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Dimly   /dˈɪmli/   Listen
Dimly

adverb
1.
In a dim indistinct manner.  Synonym: indistinctly.
2.
In a manner lacking interest or vitality.  Synonyms: palely, pallidly.
3.
With a dim light.  Synonym: murkily.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Dimly" Quotes from Famous Books



... the fire, rolling and smoking a continuous stream of cigarettes. Dimly seen in the near-by shadows were the long figures of other men rolled in their blankets. Bud knew that not far off the hobbled horses grazed, or had ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan

... and varnished. Only the staircase was so heavily and richly carved, that it had defied the ingenuity of the comb engraver. It occupied the further end of the hall, opposite the entrance door, and was lighted dimly by a small heavily leaded, stained-glass window. The floor was likewise black, polished with age and the labour of generations. A deeply sunken nail-studded door led into a low-ceiled library, containing a finely carved frieze and cornice, and an oak mantelpiece, which John ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture

... dimly hast a place In deep star galaxies! And I, driven ever on through space, Have lost thee in ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald

... have less of the peculiar iridescence of their state than Browning's have, and I think this is because, already in the modern poet's day, girlhood was beginning to be seen as it had never been seen before—that is, as a "thing-by-itself." People had perceived—dimly enough, but with eyes which have since grown clearer-sighted—that there is a stage in woman's development which ought to be her very own to enjoy, as a man enjoys his adolescence. This dawning sense is ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne

... said Molly, slipping an arm around her friend's neck. "I only dimly heard your wanderings. I was so busy thinking of—of other things; sending out hope thoughts like Madeleine Petit. Poor Miss Green! I wonder if she knows. She has been in Europe all summer. I had post cards from ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed

... There are meanings, dimly caught at the time, which remain in the mind like blind creatures, mewing and half alive. They pluck at the brain ceaselessly, seeking birth in thought. Old Annot's face peering into the hall mirror—what was it that photographed the scene so pitilessly in my memory? I hurried ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne

... It was dimly lighted by an uncurtained east window. On a low stool by the hearthside, the only article of furniture in the place, sat his mother, staring into a fireplace strewn with blackened embers and cold ashes. He spoke to her—tenderly, ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce

... hidden from his sight by the trunk of an old oak-tree, grew uneasy and shy. Dark though it was, dimly as she could see him, Doreen felt convinced, from the rapid, steady pace at which he walked, that he was intent upon some set purpose, that he was not driven by ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden

... feeble rays of light at length strayed down through the skylight, causing the lamps over the cuddy table to burn more dimly, when the scuttles in the cabins, seen through the half-opened doors, became illumined by some reflection from without, showing that the long- wished-for morning had broken at last, Kate, unable to endure the suspense any longer, put on her cloak ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... lower chambers gleamed dimly athwart the trim garden at Beaubocage. One faint twinkling candle shone in a little pepper-castor turret, his sister's room. The thought of their glad welcome smote his heart. How could he shape the words that must inform them of their disappointment? And then he thought ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... three travellers with another lamp started off in the opposite direction. As far as they could see they were in a long, desolate valley, a sort of No Man's Land, deathly silent. The eastern sky had cleared somewhat, and they faced a loose rack through which one pale star was dimly visible. ...
— A Christmas Mystery - The Story of Three Wise Men • William J. Locke

... Slone came along. The old man opened a door into a small room, half full of stores and track. The lantern only dimly lighted ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey

... with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity; takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by continually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spirit ebbs away to whence it came; becomes diffused ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... children had gone upstairs, she went into the dimly lighted sitting-room and sat down at the piano, touching softly and lightly the notes of a minor melody, an erratic little air rising and falling in a succession ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates

