this clear principle. This is a certainty, if there be none other. This is the basis of all science. It is in vain to ask for a proof of that which is self-evident and irresistible. I exist. The consciousness of my existence ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... human heart as with a beautiful flower, to be tossed aside when its first fragrance was gone. She apparently knew neither the virtue, nor the honor, nor the purity, nor the truth of which she had so exquisite a perception in the realm of the imagination. Or were some of the episodes which darken the story of her life simply the myths of a gossiping age, born of the incidents of an idle tale, to live forever ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason

... of his saints, whom yet a natural desire to save themselves from the flame might, peradventure, cause to join with the pagans in external customs, too far using the same as a cloak to conceal themselves in, and a mist to darken the eyes of infidels withal; for remedy hereof, it might be, those laws were provided." Ans. 1. This answer is altogether doubtful and conjectural, made up of if, and peradventure, and it might be. Neither is anything found which can ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... Lord, When the black night draws down upon my soul, And voices of temptation darken down The misty wind, slamming thy starry doors, With bitter jests. 'Thou fool!' they seem to say 'Thou hast no seed of goodness in thee; all Thy nature hath been stung right through and through. Thy sin hath blasted thee, and made thee ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... we would be strolling together among roses, under cloudless skies, nothing to darken my joy. Then I would see you wounded, the soldiers of the governor gathered around you and laughing at my horror and grief. I would awake and vow not to betray you, and then I would see my father's face, pale and haggard, and my dead mother's ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens

... sympathy and antipathy, the law of the universe? Philosophers, when they gave mechanical explanations of natural phenomena, came no nearer to the real solution of them. The mysterious 'Why?' remained untouched.... All their analyses could only darken with big words the plain fact that the water hated the oil with which it refused to mix, the lime loved the acid which it eagerly received into itself, and, like a lover, grew warm with the rapture of affection. Why not? What right had we ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... churches of other denominations must rest on the spirit of Christ calling us together. It cannot come from any other source. Popularity, self aggrandizement, aught that can darken in any degree our spirituality, must be set aside. Only what feeds and fills the sentiment with unworldliness, can give peace and ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy

... you, but all this had taken us a good many hours; and so baked were we by the heat down below, and parched by thirst, that it was as much as I could do to persuade the men to wait until nightfall. At last we saw the light in the cut fade and darken. Again the men wanted to be at work, but I pointed out that if we waited till the crew had laid down on the deck, we might carry it through without losing a life, but if they were all awake, some of them would be sure to come at us with their weapons, and, unarmed as we were, might do ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty

... dreadful thing happened. Pandora, her hands and face wet with dew, suddenly saw the daylight darken at the entrance of her foxglove cave. Then a black-winged monster, with hundreds and hundreds of eyes, came quickly towards her on its six legs. Pandora was very frightened, and squeezed herself close to the back of her cave. The fly moved on, and quickly picked up the ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit

... whom he was at the time having a seance, vehemently asserted that no member of the 'Seybert Commission' should ever have a seance with her, that the whole Commission, one and all, were 'old scoundrels and should never darken her doors,' etc., etc., and confessed that the foundation of her belief was the warning (sent to her by an eminent Medium whose seances the Commission had attended) that she should have nothing to do with 'the Seybert men, that they would do her no good.' Even in instances where ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission

... run outwards and become lighter as it approaches the axis. It will be found that during this process the brush will occasionally require washing in water, because from continuous contact with the dark streak the tint it contains will darken. When the first coat has been laid and spread or drawn out from end to end of the piece, the process may be repeated two or three times, the most even results being obtained by making the first dark streak not too dark, and going ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose

... before had throbbed with great and generous impulse, now still forever. On the face of the dead there rested a triumphant smile, which the last agony had not overcast; a light of unfailing hope, that the shadows of the grave could not darken. ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... Cephas, in a hoarse voice—"get out of here! Get out of this house, an' don't you ever darse darken these doors again while the Lord Almighty reigns!" The old man was almost inarticulate; he waved his arms, wagged his head, and stamped; he looked like a white ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... property of epistolary style is perspicuity, and is oftentimes by affectation of some wit ill angled for, or ostentation of some hidden terms of art. Few words they darken speech, and so do too many; as well too much light hurteth the eyes, as too little; and a long bill of chancery confounds the understanding as much as the shortest note; therefore, let not your letters be penned like English statutes, and this is obtained. These ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson

... place in the attic contracted, and, as I perceived, considerable of an arsenal. He said that for better vantage it had been his resting place for several months, as his life had been threatened by the "Ku Klux," that band of midnight assassins whose deeds of blood and carnage darken so many pages of our national history, and was the constant terror of white and black adherents to the national Government's policy of enfranchisement. He was hopeful of better conditions in Florida, and introduced me to Governor Hart. Both urged me to locate in the ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... The seas are sown with the dead, With never a hand of a priest to assoil A soul that in sin hath fled. I have gold: I dread the danger by night; I have none: I repine and fret; I have children: they darken the pale sunlight; I have none: I'm in nature's debt. The young lack wisdom; the old lack life; I have brains; but I shake at the knees; Alas! who could covet a scene of strife? Give me peace ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... begun to darken up and look like rain; the heat lightning was squirting around low down in the sky, and the leaves was beginning to shiver—it was going to be pretty ugly, it was easy to see that. So the duke and the king went to overhauling our wigwam, to see what the beds was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... those regions that are inaccessible to man, but to show that what has been wrote by naturalists, upon this subject, has only a tendency to corrupt science, by admitting the grossest supposition in place of just principle or truth, and to darken natural history by introducing an ill conceived theory in place of ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton

... merit of that building, to find himself restrained by my injunctions not to depart from his model. In one instance, only, he persuaded me to admit of this. That was, to make the portico two columns deep only, instead of three, as the original is. His reason was, that this latter depth would too much darken the apartments. Economy might be added, as a second reason. I consented to it, to satisfy him, and the plans are so drawn. I knew that it would still be easy to execute the building with a depth of three columns, and it is what I would certainly recommend. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters, and darken our land. ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin

... or The Guarded Secret (1807), by Miss Smith, deserts her real father—a worthy farmer—to look for more aristocratic parents. As he is not picturesque enough for a villain, she repudiates him with scorn: "Have you the gaunt ferocity of famine in your countenance? Can you darken the midnight with a scowl? Have you the quivering lip and the Schedoniac contour? In a word, are you a picturesque villain full of plot and horror and magnificent wickedness? Ah! no, sir, you are only a sleek, good-humoured, chuckle-headed, old ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead

... that she used to be one of the maids there, before she married the spice-monger and was Madame Robard. Years before she went to live there, when the old Monsieur Ciseaux died, there was a dreadful quarrel about some money. The son that got the property told his brother and sister never to darken ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston

... breath began to labour slightly; the sweat to darken his rich brown coat, and the white foam to fleck his broad chest. Still Jake pressed him on with relentless fury. It could not be expected that a man who cared not for his fellows would have much consideration for his beast. Murder of a deeper dye than that ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne

... dusk began to darken to night, They would hie along in the fading light, With elf-locked hair and scarlet lips, And small stone knives to slit the skeps, So softly not a bee inside Should hear the woven straw divide: And then with sly and greedy thumbs Would rifle ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare

... dining-room, with Mother at her side and Joyce opposite to her, Joan fell to her food in her customary workmanlike fashion, and between helpings answered questions in a fashion which only served to darken the mystery ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... you're the unnatural wicked woman to go do such a thing, if you was twyste as cracked and crazy itself. Git along out of this, yourself and your ould cart, afore the polis comes after you. Och the misfort'nit little crathurs. And don't be offerin' to darken our doors agin wid the ojis sight ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane

... misfortunes of this character; and one of them seems to a good deal better than the other. Between the boy who ignored the withered leg and the crutch, and the proud poet who permitted a slight personal deformity to darken his whole life, there is a distance like that ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb

... Why should I rise To front the level eyes of men's contempt? Oh, I am shamed! Cover my head, Annicca; Darken mine eyes, and veil my face. Oh, God, Would that I were a nameless, obscure man, So could I bury with me my disgrace, That now must be immortal. Where thou standest, Annicca, there she stood last night. She kissed me; Round mine old neck she wreathed her soft, young ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... received from The Hague inflamed her love, so that it was a pain to her. A prey to consuming visions, she was pining away. When she saw her absent friend too clearly her temples throbbed, her heart beat violently, and a dense increasing shadow would darken her mind. All the sensibility of her nerves, all the warmth of her blood, all the forces of her being flowed through her, sinking downwards, merging themselves in desire in the very depths of her flesh. ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France

