"Comely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Thompson of Edwinstowe. Time, in eight-and-forty years, has whitened his hair, though it has left the color of health on his cheek, and the fire of intelligence in his eye. With a well-built frame and figure, and a comely countenance, there is a buoyancy of step, an energy of manner about him, that agree with what he has written of his life and aspirations. Such are the men that England is now, ever and anon, in every nook and corner of the island, producing. She produces them ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... judge it most necessar and comely, seeing the first day of the meeting of Generall Assemblies, is by the laudable practice of this Kirk a day of Fasting and Humiliation, for craving the Lords blessing to that Meeting; That not onely the Members of the Assembly, ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... himself of the prerogative of a sick man and grinned openly at the two comely young women who stood near at hand, awaiting any demand for services. They were not at all backward in reciprocating, and, despite the tribal paint and their labial ornaments, the smiles softening their faces made them not half bad ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... going up to the young man, asked what he had to say for himself. He replied, "Verily the folk have spoken truly and the case is as they have said." Quoth Khalid, "And what moved thee to this and thou so noble of port and comely of mien?" Quoth the other "The lust after worldly goods, and the ordinance of Allah (extolled exalted be He!)." Rejoined Khalid, "Be thy mother bereaved of thee![FN219] Hadst thou not, in thy fair face and sound ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... were represented by comely, albeit plump maidens, who seemed more inclined to dance round a Maypole than haunt ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 4, 1892 • Various
... due to a strange malformation. His legs looked as if they had been driven up into his body, so that there was little left but the feet. Otherwise, he was like another, with well formed head and trunk. His wife was a comely lady both in form and in feature, rather above than below medium height. Both were intelligent and well read, pleasant people to visit with; but when this man, with the head and trunk of an adult, the stature of a child and, to all intents and purposes, no legs at all, toddled across the floor ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... she was middling old, Her petticoat was of satin, and her stomacher was gold. Backwards and forwards and sideways did she pass, Making up her mind to face the cruel looking-glass. The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lass As comely or as kindly or as young as what ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... suggested to her husband that it might be well to see where the boys were, and what they were doing; but that gentleman had seldom before found himself the only man among a dozen comely and intelligent ladies, and he was too conscious of the variety of such experiences to trouble himself about a couple of people who had unlimited ability to keep themselves out of trouble; so the boys were undisturbed for the space of two hours. A sudden ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... A comely woman, with a pretty rosebud of a daughter, came to select a gravestone for a twin-daughter, who had died a month before. I was impressed with the different nature of their feelings for the dead; the mother was calm and wofully resigned, fully ...
— Chippings With A Chisel (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... sleep, prithee tell us a tale which shall beguile our watching through the dark hours." She replied:—With love and gladness.[FN259] It hath reached me, O magnificent King, that whilome there was in the city of Baghdad, a comely youth and a well bred, fair of favour, tall of stature, and slender of shape. His name was Ala al-Din and he was of the chiefs of the sons of the merchants and had a shop wherein he sold and bought. One day, as he sat in his shop, there passed by him a merry ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... acres of kitchen garden and some fruit trees, the possession of which would render me happier than any king. . . . I would marry! Oh, yes! I would certainly marry—found a family. I was still young, my dear Sir, and passably good looking. In fact there was a certain young widow, comely and amiable, who lived not far from Passy, who had on more than one occasion given me to understand that I was more than passably good looking. I had always been susceptible where the fair sex was concerned, and now . . . ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... is this moste comely kynge A nd as for his strength and magnanymyte C oncernynge his noble dedes in euery thynge O ne founde or grounde lyke to hym can not be B y byrth borne to boldnes and audacyte V nder the bolde planet of Mars the champyon S urely ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... away, and were going to Poker Flat to be married, and here they were. And they were tired out, and how lucky it was they had found a place to camp and company. All this the Innocent delivered rapidly, while Piney, a stout, comely damsel of fifteen, emerged from behind the pine tree, where she had been blushing unseen, and rode to the ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... been caught under the overturned cutter, escaped like a wild thing out of a trap, when it was lifted, and, plunging some paces away, faced round upon her rescuer with the hood pulled straight and set comely to her face again, almost before he could ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... the comely and courteous hostess of the Adelphi Hotel, Manchester, that gave occasion to these remarks, though she may deserve them, and though she was most kind to our Coningsby as he came in late at night very tired, and ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... and a mail-sack, and stretched my head out to see what lioness stood in his path. But it was only a homelike little cabin, and at the door a woman, comely and mature, eying the stage expectantly. Possibly wife, I thought, more likely mother, and I asked, "Is Mrs. Follet strict?" choosing ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... just as the years hastened on. The boy grew up to be a comely lad, much in my companionship, for he came to me to learn to read and write Persian and Arabic. But although I loved him well, never any single day did he come into my sight but my heart was smitten with self reproach. Why had I, by suppressing the truth, allowed ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... lining the stream, and ate lunch. Before lunch was finished, two Indian girls came down the river. The younger, tall, slender and graceful, dressed in bright, clean scarlet, was a picture. With her jet black hair hanging in shining plaits, her piercing eyes and handsome face, she was the most comely, sylph-like Indian maiden I ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... with vulgar spite To vindicate his helpless right, But bowed his comely head Down, as upon ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... little figure with its single covering of cotton, the straight, graceful body, and perfectly poised head and delicate neck, the bare feet and ankles, the sweet, comely face with its fresh young lips, free from the red stains of the syrah leaf, and its big brown eyes that looked from beneath heavy silken lashes. He smiled, but did not stir as she came to him. He was proud of her after the manner of his kind. Her beauty appealed ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... which he was to deliver. With some difficulty the master found the house. There was a man and woman sitting in the shade on the stoop. Reading the letter he was asked to sit down. The master described the man as short and thin and well up in years, but wiry and active. His wife was comely for her years, with a placid expression. In reply to his first question, the master addressed him as Sir. 'Use not that word again; all men are equal before God; use not the vain distinctions by which so many try to magnify themselves and set themselves apart from their fellows.' The master ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... rosy glasses; I through the clear, naked eye. My advice to you on the young men question is this: Discount nine words in every ten spoken to you as absolute trash—the gush of mere evaporative sentiment. If you are called pretty, graceful, accomplished, neat in dress, comely in person, that your eyes sparkle like diamonds, and your lips are poetic, with whole volumes of such, just make up your mind that there are plenty of fools around trying to make a sillier one than themselves. It may seem very fine for the moment, but it will realize something very different ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... saw that she could not free herself, she whispered to him, 'Surely I am as fair as the daughters of the sea, and as comely as those that dwell in the blue waters,' and she fawned on him and put ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... condition that she would almost rather die than live. She sent with her letter photographs representing herself at twenty and at that time, so that we might see the contrast. It was indeed appalling to see what changes sin had wrought. Her face, once fair and comely, had become actually haggard with vice. Purity, innocence, grace, and modesty were no longer visible there. The hard lines of sin had obliterated every trace of beauty, and produced a most repulsive countenance. Though greatly depraved and shattered by sin and consequent disease ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... admit the factor of unfavorable environment while that of an unfriendly heredity cuts so large a figure in the shortcomings and strivings of a race. The curse of slavery has so marred the visage of this otherwise comely and coming race that it will be the work of centuries to completely eradicate the awful results of its deeply imbedded hoof-marks. The lack of mutual confidence and inter-race alienation were among the most cherished tendrils to which the hot-bed of slavery ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... provided, also, that no more eligible offer wooed her acceptance in the meantime. M. de Veron himself was frequently in the habit of calling, on his way to or from Mon Sejour, for a pate and a little lively badinage with the comely widow; and so frequently, at one time, that Edouard le Blanc was half-inclined—to Madame Carson's infinite amusement—to be jealous of the rich, though elderly merchant's formal and elaborate courtesies. It was on leaving ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... ghosts and ashes of thy parents. Yet thou shalt have this sad comfort in thy piteous death, thou fallest by great Aeneas' hand.' Then, chiding his hesitating comrades, he lifts him from the ground, dabbling the comely-ranged tresses with blood. ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... remotest corners of the globe, it seemed to Durkin they were at last alone. He confided this feeling to his wife, one tranquil morning after they had drunk their Sprudel from long-handled cups, at the spring where the comely, rubber-garmented native girls caught and doled out the biting hot spray of the geyser. They were seated at the remoter end of the glass-covered Promenade, and a band was playing. Something in the music, for once, had saddened and ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... was a comely young farmer from Taunton, stout as an oak, and very fond of the lasses, but he hated matrimony, and used to say, "the man who can buy milk is a fool to keep a cow." While still a lad, Orson made love to Ellen, a rustic maiden; ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... of it on a raised platform surmounted by a baldaquin, lay a thing, the most hideous and grotesque thing you can possibly conceive. Imagine a little old man whose hands and face had reached such a stage of emaciation that a mummy would have seemed to you in comparison plump and comely. ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... surely am now that I am here," remarked the captain gallantly, and with an admiring glance from Mrs. Dinsmore's still fresh, bright, and comely face to the more beautiful ones of Elsie and ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... Mackay. When crossing the Expedition Range, before reaching Clermont, on my way from Mistake Creek, I rode over to a small diggings to purchase meat. The only butcher was a man named Jackson, whose wife served me. She was a fine, comely woman, whom I afterwards met on the Lower Palmer, where her husband was keeping a store. He was burnt to death on Limestone Creek on that river. Eventually, she married Thos. Lynett, a packer from Cooktown to Edward's ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... My dear bridegroom, comely son of a king, not to me wast thou given, not to thy affianced bride, but to a dark sepulchre in a strange land; never shall I take comfort, ever shall I weep ...
— Boris Godunov - A Drama in Verse • Alexander Pushkin
... great valour and renown, gentle of blood and manners, of a most fair body even to old age, comely in figure, with delicate features, and a white skin; a pleasing, prudent, and eloquent speaker; one who ever aimed at great ends; friend and comrade of great lords and nobles; a man too of many friends and great fame throughout all Italy. Foe he was of the people and its leaders; ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... like sort of our clergymen is comely, and, in truth, more decent than ever it was in the popish church, before the universities bound their graduates unto a stable attire, afterward usurped also even by the blind Sir Johns. For, if you ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... to say, ere I forget, She was uncommon comely— (Who ever read a Grimm tale yet, In which the girl was homely?) And so the King's announcement drew Nine princes in a column. But all in vain. The princess grew, ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... other two daughters I can learn little certainty, but have heard they both died before they were marriageable. And for his wife, she was so unlike Jephtha's daughter, that she staid not a comely time to bewail her widowhood; nor lived long enough to repent her second marriage; for which, doubtless, she would have found cause, if there had been but four months betwixt Mr. Hooker's and her death. But she is dead, and let her other ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... intimation from whence the drawing was taken; but by a collateral direction for the colour of the robe, if not copied from a picture, it certainly was from some painted 'window; where existing I do not pretend to say:—in this whole work I have not gone beyond my vouchers. Richard's face is very comely, and corresponds singularly with the portrait of him in the preface to the Royal and Noble Authors. He has a sort of tippet of ermine doubled about his neck, which seems calculated to disguise some want of symmetry thereabouts. I have given two prints(51) of this drawing, ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... honour to the City. We are therefore gratified by receiving your supplication for leave to erect workshops[347] above the Porticus Curba, which being situated near the Domus Palmata, shuts in the Forum in comely fashion "in modum areae." We like the plan. The range of private dwellings will thereby be extended. A look of cheerful newness will be given to the old walls; and