SAY WHAT?: "The darkest hour is just before the dawn" & "Every cloud has a silver lining"
It’s Monday again, dear Fandom Grammar readers! Considering this particular day of the week means trading leisure for work (or schoolwork) for the next five days, it’s easy to feel gloomy on Mondays and gawk at the long wait until Friday. But today we’re going to focus on the positive instead of the negative, like our two idioms of the day suggest: “The darkest hour is just before the dawn” and “every cloud has a silver lining.” To better shine the light on these two Positive-Polly phrases, we’ll get some help from the characters of Silent Hill, who are experts at finding their way in the dark.
“The darkest hour is just before the dawn.”
This idiom rose to light from its subject “the darkest hour,” a term commonly used since circa the 1700s to describe when circumstances and situations look their most grim. Although it was possibly a popular saying long before it saw print, the earliest textual instance of the idiom in its full form came in 1650 when the British preacher and scholar Thomas Fuller published a religious travelogue called A Pisgah-Sight Of Palestine And The Confines Thereof.
Pisgah-Sight is divided into books and its books into chapters. In its first book, The Generall Description of Judea, the eleventh chapter, The Tribe of Simeon, talks of the land belonging to the descendants of Joseph’s half-brother Simeon. Section 4 of this chapter details the location of Ziklag (or Ziglag, as Fuller spells it) as well as King Achish’s gift of it to David. David had taken refuge with Achish’s people, the Philistines, after King Saul of Israel grew envious of him and sought to kill him, as told in 1 Samuel 27. David joins forces with Achish to defeat Saul but does not partake in attacking his homeland. After the king’s subordinates voice suspicion of the refugee due to his former ties to their adversary, Achish sends David away. 1 Samuel 30 tells of David and his men’s return to Ziklag, upon which they find that the city has been gutted and the people captured by the Amalekites. Out of anger and grief, the men consider stoning their leader to death. David then has the priest Abiathar fetch him an ephod (a Jewish priest’s vest) and prays to God for direction. God answers, “Pursue: for thou shalt surely overtake them, and without fail recover all” (King James Version 1 Sam. 30:8).
Section 5 of Chapter 11 references 1 Samuel 30 heavily, particularly the men’s talk of killing David and David’s lack of direction. After God’s encouragement, David went on to to defeat the Amalekites, reclaim Ziklag’s people, and later ascend the throne once occupied by Saul to become King David of Israel. Thus Fuller encourages his readers with this passage:
"Thus, as it is always darkest just before the Day dawneth, so God useth to visite his servants with greatest afflictions, when he intendeth their speedy advancement.”
Two hundred years later, the Irish writer Samuel Lover would use a variation of the idiom to preface his ballad “The Hour Before Day” in his 1858 work Songs and ballads. In the ballad’s preface, he attributed the idiom to the Irish:
“There is a beautiful saying amongst the Irish peasantry to inspire hope under adverse circumstances:-‘Remember,’ they say, ‘that the darkest hour of all, is the hour before day.’”
The ballad follows a shunned knight who asks an old hermit why he should continue to live. The old hermit replies:
“’Despair not, my son;-thou’lt be righted ere long-
For Heaven is above us to right all the wrong!
Remember the words the old hermit doth say,-
‘Tis always the darkest, the hour before day!’”
After the knight wins back his honor, he meets his lady following the banquet that evening. When she expresses concern over a dog barking in the night, he comforts her with the words with which the old hermit comforted him:
“She paused ‘neath the arch, at the fierce ban dog’s bark,
She trembled to look on the night-‘twas so dark;
But her lover, he whisper’d-and thus he did say,
‘Sweet love, it is darkest, the hour before day.’”
Like in all uses of it that we’ve seen thus far, the idiom serves as a source of encouragement and hope for those who have fallen into despair. It means that relief will follow whatever trouble they are experiencing, no matter how horrible it is, just like the light of a new day will follow the night regardless of how dark it is.
An example:
“Alessa has split her essence into two halves: this one,” said Dahlia, stroking a lock of her comatose daughter’s hair, “And another we haven’t yet found.”
“And that means what, exactly?” Kaufmann said.
Dahlia snorted at the young doctor’s ignorance. “It means that until we find the other half, our god within her womb cannot be born.”
“So in the meantime, until however long it takes you people to find this other half-this half you don’t even know where it is, or what it is-you want to use my supplies, my staff, my hospital?”
Dahlia looked down at Alessa. “However long you wish to keep receiving my organization’s generous donations. Of course, if you no longer wish to accept them, we could give them to the police. I’m sure Officer Gucci would be more than happy to take-”
“No, no, I’ll take it,” he said. “I just need a, you know, a timeline, so I can prepare. This sort of thing takes planning. If the police found out about any of this, about you or her or, ah…Well, it’d be bad for all of us. Especially me since she’s in my facility.”
