Query, British Saying

[Kathleen E. Miller]

Back in 1997, Anne Widdecombe said of Michael Howard, former Home Affairs
minister, that Howard had, "something of the night" about him. The quote
has been applied to him as "Mr. Something-of-the-Night" and resurfaced
today in the IHT. Most of the hits I come across refer to this comment. But
there are others, mostly in British publications.

"She had a chilling, thrilling voice, with more than something of the night
about it, but it was the sanest presence in the piece."  The Guardian, Oct.
23, 2003 page 20.

"But [Mick] Jagger has still managed to keep something of the night about
him." The Guardian, Jul. 29, 2003. page 22.

"There's something of the night about Iraq, something dark and mysterious
and other-worldly, where different logic takes hold, particularly in
periods where war seems possible, even inevitable." CBS, Sept. 22, 2002
(Mark Phillips, although not British, has been stationed at the CBS London
bureau forever.)

And this curious one, if this phrase means what I think it means.

"It may be doubted whether a more variegated life and more complex and
brilliant characters would not have been beyond [Nathaniel] Hawthorne's
power of truthful representation. He has in very fact something of the
night about his disposition, and whatever he prevailingly portrays has
either to have in its nature a suggestion of the discoloured temperateness
of night, or else to be thinned away and modulated through his imagination
until it has lost the grossness and actuality of fact and grown tenuous and
pallid." Studies and Appreciations, Lewis E. Gates, 1900.

How's that for a 100 year gap? I looked in the OED, Googled it, looked in
Cassell's, Picturesque Expressions, and Partridge, Questia and Proquest,
and the ADS archives, and I'll continue to look in this library of his, but
have yet to find a written definition of it.

So is it metaphoric for sinister and dark? Evil, of sorts. OR just
something "otherworldly." Quirky and Gothic? What exactly does it mean? And
is it used outside of the UK?
Where did it come from?


Thanks again for any help,


Katy


Kathleen E. Miller
Research Assistant to William Safire
The New York Times