Across a range of literary texts, dark blue is deployed with remarkable versatility as a color that evokes mood, character, and setting. In descriptions of clothing, it often connotes formality or melancholy—a uniform of dark blue cloth ([1]) and a tailored dark blue suit ([2], [3]) underline both a sense of discipline and somber elegance, while a dark blue dress or gown ([4], [5], [6]) can hint at refined beauty or quiet introspection. Equally, authors employ dark blue to color natural phenomena: the dark blue sky studded with stars ([7], [8], [9]), the vast dark blue sea or bay that envelops a landscape ([10], [11]), and even the delicate suggestion of blue in a woman's eyes ([12], [13], [14]) serve to evoke emotions ranging from mystery to sorrow. This breadth—from the tactile description of fabrics and currencies ([15], [16], [17]) to the atmospheric depths of a nocturnal sky or ocean—demonstrates how dark blue operates as a rich, multi-layered symbol throughout literature ([18], [19]).
- At the head of the melancholy platoon stood an officer in dark blue cloth uniform and clumsy shoes, [pg 50] a sword by his side.
— from The Kingdom of Slender Swords by Hallie Erminie Rives
- It just happened that the suit he wore was dark blue and his trousers matched accurately.
— from Officer 666 by Barton Wood Currie
- The dark blue uniform told to which army he belonged.
— from Leah Mordecai: A Novel by Belle K. (Belle Kendrick) Abbott
- “I am going to get a lovely dark blue dress for the winter.
— from The Story Girl by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery
- She was richly dressed in a dark blue taffeta dress that gave brilliance to her tawny hair.
— from The Price of Love by Arnold Bennett
- That was a simple gown of some dark blue stuff, confined at the waist by a broad band of cardinal ribbon.
— from The Yoke of the Thorah by Henry Harland
- The clouds were broken after the storm; and here and there might be seen the dark blue sky with stars like diamonds.
— from The Golden Age in Transylvania by Mór Jókai
- The full yellow moon in the dark blue sky was just standing over it, and as we looked a shooting star fell down to earth.
— from Forty Thousand Miles Over Land and Water
The Journal of a Tour Through the British Empire and America by Ethel Gwendoline Vincent
- It was a wonderfully hot night, and not even the dark blue of the moonless sky, studded with stars, could give any sensation of coolness.
— from Madame Midas by Fergus Hume
- He climbed the trail in the vast shadow of the cliffs that was thrown out like a dark blue mantle over valleys and ridges far below.
— from The People of the Black Circle by Robert E. (Robert Ervin) Howard
- That wide curve of snow-white sand about the dark blue bay is as exact a crescent as if cut with a knife.
— from The Splendid Idle Forties: Stories of Old California by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
- His eyes were dark blue.
— from Luke Barnicott, and Other Stories by William Howitt
- It 54 would be impossible for any man who had looked into Patsy Dale’s dark blue eyes to forget her; and we had been something more than friends.
— from A Virginia Scout by Hugh Pendexter
- He was awakened by a woman clinging to him, a pretty woman, with brown, disarranged hair and dark blue eyes.
— from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- 1881, Nov. (?) 1 cent, dark blue, blue, cream paper .
— from Canada: Its Postage Stamps and Postal Stationery by Clifton A. (Clifton Armstrong) Howes
- 1892, Feb. (?) 1 cent, dark blue, thin straw paper .
— from Canada: Its Postage Stamps and Postal Stationery by Clifton A. (Clifton Armstrong) Howes
- Eleven Volumes, medium 8vo, dark blue buckram extra, with a cover design by Gleeson White , £5, 19s.
— from The Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville by Alexis de Tocqueville
- "'Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!'
— from Hagar by Mary Johnston
- "A sky of dark blue, plenty of stars, but no aeroplanes, Taubes or other machines of man's making."
— from The Forest of Swords: A Story of Paris and the Marne by Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler