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Cavern   /kˈævərn/   Listen
Cavern

noun
1.
Any large dark enclosed space.
2.
A large cave or a large chamber in a cave.



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"Cavern" Quotes from Famous Books



... deep heart-quake at the idea of at last coming into sordid contact with the world, from which she had so long kept aloof, while every added day of seclusion had rolled another stone against the cavern door of her hermitage—the poor thing bethought herself of the ancient shop-window, the rusty scales, and dusty till. She might have held back a little longer; but another circumstance, not yet hinted at, had somewhat hastened her decision. Her humble preparations, ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... and justice, truth and manliness, are lost together in the furious chaos of human elements. The tortured airs of heaven howl out curses in a horrid unison, this fair free soil of ours, dishonored and befouled, moans beneath our feet in a dismal drone of hopeless woe; there is no rock or cavern or ghostly den of our mighty land but hisses back the echo of some hideous curse, and hell itself is upon earth, split and rent ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford

... between the Babylonian account of Gilgamesh's journey through the mountain tunnel to the garden and seashore, and the Indian story of the demigod Hanuman passing through the long cavern to the shoreland palace of the female ascetic, when he was engaged searching for Sita, the wife of Rama, who had been carried away by Ravana, the demon king of Ceylon. In the version of the latter narrative which is given in the Mahabharata, Hanuman says: "I bring thee good news, O Rama; for ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... river from a parapet Of earth and rock. Then bending curiously, As reaching, in a moment with his hand He scraped the turf and stones, pried up a key Of harder granite, and at his command, When he had made an opening, I slid And sank, down, down through the Devonian land Until with him I reached a cavern hid From every eye but ours, and where no light But from our faces was, a pyramid Of hills that walled this crypt of soundless night. Then in a mood, it seemed more fanciful, He bent again and raked, and to my sight Upheaved and held the ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters

... Pinafore glides up to the landing, the engineer flings open the furnace door, and the glowing fire illumines the interior, brings out forms and faces, and deepens the heavy shadows outside. It is like a cavern scene in the opera. A party of ladies in white come down to cross to Star. Some of these insist upon climbing up to the narrow deck, to sit on the roof and enjoy the moonlight and the cinders. Girls like ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... been previously discovered. The two old tigers were still abroad. One of the blacks entered the den by a narrow aperture; the other, aided by Djalma, cut down a tolerably large tree, to prepare a trap for one of the old tigers. On the side of the aperture, the cavern was exceedingly steep. The prince mounted to the top of it with agility, to set his trap, with the aid of the other black. Suddenly, a dreadful roar was heard; and, in a few bounds, the tigress, returning from the chase, reached the opening of the den. The black who was ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... beams, superposed joists, traves, architraves, girders, madriers, and tangled lines and curves. One might imagine one's self to be in the skeleton of Babel. The place is as bare as a garret and as wild as a cavern. The wind whistles mournfully through it. Rats are at home there. The spiders, driven from the timber by the odour of chestnut, make their home in the stone of the basement where the church ends and the roof begins, and low down in the obscurity spin their ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo

... neck stuck out of his grey flannel shirt and supported a big head that had something of the snake in the convergent lines of its broad knotty brow, meanly proportioned face and pointed chin. His almost toothless mouth seemed a cavern in the twilight. Some accident had left him with one small and active and one large and expressionless reddish eye, and wisps of straight hair strayed from under the blue cricket cap he wore pulled down obliquely over the latter. He spat between his teeth and ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... is of brass far as to the fork. From there downward he is all of chosen iron, save that his right foot is of baked clay, and he stands erect on that more than on the other.[1] Every part except the gold is cleft with a fissure that trickles tears, which collected perforate that cavern. Their course falls from rock to rock into this valley; they form Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon; then it goes down through this narrow channel far as where there is no more descending. They form Cocytus, and ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri

... plateau of moderate extent, and behind it rose a fissured cliff of bare, red-brown porphyry. A vein of diorite of iron-hardness lay at its foot like a green ribbon, and below this there opened a small round cavern, hollowed and arched by the cunning hand of nature. In former times wild beasts, panthers or wolves, had made it their home; it now served as a dwelling for ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... remaineth the clue; I shall use it. Lo, with the rope on my loins I descend through the fissure; I sink, yet Inly secure in the strength of invisible arms up above me; Still, wheresoever I swing, wherever to shore, or to shelf, or Floor of cavern untrodden, shell sprinkled, enchanting, I know I Yet shall one time feel the strong cord tighten about me,— Feel it, relentless, upbear me from spots I would rest in; and though the Rope sway wildly, I faint, crags wound me, from crag unto crag re- Bounding, ...
— Amours de Voyage • Arthur Hugh Clough