“Calm yourself, Michael,” she said. “All will be well. This is but a minor setback. The darkest hour is always just before the dawn-and what a glorious dawn it will be when God is finally reborn.”
“Every cloud has a silver lining.”
For this next idiom we have the original dark poet, John Milton of “Paradise Lost”-fame, to thank. In 1634, he published the dramatic poem “A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle” about Comus. Born of the sorceress Circe and the Roman god of wine, Bacchus, Comus is a wicked creature that wanders the woods at night in search of people to enchant with his magical potion. The potion makes them indulge their animalistic side, feasting, dancing, and partying ceaselessly.
In the poem, a woman simply known as “the Lady” becomes lost in the same woods that Comus roams at night after her brothers leave her to find food for their weary sister. The darkness casts shadows, and she hears noises that frighten her. She laments for someone to help. The “silver lining” of a dark cloud then casts enough light for her to tell that someone is near:
“I see ye visibly, and now believe
That he, the Supreme good, t' whom all things ill
Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
Would send a glistring Guardian if need were
To keep my life and honour unassail'd.
Was I deceiv'd, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
I did not err, there does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
And casts a gleam over this tufted Grove.
I cannot hallo to my Brothers, but
Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest
Ile venter, for my new enliv'n'd spirits
Prompt me; and they perhaps are not far off.”
Of course, that someone isn’t her brothers but rather the malevolent creature Comus.
The idiom would next appear in an 1840 novel called Marian; Or, A Young Maid's Fortunes by the writer “Mrs S. Hall.” In the novel, nurse Katty tells the titular Marian:
“Keep a good heart:…I’ve often tould ye there’s a silver lining to every cloud.”
The first edition of the novel opens with Milton’s quote from “Ludlow Castle.”
This version of the idiom would appear fourteen years later in Volume 40 of The New Monthly Belle Assemblée; A Magazine of Literature and Fashion, a literary magazine geared towards women that also contained literary reviews, illustrations of the latest fashions, editorials, a horoscope, and other topics of interest. In that volume, the idiom was attributed to the Irish and prefaced a poem called “The War-Cloud” by the writer “Mrs. Abdy.” The poem references a “silver lining” at the end of every stanza. The end of the first stanza also references the impossibility of “a cloud without a silver lining”:
“No skies can always be serene,
No sun can evermore be shining;
Yet, trust me, I have rarely seen
A cloud without a silver lining!”
The "every" in in the idiom came into play in 1863 via a series of satirical letters penned by newspaper editor and humorist David Ross Locke. The 1860s were the time of the American Civil War-the time of North versus South, industry versus agriculture, and of course, emancipation versus slavery. Locke stood staunchly with the United States of America (or "the Union"), which at that time consisted of what is now the northern half of the country's east coast, and he strongly opposed slavery. To express his stances, he created the character of Petroleum Vesuvius Nasby, an illiterate, crass, prejudiced, and overall detestable pastor who vehemently voiced support for the Confederate States of America (or just "the Confederacy"). It was in Nasby's voice that Locke wrote these letters, which became known as the "Nasby Letters." They were so popular that sometimes president Abraham Lincoln would read them to his cabinet for amusement.
In one letter dated July 20, 1863, the Nasby character laments over the loss of several battles to the Union but delights in a New York demonstration that resulted in the destruction of draft books and the loss of black citizens' lives. He refers to this event as the "silver linin[g]" to the dark "clowd" of defeat:
"I preecht frum this text, 'O mi sole why art thow cast down.' I told em we wuz cast down becoz uv Meed's whippin Lee, becoz uv Grant's takin Vixburg, and Banks' taken Port Hudson. That's what's the matter with us. That's what hez cast a shadder over owr countnansis, and changd the hew uv our nozis from the brilyunt crimsun to the gastly bloo! The flattrin hopes uv a successful invashen uv the North is dasht--likewise the releef uv Vixburg, and now to fill our cup uv sorrer, Jon Morgin's command is destroyd. But still, my frends, there is a silver linin 2 evry clowd wich is poetry. Ther is wun ray uv hope amid all this gloom. I allood to the lait constooshnel demonstrashens in Noo York. There wuz a victory! The draft books wuz destroyed and the draft wuz stopped. But ther wuz a bigger triumph than stoppin the draft. N****rz uz killd--the prowd Anglo-Saxn riz in his mite and stoned the n*****s! Halleloojy!"
