candle-light

candle-light (uncountable)

1. Archaic form of candlelight.
   • 1596, Tho[mas] Nashe, “Dialogus”, in Haue with You to Saffron-Walden. Or, Gabriell Harveys Hunt is Up. , London: John Danter, →OCLC; republished as J[ohn] P[ayne] C[ollier], editor, Have with You to Saffron-Walden (Miscellaneous Tracts; Temp. Eliz. and Jac. I), , →OCLC, page 44:

     O! it is divine and moſt admirable, and ſo farre beyond all that ever he publiſhed heretofore, as day-light beyond candle-light, or tinſell or leafe-gold above arſedine; […]

   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. , part II (books IV–VI), London: [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, page 496:

     The fight of whom, though now decayd and mard, / And eke but hardly ſeene by candle-light, / Yet like a Diamond of rich regard, / In doubtfull ſhadow of the darkeſome night, / VVith ſtarrie beames about her ſhining bright, / Theſe marchants fixed eyes did ſo amaze, / That what through wonder, & what through delight, / A while on her they greedily did gaze, / And did her greatly like, and did her greatly praize.

   • 1695, [William] Congreve, Love for Love: A Comedy. , London: Jacob Tonson, , →OCLC, Act V, scene ii, pages 76–77:

     Fifty a contemptible Age! Not at all, a very faſhionable Age I think—I aſſure you, I know very conſiderable Beaus, that ſet a good Face upon Fifty,. Fifty! I have ſeen Fifty in a ſide Box by Candle-light, out-bloſſom Five and Twenty.

   • 1780 April 20, Patrick Wilson, “XXVI. An Account of a Most Extraordinary Degree of Cold at Glasgow in January Last; together with Some New Experiments and Observations on the Comparative Temperature of Hoar-frost and the Air near to It, Made at the Macfarlane Observatory Belonging to the College. ”, in Philosophical Transactions, of the Royal Society of London, volume LXX, part II, London: Lockyer Davis, and Peter Elmsly, printers to the Royal Society, →OCLC, page 469:

     The ſheets of brovvn paper being ſo thin acquired it ſooneſt, and vvhen beheld in candle-light they became beautifully ſpangled over by innumerable reflections from the ſmall cryſtals of hoar-froſt vvhich had parted from the air.

   • 1794 October 31, John Dalton, “Extraordinary Facts Relating to the Vision of Colours: With Observations”, in Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, volume V, part 1, Manchester: Printed by George Nicholson for Cadell and Davies, published 1798, →OCLC, page 36:

     Most of the colours called drabs appear to me the same by day-light and candle-light.

   • 1817, T. Munro, Life, i. 511:

     I am now finishing this letter by candle-light, with the help of a handkerchief tied over the shade.

   • 1828, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter XX, in Pelham; or, The Adventures of a Gentleman. , volume II, London: Henry Colburn, , →OCLC, page 196:

     I rose by candle-light, and consumed, in the intensest application, the hours which every other individual of our party wasted in enervating slumbers, from the hesternal dissipation or debauch.

   • 1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “Stave Two. The First of the Three Spirits.”, in A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, London: Chapman & Hall, , →OCLC, page 50:

     There was an earthy savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candle-light, and not too much to eat.

   • 1882 December 30, “A London Fog”, in Punch, or The London Charivari, volume 83, London: Published at the office, 85, Fleet Street, →OCLC, page 301, column 1:

     You rise by candle-light or gaslight, swearing / There never was a climate made like ours; / If rashly you go out to take an airing, / The soot-flakes come in black Plutonian show'rs.

   • 1908, Henry James, chapter XV, in The Portrait of a Lady (The Novels and Tales of Henry James; III), New York edition, volume I, Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC; republished as The Portrait of a Lady (EBook #2833), United States: Project Gutenberg, 1 September 2001:

     […] the big dark dining table twinkled here and there in the small candle-light; […]

   • 1923, David Herbert Lawrence, Kangaroo, page 385:

     This dark, passionate religiousness and inward sense of an inwelling magnificence, direct flow from the unknowable God, this filled Richard's heart first, and human love seemed such a fighting for candle-light, when the dark is so much better.

   • 1957, Lawrence Durrell, Justine:

     They would kick off their shoes and play piquet by candle-light.