... The shadows darken and passion stirs up my sickness amain, And longing rouses within me the old desireful pain. The anguish of parting hath taken its sojourn in my breast, And love and longing and sorrow have maddened heart ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous

... his form darken the gray square of the doorway, and he came in and swung to the door after him; then his hand sought my shoulder, and I heard a clank of arms ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler

... of the sleepers, Veil you, O fire of the moon. Darken, you silver of stars, Sleep, for ...
— The Rose of Dawn - A Tale of the South Sea • Helen Hay

... year, 1761, the scene begins to darken, and from the beginning of the next year onward Sterne's life was little better than a truceless struggle with the disease to which he was destined, prematurely, to succumb. The wretched constitution which, in common with his short-lived brothers and sisters, he had inherited probably from his father, ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill

... the drawing-room. The blinds were partly drawn to darken the room, and Mrs. Strickland was sitting with her back to the light. Her brother-in-law, Colonel MacAndrew, stood in front of the fireplace, warming his back at an unlit fire. To myself my entrance seemed excessively ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham

... worth while to "darken counsel with words" as to methods, when it is evident that the purpose is, not to form any union which would be other than humiliating to a colored man, and contrary to the heretofore held principles of ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 9, September, 1889 • Various

... yes, dear. Thank you for saying that. Now don't you want me to sing to you? I'll darken your room and set the door ajar, and then I'll go to the parlor and play soft, rippling, silvery things, and sing to you, and you will fall asleep while I'm singing, and have a lovely nap before they ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various

... they sprang upon the wing Innumerable. As when the potent rod Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day, Waved round the coast, up call'd a pitchy cloud Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung Like night, and darken'd all the realm of Nile, So numberless were they. * * * * All in a moment through the gloom were seen Ten thousand banners rise into the air, With orient colours waving. With them rose A forest huge of spears; and thronging helms Appear'd, and serried shields, in thick ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... is come they entertain it with the most profound Show of Reverence and Religion, both in their Streets and in their Churches. In the last, particularly, they have contriv'd about twelve a-Clock suddenly to darken them, so as to render them quite gloomy. This they do to intimate the Eclipse of the Sun, which at that time happen'd. And to signify the Rending of the Vail of the Temple, you are struck with a strange artificial Noise ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe

... less fond, must now thy corn and bed prepare, Thy silky mane, I braided once, must be another's care! The morning sun shall dawn again, but never more with thee Shall I gallop through the desert paths, where we were wont to be; Evening shall darken on the earth, and o'er the sandy plain Some other steed, with slower step, shall bear ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... come a long way expressly to see me. I acknowledged the honour, and deeply regretted that I had only words to pay for it, he himself having received my last Tobe. 'However,' I continued, seeing the old man's brow darken, 'I will endeavour to borrow one from the Caffilah people.' Deeni brought me one, which was rejected as inferior. I then said, 'You see my dress—that cloth is better than what I wear—but here; take my turban.' This had the ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... man is mad," reflected the poet; "he lives in his own bright world, sufficient to himself. May Zeus never send storms to darken it! For to bear disaster his soul ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... lawyer rose to his feet, a sickly, deferential smile playing along his straight lips. Young aristocrats of Harry's blood and breeding did not often darken Pawson's door, and he was extremely anxious that his guest should in some way be made aware of his appreciation of that fact. St. George did not move, nor did he take any other notice of the boy's appearance than to fasten his eyes upon him for a moment in recognition ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... son of a certain father. In the selection of names, those which had the word "penny" in them proved to be very popular. To keep a coin in the little home bank, without spending it, long enough for it to gather mould, which it did easily in the damp climate of Holland, that is, to darken and get a crust on it, was considered a great virtue in the owner. This showed that the owner had a strong mind and power of self-control. So the name "Schimmelpennig," or "mouldy penny," became honorable, because such people were wise and often kind and good. They did not ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis

... just that which prevents all our portraits being distinctly seen upon that wall. They all ARE painted there by reflection from our faces, but because ALL of them are painted on each spot, and each on the same surface, and many other objects at the same time, no one is seen as a picture. But darken a chamber and let a single pencil of rays in through a key-hole, then you have a picture on the wall. We never fall in love with a woman in distinction from women, until we can get an image of her through a pin-hole; and then ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... paper rapidly acquires a violet-purple color, which deepens after a few minutes, as it dries, to almost absolute blackness. In this state it is a positive photographic paper of high sensibility, and gives pictures of great depth and sharpness, but with this peculiarity, that they darken again spontaneously on exposure to the air in darkness, and are soon obliterated. The paper, however, remains susceptible to light, and capable of receiving other pictures, which in their turn fade, without any possibility ...
— Photographic Reproduction Processes • P.C. Duchochois

... fill up but a few moments in human life. On too frequent a repetition, those pleasures turn to satiety and disgust; they tear the constitution to which they are applied in excess, and, like the lightning of night, only serve to darken the gloom through which they occasionally break. Happiness is not that state of repose, or that imaginary freedom from care, which at a distance is so frequent an object of desire, but with its approach brings a tedium, or a languor, more unsupportable than pain itself. ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.

... throng; when suddenly down to the waves he ran, And caught in greedy hooked claws a goodly-bodied swan: 250 Uprose the hearts of Italy, for all the fowl cry out, And, wonderful for eyes to see, from fleeing turn about, Darken the air with cloud of wings, and fall upon the foe; Till he, oppressed by might of them and by his prey held low, Gives way, and casts the quarry down from out his hooked claws Into the river, and aback to inner ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil

... she said she wouldn't; and then he warned her not to defy him, warned her very solemnly, and then commanded her again. He then said that if she would not obey him in this course she should "never darken his doors again," and was, indeed, frightfully abusive. This threat terrified Ann Veronica so much that she declared with sobs and vehemence that she would never come home again, and for a time both talked at once and very wildly. He ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells

... that you left last time with some energetically expressed resolutions never to darken our ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr

... retreat have found! Hark! their tramp is in the valley, And they hem the forest round! The burthened boughs with pale scouts quiver, The echoing hills tumultuous ring, While, across the eddying river, Their barks, like foaming war-steeds, spring, The bloodhounds darken land and water, They come—like buffaloes for slaughter.—G. ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis

... said Richard, turning round and fully facing him; "I would rather perish an innocent man by the hands of the Provost Marshal, than darken my soul with thy counsels of blood. O Simon! What thy purpose may be I know not; but canst thou deem it faithfulness to our father, saint as he was, to live this dark wild life, so utterly abhorrent ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... I darken your doors and your windows, And if you are deaf, dumb, or blind, You may know I am always quite ready, Your duds or ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller

... invited the assault," she replied, smiling. "But I trust, Mr. Wayne, that the cloud which is gathering above our country will not darken the sunshine of your visit at Riverside manor. It is unfortunate that you should have come at an unpropitious moment, when we cannot promise you that perhaps there will not be some cold looks here and there among the townsfolk, to give you a false ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood

... had not been for the rum shrub, and whisky-toddy, and the hogsheads of claret which found their way into his cellar, and thence into his own and his guests' insides, he would have been happy and prosperous, with few cares to darken his doors. But the liquor, however good in itself, proved a treacherous friend, as it served him a scurvy trick in return for the affection he had shown to it, leaving him a martyr to the gout, which, ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... he can, what he has honourably got; but if go it must, let it go rather than attempt to save it at the cost of moral integrity. Let him say: "Empty my purse if need be, but fill my soul; take my world, but spare my life; darken my circumstances, but keep bright my spiritual outlook." And what are the slights and neglect of a passing and superficial world to a man whose life is in tune with the Infinite, who hears in secret what one day ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd

... which had shaken them from their cradle. Still the trouble was more in apprehension than in reality. As yet it had not caused the sufferers to change any one of the domestic habits which had grown second nature to them. It had not induced them to darken the sunny sky over their young daughters' heads with a shadow of the clouds which were already looming black on the parents' horizon. It may be said at once, that Dr. and Mrs. Millar, though they were reckoned clever, sensible people enough by their contemporaries, had softer hearts than they ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler

... the player, I should have drawn a portrait very unlike the real person and character of George Dennison. Without all doubt, the greatest advantage acquired in travelling and perusing mankind in the original, is that of dispelling those shameful clouds that darken the faculties of the mind, preventing it from judging with candour ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... said that she would look for me. She could go to his room, and run little risk. But if he had caught me there he would have killed me! Indeed he would!" Louis repeated desperately, as he read the storm-signs that began to darken the Syndic's face. ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... presence had to be studied and interpreted by Livia. Why did it darken? The demurest of fuliginous intriguers argued that Brail stone was but doing the spiriting required of him, and would have to pay the penalty unrewarded, let him Italianize as much as he pleased. Not many months longer, and there would ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... darken Kate's bright hopes, ill-founded though he thought them. To look into those sparkling eyes again was a joy of which he would not deprive himself, ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton

... earth gives thanks if heaven illume His soul forefelt a shadow of doom, His heart foreknew a gloomier gloom Than closes all men's equal ways, Albeit the spirit of life's light spring With pride of heart upheld him, king And lord of hours like snakes that sting And nights that darken days. ...
— The Tale of Balen • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... pearls that gleam in the billow, But darken the gloom of the deep— And laughter plants the pillow With thorns, where sorrow ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich

... went back and Jason put his head into the big house, St. Hilda saw his face darken, for in there boys were washing dishes and ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.

... numbers at the doors and windows, whom we cannot get at from here. Steal quietly downstairs, and take your position each at a window. Then, when the signal is given, fire both your revolvers. Don't throw away a shot. Darken all the rooms except the kitchen. You will see better to take aim through the loopholes; it will be quite light outside. When you have emptied your revolvers, come straight up here, leaving them for the girls to load ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty

... occurred in the eyes and hair at this period, the hair becoming darker, though the eyes sometimes become lighter. Ammon, in his investigation of conscripts at the age of 20 (post, p. 196), discovered the significant fact that the eyes and hair darken pari passu with sexual development. In women, during menstruation, there is a general tendency to pigmentation; this is especially obvious around the eyes, and in some cases black rings of true pigment form in this ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... the mathematical, Her noblest virtue was her magnanimity, Her wit (she sometimes tried at wit) was Attic all, Her serious sayings darken'd to sublimity; In short, in all things she was fairly what I call A prodigy—her morning dress was dimity, Her evening silk, or, in the summer, muslin, And other stuffs, with which I ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... could fail, The sun should darken in the sky, The eternal bloom of Nature pale, And God, and Truth, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various

... anyway? Of course, she knew there were young men with honest doubts who sometimes slid through nowadays, but a mean little silly man like that? How ever did he get in? What a lot of ridiculous things he had said! He was one of those described in the Bible who "darken counsel with words." He was not worth noticing. And yet, what a lot of harm he could do in an unlearned community. Just see how Mrs. Tanner hung upon his words, as though they were law and ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... without an example in story. Far asunder, on separate coasts, the Acadians landed; Scattered were they, like flakes of snow, when the wind from the northeast Strikes aslant through the fogs that darken the Banks of Newfoundland. Friendless, homeless, hopeless, they wandered from city to city, From the cold lakes of the North to sultry Southern savannas,— From the bleak shores of the sea to the lands where the Father ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... To darken a day it is necessay to travel more and to accompany that with that expression and certainly there has come to be more meaning in a piece that is bought than in ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein

... conspire, And, darted downward, set the world on fire; Black rising clouds the thicken'd ether choke, And spiry flames dart through the rolling smoke, With keen vibrations cut the sullen night, And strike the darken'd sky with dreadful light; From heaven's four regions, with immortal force, Angels drive on the wind's impetuous course, T' enrage the flame: It spreads, it soars on high, Swells in the storm, and billows through the sky: Here winding pyramids of fire ascend, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... and hurly-burly past, the ancient proof-reader. He wears a green shade over his eyes and the gas burner is drawn very low to darken the bald and wrinkled contour of his forehead. He is severe in judgment and spells rigidly by the Johnsonian standard. He punctuates by an obdurate and conscientious method, and will have no italics upon any pretext. He will lend you money, ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... poet had been slain upon the threshold of the house of song. Sacred blood had spattered the white robes of a queen dressed for jubilee. Evil unreturned to its doers must darken the sunshine of the famous days. Corinth uttered a cry of lamentation and wrath. 'Where are the ill-doers, the spillers of blood, that we may spill their blood and avenge Ibycus, showing the gods that we are their helpers?' But those robbers and murderers might not ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... the Reds be made out of the Yellows, added together, or laid on in greater or less quantity, nor can the Yellows be made out of the Reds though laid never so thin; and as for the addition of White or Black, they do nothing but either whiten or darken the colours to which they are added, and not at all make them of any other kind of colour: as for instance, Vermilion, by being temper'd with White Lead, does not at all grow more Yellow, but onely there is made a whiter kind of Red. Nor does Yellow Oker, though laid never so thick, produce ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... across them, which, considering their situation, are wonderfully fine. Mounds of stone support the passage in some places; and, in others, it is hewn with incredible labour through the solid rock. Beeches and pines of a hundred feet high, darken the way with their gigantic branches, casting a chill around, and diffusing a woody odour. As we advanced, in the thick shade, amidst the spray of torrents, and heard their loud roar in the chasm beneath, I could scarcely help thinking myself transported to the Grande Chartreuse; ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford

... of those wooden chairs with arms and a high flat leathern back, which one often sees in Rome even now, chiefly in outer reception-halls and ranged in stiff order against the walls. The shutters were drawn near together to keep out the heat and to darken the room a little. She had a lute on her knees, but her hands held a large sheet of music, from which she had been reading over the words of the song before trying it. She did not look up as the door opened and was shut, for she supposed it must be Cucurullo ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... beyond the peril, shall I succumb to the peril? My soul whispers hope, it sweeps exultingly beyond the boding hour, it revels in the future—its own courage is its fittest omen. If I were to perish so suddenly and so soon, the shadow of death would darken over me, and I should feel the icy presentiment of my doom. My soul would express, in sadness and in gloom, its forecast of the dreary Orcus. But it smiles—it ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... city. Fifty years after, he had still an office within a very few yards of the same spot, though all trace of the garden of Theodosia's childhood had long ago disappeared. She was a child of affluence. Not till she had left her father's house did a shadow of misfortune darken its portals. Abundance and elegance surrounded her from her infancy, and whatever advantages in education and training wealth can produce for a child she had in profusion. At the same time her father's vigilant stoicism guarded her from the evils attendant upon a ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... girl put it to bed, and after Pa got mad enough Uncle Ezra told him it was all a joke, and it was his own baby, that we had put in the basket, and then he was madder than ever, and he told Uncle Ezra never to darken his door again. I don't how know he made up with Ma for calling it a dutch baby from the Polack settlement, but anyway, he wheels it around every day, and Ma and Pa have got so they ...
— The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy - Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, No. 2 - 1883 • George W. Peck

... in the world, might shatter the whole fabric of credit upon which our present system of economics rests and put back the orderly progress of social construction for a vast interval of time. One figures great towns red with destruction while giant airships darken the sky, one pictures the crash of mighty ironclads, the bursting of tremendous shells fired from beyond the range of sight into unprotected cities. One thinks of congested ways swarming with desperate fighters, of torrents of fugitives ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells

... clouds obscure the bright colors beneath, and then darken the fierce glow of color, just as is often witnessed in the case of a physical conflagration. Again, we find great flashes of bright yellow, or red, flaring across the field of the aura, showing agitation or the conflict ...
— The Human Aura - Astral Colors and Thought Forms • Swami Panchadasi

... of your grief." Galatea then said, "Acis was the son of Faunus and a Naiad. His father and mother loved him dearly, but their love was not equal to mine. For the beautiful youth attached himself to me alone, and he was just sixteen years old, the down just beginning to darken his cheeks. As much as I sought his society, so much did the cyclops seek mine; and if you ask me whether my love for Acis or my hatred for Polyphemus was the stronger, I cannot tell you; they were in equal measure. Oh, Venus, how great is thy power! This fierce giant, the terror ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR

... scold and become limply unhelpful, he knew, and none the less so because he could not help things. She would say he ought to have worked harder, and a hundred such exasperating pointless things. Such thoughts as these require no aid from undigested cold pork and cold potatoes and pickles to darken the soul, and with these aids his soul was ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... the coach window, she resigned herself to the sweet and gentle emotions, which the hour and the scenery awakened. The sun had now left the earth, and twilight began to darken the mountains; while the distant waters, reflecting the blush that still glowed in the west, appeared like a line of light, skirting the horizon. The low murmur of waves, breaking on the shore, came in the breeze, ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... of a wind-storm in the desert. A loud, rustling noise is heard. Great clouds of fine sand are lifted into the air—clouds which darken the sun! Travelers must at once jump from their camels, cover themselves with their cloaks, and ...
— Home Geography For Primary Grades • C. C. Long