... could take care of themselves, as indeed the history of the past few years and the character of the population of the States at that time indicated that they could. He attended regularly all the sessions, and gave his opinions freely; but they are only dimly revealed in the half-light which enfolds in such lamentable obscurity the debates of that interesting body. What little is known ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... flame, and perceived nowhere any life around it, I went onward down the quiet gorge. And for a great way as I journeyed was my path lit by the dancing of the blue flame; and oft should I seem to be going but dimly among the rocks, and my shadow faint and long; and lo! the flame would leap, and all the gorge come to a wondrous brightness, and my figure to shorten, and the shadows to be black and strong. And so shall you perceive ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson

... hour did Willett get the news. He would not return to the hop room. He did not go directly home. He dimly saw the mule team, at spanking trot, go rattling up the road; saw and heard it draw up at the general's, and then whisking back to the valley to deposit Bright. He divined at once that the chief must have returned and congratulated ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... however, that I had begun dimly to suspect that the Lancastrian had hit at least one nail on the head. "Your artistic soul's only to be saved by writing poor Michael's 'Life,'" he had informed me... and it was truer than I found it pleasant to believe. Perhaps, after all, ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions

... which at times he had vaguely sensed yet never sought imaginatively to grasp. It bewildered him by hampering a ruthlessness hitherto absolute. The fierceness of her inflamed his passion, yet he recognized dimly behind this fierceness an instinct of self-protection—and he thought of her in this moment as a struggling bird that fluttered out of his hands when they were ready to close over her. So it had been to-night. He might have kept her, prevented her from taking the car. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... though she kept off a little more. Her object seemed to be to maintain her weatherly position, and in this manner the two vessels ran on for an hour longer, until the Swash had made most of the distance between Montauk and Blok Island. Objects were even becoming dimly visible on the last, and the light on the point was just becoming visible, a lone star above a waste of desert, the sun having been down now fully a quarter of an hour, and twilight beginning to draw the curtain of night over ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... the flat were particularly cheap; indeed the fact of its being situated over a public-house seems to enhance the rent. She said she liked the shape of the knocker and the pattern of the bathroom taps. I dimly perceive that it must have had something ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... the island of Madeira," said the captain, pointing to a dark mass dimly seen against the horizon. "We are now nearly twenty-eight hundred miles southeast ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob

... the torch-light sought him out. Half-way to the foot of steep stairs that he could dimly outline he halted, for advance against hidden pistol-fire and dazzling light ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy

... squatted tailor wise near her. Close at hand, on two sides, the shaggy walls of rock rose in solemn grandeur. The neighboring trees, decked now in the sable livery of night, were dimly outlined against the deep misty blue of sea and sky or wholly merged in ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... Soon he could dimly discern the shape of two huge mountain engines, while the rails trembled beside him, and a wall of rock flung back the din of whirring wheels. The fast freight had started from the head of Atlantic navigation at Montreal, and would not stop until the huge cars ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... the night of the Allardyce dance, after seeing Elena home, I stepped in for a moment to get warm and have her mix me a highball. We sat for a considerable while on the long sofa in the dimly-lighted dining room, talking in whispers so as not to disturb the rest of the house: and Elena was unusually beautiful that night, and I was more than usually in love, more thanks to three of the five drinks ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al

... burned low; all was quiet. Armstrong now roused his men, some of whom, wearied by their long march, had fallen asleep. He divided his forces; part were to attack the warriors in the corn-field, part were despatched to the houses, which were dimly seen by the first streak of day. There was sharp firing in both quarters, for the Indians, though taken by surprise, fought bravely, inspired by the war-whoop of their chief, Captain Jacobs. The women and children fled to the woods. Several of the provincials were killed and wounded. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... room. It was a commodious apartment, where an excellent view was offered of the surrounding country on three sides. But looking from the window to discern his assailants, Mauville could see nothing save the fields and openings, fringed by the dark groves. The out-houses and barns were but dimly outlined, while scattered trees here and there dotted the open spaces with small, dark patches. A single streak of red yet lingered in the west. A tiny spot, moving through the obscurity, proved to ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... saw approaching them a tall, long-legged youth whom he dimly remembered among the group on the porch of the White-House the night before. His hair was parted in the middle, and thickly pomaded to restrain its natural inclination towards curling. His ears were large, and set on at right angles to his face. His nose was Roman, ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin

... sunset lay On the calm bosom of some Eastern bay, And all the spray-moist rocks and waves that rolled Up the white sand-slopes flashed with ruddy gold.) Something it has—a flavor of the sea, And the sea's freedom—which reminds of thee. Its faded picture, dimly smiling down From the blurred fresco of the ancient town, I have not touched with warmer tints in vain, If, in this dark, sad year, it steals one thought ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... before, the foaming seas rising up on either hand. I could but dimly distinguish the cliff. At length it was lost to sight. As I looked out on the larboard side, I fancied that I saw a line of white breakers, indicating a reef running off from it. How far it might extend I could not tell; perhaps a mile, or a couple of miles. It would be ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston

... Iconoclast' has irreverently styled the butterfly journeyings of our magazine age. But we, O merry souls and brave, are still young and frivolous: we still look at pictures with as much zest as before our dimly remembered teens; and we belong to that happy branch of the Scribbleri family, that prefer the sympathy of bright eyes and gay laughter, to the approving shake of any D'Orsay's 'ambrosial curls,' or the most unqualified smile from the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... but recollecting that in a servant such a look was an impertinence, she kept her feelings to herself. As Theresa entered the large pillared mirror-room, dressed for the promenade, she looked through the open door into the dimly-lighted ante-room, and saw her companion standing ready and awaiting her. The expression on the maid's face, as she followed to open and shut the door, was amply justified by the unusually handsome costume which ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson

... and the door closed behind her. It was a moment before she could distinguish any object in the dimly lighted cell. Then she saw the square window, the cobwebbed walls, and close at hand a narrow pallet, on which lay a woman in a coarse and soiled night-dress. She was tall and gaunt: one arm was thrown over ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various

... adjutant's quarters to doff his natty uniform and don something older and more suitable. Twenty minutes thereafter he had swung a leg over one of Stannard's troop horses and spurred away down to the north-eastward slope, toward the upper ford of the stream, where dimly in the distance another horseman could be seen, with a dozen shadowy, ghost-like forms gliding along in tireless jog trot in line with him—Harris and his mountain hounds, the Apache scouts, already en route for the ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... have us looking on, yet they sing these songs at all times and seasons. I have heard this very song dimly droning on near midnight, and, tracing it into the recesses of a cook-house, have found an old fellow coiled away among the pots and provisions, chanting away with his "Can't stay behind, sinner," till I made him leave his ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... but the embodied spirit of her race) stood firmly rooted in all that was static, in all that was obsolete and outgrown in the Virginia of the eighties. Though she felt as yet merely the vague uneasiness with which her mind recoiled from the first stirrings of change, she was beginning dimly to realize that the car of progress would move through the quiet streets before the decade was over. The smoke of factories was already succeeding the smoke of the battlefields, and out of the ashes of a vanquished ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... happy in a personal knowledge of divine truth. At such a period, it must have happened that some evil spirits would exalt themselves, and that even some serious inquirers would draw strange conclusions from a misconception of divine truth; and dimly see "men as trees walking." Among these there appeared teachers, who, unable to comprehend how that body, which had gone to dust, or in some cases had been reduced by fire to its primary elements, and dispersed to the winds or waves, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... 19 on the promenade deck, one deck below the deck on which was located the smoke room, the lounge and the life-boats. The corridor was dimly lighted and the floor had a more perceptible slant as I darted into my stateroom, which was on the starboard and sinking side of the ship. I hurriedly put on a light non-sink garment constructed like a vest, which I had come provided with, ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons

... in varying proportions wherever thought becomes self-conscious. Here we have in its lowest terms the material for the ontological question, the first and the last problem of philosophy. God and the world, at first dimly conceived and scarcely differentiated, gradually separate and take shape in the mind as distinct entities. The concepts become principles, fixed by language and mental imagery. The gulf between them widens until they stand at opposite poles of ...
— Monophysitism Past and Present - A Study in Christology • A. A. Luce

... Jennie, dimly remembering that she had heard this name in connection with something diplomatic, and her guess that he was in that service was strengthened by his previous remark ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr

... the sky, only a small part of its light penetrated the canyon. Peering into the darkness, Vose dimly made out the forms of the four animals, who, having ceased their cropping of the grass, had lain down for the remainder of the night. They were so near that they could not be stampeded or stolen without the effort being known to ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... casket with the necklace. At the doorway he himself took the collar and gave it to the countess. She conducted the cardinal to an alcove adjoining her sitting-room. Through the door provided with glass windows he could dimly see the sitting-room. ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... night I have ever spent. If I told all I should wound chaste ears, and, besides, all the colours of the painter and all the phrases of the poet could not do justice to the delirium of pleasure, the ecstasy, and the license which passed during that night, while two wax lights burnt dimly on the table like candles before the shrine ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... knowing what else to say, and they continued to rumble over more cobble stones and down dark roads, till they finally stopped in a dimly-lighted street, which, however, was broad and clean, with fairly large ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie

... secret hero; and now, to-night, he asked himself painfully, why had his hero left off loving Betty? The story he had overheard this afternoon had deeply impressed him. For the first time he began to dimly apprehend the strange and piteous ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes

... use it to the full. Incapable—as are all women of her type—of coquetry, Mary yet knew the value of her beauty, and was too intelligent not to see that both it and she had been at a grave disadvantage of late. She understood dimly that she was confronted by one of the fundamental problems of marriage, the difficulty of making an equal success of love and motherhood. She could not put her husband permanently before her child, as Constance had done, and as she knew most Englishwomen did, ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... defies custom. You have to declare the law, not to make it, and you can only declare what experience gives you. The best government devised by reason is less free than a worse government bequeathed by time. Very dimly, ideas which rose to power in other days and evolved the great force of nationality, were at work against a system which was to be new and universal, renouncing the influence both of time and place. The battle was fought against the men of the ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... under the title of Carmina Burana, indicate a revival of Pagan or pre-Christian feeling in the very stronghold of mediaeval learning. We have, moreover, to remember the Cathari, the Paterini, the Fraticelli, the Albigenses, the Hussites—heretics in whom the new light dimly shone, but who were instantly exterminated by the Church. We have to commemorate the vast conception of the Emperor Frederick II., who strove to found a new society of humane culture in the South of Europe, and to anticipate the advent of the spirit of modern tolerance. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... quickly that, at the first glance, I thought he would soon be by the side of Gottlieb. But, upon looking more closely, I saw that Gottlieb's steps had been far more steady and even than those with which Irrgeist was pressing on; for Irrgeist's lamp burned but dimly, and gave him no sure light to walk in. Very near to the place where Gottlieb had met with her, the tempter stood beside Irrgeist. He was not looking at his book, as the other had been; and he did not wait to be spoken to; for as soon as he saw the light which played ...
— The Rocky Island - and Other Similitudes • Samuel Wilberforce

... days the couple walked upon air, with their heads in the clouds. They were but vaguely conscious of their surroundings; they saw all things dimly, as through a veil; they were steeped in dreams, often they did not hear when they were spoken to; they often did not understand when they heard; they answered confusedly or at random; Sally sold molasses by weight, sugar by the yard, and furnished soap when asked for candles, and Aleck put ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... seat of the front carriage-it is an open barouche. I could see his arm describe an arc through the air; the next instant the whole street was ablaze with a flash of brilliant red light, and the report of a tremendous explosion rang in my ears. Through the smoke and dust I could dimly see the horses of our pursuers piled in a heap upon the ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... they came to a fairly broad staircase, leading to the third floor, thence along a hall dimly lighted to a narrow winding stair, that brought the two of them to a round platform of stone with rooms on three sides. This place was badly lit by a tallow candle, held by a miner's holder, stuck ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt

... dimly in the cabin, and Sipi and I ran to the aid of Solepa, who lay prone upon the floor as if dead. Her dress was torn, and her hands and arms were scratched and bleeding, so that Sipi wept as she leant over her and put water to her lips. In a little while she opened her eyes, ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke

... the way through the big, dimly-lighted hall to an up-stairs room near the back of the house. Two heavy boxes were lying there, packed and corded, to be taken down-stairs. I tossed aside my cloak and stooped to help him. He straightened with a jerk. I had been standing in the shadow with my soiled cloak ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... startled, but she did not lose her self-possession. All the trouble about that date had disappeared out of her mind in the stress and urgency of other things. She cast back her mind with an effort and asked herself what the conflict and uncertainty of which she was dimly conscious, had been? It came back to her dimly without any of the pain that had been in it. "It was on the sixth," she said quietly, without excitement. She could scarcely recall to her mind what it was that had moved her so much ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant

... stealthy hand of Quinnox the panel opened and they listened intently for some moments. There was no one in the dimly-lighted chapel, so they made their way to the door at the opposite end. The great organ looked down upon them and Lorry expected every instant to hear it burst forth in sounds of thunder. It seemed alive and ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... fire first. There was need of it, too, for he could dimly make out two men, near the extreme head of the train, who were firing rapidly and firing their weapons in a fashion that drove up spurts of dirt all about ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock

... house they occupied was open, and we perceived, lying on a stretcher in the small, dimly lighted vestibule the corpse covered with white silk. We could see him plainly as he lay stretched out on his back, his outline clearly ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... to her, was the most confused of all the unintelligible pressures that had converted her life into an enigma. She had a distinct sense of overwhelming loss—of something, Linda was obliged to add, she had never owned. However, she realized that during Pleydon's life she had dimly expected a happy accident of explanation; until almost the last, yes—after she had returned from that ultimate journey, she had been conscious of the presence of hope. The hope had been for herself, created out of ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer

... cool air was as wine to him, for wine invigorates the body while it clouds the mind. His lungs greedily took in great draughts of its light purity, and his blood raced so merrily that he grew confused. Always the pain bit into his eyes, and through his half-closed lids he saw but dimly the people around him and the pavement ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton

... fascinating, wielded an almost imperial sway over his little coterie of artists. Thanks to him the lamp of our old French school was kept dimly burning until the day when inherent justice permitted it to be revived. In this restricted world no evening was complete without Delsarte. He would come in with some story of frightful throat trouble to justify his chronic lack of voice, and, then, without any voice at all but ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens

... a raging fever, and lay tossing upon his hot, uneasy bed, unconscious of anything but weariness and worry and pain, until at length he sank into a deep sleep. He awoke, and with a sensation of blissful rest better than sleep itself, began to dimly remember, and to think what a long night it had been, and to wonder whether he had not been delirious once or twice. Still, he felt indifferent and happy, and having no curiosity to pursue the subject, remained ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... the West Coast? I'll see what I can do . . ." He interrupted me a little scornfully. "What difference would it make?" . . . I felt at once convinced that he was right. It would make no difference; it was not relief he wanted; I seemed to perceive dimly that what he wanted, what he was, as it were, waiting for, was something not easy to define—something in the nature of an opportunity. I had given him many opportunities, but they had been merely opportunities to earn his bread. Yet what more could any man do? ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... voice had a steely ring in it which persuaded the man from Argentina that he had better obey. In less than five minutes he emerged from the doorway. The corridor in which his cabin was situated led into the saloon. Elsie awaited him. A lamp, dimly lighting the gangway, revealed her face. Suarez thought he had to deal with a mad-woman. The dog, standing by her side, sniffed at him gingerly, but a muttered "Be quiet, Joey!" prevented any outburst, every fox-terrier being a ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... into the large, dimly lit drawing-room with the air of a man who is not certain whether he is entering a dovecote or a bomb factory, and is prepared for either eventuality. The little domestic quarrel over the luncheon-table had not been fought to a definite finish, and the question ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)

