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First light   /fərst laɪt/   Listen
First light

noun
1.
The first light of day.  Synonyms: aurora, break of day, break of the day, cockcrow, dawn, dawning, daybreak, dayspring, morning, sunrise, sunup.  "They talked until morning"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"First light" Quotes from Famous Books



... first light of the first day of that month celebrated as the birth-month of Him who declared long ago that war should cease, amid the dead and dying of both armies, stood two objects which should one day be carved in marble—One, to represent the intrepid ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore

... this time he had to thrust against the door with his shoulder. They entered, and now a cry came from Joanne's lips—a cry that had in it horror, disbelief, a woman's wrath. Against the wall was a pile of something, and on that pile was the searching first light of day that had fallen upon it for nearly half a century. The pile was a man crumpled down; across it, her skeleton arms thrown about it protectingly, was a woman. This time Aldous did not go forward. ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood

... she went away for awhile, and paced the fields till the first light glimmered on the east; and not daring to wait longer for fear of encountering early risers, she turned back to the ferry. And there, shining in the dawn, she found such a blade as made the father in her soul exult. In all its glorious fashioning and splendid ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... the first light, then slowly, easily it came toward the second, as if following a path of air. It touched a leaf near the lantern and settled. As Mrs. Comstock reached for it a thin yellow spray wet her hand and the surrounding leaves. When its wings raised above its back, her fingers came together. ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter

... two horses of the Judge in the best grass they could find, letting the rest go free to find pasture where they could. When the first light came, the Virginian attended to breakfast, while Balaam rode away on the sorrel to bring in the loose horses. They had gone far out of sight, and when he returned with them, after some two hours, he was on Pedro. Pedro was soaking with sweat, and ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... And since the intellective power of the creature is not the essence of God, it follows that it is some kind of participated likeness of Him who is the first intellect. Hence also the intellectual power of the creature is called an intelligible light, as it were, derived from the first light, whether this be understood of the natural power, or of some perfection superadded of grace or of glory. Therefore, in order to see God, there must be some similitude of God on the part of the visual faculty, whereby the intellect is made capable of seeing God. But on the part of ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... been added, the solution should react acid to Congo paper. The mixture is stirred one hour longer at the low temperature and then the nitroso-b-naphthol, which has gradually separated out during the reaction, is filtered with suction and washed thoroughly with water. The product is at first light yellow in color, but after three to four days it gradually changes to a dark brown. The moisture content seems to have some effect on the color. After the product has been air-dried for about four days, the yield is about 665 g.; it melts at 97'0. A sample of this partially dried ...
— Organic Syntheses • James Bryant Conant

... Next morning, in the first light of the dim Antarctic glow, I crept out of my snow hut to look south with powerful glasses in order to make sure that there was no reason why I ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... ashamed to confess so long as men whose physical organizations required more sustenance remained free from them. One day, however, the reason of this difference became clear to me. My husband had proposed to show me Kilchurn Castle, which he was going to sketch, and we started early after the first light breakfast, with Thursday to manage the sails. On turning round Innistrynich we met a contrary wind, and had to beat against it: it was slow work, and at last I timidly suggested that it might perhaps be better to turn back to get something to eat; but Gilbert triumphantly said he was prepared for ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... carefully in his mind, he finally said to himself that an open confession, sincere and unrestricted, would be the best solution of the difficulty; and just as the first light of day came to dissipate the shadow that overcast his mind, when his orderly entered to open the blinds in his chamber, he formed a fixed resolution as to ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... them, which he was to deliver and they to receive upon pain of damnation; consisting of five lights. 1. "That the Sabbath was abolished, as unnecessary, Jewish, and merely ceremonial. And here (quoth he) I should put out the first light, but the wind is so high I cannot kindle it. 2. That tithes are abolished, as Jewish and ceremonial, a great burden to the saints of God, and a discouragement of industry and tillage. And here I should put out my ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume

... business, Frisbie. Of course you must get away from here by the morning's first light. It must be supposed that you have been kicked out. Remain in the neighborhood of Banff. You will be wanted ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... at dawn and stole away to the shore before anyone else was up. I had a delightful run-away. The long, low-lying meadows between "The Evergreens" and the shore were dewy and fresh in that first light, that was as fine and purely tinted as the heart of one of my white roses. On the beach the water was purring in little blue ripples, and, oh, the sunrise out there beyond the harbour! All the eastern ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... With the first light of morning Ree went reconnoitering hoping to find the trail of the young Indian's mysterious assailant. Scarcely had he started when Black Eagle joined him, and in the road three hundred paces from the camp they came upon the ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden

... "No, the first light of sunrise will appear very soon. It seems to me I can see a faint touch of gray now over the ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler

... thinking of his golden treasure and at the first light of morning he slipped out to the barn. Imagine his rage when he found in the ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore

... the place about first light. I was too sleepy to get up. I yipped and they beat it. I don't think ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... sacred feet I cast me down? How she upraised me to her bosom fair, And from her garland shred the first light crown That ever pressed ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various