... is how, on the night of the 29th of July, 1835, the burgomaster took captive a little red-haired man, issuing from the cavern of Geierstein. ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... a mould. Four round lunettes of stone, wearily worked by hands now cold, stand four-square to all the winds that blow. In the middle is a great round tower, with a cistern on the top, and underneath an arched cavern which you are pleased to learn is bomb-proof. As you cross the drawbridge, you feel bound to admit that the prospect is not inviting. It seems as if you were going to prison instead of to visit, at his marine residence, one of the most courtly and (peradventure) the most hospitable noblemen of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various

... put himself at once at the head of a strong detachment of miquelets, and forced the woman to walk before them till they reached the cavern, which they never would have discovered without a guide, so cleverly was the entrance hidden by rocks and brushwood. On entering, the first thing that met their eye was the wounded, about thirty in number. The miquelets threw themselves upon them and slaughtered them. This deed accomplished, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... to grief. Juniper was arrested, charged with conspiracy to kill, tried, convicted, sentenced to be hanged, and before the sun went down was pardoned. In searching his cavern the police discovered countless human bones, much torn clothing, and a mighty multitude of empty purses. But nothing of any value—not an article of any value. It was a mystery what Juniper had ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... pomegranates, prickly pears, &c. We reposed under an almond tree till our luggage came up. The servants had mistaken the way, and one of the janissaries was obliged to go in search of them. We set forward again at eight, and rode till 1.30 P.M. We then rested near a rivulet, in the shade of a small cavern in the front of the mountain, commanding an extensive view of the rich plain, nearly the whole of which was in a state of cultivation. Almost all the crops were cut. On the mountain above us, Jacob and Laban ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore

... citadel of Lal Kot, to one of those deep wells gained by long flights of steps whither the ladies of the palaces used to resort in the hottest weather. Evening was drawing on and the profundities of this cavern were forbiddingly gloomy; nor was the scene rendered more alluring by the presence of three white-bearded old men, almost stark naked and leaner than greyhounds, who shivered and grimaced, and suggested nothing so much as fugitives from the grave. They were, however, not only alive, ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas

... a literary ornament was wanted. A little savor of the Academy is not out of place in a brigand's cavern. M. Merimee was available. It was his destiny to sign himself "the Empress's Jester." Madame de Montijo presented him to Louis Bonaparte, who accepted him, and who completed his Court with this insipid but ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo

... novelty to him here, and as day succeeded to day he found occupation in searching her. During the hotter part of the day he busied himself in shoveling out the sand from the cavern with a board. In the cool of the morning or evening he worked at the hatchway. Here he soon ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille

... two minutes' space, Joanna, looking in my eyes, beheld That ravishment of mine, and laughed aloud. The Rock, like something starting from a sleep, Took up the Lady's voice, and laughed again! That ancient woman seated on Helm-crag Was ready with her cavern; Hammar-scar And the tall Steep of Silver-How sent forth A noise of laughter; southern Lougbrigg heard, And Fairfield answered with a mountain tone. Helvellyn far into the clear blue sky Carried the lady's voice!—old Skiddaw ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... fragments of Spanish shells that passed close to him, striking within a radius of fifteen feet. The Admiral, when told there had been some remark because he had not occupied the conning-house in the action, walked with me to the tower, the entrance to which is so guarded that it resembles a small cavern of steel—with a heavy cap or lid, under which is a circular slit, through which observations are supposed to be made. "Try it," the Admiral said, "and you find it is hard to get a satisfactory view." He added, when I had attempted ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... with his prey, And safe in his cavern he set it, The sly little fox stole the booty away; And, as he escaped, to the lion did say, 'AHA! don't you ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... I had now resolved should be the great cavern near Castleton, in the high Peak of Derbyshire. It was ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz

... the candle stub, like a yellow daisy in a cavern, spread petals of light for only a short distance. By its sputtering, the mouse looked up to the towering figure Zachary now made above it, and hearing the sharp squeakings and furtive scratches that signaled rats, the mouse thought it more prudent to adopt the shape of a fly. This ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson

... totally ignorant of the elements of religion; even the wild inhabitants of the forest crave some form of approach to God, and from time to time a wandering priest, an outlaw himself of English birth, ministered to the "merrie men" at a rustic altar, generally in the open air or in a well-known cavern. The mass in its simplest form, divested of its gorgeous ceremonial but preserving the general outline, was the service he rendered; and sometimes he added a little instruction ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... side raced the majestic folds, drew themselves together, circled, seethed around it like foam of fire about the lip of a cauldron, and poured through the shining circle as though it were the mouth of that fabled cavern where old Aeolus sits blowing forth and breathing back the winds ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt

... plunged in my uncertainty and ignorance, the slightest gleam that promises intelligence is interesting. My life is like the subterranean river in the Peak of Derby, visible only where it crosses the celebrated cavern. I am here, and this much I know; but where I have sprung from, or whither my course of life is like to tend, who shall tell me? Your father, too, seemed interested and alarmed, and talked of writing; would to Heaven ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... plantation. Here are found three basins—results of erosion, most likely—that are described as natural bath-tubs. The middle and largest of these pools is partly filled with silt, probably occluding the entrance to a cavern which formerly opened into it, a fathom or so below the water-surface. This cave was the hiding-place of a native woman whose father had discovered her love for one of Ponce de Leon's soldiers. He forbade her to have anything to do with the enemies of his country, enlarged ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... Our pirate cavern faced the West: We closed its door with screens of palm, While some went out to seek the nest Wherein the Phoenix, breathing balm, Burns and dies to live for ever (How should we dream we lived to die?) And some would fish in the ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... land wights (land-voetir), and there is still existing a poem of ancient type, the refrain of which is closely similar to that of Grettir's song on Hallmund, but which is stated to be by some cave-wight that lived in a deep and gloomy cavern somewhere in Deepfirth, on the north side of Broadfirth. In the so-called Bergbuaattr or cave-dweller's tale (Edited by G. Vigfusson in Nordiske Old-skrifter, xxvii., pp. 123-128, and 140-143, Copenhagen, 1860), this song is said to have been heard ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris

... crackle like tin tubes. Around the bend the water ripples at the ford. At evening you will see the tired men from the mountains, bending under heavy loads of hemp, wade through the shallows to the cavern shelter of the banyan-tree. Through the dense mango-grove comes the faint sound of bells. The puk-puk bird hoots from the jungle, and the black crows settle in ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert

... gave her servants orders to await her, and descended slowly, accompanied by her cousin and myself, to the door of the lower hall. A lantern lighted our way, and the duchess trembled while she affected a sort of bravery; but when she entered a sort of cavern, the silence of the dead which reigned in this subterranean vault, the mournful light which filled it, the sight of the corpse extended in its coffin, produced a terrible effect on her; she gave a piercing ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... Coolidge, called on me not many months ago. He was intelligent, very handsome, and not more than twenty years old, according to appearances; a little romantic, but that sits well upon youth, and mighty fond of poesy, as may be suspected from his approaching me in my cavern. He brought me a message from an old servant of my family (Joe Murray), and told me that he (Mr. Coolidge) had obtained a copy of my bust from Thorwaldsen at Rome, to send to America. I confess I was more flattered by this young enthusiasm of a solitary trans-Atlantic traveller, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... Diego Colon shouted, as he must to get above wind and thunder. "Hurry! hurry! They know place." All began to run. After a battle to make way at all, we came to a slope of loose, small stones and vine and fern. This we climbed, passed behind a jagged mass of rock, and found a cavern. A flash lit it for us, then another and another. At mouth it might be twenty feet across, was deep and narrowed like a funnel. Panting, we threw ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston

... biting the finger-tip of her white cotton glove, was staring out at the traffic. Like a pale ray of light entering the now dim cavern of the old man's mind, the thought came to Creed that he did not quite understand her. He had in his time had occasion to class many young persons, and the feeling that he did not quite know her class of person was like the sensation a bat ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... dark, dismal cavern, was surprised to see a well-lighted and spacious chamber, which received the light from an opening at the top of the rock, and in which were all sorts of provisions, rich bales of silk, stuff, brocade, and valuable carpeting, piled upon one another, gold and silver ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten

... Percivale and I glanced at each other, and without a word, lifted her, and followed Wynnie. It was a little way that we had to carry her down, but it was very broken, and insomuch more difficult than the other. At length we stood in the cavern. What a contrast to the vision overhead!—nothing to be seen but the cool, dark vault of the cave, long and winding, with the fresh seaweed lying on its pebbly floor, and its walls wet with the ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald

... on his old coat. In Scotland it is altogether different. You have soured the naturally excellent disposition of ghosts and goblins. The piper M'Crimmon, of the Hebrides, shouldered his pipes, and marched into a sea cavern, playing loudly, and followed by his dog. For a long time the people could hear the pipes. He must have gone nearly a mile, when they heard the sound of a struggle. Then the piping ceased suddenly. Some time went by, and then his dog came out of the cavern completely ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats

... its cradle and, with a cheerful clatter, put wood in the stove. The child cried fretfully and, still stepping about the room, she began to sing, as if to distract it, though she knew she was making the sounds of life about Tenney to draw him forth from the dark cavern where his spirit had taken refuge. But he did not look up, and ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... their words were a babel, their actions were plain enough. Swarming up, they overpowered the explorers by sheer numbers, and herded them with jabs of sharp, tiny knives toward a cavern mouth that opened presently amid ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various

... in my cottage; and after I had commended everything to the Lord in a fervent prayer, I went up with my daughter and old Ilse into the Streckelberg, [Footnote: A considerable mountain close to the sea near Coserow.] where I already had looked out for ourselves a hole like a cavern, well grown over with brambles, against the time when the troubles should drive us thither. We therefore took with us all we had left to us for the support of our bodies, and fled into the woods, sighing ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... bay lively with many sails; on the other, precipitous, arid gullies and sheer cliffs, mounting towards the crater and the blue sky. For all the companionship of skimming vessels, the place struck me with a sense of solitude. There came in my head what I had been told the day before at dinner, of a cavern above in the bowels of the volcano, a place only to be visited with the light of torches, a treasure-house of the bones of priests and warriors, and clamorous with the voice of an unseen river pouring seaward ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... bills for the nestlings. Shod with tall rubber boots, the writer waded close up to the foot of the falls in search of the dipper's nest, which was set in a cleft of the rocks a few inches above the water, in the little shadowed cavern at the left of the stream. The pointed rock wrapped in mist, almost in the line of the plunging tide, was a favorite perch for ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser

... the free gift of the cow. We found in the cave also what refreshed us almost as much—pure cold water. It was held in honey-comb cells or cups formed in the rock, twenty or more in number, holding three to six gallons each, the whole together forming an irregular shelf along one side of the cavern. There were dark passages and mysterious inner chambers, vaguely reported to be half a mile in extent, but we had no time to make further explorations. Before the shower ceased we were ordered to move, and ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood

... native into the galleries to stir up the animals. As they flew out they became entangled in the net and could be caught or killed before they were able to get away. It was sometimes possible to catch every specimen in a cavern, and moreover, to secure them in perfect condition without broken ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews

... low through the May night doth steal; Sometimes, on joyous wing, to Heaven it soars, Sometimes, like Philomel, its woes deplores. For, oh! this a song that ne'er can die, It seeks the heart of all humanity. In the deep cavern and the darksome lair, The sea of ether o'er the realm of air, In every nook my song shall still be heard, And all creation, with sad yearning stirred, United in a full, exultant choir, Pray thee ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... six thousand, took refuge in a neighboring grotto, with their wives and children, comprehending many of the principal families of the place. A French officer, detecting their retreat, caused a heap of faggots to be piled up at the mouth of the cavern and set on fire. Out of the whole number of fugitives only one escaped with life; and the blackened and convulsed appearance of the bodies showed too plainly the cruel agonies of suffocation. (Memoires de Bayard, chap. 40.—Bembo, Istoria Viniziana, tom. ii. lib. 10.) Bayard executed ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... small square openings, crossed and recrossed with great bars of wrought iron, so massive that they might have been fashioned on the forge of the Cyclops. Looking through them from the outside, one saw just deep enough into the narrow cavern to see another iron grating, and catch a suspicion of the darkness beyond. The entrance was but a slit letting into a stone-paved corridor on which opened the grinding iron doors of the four small cells, each door a grate of huge iron bars, heavily crossed, with openings ...
— The Sheriffs Bluff - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page

... we were in sight of the source, and no words can convey its imposingness, or the sense of contrast forced upon the mind—the pitchy, ebon cavern from which flashes the river in silvery whiteness, tumbling in a dozen cascades down glistening black rocks, and across pebbly beds, and along gold-green pastures. We explored the inner part of this strange rock-bed; the little River Lison, springing from its dark cavernous home, leaping ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... Richard, laying a finger on his lip, and leading the way down a very difficult descent to a sort of natural cavern, which was found in the face of the rock, and was not unlike a fireplace in shape. In front of this place lay a pile of earth, which had evidently been taken from the recess, and part of which was yet ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... had been full of eager spectators of the fight, and now it boiled as they rushed in upon the disabled prey. Ravenous, cavern-jawed, fishlike beasts, half-porpoise, half-alligator, swarmed upon the victim, tearing at it and at each other. Some bore off trailing mouthfuls of dark wing-membrane, others more substantial booty, while the rest fought madly in the vortex ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... masses of snow about in a most surprising manner. Crusoe, too, entered heartily into the spirit of the work, and, scraping with his forepaws, sent such a continuous shower of snow behind him that he was speedily lost to view in a hole of his own excavating. In the course of half an hour a cavern was dug in the mound almost close up to the cliff, and the men were beginning to look about for the crushed body of Dick's steed, when an exclamation from ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne

... understand the nicety of language well enough to say. We used to have a question among us when we were children whether a wild beast could howl in an empty cavern. It's the same ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope

... open, and without hesitation he passed through and closed it after him that the wind might not slam it. Then he limped along under the shore trees, up a little hill, and dropped out of sight into an open cavern, where Flea, a candle in her hand, ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White

... fantastic lands; a postman should have a coat-of-arms capable of expressing the strange honour and responsibility of the man who carries men's souls in a bag; the chemist should have a coat-of-arms symbolizing something of the mysteries of the house of healing, the cavern of a ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton

... world one hollow cavern of vanity—lifeless and lightless, where the ghosts of the sorrows of men moan dismally, and the shadows of men's griefs scream out their wild agony upon the ghastly darkness! Night, through which ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford

... amount of light greeting his eyes as he lifted the rock had shown him that he was not to emerge into the open air, he could not help a feeling of disappointment at finding himself still underground. To be sure, he was in a spacious chamber or cavern, he could not yet tell which, illumined by a faintly diffused light that gave promise of some connection with the outer world; but he feared this might prove to be another unscalable shaft, in which case he would be no ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe

... shoulder of the reef which artfully masked a low narrow recess. Penetrating into this recess, Lance found that, after he had proceeded two or three yards, the walls widened out, and the whole place had the appearance of being the entrance to a subterranean cavern. ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood

... coming to a full stop in front of a wall of rock. I then perceived by the aid of a few fitful rays of suppressed light, which at intervals struggled successfully through a black bank of clouds, the yawning mouth of a big cavern, from the roof of which hung innumerable stalactites. I now suddenly realized that I was in a very lonely, isolated spot, and became immeasurably perturbed. The Unknown Something in the atmosphere which had inspired me with so much fear was here conglomerated—it was no longer the mere essence—it ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell

... for once forgotten the world, and was away with Sindbad the Sailor in the Valley of Diamonds, or with Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Peribanou in that delightful cavern where the Prince found her, and whither we should all like to make a tour; when shrill cries, as of a little fellow weeping, woke up his pleasant reverie; and looking up, he saw Cuff before him, belabouring ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... France, and represents a man fleeing naked and defenceless from a great serpent—man still in bondage to material conditions. One of the most stirring of modern scenes is that in which Siegfried waits at the mouth of the cavern—leaves rustling, light shimmering, birds singing about him. The glory of youth is on him and the beauty of the world about him; but he cannot understand what the sounds mean. Then comes the struggle, the victory, the revelation of song and light; and the hero passes swiftly up the heights, where, ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... to less advantage in the unfolding of the views concerning life after death. Throughout all periods of Babylonian-Assyrian history, the conception prevailed of a large dark cavern below the earth, not far from the Apsu—the ocean encircling and flowing underneath the earth—in which all the dead were gathered and where they led a miserable existence of inactivity amid gloom and dust. Occasionally a favoured individual was permitted to escape from this ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... sunless cavern cold, Like one who flies a crime, Fearful, and old as God is old, The spirit shrank from time; For a stifled scream was the angry gold Of the weird sunset, and the noonday bold Was the stare on the face of ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth

... eastern, nearer the African continent. In 1834 Fuerteventura yielded, from a depth of six feet, a dwarfish image of a woman with prominent bosom and dressed in the native way: it appeared almost Chinese. A pot of black clay from Palmas showed superior construction. Here, too, in 1762 a cavern produced a basalt plate, upon which are circular scrawls, which support the assertions of old writers as regards the islanders not being wholly ignorant of letters. I could trace no similarity to the peculiar Berber characters, and held them ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... very hour Of guilty pride and power Full on the circumcised Thy vengeance fell. Then the fields were heaped with dead, Then the streams with gore were red, And every bird of prey, and every beast, From wood and cavern thronged to Thy ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... against the land, ferocious that land should be, so the desert now raged against the oasis that ventured to exist in its bosom. Every palm tree was the victim of its wrath, every running rill, every habitation of man. Along the tunnels of mimosa it went like a foaming tide through a cavern, roaring towards the mountains. It returned and swept about the narrow streets, eddying at the corners, beating upon the palmwood doors, behind which the painted dancing-girls were cowering, cold under their ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... his life with an adventure. When he was a few months old a man named Unas came from Norway to the islands, a smith or comb-maker by profession. But Gunhild suspected him of being a spy sent by King Sigurd to kill her son, and she hid the boy in a cavern, which is still called Sverre's Cave. He acted like a spy, for he followed her to the cave, found where she had hidden the child, and threatened to kill it unless she would marry him. Gunhild had no love for this dangerous ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris

... thee good news, O Rama; for Janaka's daughter hath been seen by me. Having searched the southern region with all its hills, forests, and mines for some time, we became very weary. At length we beheld a great cavern. And having beheld it, we entered that cavern which extended over many Yojanas. It was dark and deep and overgrown with trees and infested by worms. And having gone a great way through it, we came upon sun-shine and beheld a beautiful palace. It was, O Raghava, the abode of the Daitya ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... gleam of light ahead. Smith flattened to the kelp and wriggled nearer with the two men behind him following close. Gregory was the last to reach the surface of a table-like ledge of rock which ribbed their path and projected outward over the cavern. Crawling abreast of the deputies, he raised slowly to his ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... In the same category of symbols came a boat or ship, a female date palm bearing fruit, a cow with her calf by her side, a fish, fruits having many seeds, such as the pomegranate, a shell, (concha), a cavern, a garden, a fountain, a bower, a rose, a fig, and other things of suggestive ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... like a cavern whose mouth a careless traveller might pass by, but which opens out, to the true explorer, into vista after vista of strange recesses rich with inexhaustible gold. But, sometimes, the phrase, compact as dynamite, explodes upon one with ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey

... stump, and where, as time passed, the stump, gradually decaying, had allowed the roots of the fast-growing birches to penetrate through the cracks in the stump to the ground. The roots eventually formed the rafters of a moss- and rotten-wood chinked, water-tight roof to the little cavern in which the old pine stump had once stood and where two winters ago slept a bear. There was but a single entrance between two of the now massive birch roots, and it must have proved a tight squeeze when its tenant last entered. ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... an enchanted cavern," said Euphemia. "You say the magic word, the door in the rock opens and you go on, and ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton

... had a glimpse of a black cavern, and then, with incredible swiftness, something struck him a heavy blow in the face. What it was he was too much surprised and stunned to realize. His electric lamp fell from his hand, and clattered to ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks

... lovely sky; one believes in anarchy, the other doesn't—the one who does invites the one who does not to come with him and see what anarchy is. This he does, and, after a good supper of lobster mayonnaise, the two get down to a subterranean cavern where are assembled half the anarchists of the world, precisely six; they call themselves by the names of the week, with a leader, who is ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke

... of all, perhaps, found her for the first time in the spring at twenty-one or so, like a fair woman forlorn upon the mountains, the Ariadne of our race who placed in our hand the golden thread that led us out of the cavern of the savage to the sunlight and to her. But though, indeed, I think all this may be clearer to those who come to her in their first youth by the long white roads with a song on their lips and a dream ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton

... was about as big as an ordinary doorway, and upon closer examination, Karl perceived that it was the mouth of a cave. He noticed, moreover, that it appeared to grow wider beyond the entrance, and was no doubt a cavern of large dimensions. He had no further curiosity in relation to it; only that the reflection crossed his mind that he might be compelled to pass the night there. This was probable enough; unless, indeed, Ossaroo ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid

... wild animal that gets a wound, And prescience hath of death, will drag itself Back to its cavern sullenly to die, And would not have heaven's airs for witnesses, So Wyndham, shrinking from the very stars And tell-tale places where the moonlight fell, Crept through the huddled shadows back to hall, And in a lonely room ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... the sight of the genie, fainted; when the lad, who had seen such another phantom in the cavern, snatched the lamp out of his mother's hand, and said to the genie boldly: "I am hungry, bring me something to eat." The genie disappeared immediately, and in an instant returned with a large silver tray, holding ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown

... corresponds with the reign of the younger Theodosius, and the conquest of Africa by the Vandals. [44] When the emperor Decius persecuted the Christians, seven noble youths of Ephesus concealed themselves in a spacious cavern in the side of an adjacent mountain; where they were doomed to perish by the tyrant, who gave orders that the entrance should be firmly secured by the a pile of huge stones. They immediately fell into a deep slumber, which was ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon

... fate." He labored on his island twenty years. He was always versifying, and inscribed a poem over the entrance of his underground observatory expressing the astonishment of Urania at finding in the interior of the earth a cavern devoted to the ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... thoughts were wicked. So far as he could describe sky and clouds and stars to them it seemed to them a hideous void, a terrible blankness in the place of the smooth roof to things in which they believed—it was an article of faith with them that the cavern roof was exquisitely smooth to the touch. He saw that in some manner he shocked them, and gave up that aspect of the matter altogether, and tried to show them the practical value of sight. One morning he saw Pedro ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... of Cumae were behind them, and they had entered the cavern in the hill, did Basil venture to recount what had happened. He alighted from his horse, and walking through the gloom beside the carriage he briefly narrated all in a whisper to Aurelia—all except his own ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... Nero fell asleep in the jungle cave. How long he slept he did not know, for it was as dark as night in the cavern, no matter whether or not the sun shone outside, and Nero was far back from the front door of the cave. When Nero awakened he tried to stand up ...
— Nero, the Circus Lion - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum

... on Roslin's castled rock, It ruddied all the copse-wood glen; 'Twas seen from Dryden's groves of oak, And seen from cavern'd Hawthornden. ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various

... and well he might; as the match flamed up he found himself confronting a man who had evidently been sleeping on the floor of the cavern, for he had just thrown a ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren

... They had travelled in this manner for upwards of four hours, without meeting a breathing thing, or even so much as exchanging a sound between themselves, when, at length, the Indian stopped at the edge of a deep cavern-like excavation in the earth, produced by the tearing up, by the wild tempest, of an enormous pine. Into this she descended, and presently reappeared with several blankets, and two light painted ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... the Hill near Salzburg yonder,—says German Tradition, its fancy kindled by the strange noises in that Hill (limestone Hill) from hidden waters, and by the grand rocky look of the place:—A peasant once, stumbling into the interior, saw the Kaiser in his stone cavern; Kaiser sat at a marble table, leaning on his elbow; winking, only half asleep; beard had grown through the table, and streamed out on the floor; he looked at the peasant one moment; asked him something about the time it was; ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle

... and his merit was enhanced in my eyes by the fact that he was a lover of the lover of Laura. We left the carriage at Apt, and wended our way to the fountain which was honoured that day with a numerous throng of pilgrims. The stream pours forth from a vast cavern, the handiwork of nature, inimitable by man. It is situated at the foot of a rock with a sheer descent of more than a hundred feet. The cavern is hardly half as high, and the water pours forth from it in such abundance that it deserves the name of river ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... noise, not even the sound of his footsteps reaching us. Even as I gazed, lying nearly full length upon my horse, we had crossed the open, and a perfect tangle of low bushes hid us as completely as if we had entered the yawning mouth of a cavern. ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish

... scream; the common people have been turned into beasts, oxen, hogs, dogs, foxes, flies, frogs; all are hideous or dangerous. Cursing as he goes along, Gower drives before him, with hissing distichs, the strange herd of his monsters, who "dart sulphureous flames from the cavern ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... last issue (June) I consider "The Moon Master" as being the best story, closely followed by "Out of the Dreadful Depths." "The Cavern World" came next, followed by "Giants of the Ray," "Brigands of the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various

... entrance to the Blue Grotto, which had been lost since the days of the Emperor Timberio, and how in expectation of the Englishmen's reward a plucky sailor, named Ferrara, had made his way all round the island in a cask, trying to force an entrance into every possible cavern, until at last he hit upon the mouth of the Grotta Azzurra itself, and thus gained the prize. But as a matter of fact the existence of the Grotto was never wholly forgotten, for its beauties were certainly known to the old Italian ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... few with fierce-biting tusks did Break through his burnie, the brave one pursued they. The earl then discovered he was down in some cavern 40 Where no water whatever anywise harmed him, And the clutch of the current could come not anear him, Since the roofed-hall prevented; brightness a-gleaming Fire-light he saw, flashing resplendent. The good one saw then ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin

... his course and a landing on Asteroid Moira. Here he'd found a honeycomb of caves, all leading from one large main tunnel. The cavern walls had been of a translucent, quartz-like substance, ranging in color from yellowish-brown to violet-grey. It looked vaguely familiar, yet he could not place it. There was not time to examine it ...
— The Beast of Space • F.E. Hardart

... later, furious digging brought the rescuers to a flat rock, part of the stoning of the caved-in well. In its fall it had lodged upon soil and rocks, and when it was raised, gingerly and slowly, they found that, below in the cavern it had preserved, there sat Mr. Crymble, up ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... after him the children pressed; Great was the joy in every breast. "He never can cross that mighty top! He's forced to let the piping drop, And we shall see our children stop!" When, lo, as they reached the mountain-side, A wondrous portal opened wide, As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed; And the Piper advanced and the children followed, And when all were in to the very last, 230 The door in the mountain-side shut fast. Did I say, all? No! One was lame, And could not dance the whole of the way; And in after years, if you ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning

... devoted to permanent inmates. In the centre a spacious church has been commenced, and already promises to be a fine building. The principal altar will be placed over the cave so long held sacred as the retreat of the prophet. This natural cavern exhibits at its farther extremity some signs of having been enlarged by art. When the edifice above is complete, it will be converted into a chapel; and a projecting ledge of rock, believed to have been the sleeping-place of the prophet, ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams

... north[150] of it—an exceedingly steep mountain, whose lower parts spread out wide on all sides, while its upper portion is precipitous and exceedingly difficult of ascent. But on the summit of Vesuvius and at about the centre of it appears a cavern of such depth that one would judge that it extends all the way to the bottom of the mountain. And it is possible to see fire there, if one should dare to peer over the edge, and although the flames as a rule merely twist and ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius

... undertaking, I had determined to employ the first fine morning in visiting the cavern beneath the fall. The guide recommended my companion and myself to set out as early as six o'clock, that we might have the advantage of the morning sun upon the waters. We came to the guide's house at the appointed hour, and disencumbered ourselves of such garments as we did not ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various