Finally, the first textual use of the idiom in its current form came in 1869's Struggles and Triumphs: or, Forty Years' Recollections, an autobiographical novel by businessman and circus showman Phineas Taylor "P.T." Barnum. Founder of the circus known as "the Greatest Show on Earth," Barnum is known for his eccentricity and his exploitation of audiences' interest in the strange and bizarre. One of his most famous attractions was the "Feejee Mermaid," which he sold to the public as the corpse of a real mermaid but was actually just a dead monkey and fish sewn together. In Chapter 26 of Struggles and Triumphs (which he entitled "Clouds and Sunshine"), he details the outpouring of support (both emotional and financial) that he received following money troubles with creditors. Said Barnum of the trouble and subsequent support:
"All I could do was to take a thorough survey of the situation, and consider, now that I was down how I could get up again.
"'Every cloud,' says the proverb, 'has a silver lining,' and so I did not despair."
Since its conception at Milton’s hands, the idiom has referred to the good that can be found in the bad, light that can be found in the darkness, and indeed the silver lining that can found around each cloud. It encourages us to focus on the positive aspects of life rather than the negative ones.
An example:
When Henry entered the orphanage’s yard, Eileen was sitting on one of the swings on the rusty swingset, her casted arm laying in her lap, looking up at the night sky. She didn’t tear her eyes away from it when he said her name.
“It’s strange,” she said.
“What is?” he asked.
“There’s a moon here. It looks just like it does in the real world. But it’s bigger, and brighter. I wonder if that’s how Walter saw it when he was a kid living here: a big pool of white lighting up the darkness. That’s how I’d see it. Except it’s not real.”
A tear slid down her cheek, glinting in the moonlight. He sat in the seat beside her.
“My mom always used to say, ‘Every cloud has a silver lining’-”
“Being stuck in some crazy killer’s alternative reality is a really big, really dark cloud, Henry.”
“Yes, but we’re together. We’re not going it alone. I know it’s a pretty thin silver lining, but we have to keep that in mind.”
Often, we feel the black shadow of our problems and circumstances hanging over us like a steely storm cloud about to strike us down with a single bolt of lightning. But often, those problems and circumstances soon thereafter pass, allowing the light of a new day to brighten our lives once again. We only need to wait for the first ray of dawn to lighten the night, for the clouds’ silver lining to illuminate the darkness. And rest assured, dear readers, Friday will be here before you know it. Until then, keep your chin up and your eyes peeled for the light.
Sources:
Bible Summary
Biography.
Encyclopedia Britannica
The Holy Bible
The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs
The Phrase Finder
The Vault at Pfaff's @ LeHigh University
“The darkest hour is just before the dawn.”
This idiom rose to light from its subject “the darkest hour,” a term commonly used since circa the 1700s to describe when circumstances and situations look their most grim. Although it was possibly a popular saying long before it saw print, the earliest textual instance of the idiom in its full form came in 1650 when the British preacher and scholar Thomas Fuller published a religious travelogue called A Pisgah-Sight Of Palestine And The Confines Thereof.
Pisgah-Sight is divided into books and its books into chapters. In its first book, The Generall Description of Judea, the eleventh chapter, The Tribe of Simeon, talks of the land belonging to the descendants of Joseph’s half-brother Simeon. Section 4 of this chapter details the location of Ziklag (or Ziglag, as Fuller spells it) as well as King Achish’s gift of it to David. David had taken refuge with Achish’s people, the Philistines, after King Saul of Israel grew envious of him and sought to kill him, as told in 1 Samuel 27. David joins forces with Achish to defeat Saul but does not partake in attacking his homeland. After the king’s subordinates voice suspicion of the refugee due to his former ties to their adversary, Achish sends David away. 1 Samuel 30 tells of David and his men’s return to Ziklag, upon which they find that the city has been gutted and the people captured by the Amalekites. Out of anger and grief, the men consider stoning their leader to death. David then has the priest Abiathar fetch him an ephod (a Jewish priest’s vest) and prays to God for direction. God answers, “Pursue: for thou shalt surely overtake them, and without fail recover all” (King James Version 1 Sam. 30:8).
Section 5 of Chapter 11 references 1 Samuel 30 heavily, particularly the men’s talk of killing David and David’s lack of direction. After God’s encouragement, David went on to to defeat the Amalekites, reclaim Ziklag’s people, and later ascend the throne once occupied by Saul to become King David of Israel. Thus Fuller encourages his readers with this passage:
"Thus, as it is always darkest just before the Day dawneth, so God useth to visite his servants with greatest afflictions, when he intendeth their speedy advancement.”