... barefooted. Boldero was the last to leave the boat, giving her a vigorous push with his foot in the direction of the shore, from which the vessel was but some forty yards away. They descended into the hold, where they remained perfectly quiet until the first light of dawn enabled them to see what they were doing, and then moved some baskets full of vegetables, and concealed themselves ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty

... beast and allows the stragglers to close up. After a short delay the trail is again hit off and the field streams away, but in ever-decreasing numbers, until a mere handful sight the flags which mark the finish, and ride their hardest at the final jump, the first light-weight and the first welter to cross which are thereafter entitled to sport pink and gain the honour of laying scent for the succeeding hunt. The sport is extremely good though very rough, which is mainly owing to the marshy nature of the soil and the fact that as the Chinese do not here ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready

... take up the light and discover the tomb to be empty. It wasn't likely, but some such curious one might be on the prowl. Now was the only safe time to fetch the lantern. He daren't leave it.... At the first light Mary and Martha would be at the sepulchre, and the finding of a lantern by the door of the empty sepulchre ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... rattled away from the Three Bar as the first light showed in the east, and the grind of wheels on gravel died out in the distance as Harris and Billie finished ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts

... his whistle the string of carts would move off, closely surrounded by the clank of spur and carbine, with jolts and cracking of whips, with a sudden deep rumble over the boundary bridge ("into the land of thieves and sanguinary macaques," Don Pepe defined that crossing); hats bobbing in the first light of the dawn, on the heads of cloaked figures; Winchesters on hip; bridle hands protruding lean and brown from under the falling folds of the ponchos. The convoy skirting a little wood, along the mine trail, between the mud huts and low walls of Rincon, increased its pace on the ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... firmament His path the fire-fly courser bent, And at every gallop on the wind, He flung a glittering spark behind; He flies like a feather in the blast Till the first light cloud in heaven is past, But the shapes of air have begun their work, And a drizzly mist is round him cast, He cannot see through the mantle murk, He shivers with cold, but he urges fast, Through storm ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake

... to cross the little stream. Late in the evening, we went to the river and worked till after midnight to make or find a crossing. The water was deep and cold, and, failing to accomplish our purpose, we turned back to a haystack, and, covering ourselves with hay, rested until the first light of ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... Jason's hands. And as she gave him the charm that she had gained with such danger, the fear and trouble that was around her heart melted as the dew melts from around the rose when it is warmed by the first light ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum

... mid-forenoon because the natives of this region are very late risers and often have not yet opened their doors at ten o'clock. This is quite contrary to the custom in many other parts of China where the inhabitants are about their work in the first light of dawn. ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews

... the window, totally oblivious to the smoking lamp beside him, or to anything else save the square card which he had found lying there beneath the table after he had taken her back across the valley to John Anderson's once-white cottage. He rose and extinguished the smoking wick as the first light of day began to creep through ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans

... swear hard, like he fight. Senor Jack he sing back his answers cheerful, like he fight. Toward morning we both wounded and only Leddy and one other man alive on his side. When a cloud slip over the moon and the big darkness before morning come, we creep down from the ridge and with first light we bang-bang quick—and I no remember ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... thus busily employed. The wind had gone down and the sea was perfectly smooth. The commander was on deck when the first light streaks of dawn appeared in the sky. As the light increased, he discerned a line of cocoa-nut trees rising out of one of the low islands, known as keys in those seas, scarcely half a mile off, while in the intermediate space were numerous dark rocks, the upper ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston

... It gave him something, however trivial, to think about besides the peril of a woman who looked like motherhood incarnate, and so should have been heir to all the worship and chivalry of men. With the first light he was up and had built his fire, and Charlotte, hearing him, got, sooner than was her wont, out of her warm bed. Charlotte owned to liking to "lay a spell" in winter, to make up for the early activities of summer ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... 'grace to the sky, it is you! Ah, what I have endured! But you win, monsieur, you win; they fly, the laches. But listen, monsieur — I forget, it is no good; the Queen is to be murdered tomorrow at the first light in the palace of Milosis; her guards will leave their posts, and the priests are going to kill her. Ah yes! they little thought it, but I was ensconced beneath a banner, and I heard ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard

... will thy grief be rendered tenfold by the despairing and remorseful thought, that thine own lips sealed thine own sentence. Thou mayest think," continued Juan, with rapid eagerness, "that my love to thee was at first light and dishonouring. Be it so. I own that my youth has passed in idle wooings, and the mockeries of affection. But for the first time in my life I feel that—I love. Thy dark eyes—thy noble beauty—even thy womanly scorn, have fascinated me. I—never yet disdained where I ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book V. • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... hour of night the slender sail curved sweetly backward toward the sea, and the shallop seemed drawn to the land by a lodestone, as was the ship of Sindbad the Sailor, and when it magically climbed the dark headland and sailed away into the sky above, it drew out of the sea behind it the first light of glorious morning. From Manomet head to the Gurnet the horizon showed a level sea line of palest garnet that deepened, moment by moment, till the coming sun arched it with rose and bounded from it, a flattened globule of ruby fire. I like to think that the path of ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... Smith's researches caused the first Board of Northern Lights to make him their engineer, and he designed Kinnaird Head, the first light they exhibited, and illuminated it in 1787. He was ultimately succeeded as engineer to the Board by his stepson, of Bell Rock fame, and his descendant, Mr David Alan Stevenson, who now holds the post, is the sixth in the family who has done so. Young ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black

