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Brightness   Listen
noun
Brightness  n.  
1.
The quality or state of being bright; splendor; luster; brilliancy; clearness. "A sudden brightness in his face appear."
2.
Acuteness (of the faculties); sharpness 9wit. "The brightness of his parts... distinguished him."
Synonyms: Splendor; luster; radiance; resplendence; brilliancy; effulgence; glory; clearness.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Brightness" Quotes from Famous Books



... long season of depression through which John Yeardley passed, as described in the last chapter, the new year of 1815 dawned with brightness upon his mind. He now at length saw his spiritual bonds loosed; and the extracts which follow describe his first offerings in the ministry in a simple ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley

... the perfect day. In the streets of the faction-torn, plague-stricken, famine-wasted city; by the side of the outraged Baldassarre; in the room of the child-mistress Tessa; most of all in that home whence all other brightness has departed,—she moves and stands more and more ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown

... light and colour. People did not bend to kiss her shadowas of Florence Nightingale: they turned and shaded their eyes to catch the light. Not the sheen of mere wealth, dazzling the sight of their poverty; but the joy and brightness of truth and love, reflected down upon her, ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... was much better to buy a theater than to rent it, because then you escaped the heavy rent. It was specious, but Roland had a dim feeling that there was a flaw somewhere in the reasoning; and it was from this point that a shadow may be said to have fallen upon the brightness of the venture. ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill

... burden of it was that he had a very great deal of which, it might well be, he wasn't worthy. In Fanny, he told himself, as against everything else discoverable, he had the utmost priceless security life could offer. Outside the brightness and warmth and charm of their house the November night was slashed by ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer

... of the unconscious cruelty which belongs to nature itself, whose sunshine never pales at human trouble. Eyes that have never wept cannot comprehend sorrow. Moreover, a lively girl of eighteen, looking at life out of eyes which bewilder others with their brightness, does not always see the world truly, and is sometimes judged to be heartless ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... the righteous had fallen, and the combat was ended, A chariot of fire through the dark cloud descended; Its drivers were angels on horses of whiteness, And its burning wheels turn'd upon axles of brightness. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... down into the bowels of the earth, they sail the seas, they mount the air on wings, and the external world has seen "the son of man coming in clouds of glory" and now the eternal man must have his hour, and come in "trailing robes of power and brightness," to pour new revelation through the external world and ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.

... approval of the sentiment. He, too, had taken quite a fancy to Phil, because of the lad's sunny disposition and natural brightness. ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... is known until her engagement is at an end. Some of these names are so pretty and quaint that I will take a few specimens from the Yoshiwara Saiken, the guidebook upon which this notice is based. "Little Pine," "Little Butterfly," "Brightness of the Flowers," "The Jewel River," "Gold Mountain," "Pearl Harp," "The Stork that lives a Thousand Years," "Village of Flowers," "Sea Beach," "The Little Dragon," "Little Purple," "Silver," "Chrysanthemum," "Waterfall," "White Brightness," ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... brick! He took no notice of us whatever, only kept kissing Percy over and over, till her face, which was white as death, was covered with living crimson, and her heavy-lidded eyes turned to stars for brightness! ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... under conditions which made it difficult for vision to come into play: "The ear, the organ of fear, could only have developed, as it has, in the night and in the twilight of dark woods and caves.... In the brightness the ear is less necessary. Hence the character of music as an art of night and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... morning rose in great brightness, promising a charming day. The forenoon was spent as usual; and after the lessons and work, Mrs. Goodriche furnished the pin-cushions and the housewife, and gave out the two pieces of chintz for the dolls' frocks; and so busy were the old lady and the little girls, that it was time to lay the cloth ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood

... says, in the words of the Angel, "Fear not;" for such is His mercy, while Almighty God has poured about us His glory, yet it is a consolatory glory, for it is the light of His glory in the Face of Jesus Christ[2]. Thus the heavenly herald tempered the too dazzling brightness of the Gospel on that first Christmas. The glory of God at first alarmed the shepherds, so he added the tidings of good, to work in them a more wholesome and happy ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... Instantly the brightness vanished; again the words were a puzzled moan; "I ain't got no father, Mister; I ain't me; nobody can't have ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright

... green luster and seemed to be waving off into the outer shadows. Duane heard no step, saw no movement; nevertheless, there was another present at that camp-fire vigil. Duane saw him. He lay there in the middle of the green brightness, prostrate, motionless, dying. Cal Bain! His features were wonderfully distinct, clearer than any cameo, more sharply outlined than those of any picture. It was a hard face softening at the threshold of eternity. The red tan of sun, the coarse signs of drunkenness, ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey

... as you are for me God's visible representative on earth. I would blame God if He withdrew from us for a day the brightness of the sun, the gorgeousness and perfume of His flowers, for since we children of men are accustomed to enjoy these glories, we have in a certain measure gained a right to them. So I accuse you because you have withdrawn from us the embodied flowers and the incarnate ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach

... nearer, the light at each moment increasing in brightness, there was no longer any uncertainty as to their being seen; for, along with the yells uttered by the occupant of the gig, could be heard the significant speeches of, "Sail ho! Ship ahoy! What ship's that? Heave to, and ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... means are quite ample enough for them to begin upon. There is twenty years difference in their ages, which sounds too much theoretically, but practically, when you see them together, you never think of it. He is very handsome, every inch a soldier, and an Irishman, with all an Irishman's brightness and wit, and altogether the most taking manners. I tell Evadne I am quite in love with him myself! He is a thoroughly good Churchman too, which is a great blessing—never misses a service, and it is ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... time to time put food into his mouth. The telescope completed, the astronomer turned night into day, and from sunset to sunrise, year in and year out, swept the heavens unceasingly, unless prevented by clouds or the brightness of the moon. His sister sat always at his side, recording his observations. They were in the open air, perched high at the mouth of the reflector, and sometimes it was so cold that the ink froze in the bottle in Caroline Herschel's ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... asked him to let her go. They parted at the entry of the wood with Good night, and Lucy flitted back with a pain in her heart like the sound of wailing. But women can wail at heart and show a fair face to the world. Her stretched smile had lost none of its sweetness, her eyes none of their brightness. Vera Nugent watched her narrowly, and led the conversation upstairs. She thought that she detected a pensive note, but assured herself that all was pretty well. "That's a remarkable woman," she ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... contrast to all this warmth, and brightness, and comfort, she could hear the lamentable sighing of the wild November wind, and the groaning of the tortured trees. But it brought no sense of comfort to her, and she sat drearily back while Eunice dressed her for dinner, and stared ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming

... at the first glance, at the first word, that all the tragedy of her position in relation to the man she loved so dearly was no secret to her; that she perhaps already knew everything, positively everything. And yet, in spite of that, there was such brightness in her face, such faith in the future. Alyosha felt at once that he had gravely wronged her in his thoughts. He was conquered and captivated immediately. Besides all this, he noticed at her first words that she was in great excitement, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... which flowing thence again to its divine source, offered worthy homage to the LAMB. A ray of wintry sunlight stole through a curtained window near the altar, and flickered on the silent face of the dead virgin, as she lay an image of heavenly repose. May felt that it was a type of the brightness which would soon crown her; and while a flood of warm and joyful rapture flowed into her soul, she exulted in the thought that she, too, was a member of the household of faith. It was a profitable time to May; for death was suddenly stripped of its thrilling horrors; its gaunt outlines ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey

... my name, with the brightness of fame, To shine upon history's pages; It shall be a gem in the diadem Of the ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... other hearts as mine has been wrung. I would cause blinding tears to dim the brightness of other eyes besides mine. I would cause the stern judge Death to pass a decree of divorce upon others besides myself and Mathias. When Harkaway is a widower, or his wife a widow, then I shall consider my vengeance ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng

... regal one, the great beauty. Her whole manner was subtly charged with a sort of arrogant hauteur; her fairness itself changed, tinged with pride as with an inward fire, until she glowed with a cold, jewel-like brightness, hard and clear. Her very skirts rustled pridefully. Her glance at the man beside her was insulting in its ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... empress was to be converted into a populous and thriving realm. That the journey might proceed by night as well as by day, great piles of wood were prepared at intervals of fifty perches, whose leaping flames gave to the high-road a brightness like that of day. In six days Smolensk was reached, and in twenty days the old Russian capital of Kief, where the procession halted for a season ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... fluttered up and sang in its cage; the fife whistled as gaily as a blackbird, and the little dog danced with a comic clumsiness that made them all double up with laughter. The place was so full of brightness, and of kind and merry hearts, that there was room for nothing else. Not one of them dreamed that the shadow of the law was even then over this useful and ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson

... we were approaching seemed to take all the brightness and beauty out of the scene, which was as lovely as could be. Strange birds flew by us, glorious trees were on every side, some of them covered with flowers, while the brilliant greens of various shades made up for the want of colour in others. Where we ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn

... calling, And Chloe up-snatching, to heaven they soar. O we had a sister on earthly dominions! They sang as through heaven triumphant they stray'd, And bore with flush'd faces and fluttering pinions To God's throne of brightness the yet praying maid. ...
— Targum • George Borrow

... said Biddy, glancing at Nora, whose face did not change a muscle, although the brightness and wistfulness in her eyes were abundantly visible. She was ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade

... Pymeut after another crawled in. They were the men the Boy had seen at the Kachime, with one exception—a vicious-looking old fellow, thin, wiry, with a face like a smoked chimpanzee and eyes of unearthly brightness. He was given the best place by the fire, and held his brown claws over the red coals while the ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... founding of the Negro Republic in the wilds of Africa perished in the fires of civil war. The Negro is free everywhere; but the republic of Liberia stands, and should stand until its light shall have penetrated the gloom of Africa, and until the heathen shall gather to the brightness of its shining. May it stand through the ages as a Christian Republic, as a faithful light-house along the dark and trackless sea of ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... occurred to her. Her face, responsive as a wave to the wind, relaxed. Its sullenness disappeared in sudden brightness—in something like triumph. She raised her eyes. Their tremulous, half whimsical look set Winnington wondering what she could be going to ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... I found to be a stout, portly gentleman, whose years already reached to between sixty and seventy. So many winters, although they had plentifully besprinkled his hair with gray, shone out with ruddy brightness in his still handsome face, and keen, kindly, bright-hazel eyes; and his voice, hearty and ringing, had not as yet one quaver of age in it. I met him at breakfast on the morning after my arrival, and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various