... infant of an infant world, as pure From nature—lovely, warm, and premature; Dusky like night, but night with all her stars, Or cavern sparkling with its native spars; With eyes that were a language and a spell, A form like Aphrodite's in her shell, With all her loves around her on the deep, Voluptuous as the first approach of sleep; Yet full of life—for through her tropic ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... over. What the fate of their lovers was, the legend says not. The old castle has crumbled into ruins—the chieftain sleeps in an unknown grave, his very name forgotten; but still the sad ending of the maidens is remembered, and even unto this day the cavern is denominated the "Cave of the Seven Sisters." Such is the above legend as it still exists amongst the peasantry, and any of your contributors would extremely oblige by informing me of the name of the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various

... A large cavern, divided by Nature into many compartments, was now the temporary shelter of the king and his friends. It was situated at the base of Ben-Cruchan, which, though at the entrance of the territories of Lorn, was now comparatively secure, the foe imagining ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... pointed out with certainty. It lies about two miles below the castle before mentioned. It is even now a place that a careless pedestrian might easily pass without remarking, notwithstanding that its entrance is worn by many curious feet. The entrance is very narrow, and the cavern, like caverns in general, exceedingly dark. The river flows by more rapidly here than above; the grass grows long and wild, and there is a gloomy air about it that would make it an unpleasant place for a night rendezvous even without the horrid associations ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various

... cavern. Rinaldo, indignant at his companions' cowardice, for they had no courage but in the open field, and dared not venture into Rome, looked at them ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... the house they had shut up for the winter. On the wall in the hall outside of every room was a button which he pushed, and the room became as light as day before they entered. The cellar door, in opening, automatically lighted a lamp illuminating that cavern as it had never been lighted before since the day a house ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson

... work of dwarfs or enchanters! This was not forged by mortal man! It must have come out of some old cavern, or dragon's hoard!" said Hereward, in astonishment at the extreme delicacy and slightness of the mail-rings, and the richness of the gold and silver with which both ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... where any soft material is; but the shout rang only of hard rock and glassy water. To make assurance doubly sure, they lit a blue-light, and sent it floating through the depths, while they held their position with two boat-hooks and a fender. The cavern was lit up with a very fine effect, but not a soul inside of it to animate the scene. And to tell the truth, the bold invaders were by no means grieved at this; for if there had been smugglers there, it would have been hard ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... may preach in rich churches, scrolled and cavern and mullion-windowed, then form laisons with choir-singers; hired writers may write of the goodness of the times, then pose in beer-joints and denounce God and the universe. Christian Endeavorers and all the other bands of inane asses may shout their mawkish hymns, but facts are facts. The ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... did not give an immediate assent, she agreed to meet him later in the afternoon, when she walked with him to the southern point of the island called the Beal, or, by strangers, the Bill, pausing over the treacherous cavern known as Cave Hole, into which the sea roared and splashed now as it had done when they visited it together as children. To steady herself while looking in he offered her his arm, and she took it, for the first time as a woman, for the hundredth ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy

... passed the Rubicon, when once you have been shaven: if you repent, and let your beard grow after it has acquired stoutness by a struggle with the razor, your mouth will by-and-by show no longer what Messer Angelo calls the divine prerogative of lips, but will appear like a dark cavern fringed with ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... the worthy single-minded Lord Pitsligo, no bad prototype of the Baron of Bradwardine. It is entered by a small orifice like a fox's hole, in the face of the rugged cliffs which front the German Ocean near Trouphead. Gradually it rises to a noble arched cavern, at the end of which is the font cut into the stone, where it would catch the outpourings of a small spring. When I saw it long years ago, it was filled with clear living water, which, save when it had ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... may be said to resemble a subterranean cavern to which communication is had by means of a trap-door. How the lover enters this guarded precinct depends upon the lover and the woman. Sometimes the trap-door is jerked open, and he is hurled down with no by your leave, gobbled up, willing or unwilling. ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... wait. The nights passed at Tinquiqueru,[FN69] Concealed in the cavern below, Yanahuara[FN70] men joining us late. We waited within the large cave, Thy men always ready to fight, Behind foliage well out of sight, Thy warriors patient ...
— Apu Ollantay - A Drama of the Time of the Incas • Sir Clements R. Markham

... to pieces, stowed them away in a dry cavern in the krantz, covered them with the tarpaulins, and pushed on down through the gorge on foot, emerging beyond the hills which bordered the Congo into a rolling country, park-like in appearance. They studied the ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville

... inter bufones et serpentes,[289] and in another a latrina,[290] or sink, to which I know nothing at all corresponding in St Andrews save the underground chamber near the college hall,[291] and the roughly-hewn cavern still subsisting in the rock to the north of the house at the end of Castle Street, going down by the southern entrance by thirty or more somewhat irregular steps through the rock, and terminating in a small chamber of rounded or oval form, having an opening in its roof originally little ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell



Words linked to "Cavern" :   natural enclosure, core out, enclosure, hollow out, cave, hollow, cavern out



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