Two hundred years later, the Irish writer Samuel Lover would use a variation of the idiom to preface his ballad “The Hour Before Day” in his 1858 work Songs and ballads. In the ballad’s preface, he attributed the idiom to the Irish:
“There is a beautiful saying amongst the Irish peasantry to inspire hope under adverse circumstances:-‘Remember,’ they say, ‘that the darkest hour of all, is the hour before day.’”
The ballad follows a shunned knight who asks an old hermit why he should continue to live. The old hermit replies:
“’Despair not, my son;-thou’lt be righted ere long-
For Heaven is above us to right all the wrong!
Remember the words the old hermit doth say,-
‘Tis always the darkest, the hour before day!’”
After the knight wins back his honor, he meets his lady following the banquet that evening. When she expresses concern over a dog barking in the night, he comforts her with the words with which the old hermit comforted him:
“She paused ‘neath the arch, at the fierce ban dog’s bark,
She trembled to look on the night-‘twas so dark;
But her lover, he whisper’d-and thus he did say,
‘Sweet love, it is darkest, the hour before day.’”
Like in all uses of it that we’ve seen thus far, the idiom serves as a source of encouragement and hope for those who have fallen into despair. It means that relief will follow whatever trouble they are experiencing, no matter how horrible it is, just like the light of a new day will follow the night regardless of how dark it is.
An example:
“Alessa has split her essence into two halves: this one,” said Dahlia, stroking a lock of her comatose daughter’s hair, “And another we haven’t yet found.”
“And that means what, exactly?” Kaufmann said.
Dahlia snorted at the young doctor’s ignorance. “It means that until we find the other half, our god within her womb cannot be born.”
“So in the meantime, until however long it takes you people to find this other half-this half you don’t even know where it is, or what it is-you want to use my supplies, my staff, my hospital?”
Dahlia looked down at Alessa. “However long you wish to keep receiving my organization’s generous donations. Of course, if you no longer wish to accept them, we could give them to the police. I’m sure Officer Gucci would be more than happy to take-”
“No, no, I’ll take it,” he said. “I just need a, you know, a timeline, so I can prepare. This sort of thing takes planning. If the police found out about any of this, about you or her or, ah…Well, it’d be bad for all of us. Especially me since she’s in my facility.”
“Calm yourself, Michael,” she said. “All will be well. This is but a minor setback. The darkest hour is always just before the dawn-and what a glorious dawn it will be when God is finally reborn.”
“Every cloud has a silver lining.”
For this next idiom we have the original dark poet, John Milton of “Paradise Lost”-fame, to thank. In 1634, he published the dramatic poem “A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle” about Comus. Born of the sorceress Circe and the Roman god of wine, Bacchus, Comus is a wicked creature that wanders the woods at night in search of people to enchant with his magical potion. The potion makes them indulge their animalistic side, feasting, dancing, and partying ceaselessly.
In the poem, a woman simply known as “the Lady” becomes lost in the same woods that Comus roams at night after her brothers leave her to find food for their weary sister. The darkness casts shadows, and she hears noises that frighten her. She laments for someone to help. The “silver lining” of a dark cloud then casts enough light for her to tell that someone is near:
“I see ye visibly, and now believe
That he, the Supreme good, t' whom all things ill
Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
Would send a glistring Guardian if need were
To keep my life and honour unassail'd.
Was I deceiv'd, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
I did not err, there does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
And casts a gleam over this tufted Grove.
I cannot hallo to my Brothers, but
Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest
Ile venter, for my new enliv'n'd spirits
Prompt me; and they perhaps are not far off.”
Of course, that someone isn’t her brothers but rather the malevolent creature Comus.
The idiom would next appear in an 1840 novel called Marian; Or, A Young Maid's Fortunes by the writer “Mrs S. Hall.” In the novel, nurse Katty tells the titular Marian:
“Keep a good heart:…I’ve often tould ye there’s a silver lining to every cloud.”
The first edition of the novel opens with Milton’s quote from “Ludlow Castle.”
This version of the idiom would appear fourteen years later in Volume 40 of The New Monthly Belle Assemblée; A Magazine of Literature and Fashion, a literary magazine geared towards women that also contained literary reviews, illustrations of the latest fashions, editorials, a horoscope, and other topics of interest. In that volume, the idiom was attributed to the Irish and prefaced a poem called “The War-Cloud” by the writer “Mrs. Abdy.” The poem references a “silver lining” at the end of every stanza. The end of the first stanza also references the impossibility of “a cloud without a silver lining”:
“No skies can always be serene,
No sun can evermore be shining;
Yet, trust me, I have rarely seen
A cloud without a silver lining!”