... foot grabbed on behind and clambered over tailboards. Cap'n Sproul, feeling safer on his own legs than in Hiram's team, pounded away down the road with the speed of a frantic Percheron. And in all this panic T. Taylor, only dimly realizing that there was something in his stove that was going to cause serious trouble, obeyed the exhortations screamed at him, cut away his horse, straddled the beast's back and fled ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... important truths, dimly perceived or not at all, lurking in the idea of God,—an idea too vast to be navigable as yet by the human understanding, yet here and there to be coasted,—I wish at this point to direct the reader's attention upon a passage which he may happen to remember in Sir Isaac Newton: the passage ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey

... could, Zoola, but it cannot because the curtain is too thick. Had all you loved been slain before your eyes, then the veil would be worn thin as mine is, and through it, you who are akin to them, would hear the talk of the ghosts, and dimly see them wandering ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard

... The door turned noiselessly on its hinges, and the Queen paused a moment as in anger and surprise, whilst a dark glow flushed her excited and passionate countenance. From the door a view was commanded of the whole apartment, which was dimly lighted, and occupied by several persons, standing in a half circle, round a bed placed near a marble chimneypiece. Upon this bed, propped by cushions into a half sitting posture, lay Ferdinand VII., his suffering features and livid complexion looking ghastly and spectral in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... reached a direct issue, Norburn clapped the causa belli on his head, and walked out of the room, dimly conscious that he had done himself as much harm as he possibly could in the space of a quarter of an hour. When he grew cool, he confessed that the momentary, if real, pleasure of being unpleasant was somewhat dearly bought at the cost of enmity with ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope

... did rub very strong and savage, and heeding so well as I might that I groan not, the Maid did speak close beside me. And, indeed, she could see me but dimly, and had waked sudden to hear my groaning, and I was not to her side. And immediately she had thought that some evil thing harmed me, and was come in an instant that she be ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson

... never even attempt it, though I were to lose my head for not trying. In the first place," glancing from the trim, smooth, tailor-made black gown of his guest to the home-cut skirt and shirt-waist of his aunt, just entering, and dimly discerning the difference, "I never thought of it before, but I cannot even conceive how you get into and out of the things. I suppose you do, for I see you women in different ones at times, but my thought would be that they must grow upon you"—he was looking at Joyce—"as the calyx around ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... gazer from Fort Stanton—glancing beyond the Navy-yard and the shot-battered monitors that lie there, across Greenleaf's Point and the Arsenal, made tragic by the death of many a British soldier and of the Lincoln-Seward assassins half a century later—overlooking the wharves of Washington and dimly descrying the masts at Georgetown, now sees a traffic that has earned a consideration it has not received. A few weeks ago we paused in an after-dinner walk, down there on the Arsenal boulevard, to watch the troubles ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various

... between the Queen and the Prince, and for his remarkable command of temper, and manly forbearance and courtesy, under every provocation, to all who approached him. Perhaps a still more potent agent was a quality which was dimly felt from the beginning, and is fully recognised to-day—his sincerity of nature and honesty of purpose. In the painful revelations which, alas! time is apt to bring of double-dealing and self-seeking on the part of men in power, no public character ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... duty to make this announcement. Her motive for forestalling him showed itself dimly in her eyes. They were not on Mr. Keller; not on the doctor; not on the couch. From the moment when the door had been opened to her, she fixed her steady look on Jack. It never moved until the bearers of the dead hid him from her when ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins

... tied in a cove beyond the settled part of the town. It was in the evening of this same day that Jack was reading in his room by candle-light when a tap-tap on the window shutter startled him. He threw it open and dimly perceived that Dorothy Stuart stood there. Her face was white in the gloom and she wore a dress of some dark stuff. At her beckoning gesture, Jack slipped through the window and silently led her into ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine

... the quiet. It was very dark, for nearly all the camp fires, over which the nightly feast had been prepared, were out. The hut could be dimly made ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton

... fancy and hope, is going to review the new edition (third edition of 2000 copies, published in April, 1861.) of the 'Origin') says that in the first four paragraphs of the introduction, the words "I," "me," "my," occur forty-three times! I was dimly conscious of the accursed fact. He says it can be explained phrenologically, which I suppose civilly means, that I am the most egotistically self-sufficient man alive; perhaps so. I wonder whether he will print this pleasing fact; it beats ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... instead of splitting the rock, became imbedded and clogged among the loosened fragments of shell. This rock is, therefore, one of the best materials for a fortification in the world. We were taken into the ancient prisons of the fort—dungeons, one of which was dimly lighted by a grated window, and another entirely without light; and by the flame of a torch we were shown the half-obliterated inscriptions scrawled on the walls long ago by prisoners. But in another ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant

... curtains the full moon, with a golden mist around her face, shone softly into the dimly-lighted room, and still the old man played on, the deathless songs of youth and love—the sweet, changeless melodies which have come down the ages to remind us of the love that still lives, glorious and triumphant, though the hearts ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung

... She had been so fiercely shocked, so violently shattered and weakened, that for a time she lacked the power and even the desire to collect and to concentrate her scattering thoughts. For the time being she felt, but only dimly, that a great blow had fallen, that a great calamity had overwhelmed her, but so extraordinary was the condition of her mind that more than once she found herself calmly awaiting the inevitable moment when the full extent of the ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... prayed the prayer that had been burning in my heart every minute as we stood there in that dimly lit ward, talking of home and battle and the folks we all loved across the seas. All that time there had been hovering in the background of my mind a picture of a cool body of water named Galilee, and of a Christ who had been sleeping in a boat on that ...
— Soldier Silhouettes on our Front • William L. Stidger

... spoke, Uriel began dimly to suspect that he had misconceived human life, taken it too earnestly, and at his heart was a hollow aching sense of futile sacrifice. And with it a suspicion that he had mistaken Judaism, too—missed the poetry and humanity behind the forms, and, as he gazed wistfully at Ianthe's tender clouded ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... justice, of the use of power, of the use of mercy, have greatly changed in the last century. We are beginning dimly to see that each man is the result of an infinite number of conditions, of an infinite number of facts, most of which existed before he was born. We are beginning dimly to see that while reason is a pilot, each soul navigates ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... respect to everything being a lying dream began also to revive. Sometimes at midnight, after having toiled for hours at my occupations, I would fling myself back on my chair, look about the poor apartment, dimly lighted by an unsnuffed candle, or upon the heaps of books and papers before me, and exclaim,—'Do I exist? Do these things, which I think I see about me, exist, or do they not? Is not everything a dream—a deceitful dream? Is not this apartment a ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... they were in a great chamber, whose walls they could make out dimly on each side. They could not see the top of the water-fall, but they could see its lower part very plainly. Through the tumbling water of the fall, near the bottom, sunlight was shining. Behind the water was an opening some six feet high, and as the water fell across this ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen

... and strolled in the direction of the meadows beyond the haunted Poplar Spring at the end of the lawn. It was a rimy October morning, and the sun rising slowly above the shadowy aspens in the graveyard, shone dimly through the transparent silver veil that hung over the landscape. The leaves, still russet and veined with purple on the boughs overhead, lay in brown wind-rifts along the drive, where they had been blown during the night before the changeful weather had settled into ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... put out his hand with a hint of timidity in his manner; he was staring at Mary Virginia as if some of the light within her had dimly ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... memorizing faculty, is a phenomenon which may be noted down, but not solved. That vivid mental picture which is seen by the inward eye of the person favored with a good memory, is wholly wanting, or seen only dimly and rarely in the case of ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... between her and Dr. Grant, when a young lady of such strict principles proposed so singular an expedition. Harriett was not at all quick at reading countenances, and was particularly dull in the interpretation of Elsie's; but as some idea of the kind had dimly occurred to herself, she gave it voice and explained her views on the subject, in Elsie's hearing, ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence

... dimly through the mists and vapors; Amid these earthly damps What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... me that I remember something about Padua with a sort of romantic pleasure. There was a certain charm which I can dimly recall, in sauntering along the top of the old wall of the city, and looking down upon the plumy crests of the Indian-corn that nourished up so mightily from the dry bed of the moat. At such times ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... into a dimly lighted room, where his wife lay in bed; the guiltless cause of all this dissension, obviously inured to clamor, was asleep in her arm. She smiled up at Terry as he sat down on the edge of the bed and took ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson

... disposed their little band so as to bring their arms to bear on three different points from which they were certain, in case of an attack, the foe would come, by the moving figures in the shadows but dimly seen, but which could be traced by keeping the ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle

... all nature as a resting wheel. The kine are couched upon the dewy grass; The horse alone, seen dimly as I pass, Is cropping audibly [1] his later meal: [C] Dark is the ground; a slumber seems to steal 5 O'er vale, and mountain, and the starless sky. Now, in this blank of things, a harmony, Home-felt, and ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... task he was to conduct himself with the frankness and straightforwardness of a sneak-thief. Not a soul in New York was to know where he had gone. Not a soul in Hunston must dimly suspect what he had come for. It must be gum-shoe work from start to finish, and the Cypriani's motto would be the inspiring word, "Sh-h-h." Though he had to find a nondescript child whom he did not know from Eve, he was forbidden to do it in a natural, easy, and dashing ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... Henderson paddling against it not only with hands and feet, but with every ounce of will and nerve that his body contained. At last, inch by inch, he conquered. His log moved past the gate of death; and dimly, again, that ironical voice came down to him, ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... But the others had crowded him close. He fought them as well as he could with the great odds against him, and once was inspired with a hope that he might escape. Then had come a heavy blow on the head—he thought that one of the men had used the butt of a revolver. He could dimly remember receiving a number of other blows and then he knew nothing more until he had awakened in the ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer

... illumination are once tried, they invariably prove successful in the industries. Not only does the worker see all his operations better, but there appears to be an enlivening effect upon individuals under the higher intensities of illumination. Mankind chooses a dimly lighted room in which to rest and to dream. A room intensely lighted by means of well-designed units which are not glaring is comfortable but not conducive to quiet contemplation. It is a place in which to be active. This is perhaps ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh

... before has come to any nation. We are at a point in the history of the world where we need a prophet, and have none to describe to us those events rising in the horizon thick and fast. Sometimes it seems to me that that Latter Day glory which the prophets dimly saw, and which saints have ever since, with faintness of heart, longed for and prayed for with wavering faith, is just before us. I see the fountains of the great deep broken up. I think we are to have a nation born in a day among us, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... Arthur, the agony of his mother; it was too terrible to think of. Springing into the arbor, she ran up to the white object, and kneeling down, beheld the fair, clustering ringlets and rosy cheek of Alice dimly defined through the growing shadows. She inhaled her warm breath as she stooped over her, and knew it was sleep, not death, that bound her to the spot. As she came in contact with life, warm, breathing vitality, an instantaneous conviction of the folly, the preposterousness of her own ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz

... Zacharias to foretoken the acceptance of his own prayer; and third, perhaps an exhortation from his wife as he left his house, similar to that of Rachel to Jacob. Gen. xxx. 1. In this highly excited state of mind, as he prays in the dimly-lighted sanctuary, he thinks of his most ardent wish, and expecting that now or never his prayer shall be heard, he is prepared to discern a sign of its acceptance in the slightest occurrence. As the glimmer of the lamp falls upon the ascending cloud of incense, and shapes it into varying ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... preserved in the Eddas and Sagas, declared that in the beginning, when there was as yet no earth, nor sea, nor air, when darkness rested over all, there existed a powerful being called Allfather, whom they dimly conceived as uncreated as well as unseen, and that whatever he willed came ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber



Words linked to "Dimly" :   pallidly, dim, murkily, palely



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