... incidents belonging to the hateful traffic in slaves. Let us hope that the time has at length nearly arrived which has been so long waited for, when we may say with truth, it is abolished; leaving only the memory of it to darken the page of history, and remain ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various

... that now occupy her mind are not of how she may escape from her captivity, but dwelling upon a theme altogether different. She is thinking who will be the next one to darken the door of the hut; fearing it may be neither Shebotha herself, nor yet her slave, but the man who is ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid

... in regard to his having been abandoned by his captain, the heavy expenses incurred to maintain the man, and questioning the validity of the British consul's right to protect him. Under the effect of these representations, the prospect began to darken, and Manuel became more discontented, ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams

... require mutual forgiveness," she replied; "and, in the strife of angry passions, it is not easy to discriminate the criminal from the accuser. But," she added, seeing his brow darken, "you have led me into a subject which can only betray my ignorance; you well know that I am wholly incompetent to judge of your public affairs; and I have never ventured to obtrude upon your private views, ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney

... paul, or ten cents for near half a gallon; "Eccellenza, a million times welcome. This is an honor that don't befall the Santa Maria degli Venti more than once in a century; and you, too, Signor Podesta, once before only have you ever had leisure to darken ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... have that inexplicable unanalyzable quality. These come through the crowd of kindly friendly fellow-men and women—one's own. These touch one mysteriously, stir deeps that must otherwise slumber, pierce and interpret the world. To refuse this interpretation is to refuse the sun, to darken and deaden all life. . . . I loved Nettie, I loved all who were like her, in the measure that they were like her, in voice, or eyes, or form, or smile. And between my wife and me there was no bitterness that the great goddess, the life-giver, Aphrodite, Queen of the ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells

... you, would he not know the secret of the matter?" and so saying he winked and made signs at the Porter. So they questioned the man but he replied, "By the All might of Allah, in love all are alike![FN185] I am the growth of Baghdad, yet never in my born days did I darken these doors till to day and my companying with them was a curious matter." "By Allah," they rejoined, "we took thee for one of them and now we see thou art one like ourselves." Then said the Caliph, "We be seven men, and they ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... "strong passions." If perhaps they have more self-control than the really mad, yet it happens oftener with them that the whole intelligent being falls under the dominion of evil. The passion scarcely less than the obsession may darken the whole moral sky. Repentance and atonement; nothing less will avail them after the storm has passed, and the sedulous preparation of defences and palliatives against the ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells

... not alone within the hoariest clime Where Freedom dates her birth with that of Time, And not alone where, plunged in night, a crowd Of Incas darken to a dubious cloud[eb], The dawn revives: renowned, romantic Spain Holds back the invader from her soil again. Not now the Roman tribe nor Punic horde[ec] 320 Demands her fields as lists to prove the sword; Not now the Vandal or the Visigoth Pollute the plains, alike abhorring both[ed]; ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... no but in the case. But I will leave you now, for I see your milk and water looking gentleman is coming, and I expect, Hannah, it will be the last time his shadow will ever darken ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna

... Phorenice's brow began to darken as the great beast grew more restive, and she shook her red curls viciously. "Some one shall lose a head for this blundering," said she. "I ordered to have this beast trained to stand indifferent to drums, shouting, arrows, stones, and fire, and the trainers assured me that ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... those courts my footsteps turn, For through the mists which darken there, I see the flame of Freedom burn,— The Kebla of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... a new made food For laughter at our misadventure here, Hence it were wise to send this fellow off As if he in the path of duty treads. Nor must we breathe but that his quick return Will fill expectant hearts with honest joy, Thus may we darken ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)

... mournful, holy, Chanted loudly, chanted lowly, Till her blood was frozen slowly, And her eyes were darken'd wholly, Turn'd to tower'd Camelot. For ere she reach'd upon the tide The first house by the water-side, Singing in her song she died, ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty

... not get him in one of his fits, will pay all damages, notwithstanding I placed the reputation of my house in jeopardy with him a few nights since, was forced to call three policemen to eject him, and resolved that he should not again darken ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... doing demean yourself, darken the face of Shan Tien's present regard, and alienate all those who stand around! O most obtuse ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah

... must act—one must act!' and sitting in his chair and doing nothing. Oh, I'm not disrespectful: they were like that in his generation! Besides—it's better to laugh at things, isn't it?" And suddenly his face would darken.... ...
— Coming Home - 1916 • Edith Wharton

... are angry, they talk about their roofs and doors? If you were pleased with Mitchell again, you wouldn't ask him to set foot under your roof—nor to darken the door. You'd ask him to come and see us. Anyhow, he won't feel it so very much—because he'll not notice it. He's never been ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson

... nets and would be doomed to destruction. The enemy boats come out on the surface protected by the batteries and naval craft. But the air cannot be blocked by any fixed defences. Give us more and more powerful aircraft than the Germans possess and we will darken the sky above the German bases with the wings of our airplanes, and rain explosive shells upon the submarines that have taken ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... Ramsey—personified the scene as "Nature in siesta." At the steamer's approach the picture—or, as the daring traveller might have insisted, the basking sleeper—seemed to awaken and in a repletion of smiling content to stir and stretch and every here and there to darken and lighten by turns as though closing and opening upon the intruder a multitude of eyes as unnumbered as those of a human sort that looked on the scene, the sleeper, from ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... why should we seek to anticipate sorrow By throwing the flowers of the present away, And gathering the dark-rolling, cloudy to-morrow To darken ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody

... themselves. It is no doubt encouraging for a soldier who has lost both arms to be told by a kindly and enthusiastic visitor at his bedside that all will be well, and he will be able to manage without them; but a certain measure of scepticism and despair may remain to darken his waking hours. But when a little fellow in precisely the same plight shows him how the disabilities have been conquered, his zest in life begins to return. Seeing is believing, and believing means new endeavour. The result is that the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 9, 1919 • Various

... to darken as the vast, dim pall of leaden-gray cloud overspread it, and cold, raw gusts of wind began to sigh ominously from the northeast. Gramp at length came out where we were wheeling in the last of the stove-wood. "Have you seen the ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... boating in our island waters was the presence of hungry hordes of sharks. You might forget them for a moment and sit happily trailing your fingers overboard, and then a huge moving shadow would darken the water, and you saw the ripple cut by a darting fin and the flash of a livid belly as the monster rolled over, ready for his mouthful. I could not but admire the thoughtfulness of Mr. Tubbs, who since his submergence on the occasion ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... after he had come to her freely—it would be very hard! But to her, too, there had come the revelation that love means sacrifice, and she knew now that she loved her soldier too well to let her shadow darken his bright future, too well to ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... continue it, extend it—yes, do it much better than their fathers were able to. For it is our hope that the rising generation may appropriate the fruits of the work of the age, that they may be freed from the prejudices that have darkened the past and partially darken the present; and, in drinking the health of the young, let us wish that, steadily progressing, they may become worthy of their sires—yes, let us ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland

... Falcon[1] is rare, but the Kestrel[2] is found almost universally; and the bold and daring Goshawk[3] wherever wild crags and precipices afford safe breeding places. In the district of Anarajapoora, where it is trained for hawking, it is usual, in lieu of a hood, to darken its eyes by means of a silken thread passed through holes in the eyelids. The ignoble birds of prey, the Kites[4], keep close by the shore, and hover round the returning boats of the fishermen to feast on the fry rejected from ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... Dodd!" cried the master; and then, as his eye fell on my dilapidated clothing, I thought I could perceive his countenance to darken. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Sherm scrambled out of bed and speedily resumed his ordinary wearing apparel. He was startled to perceive a bulky object suddenly darken their window. It was a peculiar-looking bundle from which coat sleeves and trousers' legs dangled indiscriminately. He had no difficulty in recognizing their missing clothes. He rushed to the window and raised the screen, calling to Ernest excitedly. He half expected to ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... She and her husband moving to the door! Cry, cry! And thou, O land of Pherae, hearken! The bravest of women sinketh, perisheth, Under the green earth, down where the shadows darken, Down to the ...
— Alcestis • Euripides

... mine Is a Song of the Vine, To be sung by the glowing embers Of wayside inns, When the rain begins To darken ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various



Words linked to "Darken" :   dusk, murk, darkening, lighten, tarnish, sully, alter, overcloud, shade, brighten, blind, shade off, bedim, stain, blacken out, maculate, modify, embrown, change, overcast, cloud up, black out, cloud over, dun, defile, cloud, dim, benight, shadow



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