... detachments left promptly, since they had to make a circuitous march of several miles to Teach the points designated for their attack; the third started a little later; and then the fourth and last, under Custer himself, also moved into position. As the first light grew visible in the east, each column moved closer in to the village, and then, all dispositions having been made according to the prearranged plan, from their appointed places the entire force to the opening notes of "Garry Owen," played by the regimental band as the signal ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... first light of dawn, and frequently long before the darkness has passed away, the market farmers and gardeners of Long Island and New Jersey crowd the boats with their huge wagons heavily loaded with vegetables and fruits for the city ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... The first light of dawn filtered through the blinds. He was able to make out that the only closed door was the one to Natacha's chamber. He stopped before that door, his heart beating, and listened. But no sound came to his ear. He had ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux

... of bed, wishing I could recall that dream-face, just to make sure whether or no it was more beautiful than either of the girls'. And by the time I had dressed, and gone across to "Mascotte's" deck, the two I loved were on deck also, with the first light of dawn shining ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... in summer moonlight, In a valley of dark fear full of pale moonlight: It blooms once a year, and dies in a night, And its petals disappear with the dawn's first light; And when that night has come, black small-breasted maids, With ecstatic terror dumb, steal fawn-like through the shades To watch, hour by hour, the unfolding ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various

... more trivial facts held his attention no longer: they were the mere reconnaissance of the elements—the first light attack of Nature upon her own weakness. By and by from the surging, roaring depths of the woods, there suddenly reverberated to him a deep boom as of a cannon: one of the great trees—two-forked at the mighty summit and already burdened ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen

... hurt pained him much. Moreover, he was troubled by the thought that Margaret must be sure that both he and her father were dead, and of the sufferings of her sore heart. Whenever he dozed off he seemed to see her awake and weeping, yes, and to hear her sobs and murmurings of his name. When the first light of dawn crept through the high-barred windows, he arose and called Castell, for they could not dress without each other's help. Then they waited until they heard the sound of men talking and of beasts stamping in the courtyard without. Guessing that ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard

... for festival, rose with the first light music that stole, winged and silken, from hidden cedar alcoves, and some minutes past the sounding of the hour of noon the chamfered doors set high in the south wall of the Hall of Kings were swung open, and at the head of the ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale

... given until sunrise of the following morning in which to find someone capable of interpreting Bascomb's letter, and to come to a decision as to whether or not they would accede to the terms of the said letter; and the first light of dawn revealed a large boat putting off from the shore, pulled by twelve oarsmen, and flying a white flag at the stern. This was the first boat that had attempted to approach either of the ships since the appearance of the Adventure upon the scene, ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... driven by the fear of hunger, defying danger, not knowing if they would live till night, or if the sun rising over their heads would be the last in their lives. And that daily concentration of human energies began with the first light of day in all parts of the world, wherever men had assembled and built towns and constituted societies, or even in the deserts to ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... Brown's henhouse. He wished he had never thought of eggs. He wished many other foolish wishes, but most of all he wished that he hadn't lost his temper and kicked that egg down on Jimmy Skunk's head. When the first light stole in under the door and the biddies began to stir uneasily on their roosts Unc' Billy's anxiety would allow him to ...
— The Adventures of Jimmy Skunk • Thornton W. Burgess

... he had killed his first down by the pool in the wood. For he had taken his father's spear and gone down to the edge of the pool, and had lain under the azaleas there waiting for the stars to shine, by whose first light the gariachs go to the pools to drink; and he had gone too early and had had long to wait, and the passing hours seemed longer than they were. And all the birds came in that home at night, and the bat was abroad, and the hour of the duck went by, and still ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... the dawn, believing us so few, it will advance and with the first light begin to thread the swamp, and therefore we must keep five thousand archers to gall it as it comes. Still it will win through, though with loss, and find us waiting for it here shoulder to shoulder, rank upon rank with locked shields, against which horse ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... 6th of May came, and, with the first light of dawn, the adversaries, as by a common understanding, advanced at the same moment to ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke

... as these, I was aroused by the order from the officer, "Forward there! rig the headpump!'' I found that no time was allowed for daydreaming, but that we must "turn to'' at the first light. Having called up the "idlers,'' namely, carpenter, cook, and steward, and rigged the pump, we began washing down the decks. This operation, which is performed every morning at sea, takes nearly two hours; and I had hardly strength enough to get through it. After we had finished, swabbed down ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... horizon, the masthead light, followed shortly by a second one, lower down, on the deck; if these two remained in vertical alignment and the distance between them increased as the lights drew nearer, we might be certain it was a steamer. But what a night to see that first light on the horizon! We saw it many times as the earth revolved, and some stars rose on the clear horizon and others sank down to it: there were "lights" on every quarter. Some we watched and followed until we saw the deception and grew wiser; ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley

... night, and the sky seemed immeasurably lifted while yet filled with the uncertainties of dawn. Fundy Bay revealed more and more of its clean blue-emerald level, and far eastward the glassy water shaded up to a flushing of pink. Smoke rose from the mess fires in D'Aulnay's camp. The first light puff of burnt powder sprung from his batteries, and ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... circle, with a shred of newspaper, an old rag, or broken tin can lying in the ashes. Beyond these always a low dark line that seemed to sink into the ground at night, and rose again in the morning with the first light, but never otherwise changed its height and distance. A sense of always moving with some indefinite purpose, but of always returning at night to the same place—with the same surroundings, the same people, ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte

... brought, like this poor woman, to pray to God, though they were to be all Protestants at first, rather than they should continue pagans and heathens; firmly believing, that He who had bestowed that first light upon them, would farther illuminate them with a beam of his heavenly grace, and bring them into the pale of his church, when he should ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... archers in another, with Lancarote himself and the men-at-arms behind. They were steered by pilots who had been on the coast before and knew it, and it was hoped they would come upon the natives of Tider Island with the first light of dawn. But the way was longer than the pilots reckoned, the night was pitchy dark, without moon or stars, the tide was on the ebb, and at last the boats were aground. It was well on in the morning before they got off on the flood ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley

... the only people worth talking to. I met some strange fellows but excellent company—and they knew, all of them, the things that I knew; they had been out all night and seen the moon and the stars change and the first light of the dawn, and the little breeze that comes in those early hours from the sea, bringing the winds of other countries with it. And they were merry, they had a philosophy—they knew ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole

... intended a reference to electricity, for we read in "The Secret Doctrine," by H.P. Blavatsky, "There exists an universal agent unique of all forms and of life, that is called Od, Ob, and Aour, active and passive, positive and negative, like day and night; it is the first light in creation; and the first light of the primordial Elo-him—the A-dam,—male and female, or, (scientifically) Electricity and Life. Its universal value is nine, for it is the ninth letter of the alphabet and the ninth door of the fifty portals or gateways, that lead to the concealed mysteries ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno

... kep' an till mornin', cryin' and lamintin; an' wid the first light she called up all the sarvint bys, an' she tould them to go out an' to sarch every inch iv ground to find the corpse, 'for I'm sure,' says she, 'it's not to go hide himself he ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... the curtest: Begone, every man of them, to the Sea Wraith, and lie at anchor waiting for the morning. For himself, he should spend the night ashore; they might leave for him the cockboat, and with the first light he would come aboard. The two prisoners,—place them in the ransacked bark and let them go whither they would or could. He glanced in their direction, then turning sharply, crossed the sand to stand for a ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... first light of dawn I was up and out, and then was glad I had not seen all the night before, it came upon me with such power in its dewy freshness. O, they are beautiful indeed, these rapids! The grace is so much more obvious than the power. I went up through the old Chippewa burying-ground to ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... ranks of the Teutonic Knights, against the heathen of Borussia, was, in fact, in our camp and in our power; and, therefore, William proposed to hold these nobles as hostages for his safety. This gave me the first light on the real rank of the Knight of the Leopard, and my suspicions were confirmed by De Vaux, who, on his return from Ascalon, brought back with him the Earl of Huntingdon's sole attendant, a thick-skulled slave, who had gone thirty miles to unfold to De ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... knew of no better hiding-place. A sudden idea came to her; she pulled out her pretty little watch, and saw that she need not return to the house for another half-hour. "Suppose she ran as fast as possible to Betty's little cottage and begged of the old woman to come by the first light in the morning and fetch away ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade

... morning the woman was up with the first light. And as the men came grumbling in to breakfast, the round face wore its placid smile. They joked her and ate hastily and departed for the open field. It was part of a steady policy—to be always in the open, busy, hard-working men who could not ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee

... all this to be true, and suppose that, as the outcome of it all, the countless millions of men and women and children that have walked the earth during the last three hundred thousand years, until the Jews received their first light from heaven, suppose that they have been lost: that is a part of this gospel. Suppose that since that time all the nations outside of Christendom have been lost: that is a part of this gospel. Suppose that not only this ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage

... this posset some drops of a concoction prepared by herself from herbs, which would infallibly produce sound and deep sleep within two hours. The master of the house asleep, all would be simple. The two women would sally forth by the postern door, and make for the forest. With the first light of the dawn, Martha would seek the shelter of Trevlyn Chase, whilst Petronella sought her brother in the pixies' dell. Nicholas Trevlyn would awake the next morning to find himself alone in the old Gate House that he had made ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... ruffian—when he was dying had a moment of remorse. He wrote to my wife and asked her to look after his girls, 'For God's sake, Lina, see if you can help Alice—Wensleydale's a perfect brute.' That was the first light we had on the situation, for Adelina had long before washed her hands of him; and we knew that she hated us. Well, we tried; of course we tried. But so long as her husband lived Alice would have nothing ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... so eagerly and impatiently waited with open eyes, again dawned. With the first light Dantes resumed his search. Again he climbed the rocky height he had ascended the previous evening, and strained his view to catch every peculiarity of the landscape; but it wore the same wild, barren aspect when seen by the rays of the ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... said; 'real charity I call this. I shan't forget it, I assure you. I ought to apologise for knocking you up like this, but I'd been hours tramping through this precious marsh of yours wet to the skin, and not a morsel of food since mid-day. And yours was the first light I'd seen for a couple ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit

... endure the toil. For the professional elephant hunter is now, by force of circumstance and white man's law, become a wolf of the forest, and the hands of all Governments are against him. He must mark his elephant down, be up with the first light and after him, must manoeuvre for light and wind and scent to pick the big bull from the sheltering herd of females. If the head shot is not possible, the lung shot or stomach shot alone is left. And six hours' march through waterless ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey

... showed his indistinct and monstrous form upon the rocky coast. He crawled like a serpent and his writhing body seemed about fifteen feet long. At his appearance the crowd drew back in terror. But soon all eyes were turned towards the Virgin Orberosia, who, in the first light of the dawn, clothed in white, advanced over the purple heather. With an intrepid though modest gait she walked towards the beast, who, uttering awful bellowings, opened his flaming throat. An immense cry of terror and pity arose from the midst of the Penguins. But the ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France

... this. The boys were overawed. They had been afraid, every one of them; and the mystery of their escape and whereabouts oppressed them. But they got the anchor over the bow; and presently they had the cabin stove going and were drying off. Nobody turned in; they waited anxiously for the first light of day to disclose ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan

... more. The very night of the young gentleman's departure, late, a telegram had come to Mr. Fulton. She, Hilda, had gone down to the front door, signed for the telegram, and carried it to Mr. Fulton's room. He did not answer to her first light knock; nor to a first or second loud knock. She pushed the door open. The room was full of moonlight. Mr. Fulton's bed was empty. It had ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris

... Count Herbert's Tower, in the Castle of Peronne. When the first light of dawn penetrated the ancient Gothic chamber, the King summoned Oliver to his presence, who found the Monarch sitting in his nightgown, and was astonished at the alteration which one night of mortal ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... world as done— To see the last perfection rise, That crowning of creation's birth, When mid the worship and surprise Of circling angels Woman's eyes First open upon heaven and earth; And from their lids a thrill was sent, That thro' each living spirit went Like first light thro' the firmament! ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... At first light dawned slowly; so slowly, that for a considerable time he still relished an occasional plunge into scenes of gaiety. Even after entering the Divinity Hall, he could be persuaded to indulge in lighter pursuits, at least during the two first years of his attendance; but it was ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar

... and then there's Cherry Hill and Malplaquet still before us. Why shouldn't you just speak to them at Elm Tree, then ride on to the inn at Deer Lick and sleep there to-night? You could start with the first light, ride around Cherry Hill, and give Malplaquet the slip. I'll make your excuses everywhere. It's hard if a man can't be forgiven something—when he's on the eve of marrying Unity Dandridge! You'll be at Greenwood to-morrow night, and I dare say they'll ask you to breakfast ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... through the darkness to a deep and broad ravine, into which they descended. The sides and bottom of this ravine were clothed in bushes, and they grew thick on the edges above. It was much darker here, but Dick presently caught ahead of him the flicker of the first light that he had ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler

... transient frenzy. In religion itself have we not similar variety of expression? Those faces gathered under the trees or in a public thoroughfare—the expression of emotion there is not that which we witness, say, in Santa Croce, at prime, when the first light falls through the windows on Giotto's frescoes, Herod and Francis, St. Louis and the Soldan, and on the few, the still worshippers—but dare we assert that this alone is sincere, the ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb

... of returning life, in one great pulsation, his love rushed back to his heart, and he thought of Mercedes.... He sat up nearly all the night, and with the first light of ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... just as a summer night was reddening into dawn. Away to the rear over Guillemont—for the Australians were pushing almost in an opposite direction from the great British attack—the first light of day glowed angrily on the lower edges of the leaden clouds. You could faintly distinguish objects a hundred yards away. Our field guns, from behind the hills, broke suddenly into a tempest of fire, which tore a curtain of dust from the red shell ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean

... "Next to the first light green it will appear of a deep green, and in a few minutes change to a full sea-green; after which it will alter to a blue, then to a purplish-red; after which, lying an hour or two (if the sun shines) it will be of a deep purple-red, beyond which the sun ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland

... a mother is, sweetheart. How should you? And how shall I tell you? Listen. She is the one who loves you first and last and always. When you are a babe she suckles you and nourishes you and fondles you, and watches for the first light of your smile, and listens for the first accent of your tongue. When you are a young child she plays with you, and sings to you, and tells you little stories, and teaches you to speak. Your smile is more bright to her than sunshine, and your childish lisp more sweet than music. If you are sick ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine

... which was unwalled, and there amidst its streets and houses await the attack of the Inca hosts that were encamped upon its farther side, for thus protected by their walls we hoped that we should be more equal to them. Yet things happened otherwise, since with the first light, without which we did not dare to move over unknown ground, we perceived that during the darkness the Inca armies had moved round and through the town and were gathered by the ten thousand in dense battalions upon the ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard

... vessels characteristic of the two preceding diseases. If an affected stem is put in a moist chamber made from a covered or inverted dish, there will develop an exceedingly vigorous growth of snow-white fungous mycelium which, after a few days, bears numerous round shot-like bodies, at first light-colored, then becoming smaller and dark-brown. These are the sclerotia or resting bodies of the fungus. This fungus, called Sclerotium sp., or "Rolf's Sclerotium," is noteworthy because it attacks potatoes, squash, cowpea, and a long ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy

... flotilla, under Commodore Keyes, sailed from Harwich for the Bight of Helgoland, and all the next day the Lurcher and the Firedrake, destroyers, scouted for submarines. On that same day sailed the first and third destroyer flotillas, the battle cruiser squadron, first light cruiser squadron, and the seventh cruiser squadron, having a rendezvous at this point on the morning ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... at this point, it was determined to march no further into the Mexican territory. At the first light next day we were in motion to return to the river and the American line, and ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... The first light of dawn revealed each of the three dogs holding a large band of sheep. The two herders and the camp tender had each rounded up a smaller bunch. They worked their separate ways back toward the bed ground, gathering strays along the way. The camp tender held them in ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts

... groups of devotees. Thence it was borne with solemn chants to the chapel of Santa Croce. A musical Mass followed, and the culla being at last deposited on the High Altar, the wearied spectators issued forth just as the dome of St. Peter's caught the first light of the morning.{68} ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles

... Old Man, and stooped and took a second light from the box. "Your first light may go out before we're ready. You'd better have another, in case ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson

... you hold your life dear, or her life," and she pointed to Juanna, "you will turn with the first light and go back whence you came. It is true that the stones are there, but death shall be the reward of him who strives ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard

... eternal life. All these people were good and noble and unselfish and kind; but the best and noblest of them all was a youth named Ving; and this youth was beloved by Odin above all others, for his beauty and strength and goodness. Always he walked on Odin's right hand, and always the first light of Odin's smile fell on him. Tall and straight was he as a young pine, and his long hair was the colour of ripe wheat in the sun; and his blue eyes were like the northland heavens on a ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... The first light was thrown on the question in the winter of 1894-95 by the excavations of Flinders Petrie in Ballas and Neggadeh, two places on the west bank of the Nile, a little below ancient Thebes. This persevering ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various

... creature. An expression of wonder seemed to sit on her features, but otherwise she was looking much as I had last seen her, when she said 'Good-night.' Everything appeared to be orderly in the room. It was now flooded with the first light of a sunny morning, for she had drawn her blind up and thrown her window wide open. The poor lady passed out of life without a sound or signal to indicate trouble, for in the silence of night Jane Bond must have heard any alarm had she raised one. To me it seemed impossible to believe that ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts

... With the first light of dawn Burns relieved me, and I went forward with Singleton. He dropped into his bunk, and was asleep almost immediately. Then, inch by inch, I went over the deck for footprints, for any clue to what, under happier circumstances, I should have considered a ghastly hoax. ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... end to-morrow. It will be our own fault if we are not all free men before another sun sets. Then many hours of darkness will befriend us. Hide by day and hurry on by night. Make for the sea, but not all in the same direction. With the first light of day, our companions, all over the prison, will see the red flag flying. Then shout! Shout every one of you. Keep on shouting! and the walls of our jail will fall ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown

... words, coming perhaps from a distance, perhaps from quite near, pierced through these opaque mists. They passed by like wild birds which have slept in the rushes and which fly away at the first light of day, crossing the mist and uttering a low and timid sound which wakes their brothers ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... morning at first light. But that is just opposite to Skene's and the way she certainly took at first. She would have to turn and go about through the woods, or White Farm would see her." His voice had a haunting ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... he had treated her like a servant after she had walked in his masque. Her uncle Norfolk was a craven who had left her to sink or swim. Throckmorton, a werewolf who would defile her if she entered into any compact with him. He would inform against her, with the first light of the morning, and she had trembled in her room at every footstep that passed the door. She had imagined guards coming with their pikes down to take her. She had trembled in the ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford

... prince, turning to the captain, "I will leave you in charge here, and start off by the first light to-morrow morning. See that poor Konar is well cared for. Maikar, you will accompany me, and I suppose, Dromas, that you ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne

... first light another cigarette. It's this. We've just come across a young fellow, who's evidently very poor, and who ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... mingled with curiosity. The new doctor was almost too melancholy. It would not be true to say that he never smiled, but his smile was even sadder than his gravity. There was a chill in it, as there is a chill in the first light of dawn. One or two particularly impressionable people declared that it frightened them, that it was uncanny. This idea, once started, developed. It went from house to house. And so, gradually, a spirit of whispering awe arose in the little town, and the vision of human pain ceased to ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens

... With the first light we were up and making ready for the fray. We took with us the three eight-bore rifles, a good supply of ammunition, and our large water-bottles, filled with weak cold tea, which I have always found the best stuff to shoot on. After swallowing a little breakfast we started, Umbopa, ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard

... The first light of dawn was just peering in through the skylight of the corrugated iron shed. The soldiers lay in a brown litter about the floor, several snoring horribly. The meaning of it came home with a slap. Imprisoned; not able to come and go at will; about to ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... first light of morning Escobedo came. The Republican general unfolded a paper, and began to read. But instead of the death sentence, it was reprieve. President Juarez had postponed execution ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... us, in two boats, and to avoid suspicion we ran down after dark and dropped anchor under a projecting bluff of land known as Point Pinole. As the east paled with the first light of dawn we got under way again, and hauled close on the land breeze as we slanted across the bay toward Point Pedro. The morning mists curled and clung to the water so that we could see nothing, but we busied ourselves driving the chill ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London

... thoughts of mine. I opened my window, I saw the faces of the lofty houses livid in the first light of day, and I swore solemnly to myself, in the presence of re-awakening life, that this day should see me begin to do what I ought, and the morrow should see me continue, and the following days should see the same, until I could say ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne

... dreadful anger these Were but the first light skirmishes; The shock and bloody battle now begins, The plenteous harvest of full-ripened sins. It was the time when the still moon Was mounted softly to her noon, And dewy sleep, which from Night's secret springs arose, Gently as Nile the land o'erflows; When, lo! from the ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... and injustice which preyed upon his spirits. The miseries of the townsfolk wrung his noble, generous heart. The utter loneliness depressed him. And over all lay the shadow of uncertainty. To the very end the possibility that 'all might be well' mocked him with false hopes. The first light of any morning might reveal the longed-for steamers of relief and the uniforms of British soldiers. He was denied even the ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... which sent Silent galloping over the hills before dawn. When the first light came he was close to the place of Gus Morris. He slowed his horse to a trot, but after a careful reconnoitring, seeing no one stirring around the sheriff's house, he drew closer and commenced to whistle a range song, broken here and there with a significant phrase which sounded like a ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand

... flung her, an hour later, with a broken fetlock, and Prior's pony being all but dead-beat, they abandoned the poor brutes on the mountain-side, took to their feet and stumbled on until the setting of the young moon. With the first light of dawn they had roused themselves to start anew, lingering out the agony: for the slopes below swarmed with enemies in chase, and even if a village lurked in these heights the inhabitants would give no help, being afraid of ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... The first light did not prove to be the one on the private dock where they had been tied up, but the second attempt to locate it was successful, and soon they were back where they had been before. Betty laid the Gem alongside the stringpiece, and Grace and Mollie, leaping out, ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope

... patronage of Kheraskoff, belonged, by education and his comprehension of elegance and of poetry, to a later epoch—on the borderland between pseudo-classicism and the succeeding period, which was ruled by sentimentalism. His well-known poem, "Dushenka" ("Dear Little Soul"), was the first light epic Russian poem, with simple, intelligible language, and with a jesting treatment of a gay, playful subject. This subject Bogdanovitch borrowed from La Fontaine's novel, "The Loves of Psyche and Cupid," which, in turn, was ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... name of a building, but completely extinguished the race of artists, a far more serious matter. Then, as it pleased God, there was born in the year 1240 in the city of Florence, Giovanni, surnamed Cimabue, of the noble family of the Cimabui, to shed the first light on the art of painting. As he grew up he appeared to his father and others to be a boy of quick intelligence, so that he was accordingly sent to receive instruction in letters to a relation, a master at S. Maria Novella, who then taught grammar to the ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari

... went to Antwerp to see his friends with a light heart—the first light heart he had known for many months; but when he got there he was so preoccupied with what had happened that he did ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... the hard bed Filomena had made up for him in the bailiff's parlour, and was afoot again with the first light. Stepping out into the farm-yard he looked abroad over the flat grey face of the land. Around the keep stretched the new-ploughed fields and the pollarded mulberry orchards; but these, with the clustered hovels of the village, formed a mere islet in the surrounding waste of marsh and woodland. ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... those long nights, but they also gave him doubt. Remembering the daintiness of her as she had come to him, the night of her party, recalling the things to which she had been accustomed since she had opened her eyes on the first light of day, he began to ask himself as every man like him has asked who ever loved a woman, how in any fairness he could expect her to accept the little which he could offer in return. To Steve and Fat ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans

... or like the cattle of the plain which lie down together, or like the fierce lion, the master of the plain, when he coucheth." During the day and the night before the ceremony of removal, prayers and supplications were uttered, and at the first light of dawn on the appointed day the god Ningirsu went into his new temple "like a whirlwind," the goddess Bau entering at his side "like the sun rising over Shirpurla." She entered beside his couch, like a faithful wife, whose cares are for her own household, and she dwelt beside his ear ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall

... At the first light of the moon she roused him. She had put food into his fur-coat pocket, and after he had drunk a bowl of hot pea-soup, while she told him his course again, she opened the door, and he passed out into the night. He started forward ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... how sweet felt that cold bed! Let him lie there in peace, to move no more! Surely he had done his best; who could blame him for a failure beyond his power to avert? The darkness would pass over him, and leave him stretched there motionless; the first light of morning would mark the dark outlines of his prostrate figure, and he would not turn to greet it. Daylight would succeed, the sun would climb the sky and shine down upon him warmly; but he would ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne

... a man will rise early, sleep late, and eat the bread of carefulness, if he means to succeed. He will probably live—or be said to live—in some suburb more or less remote from the roaring centre of affairs. The first light of the winter dawn will see him alert; breakfast is a hurried passover performance; a certain train must be caught at all hazard to digestion, and the most leisured moments of the day will be those he passes in the railway carriage. Once arrived at his office he must plunge ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson

... cannonade from the numerous guns of the fortress replied with overwhelming power. When night interrupted the strife, the British ships had suffered severely, their rigging was torn by the hostile shot, and the crews had lost many of their best men. By the first light of morning, however, Phipps renewed the action with pertinacious courage, but with no better success. About noon the contest became evidently hopeless to the stubborn assailants; they weighed anchor, and, with the receding tide, floated their crippled vessels ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... and don't want it. Ate my third of a loaf of bread lumpy without grease and soggy, but like Huyler's bonbons to our hungry palates. Dreamed of being home last night, and hated to wake. Jumped up at first light, called boys and built fire, and put on kettles. We must be moving with more ginger. It is a nasty feeling to see the days slipping by and note the sun's lower declination, and still not know our way. Outlet hunting is hell on nerves, temper and equanimity. You paddle ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)

... with you back to him and tell this King of whom I have never heard, though I have a message for a certain Umslopogaas, that Macumazahn, Watcher-by-Night, intends to visit him to-morrow, if he will send a guide at the first light to show the ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... holding her hand. Two hours before dawn she realised that her last breath would ere long fall upon his tear-wet face. Then, as a friend has told us, she passed into a state of ecstasy: yet not so rapt therein but that she could whisper many words of hope, even of joy. With the first light of the new day, she leaned against her lover. Awhile she lay thus in silence, and then, softly sighing "It is beautiful!" passed like the windy fragrance of ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp

... With the first light of morning the camp is astir, and as the sun rises, the wagons are again rolling along across the upland prairies, to strike the trail leading to the south fork of the Platte. Slowly and hardly, fifteen miles each day, they toil on over the heavy soil. At night, while in camp, the hours ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... the position crowned by the Boer commandos in the first light of October 20th. Swift as had been its captors, news of their success was at once in the hands of the British commander. At 3 a.m. a sergeant from Grimshaw's piquet, which had been surprised at the cross roads, hurried into camp and reported the approach of the enemy in force across the veld. ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice

... avengers had now reached his extensive farm-buildings, among them Hornecht, captain of the archers, brother-in-law of the old astrologer. House and barns were brightly illumined by the first light of the young day. A stalwart smith kicked violently on the stout door; but the unbolted sides yielded so easily that he was forced to cling to the door-post to save himself from falling. Others, Hornecht among them, pressed past him into the yard. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... no news; then the first fruitless descent; then men went down and brought up heavy shapes rolled in canvas and bore them to the women; and "each morning the Red Cross president, lifting the curtain of the car where he slept, would see at first light the still rows of those muffled figures waiting in the hopeless daybreak." Not yet had the body of the young superintendent been found; yet one might not hope because of that. But when one afternoon the head-lines of the papers blazed with a huge "Rescued," she could not read it, and ...
— The Courage of the Commonplace • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... Salon mention. If I could get up to splash water-colors at that hour, I surely could rush to the protection of my own roses, so I went to bed with gray dawn on my mind and the shutters wide open so the first light would ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess

... entered upon something like a regular course. He had one of those intense nervous temperaments that did not require or permit excessive sleep. He arose with the first light, and took up at once the severest study he had until breakfast, and then worked with the boys, or alone, the most of the forenoon, at whatever on the farm, or about the house, seemed most to want his hand; the afternoons and evenings were given to unremitting study or reading. His tone ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle

... reflection, in my opinion, evidently shewing, that, if he did refrain from the practice of this ingenious art, it was not from want of an inclination that way. We may remember too, that in Virgil's poem, almost the first light in which the Pious AEneas appears to us, is a deer-stealer; nor is it much excuse for him, that the deer were wandering without keepers; for however he might, from this circumstance, have been unable to ascertain whose property they ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe



Words linked to "First light" :   time of day, hour, sunset, break of the day



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