The "every" in in the idiom came into play in 1863 via a series of satirical letters penned by newspaper editor and humorist David Ross Locke. The 1860s were the time of the American Civil War-the time of North versus South, industry versus agriculture, and of course, emancipation versus slavery. Locke stood staunchly with the United States of America (or "the Union"), which at that time consisted of what is now the northern half of the country's east coast, and he strongly opposed slavery. To express his stances, he created the character of Petroleum Vesuvius Nasby, an illiterate, crass, prejudiced, and overall detestable pastor who vehemently voiced support for the Confederate States of America (or just "the Confederacy"). It was in Nasby's voice that Locke wrote these letters, which became known as the "Nasby Letters." They were so popular that sometimes president Abraham Lincoln would read them to his cabinet for amusement.
In one letter dated July 20, 1863, the Nasby character laments over the loss of several battles to the Union but delights in a New York demonstration that resulted in the destruction of draft books and the loss of black citizens' lives. He refers to this event as the "silver linin[g]" to the dark "clowd" of defeat:
"I preecht frum this text, 'O mi sole why art thow cast down.' I told em we wuz cast down becoz uv Meed's whippin Lee, becoz uv Grant's takin Vixburg, and Banks' taken Port Hudson. That's what's the matter with us. That's what hez cast a shadder over owr countnansis, and changd the hew uv our nozis from the brilyunt crimsun to the gastly bloo! The flattrin hopes uv a successful invashen uv the North is dasht--likewise the releef uv Vixburg, and now to fill our cup uv sorrer, Jon Morgin's command is destroyd. But still, my frends, there is a silver linin 2 evry clowd wich is poetry. Ther is wun ray uv hope amid all this gloom. I allood to the lait constooshnel demonstrashens in Noo York. There wuz a victory! The draft books wuz destroyed and the draft wuz stopped. But ther wuz a bigger triumph than stoppin the draft. N****rz uz killd--the prowd Anglo-Saxn riz in his mite and stoned the n*****s! Halleloojy!"
Finally, the first textual use of the idiom in its current form came in 1869's Struggles and Triumphs: or, Forty Years' Recollections, an autobiographical novel by businessman and circus showman Phineas Taylor "P.T." Barnum. Founder of the circus known as "the Greatest Show on Earth," Barnum is known for his eccentricity and his exploitation of audiences' interest in the strange and bizarre. One of his most famous attractions was the "Feejee Mermaid," which he sold to the public as the corpse of a real mermaid but was actually just a dead monkey and fish sewn together. In Chapter 26 of Struggles and Triumphs (which he entitled "Clouds and Sunshine"), he details the outpouring of support (both emotional and financial) that he received following money troubles with creditors. Said Barnum of the trouble and subsequent support:
"All I could do was to take a thorough survey of the situation, and consider, now that I was down how I could get up again.
"'Every cloud,' says the proverb, 'has a silver lining,' and so I did not despair."
Since its conception at Milton’s hands, the idiom has referred to the good that can be found in the bad, light that can be found in the darkness, and indeed the silver lining that can found around each cloud. It encourages us to focus on the positive aspects of life rather than the negative ones.
An example:
When Henry entered the orphanage’s yard, Eileen was sitting on one of the swings on the rusty swingset, her casted arm laying in her lap, looking up at the night sky. She didn’t tear her eyes away from it when he said her name.
“It’s strange,” she said.
“What is?” he asked.
“There’s a moon here. It looks just like it does in the real world. But it’s bigger, and brighter. I wonder if that’s how Walter saw it when he was a kid living here: a big pool of white lighting up the darkness. That’s how I’d see it. Except it’s not real.”
A tear slid down her cheek, glinting in the moonlight. He sat in the seat beside her.
“My mom always used to say, ‘Every cloud has a silver lining’-”
“Being stuck in some crazy killer’s alternative reality is a really big, really dark cloud, Henry.”
“Yes, but we’re together. We’re not going it alone. I know it’s a pretty thin silver lining, but we have to keep that in mind.”
Often, we feel the black shadow of our problems and circumstances hanging over us like a steely storm cloud about to strike us down with a single bolt of lightning. But often, those problems and circumstances soon thereafter pass, allowing the light of a new day to brighten our lives once again. We only need to wait for the first ray of dawn to lighten the night, for the clouds’ silver lining to illuminate the darkness. And rest assured, dear readers, Friday will be here before you know it. Until then, keep your chin up and your eyes peeled for the light.
Sources:
Bible Summary
Biography.
Encyclopedia Britannica
The Holy Bible
The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs
The Phrase Finder
The Vault at Pfaff's @ LeHigh University