Literary notes about gathering (AI summary)
The word “gathering” appears in literature as a multifaceted term that spans both the literal and the metaphorical. It can denote the physical act of collecting or assembling things—such as picking violets [1], harvesting apples [2], or even gathering wood [3, 4]—as well as forming a collective of people, whether for a social occasion [5, 6, 7, 8] or a more strategic assembly [9, 10]. At the same time, authors use “gathering” to illustrate the gradual build-up of abstract qualities, from summoning courage [11, 12] and accumulating wisdom [13] to suggesting an ominous increase in clouds or shadows [14, 15, 16]. This layered deployment lends depth to narratives by linking tangible actions with internal, sometimes even foreboding, states.
- She set herself, therefore, to gathering violets and wood-anemones, and some scarlet columbines that she found growing in the crevices of a high rock.
— from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne - On a mellow evening in September, I was coming from the garden with a heavy basket of apples which I had been gathering.
— from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë - 'My husbands are also out there gathering wood.'
— from Kim by Rudyard Kipling - The Old Man and Death An old labourer, bent double with age and toil, was gathering sticks in a forest.
— from The Fables of Aesop by Aesop - A GRAND GATHERING—ANTI-SLAVERY—WOMAN'S RIGHTS—TEMPERANCE—THE WORLD'S FAIR, SEPTEMBER, 1853.
— from History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I - Then all the men and women, young men, and children, gathering themselves together to Ozias, all together with one voice, 7:13.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - 2 Machabees Chapter 8 Judas Machabeus gathering an army gains divers victories.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - It is now close to the time of our general gathering.
— from Dracula by Bram Stoker - He mingled with a crowd of men—a crowd which had been, and was still, gathering by degrees.
— from Sister Carrie: A Novel by Theodore Dreiser - “You will see a gathering of the Beast People,” said Montgomery.
— from The island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells - She walked on a few steps in silence, gathering up her courage; then suddenly she stopped.
— from Anna Karenina by graf Leo Tolstoy - Then, gathering up all her courage, she opened the door and entered.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant - There remained—polished, polite, attentive—a sober, learned son of experience and adversity, gathering wisdom from the lama's lips.
— from Kim by Rudyard Kipling - But the clouds are gathering behind us, hiding the moon, whereas toward the east the sky is growing lighter, becoming a clear blue tinged with red.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant - Then sudden fear came over her and she sprang up, staring into the gathering shadows.
— from The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers - There was a rain-storm gathering, and the hot air swayed no leaf.
— from The Best Short Stories of 1917, and the Yearbook of the American Short Story