... let our fancies float, and anchor there our yearnings after heaven. It is a glorious thought, such as imagination loves; and a probable thought, that commends itself to reason. Behold the great eye of all our guessed creation, the focus of its brightness, and the ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... Its brightness, mighty divinity! has a fleeting empire over the day, giving gladness to the fields, color to the flowers, the season of the loves, harmonious hour ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... cherished flowers, which commingled together in admirable admixture from all climes under the genial skies of the Antilles. In the evening, the family was gathered together in the light of the moon, which imparted to the nights the brightness of day and streamed upon them her soft blue rays, upon the fragrant terrace, in front of the house, where the faithful slaves carefully watched the little group close one to another and guarded their masters from the approaches ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach

... critic writes: "Nothing could be more brilliant in point of color than the group of seven water-color pictures of a sunny flower-garden by Mrs. Sears. In these works pure and limpid color has been pushed to its extreme capacity, under full daylight conditions, with a splendor of brightness which never crosses the line of crudity, but holds the same relative values as we see in nature, the utmost force of local color courageously set forth and contrasted without apparent artifice, blending into an ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement

... think the better of her in that she had indulged in such a fancy; but in truth his love was sharpened by the opposition which this fancy made. It had seemed to him that his possessing her would give a brightness to his life, and this brightness was not altogether obscured by the idea that she had ever thought that she had loved another person. As a woman she was as lovable as before, though perhaps less admirable. At any rate he wanted her, and now she seemed to be more within his reach than ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope

... mumbled Jorgenson, growing more and more distinct to her eyes. The brightness of the short dawn increased rapidly as if the sun were impatient to look upon the Settlement. "No fear ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... majestic down the thronging skies. Yet, though but once God spoke the world to life, the miracle of creation is still incomplete. New every springtime, fresh every summer, the earth comes forth as a bride adorned for her husband. Not only in the gray dawn of our history, but now in the full brightness of its noon-day, may we hear the voice of the Lord walking in the garden. I look out upon the gray degraded fields left naked of the kindly snow, and inwardly ask: Can these dry bones live again? And while the question ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... even who had emerged from that crowd, did not disdain occasionally to glean from his conversation the rich and varied treasures which he did not fail to squander with the most unsparing prodigality; and some there were who observed the brightness of the infant luminary struggling through the obscurity that clouded its commencement. Among those who had the discrimination to appreciate, and the heart to feel for him, luckily for Curran, was Mr. Arthur Wolfe, afterwards the unfortunate, but respected Lord Kilwarden. ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous

... day. The sun comes to us from the East, as did our holy faith; may we not conclude, that as he passes thence to the West, the beams of the Gospel are meant to follow in his track, and pour their brightness in that ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"

... not lost All her original brightness, nor appeared Less than Archangel ruined, and the excess ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh

... it does not do to read Lever soon after Miss Barlow. Her stories of Lisconnel and its folk have a tragic dignity wholly out of his range. It is a sad-coloured country she writes of, gray and brown; sodden brown with bog water, gray with rock cropping up through the fields; the only brightness is up overhead in the heavens, and even they are often clouded. These sombre hues, with the passing gleam of something above them, reflect themselves in every page of her books. She renders that complete harmony between the people and their surroundings which is only seen in working folk ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn

... 23d of August 1822, aged eighty-three. Good fortune and glory never altered in him the fund of infantine candour, inexhaustible benevolence, and sweetness of character, with which nature had endowed him. He preserved to the last both his brightness of mind and vigour of intellect. For some years Herschel enjoyed with delight the distinguished success of his only son,[16] Sir John Herschel. At his last hour he sunk to rest with the pleasing conviction that his beloved son, heir of a great name, would not allow it to fall into oblivion, ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... the feud from the point of view of youth. The play of King Lear shows it from the point of view of age. This play of youth is as lovely and as feverish as love itself. Youth is bright and beautiful, like the animals. Age is too tired to care for brightness, too cold to care for beauty. The bright, beautiful creatures dash themselves to pieces against the bars of age's forging, against law, custom, duty, and those inventions of cold blood which youth thinks cold and age knows ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield

... minutes, looking thoughtfully out of the window. Notwithstanding the fresh colour, which he seldom lost, and the trim perfection of his dress, I could see at once that there was a change in him. The lines about his mouth were deeper, his eyes had lost much of their keen brightness. I found myself wondering whether, after all, some suspicion of Lord Blenavon's doings had found its way ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... with the desire of admiration, sometimes gave to his character a lustre resembling the lustre of true goodness,—as the "faded splendour wan" which lingered round the fallen archangel resembled the exceeding brightness of those spirits who had ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... malicious fun, would have been downright beautiful; her eyes, of the deepest blue, and shaded by long lashes, instead of indulging the character of pensive and thoughtful beauty for which Nature destined them, sparkled with a most animated brightness; her nose, which, rather short, was still beautifully proportioned, gave, with her well-curled upper lip, a look of sauciness to the features quite bewitching; her hair—that brilliant auburn we see in a Carlo Dolci—fell in wild and massive curls upon her shoulders. Her costume was ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... the mistake of over-illuminating the lamps. The lamp should not be over-illuminated to the dazzling whiteness usually used in flash lights. Excessive illumination alters the proper perception of the coloring of the mucosa, besides shortening the life of the lamps. The proper degree of brightness is obtained when, as the current is increased, the first change from yellow to white light is obtained. Never turn up the rheostat without watching ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson

... and golden in the sunlight, Gray and silver in the moonlight, Beautiful to see. Giving back each star its brightness, Giving back each cloud its ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards

... the hospital and seen the butt-ends of human beings lying there almost unrecognisable, but still breathing, still thinking, still remembering; you would have understood that life in the lazaretto is an ordeal from which the nerves of a man's spirit shrink, even as his eye quails under the brightness of the sun; you would have felt it was (even to-day) a pitiful place to visit and a hell to dwell in. It is not the fear of possible infection. That seems a little thing when compared with the pain, the pity, and the disgust of the visitor's surroundings, and the atmosphere of ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the stars of heaven, glow under every hedge and gem every bank, so that though the Lake Allumette is as lovely as Lough Erne, yet the banks that sit round Lough Erne are more lovely by far than the borders of Lake Allumette. They are as fair as any spot under heaven in their brightness of green. ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall

... withered member of the palm tribe, or a faded orange-tree; everywhere and in everything an air of dilapidation and decay; faded curtains, that had once been fine, flapping in the open windows; Venetian shutters going to ruin; and the only glimpse of brightness or domestic comfort confined to the humble parlour of the portress, who kept watch and ward over one of the dismal mansions, and who had a birdcage hanging in her window, an Angora cat sunning itself on the stone sill, ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... brightness of the island in the lagoon. The green leafage of the shrubbery was suffused in tender light; the waters reflected calmly all their drapery, but none of the savage desolation of the pyre in the Court of Honor. Beyond where the gracious ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... moments when the remembrance of her last meeting with Louis came like a summer cloud over the ineffable brightness of her sky, and she felt a sharp pang at her heart; still, she thought, it was different with Louis. His feeling for her could not be so strong as to make him suffer poignantly over her refusal. She was almost convinced that he had asked her more from a ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf

... a cold winter morning. Snow covered the ground. The frost on the trees sparkled in the bright sunlight like ten thousand diamonds. But the brightness outside seemed to find no reflection in me. I had been confined to my bed for more than six months. I was gloomy and despondent. It seemed as though all the light and joy had gone out of my life and that only pain and suffering and sorrow ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor

... characteristic of his mind peculiarly adapted him. It is idle now to speculate upon what he might have been had Washington yielded to the importunities of Madison, Monroe, and others, and appointed him minister to the French republic. Our country, before which he then stood in the original brightness of his character, would have been honoured in the choice, both at home and abroad, and his own destiny, at least, would have been ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... likely to attract. In fact they are the only colors that the inexperienced may see, for many a person is blind to the subdued tints and shades that are really the most attractive to the trained eye. Good coloring, then, does not mean brightness alone. It is the relationship, the qualities and the suitableness of colors one to another, whether they be in shadow, half-tint or light, that constitute good coloring. Brilliant dresses and inharmonious ornaments strike the refined eye with ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... swept trumpeting through me, and a calm, intense, ineffable joy followed in their train. I had a glimpse.... And my eyes were not dazzled. I yearned and strained towards what I saw, towards the exceeding brightness of undreamt companionships, hopes, perceptions, activities, and sorrows. Yes, sorrows! But what noble sorrows they were that I felt awaited me there! I strained at my mysterious bonds. It seemed ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett

... elevated above it, and is attained by several marble steps, whence it must have been glorious in former days to have looked down upon a gorgeous throng of princes, cardinals, warriors, and ladies, in such rich attire as might be worn when the palace was built. It is singular how much freshness and brightness it still retains; and the only objects to mar the effect were some ancient statues and busts, not very good in themselves, and now made dreary of aspect by their corroded surfaces,—the result of long burial ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... roof. He was one of the kind that does not spin webs, but catches its prey by stealing up and pouncing upon it. He knew that a little bat, when young enough, was no stronger than a big butterfly, and its blood would be quite good enough to suck. Stealthily he crept down into the brightness of that narrow ray, wondering whether the youngster was too big for him to tackle or not. He made up his mind to have a go at it. In fact, he was just gathering his immense, hairy legs beneath him for that ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts

... looked up the passage; and it is a wonderful one. Dante heard wailings and groans and terrible things said in many tongues. Yet these were not the souls of the wicked. They were only those "who had lived without praise or blame, thinking of nothing but themselves." "Heaven would not dull its brightness with those, nor would ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson

... the world's history of great minds debased and ruined by alcohol! Look back and around you at the lives of the brightest literary geniuses and see how many are under the spell of this Circe's baleful power! Think of the rich intelligences whose brightness has prematurely faded and died away in the darkness of alcoholic night! What hopes has alcohol destroyed! What resolves it has broken! What promises it has blighted! Think of any or of all these things, and hasten to say with Dr. Johnson that ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson

... eye and furnish on a few acres a perfect epitome of a woodland scene. The whole place is girt round by a zone of tall pine, beech, maple and red oaks, whose deep green foliage, when lit up by the rays of the setting or rising sun, assume tints of most dazzling brightness,—emerald wreaths dipped into molten gold-overhanging under a leafy arcade, a rustic walk, which zigzags round the property, following to the southwest the many windings of the Belle Borne streamlet. This sylvan region most congenial to the ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... in the wheatfields, and of a very glorious crimson. In among the grasses was yellow coltsfoot; among the pebbles were sowthistle, mignonette, pink bindweed, and great patches of storksbill. Many noted the beauty of these flowers, a scene so un-Mesopotamian in its brightness. We were tasting of the joy and life of springtide in happier latitudes, a wine long praetermitted to our lips; and among us were those who would not drink of this wine again till they drank it new in their Father's Kingdom. After Beled we saw no ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson

... going to ruin faster than I am," or "I was built by a Lombardo," or "I by Sansovino," and the violent light is ever there to bear witness of the truth of what each says. Within, without, in hall and church and gallery, there is perpetual brightness and perpetual silence. But at the evening hour, now, as in old times, a spirit takes Venice and folds it in loving arms, whispering words that are not even ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford

... myrtles and to roses; filling the eye with awful pomp, and gratifying the mind with endless diversity. Other poets display cabinets of precious rarities, minutely finished, wrought into shape, and polished into brightness. Shakespeare opens a mine which contains gold and diamonds in unexhaustible plenty, though clouded by incrustations, debased by impurities, and mingled with a ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... was a great rarity. We came upon the Mississippi at Galena in Illinois, so called on account of its lead mines. When I say mines, I use an expression which was quite inappropriate at the time of my visit, for the galena, or lead-ore, lay on the surface of the soil. You saw its metallic brightness shining out everywhere, and so rich was the ore, that it yielded seventy-five per cent. of lead, even under the most summary of processes. Added to this fact, the expense of transport being infinitesimal, as the huge artery of the Mississippi River ran a few paces ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville

... From the rift of the flinty rock, cloven asunder, A dark-watered fountain ebullient rose. Inly elastic, with airiest lightness It leapt, till it cheated the eyesight; and, lo! It showed in the sun, with a various brightness, The fine-woven hues of the heavenly bow. "WATER IS BEST!" cried the mighty, broad-breasted Poseidon; "O Cecrops, I offer to thee To ride on the back of the steeds foamy-crested That toss their wild manes on the huge-heaving sea. The globe thou shalt mete ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... out of the pure waters, be thy offences washed away! Be thou relieved from other births! Bear thou in thy bosom the brightness of that light which shall lead thee, even as it led the sublime Buddha, to Niphan, ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... all," continued Philippa, without heeding Isabella's words. "We shall be married and go straight abroad. It would not be good for him to be in England for the winter. He needs brightness and warmth and sunshine, and I shall take him to some quiet place where he can have them—where there is no one he has ever known before, to disturb him, or make him worry because ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay

... for a true blue Presbyterian 'experience,' we learn that Wodrow's own wedded wife had a pious vision, 'a glorious, inexpressible brightness'. The thought which came presently was, 'This perhaps may be Satan, transforming himself into an angel of light'. 'It mout or it moutn't.' In 1729, Wodrow heard of the ghost of the Laird of Coul, which used to ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang

... Noon as usual on Wednesdays; the two men of war in their places in full uniform, which looked a little creased as if they had slept in it. The eye that has sternly reviewed the Warwickshire Yeomanry Cavalry, lacks something of its wonted brightness; whilst ROYDEN's black velvet suit sets off the added pallor of a countenance that tells of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various

... invest in Patent Rights invariably do so at a time when their imagination is aroused to a point where all is sunshine and brightness. ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston

... and crystal nullahs gently roll'd o'er rocky bed, Flower-decked hills in dewy brightness towering ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous

... Browne, our "Artemus Ward," had the premonitory signs of a short life strongly evident in his early manhood. There were the lank form, the long pale fingers, the very white pearly teeth, the thin, fine, soft hair, the undue brightness of the eyes, the excitable and even irritable disposition, the capricious appetite, and the alternately jubilant and despondent tone of mind which too frequently indicate that "the abhorred fury with the shears" is waiting too near at hand to "slit ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne

... I not hold My peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley

... tall and wild-looking in the moonlight. His hideous clothes, stained with mud and the green slime of his hiding-places, hung upon him in tatters, and his eyes, deep-sunken in his pallid face, gleamed with an unnatural brightness as he glanced swiftly about him—a miserable, hunted creature, worn by fatigue, and pinched with want ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol

... completed Peter and his father made a clandestine trip to the tannery and admitting themselves, crept up-stairs where Mr. Coddington unlocked the door of the "forbidden chamber." The whole room glowed with sunshine which flooded the polished floors and reflected its brightness in the shiny ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett

... elastic; a brightness spread over his countenance. "I see it, I see it, but I would not have believed it," I heard him ...
— Peter Biddulph - The Story of an Australian Settler • W.H.G. Kingston

... of bodies, nor the fair harmony of time, nor the brightness of the light so gladsome to our eyes, nor sweet melodies of varied songs, nor the fragrant smell of flowers and ointments and spices, not manna and honey. None of these do I love when I love my God; and yet I love a kind of light, a kind of melody, ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton

... spite of myself, I thought of you; in spite of myself I came here again and again, to look upon your face, to hear your voice, for a few brief moments, and then to go out into the world, to find it darker and colder by contrast with the brightness of your beauty. Little by little, the idea of your becoming a public singer became odious to me," continued Sir Oswald. "At first I thought with pride of the success which would be yours, the worship which would be offered at your shrine; but my feeling changed ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... hills, seemed to waver between them; the veil that, for all its melting elusiveness, parts implacably one generation from another. Its dimness seemed to rest on her bright hair and to hover in her bright eyes; to soften, as with a faint melancholy, the brightness of her smile. And it was as if he saw her, with a little sigh, unclasp her hands, that had clung to what she fancied to be still her share of life,—unclasp her hands, look round her with a slight amaze at the changed season where ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... volume I tried to give my young readers a glimpse of life as it actually is in one of our famous military boarding schools, with its brightness and shadows, its trials and triumphs, its little plots and counterplots, its mental and physical contests, and all that goes to make up such an existence; in the present tale I have given a little more of this, and also related the particulars of an ocean ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield

... one, of equal developments, though of dissimilar colour, driven in one eccentric span. But while hapless Dough-Boy was by nature dull and torpid in his intellects, Pip, though over tender-hearted, was at bottom very bright, with that pleasant, genial, jolly brightness peculiar to his tribe; a tribe, which ever enjoy all holidays and festivities with finer, freer relish than any other race. For blacks, the year's calendar should show naught but three hundred and sixty-five Fourth of Julys and New Year's Days. Nor smile ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... Sapientia," runs the first, "O Wisdom, which camest out of the mouth of the Most High, and reachest from one end to another, mightily and sweetly ordering all things: come and teach us the way of prudence." "O Adonai," "O Root of Jesse," "O Key of David," "O Day-spring, Brightness of Light Everlasting," "O King of the Nations," thus the Church calls to her Lord, "O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, the Desire of all nations, and their Salvation: come and save ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles

... himself, strolled up and down and among the crowd, diffusing even greater pleasure than they themselves enjoyed; Marie Antoinette, as usual, being the central object of attraction, and greeting all with a teaming brightness of expression, and an affability as cordial as it was dignified, which deserved to win all hearts. One of the entertainments which she gave to the king at the Little Trianon may he recorded, not for any unusual ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... became visible to the eye on August 29th. During September and October it greatly increased in size and brilliancy, and was plainly visible in the western heavens. After October 10th it was only visible in the southern hemisphere, gradually decreasing in brightness. It was seen till March 1859, when it disappeared, and will probably not return till the year 3858, as its period of revolution ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper

... up into his face anxiously, her vivid childish beauty seeming to catch all the brightness of the place and focus it upon him. The two men had passed out of the further door and on to the recitation rooms. The girl and boy ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill

... brought a tall wax taper and placed it near him. The flame threw a little brightness on the volume, which he now proceeded to open; and here and there, further away, it flashed and trembled in points of rainbow-colored light on a tall column; but the greater part of the room ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson

... supreme god of Indo-Iranian times, and is the representative of Varuna, Zeus or Jupiter, that is the sky or heavens. Similarly Ahura Mazda is described in the Zend-Avesta as righteous, brilliant, glorious, the originator of the spirit of nature, of the luminaries and of the self-shining brightness which is in the luminaries. Again he is the author of all that is bright and shining, good and useful in nature, while Ahriman called into existence all that is dark and apparently noxious. Both are complementary as day and night, and though opposed to each ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... and imposing is that which pictures the creation simply as having the earth in the centre, and the sun with his attendants as circulating around it in the brightness of the superior, and the darkness of the infernal, firmament. Souls at death pass down through the west into Amenthe, and are tried. If condemned, they are either sent back to the earth, or confined in the nether space for punishment. If justified, they join the blissful company of ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... the stars vary in brightness. Some of this variation is due partly to actual differences among the stars themselves and partly to varying distances. If all the stars were alike, then those which were farthest away would be faintest and we could judge a star's ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper

... not awaken either to a sense of brightness or luxury this morning. She had slept it was true, but once or twice when the pillow had slipped aside she had found herself disturbed by the far-off sound of the wailing of some little animal which had ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... situation. She had sometimes fancied, after an unusually wide and vivid flash, that she had really been able to see a wee bit of a way into that Heavenly City which she had been taught was high above her, behind all that sky, in the blinding brightness. ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox

... growing toward the Infinite, Gathers its robe of glory out of dust, And looking down the radiances white, Sees all God's purposes about us, just. Canst thou, Elhadra, reach out of the grave, And draw the golden waters of love's well? His years are chrisms of brightness in time's wave— Thine are as dewdrops in the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... on the part of a gifted son to a devoted mother! Nature's richest and best gifts consecrated to nature's purest and holiest sentiments! May we not suppose that the endearing affection which he cherished for his mother was the source of the inspiration which drew forth the "splendid brightness of his songs"? This filial reverence and tender affection, could nothing more be said in his favor, would speak volumes in his praise. But how much more can be said, and said truly, were there pen and ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)

... out to Heaven,' says Yen Zhan, 'and told (his distress), but he calls it distant in its azure brightness, lamenting that his complaint was not heard.' This is, probably, the correct explanation of the language. The speaker would by it express his grief that the dynasty of Ku and its people were abandoned and uncared ...
— The Shih King • James Legge

... one knows my respect for the fairer sex, and that, if I render homage to the brightness of their eyes, I also honor the splendor of ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... who had seen her daily for three weeks in their midst. All who had been admitted to her presence left her with tears of joy and devotion; her simple and modest behaviour, blended with her splendid enthusiasm, won every heart. Her manner and modesty, and the gay brightness of her answers, had also won the suffrage of the priests and lawyers, and the military were as much delighted as surprised at her good sense when the talk fell on subjects relating to ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower

... duty and other things which ought to be respected are all too common. Few have added more to the happiness of mankind than he who has written a classic for children. It takes very unusual qualities to write for them. Sympathy with the child: brightness and simplicity of diction are much rarer than one would suppose until he seeks for them with the child. The first requisite of a book is that it should interest the child, the next is that it should inspire and uplift him. The imparting ...
— Children and Their Books • James Hosmer Penniman

... down, rippling like sea-waves; some had hair golden and radiant as this wine in my cup, the faces of others appeared amidst the blackness of ebony; there were locks that seemed of burnished and scintillating copper, some glowed with hair of tawny splendor, and others were crowned with the brightness of the sardonyx. Then, laughing, and without the appearance of shame, they unfastened the brooches and bands which sustained their robes, and so allowed silk and linen to flow swiftly to the stained floor, so that ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen

... no matter how unjustly, is no longer the wife in whom her husband trusted as he would trust himself: the pure being who was above suspicion no longer exists. Suspicion, no matter whence the source, has irrevocably tarnished the brightness of his idol. ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... never frosty. The central heating apparatus was kept going in the school, and the girls, though they might run about without coats in the sunshine, were always required to have a warm jersey at hand, for the wind at this season could be treacherous, and those unused to the climate, deceived by its brightness and wealth of flowers, were very liable to catch chills and to be laid up with feverish colds as the result of their own imprudence. Sometimes indeed a bitter sirocco wind would blow, and bring torrents of rain ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... seated at their imperishable work, forging a thunderbolt for King Zeus; by now it was almost finished in its brightness and still it wanted but one ray, which they were beating out with their iron hammers as it spurted forth a ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius

... they were up and out long before sunrise, to wash their faces in the charmed moisture. There is still much value in the recipe, which is, however, applicable to all the dewy-morning months. It was not only on the brightness of the cheek that May dew was believed to have a marvellous effect, but many physical ailments were amenable to its virtues. It is related that the people about Launceston say that a child weak in the back may be cured by being drawn through the wet grass thrice ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... may set him up in business myself," he wrote. "At all events, dear Maude, you need not dim the brightness of your eyes by tears, for all will yet be well. Next June shall see you a bride, unless your intended husband refuse my offer, in which case I may ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes

... his finger on would prove that of his future wife.[606] Again, two nuts, representing a lad and a lass whose names were announced to the company, were put side by side in the fire. If they burned quietly together, the pair would be man and wife, and from the length of time they burned and the brightness of the flame the length and happiness of the married life of the two were augured. But if instead of burning together one of the nuts leaped away from the other, then there would be no marriage, and the blame would rest with the person whose nut had thus started away by itself.[607] Again, a dish ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... Strickland was a weird figure as he lay there, thinner than ever, with his ragged red beard and his eyes staring feverishly into vacancy; his illness seemed to have made them larger, and they had an unnatural brightness. ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham

... reluctant earth. For the simplest necessaries and comforts of life all, or nearly all, must work hard. Many must perish for want of them. Poverty was inevitable and perpetual. The poor must look to the brightness of a future world for the consolation that they were denied in this. Seen thus poverty became rather a blessing than a curse, or at least a dispensation prescribing the proper lot of man. Life itself was but a preparation and a trial—a threshing floor where, under ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock

... he waited for Madame de Malrive to draw on her gloves, stood in the hotel doorway looking out across the Rue de Rivoli at the afternoon brightness of the Tuileries gardens. ...
— Madame de Treymes • Edith Wharton

... have not yet done. I have borne much this evening in your service. I have suffered. I was made to suffer in your service.' She unfolded her fan as she spoke. Quick as her pulses beat, the fan waved languidly. She betrayed her emotion only by the brightness of her eyes and face, and by the almost insolent triumph with which she looked down upon the Princess. There were old scores of rivalry between them in more than one field; so at least von Rosen felt; and now she was to have her hour of victory ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... hill-top in the night Stirred as a ruin above the thunder broke, And slept again. And dawn upon a world Of leaves and downs and sheep washed into brightness Came on that Sussex out of a clear sky, And on the sea the little ships went on With sails just filled with a small virgin wind. And slowly one by one the village came To see the old mill that ...
— Preludes 1921-1922 • John Drinkwater

... astonished at their brightness, to see how they filled the night with their soft lustre. So I went my way accompanied by them; Arcturus followed me, and becoming entangled in a leafy tree, shone by glimpses, and then emerged triumphant, Lord of the Western sky. Moving along the road in the silence of my own footsteps, ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith

... the rolls into yarn. Tuesday afternoon Ailie and Ruth went to pick wild grapes, and the rest of us were at our work in the bush. Grannie was left alone. She had moved her wheel to the door to sit in the sunshine, where she could see the brightness of the trees and enjoy the calm that prevailed. How long she span we do not know. On Ailie's return she was startled at the sight of her bending over the wheel. She was dead. While stooping to join a broken thread God took her. Next day buried her on a rising bit of ground overlooking ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar

... is easily measured. Let two lights of different brightness, as in Fig. 8, cast shadows on the same screen. Arrange them as to distance so that both shadows shall be equally dark. Let them fall side by side, and study them carefully. Measure the respective distances. Suppose one is twenty inches, ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren

... come from a corridor on the third floor where we had never been. In that direction we fumbled our way, and seeing through the slits of a door the red brightness, we knocked with all our might on the panel. It opened ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... said at the breakfast-table; and yet the loud singing of the birds, the brightness of the sunshine, the life and vigor of all things, seemed to make up for the silence of those who were too well pleased ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... the weary and despondent housewife, in all secrecy, decked herself out with these jewels of memory, they did not succeed in shedding any brightness over her life in the present. She was scarcely conscious of any connection between the golden-locked angel with the red ribbons and the five-year-old boy who lay grubbing in the dark back yard. These moments snatched her quite ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland

... particularly the case. All the creative powers of the mind seemed there to be extinct. The country was covered with ruins, and the human character was in ashes. Sometimes, indeed, a few embers of intellect were seen among the clergy; but the brightness of their scintillation was owing to the blackness of death with which they were contrasted. The splendour of the nobility struck him only as a more conspicuous poverty than the beggary of the common people; and the perfect ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt

... Slowly she took her elbows from the table, and folded her arms resting them upon the edge of it. Thus leaning forward she listened now with an odd brightness in her eye, a slight flush in her cheeks reflecting some odd excitement called into life by Lord Henry's admission—an admission which sensibly whittled down ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini

... daylight in New Mexico is by no means sudden. Darkness yields slowly to the illumination streaming from the east; and when the moon is shining, one remains in doubt for quite a while whether the growing brightness is due to the mistress of night or ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... about with him, I left her to go with him alone; and I suffered, and pined, and raged inwardly, in consequence. 'Twas this deprivation that taught me how necessary she was to me; and how her presence gave my days half their brightness, my nights half their beauty, my taste of everything in life half its sweetness. Philip was unreservedly welcome to Madge now; I wondered I had been so late in discovering the ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... are attacking again!" was the message which brought out these men still living among ruined cottages on the edge of the slaughter-fields. They stared into the mist, where, beyond the brightness of the autumn sun, men were about to fight and die. It was the same scene that I had watched when I went up to the Loos redoubt in the September battle—a flat, bare, black plain, crisscrossed with the whitish earth of the trenches rising a little ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... brow of the high table-land and disappeared into the naked sky beyond? The billowy towans sweeping up from the beach appeared to him like an illimitable prairie on which buffaloes and bison might roam. Whither led the sandy track, the summit of whose long diagonal was lost in the brightness of the morning sky? And surely that huddled grey building against an isolated green cliff must be grandfather's church of which his mother had often told him. Mark walked round the stone walls that held up the little churchyard ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... against the horizon to the delicate pearl-edged, glassy golden-green that spreads its transparent sheets over the sparkling sand of the beach. The bold chalky cliffs of the shore send back the burning sunlight with blinding brightness, and stretch away as far as eye can follow in hazy outlines, that glimmer faintly through the shimmering mist. It is all very beautiful.... I got ready my things for the theater, ... and when I got there I was amused and amazed at its absurdly ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... may not find the tears too soon!—I do not love that song with its refrain of fleurs et pleurs, it is so terribly true.' But Wilhelmine was not listening to his rambling talk; her strange eyes had lost the brightness which had been theirs while she sang the gay French song; they had narrowed to that hard, compelling gaze which, in truth, was curiously ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay



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