the presence of residents in the building will tend to preserve it from further decay. You have our permission and encouragement ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... Sudata's self, Sudata's king Believed religion but a comely cloak To hide besetting sins from public view, And sought the master in his new retreat To talk religion and to act a part, And greetings ended, said in solemn wise: "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown; But my poor kingdom now is doubly blest In one whose teachings ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... of his descent from the last Saxon monarchs of England, was held in the highest respect by all the Saxon natives of the north of England. But with the blood of this ancient royal race, many of their infirmities had descended to Athelstane. He was comely in countenance, bulky and strong in person, and in the flower of his age—yet inanimate in expression, dull-eyed, heavy-browed, inactive and sluggish in all his motions, and so slow in resolution, that the soubriquet of one of his ancestors was conferred upon him, and he was ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... miles off: they reached it in less than six hours. There was Uncle Fountain on the hall steps to receive her, and the comely housekeeper, Mrs. Brown, ducking and smiling in the background. While the servants were unpacking the carriage, Mr. Fountain took Lucy to her bedroom. Mrs. Brown had gone on before to see for the third time whether all was comfortable. There was a huge fire, all red; and on the table a gigantic ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... passions of the father in their heights and depths of power. The form is taller than either that of the elder Booth or Kean, lithe, and disposed in symmetry; with broad shoulders, slender hips, and comely tapering limbs, all supple, and knit together with harmonious grace. We have mentioned personal fitness as a chief badge of the actor's peerage, and it is of one of the born nobility that we have to speak. Amongst those who have few bodily disadvantages ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... hands with each, then introduced his sons, two tall, well built, comely young men, aged respectively twenty and twenty-two, whom he had brought with him over ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... Journal, June 8. This genius and man of worth, whom an honest mind should love, is Mr Curll. True it is he stood in the pillory, an incident which would lengthen the face of any man though it were ever so comely, therefore is no reflection on the natural beauty of Mr Curll. But as to reflections on any man's face or figure Mr Dennis saith excellently: 'Natural deformity comes not by our fault; 'tis often occasioned by calamities and diseases, which ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... great multitude of geese came a churl, tall and young, and comely enough for all his embrowning in the sun and wind, and his unkempt hair and rude dress. It was he who made the music, playing on pan's-pipes to lighten the way, and quickening with his staff ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... opened the door, and, having entered, closed it behind him. The girl, seeing that her visitor was none other than the abbot, quite lost her presence of mind, and quaking with shame began to weep. Master abbot surveyed her from head to foot, and seeing that she was fresh and comely, fell a prey, old though he was, to fleshly cravings no less poignant and sudden than those which the young monk had experienced, and began thus to commune with himself:—"Alas! why take I not my pleasure ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... a brief alert shock. And yonder about that grey urn where the water moves at times in thoughtful irrigation you saw another as fragrant sisterhood, Floey, Atty, Tiny and their darker friend with I know not what of arresting in her pose then, Our Lady of the Cherries, a comely brace of them pendent from an ear, bringing out the foreign warmth of the skin so daintily against the cool ardent fruit. A lad of four or five in linseywoolsey (blossomtime but there will be cheer in ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... cleanliness and simplicity, wherever she went and whatever she did, this firelight fell warm about a woman, large and comfortable and handsome, with a motherly look to her person, and an expression that was all kindness in her comely face and dark, soft eyes,—eyes and face and form, though, that might as well have had "Pariah" written all over them, and "leper" stamped on their front, for any good, or beauty, or grace, that people could find in them; for the comely face was ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... wretch indeed. Methinks, I see him already in the cart, sweeter and more lovely than the nosegay in his hand! I hear the crowd extolling his resolution and intrepidity! What volleys of sighs are sent down from the windows of Holborn, that so comely a youth should be brought to disgrace. I see him at the tree! the whole circle are in tears! even butchers weep! Jack Ketch himself hesitates to perform his duty, and would be glad to lose his fee by a reprieve. What then will become ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... where Boadag is king for aye, nor has there been complaint or sorrow in that land since he has held the kingship. Oh, come with me, Connla of the Fiery Hair, ruddy as the dawn with thy tawny skin. A fairy crown awaits thee to grace thy comely face and royal form. Come, and never shall thy comeliness fade, nor thy youth, till the last awful day ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... this purpose has been well carried into effect; and every chapter of the comely volume bears witness to the research and reflection of the author. With no similar work for a guide or model, it was necessary to derive from the volumes of general and comparative physiology such facts and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... unearthly in its sound, had pierced his brain. It was more like the cry of a dying brute than that of a man. Sir Adrian slowly starved to death! In his own mind Arthur can see him now, worn, emaciated, lost to all likeness of anything fair or comely. Have the rats attacked him yet? As this grewsome thought presents itself, Dynecourt rises quickly from his crouching position, and, flying down the steps, does not stop running until he arrives in the corridor ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... here. I had not even seen it when the present undertaking was proposed to me, and since then I may say vidi tantum, having for obvious reasons resisted the temptation which Mr. Duffield's reputation and comely volumes hold out to every lover ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... rather surprised at it—not at your loving each other in a brother-and-sister kind of way—but at your finding it so impossible to fall in love with such a beautiful woman.' Woman! beautiful woman! I had thought of Phillis as a comely but awkward girl; and I could not banish the pinafore from my mind's eye when I tried to picture her to myself. Now I turned, as Mr Holdsworth had done, to look at her again out of the window: she had just finished her task, ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Deep into the heart of the wood he followed the sound and came upon an open glade wherein were many women dancing before a huge boulder. Wondering, with great admiration, the young chief gazed upon their graceful movements and comely figures, and determined to rush in and capture the most beautiful of them. Turning thought into act, he bounded in among the dancers, and, to his amazement, discovered the old chief, who, at sight of him, dropped his drum, grasped his war club, and leaping down from his rocky eminence, ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... by the heartless agent. Many of these girls, from their association with vicious society, become thieves, and ply their light-fingered privateering while caressing their victim. It is a favorite dodge of some of the more comely and shapely of this class, especially the frequenters of such places as Gould's, the Haymarket, the French Ma-dames, the Star and Garter, and the Empire, to ask gentlemen on whom they have been unavailingly airing their becks and nods and other fascinations ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... wondering. Swiftly before him passed a vision of the Intendant's palace at Quebec, with its women and riot and rottenness. His hand went up to his eyes, and under the shade of it he looked upon father and daughter—this pair of the old noblesse, clean, comely, ready for the sacrifice. What had New France done for these that they were cheerful to die for her? She had doled them out poverty, and now, in the end, betrayal; she had neglected her children for aliens, she ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Rose had all her dispositions made. They found her in the drawing-room, amid a bevy of bright gowns and comely faces, illumined by the cheerful light of a big wood fire—a circle of shimmering stuffs and gems, the blaze sparkling on the pointed slippers, the white necks and glossy hair of the girls, and on the diamonds ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and afterwards in Lord Ossulston's, both being then absent from college; that Frank Buckland and his bear occupied (long after I had left) my own chambers in Fells' Buildings; that I was a class-mate and friend of the luckless Lord Conyers Osborne, then a comely and ruddy youth with curly hair and gentle manners, and that I remember how all Oxford was horrified at his shocking death—he having been back-broken over an arm-chair by the good-natured but only too athletic Earl of Hillsborough in a wine-party frolic; that Knighton, early ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... the gracious and comely form he had so skilfully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his face, and seemed about to linger there. But he suddenly started up, and, closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he sought to imprison within ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... they had ever heard; were young children, who in after years, when a neglected gravestone was toppling over all that was left of the orator, would still speak of the wonders of his eloquence; were comely women to whom the household was the world and the household task the life's work, but who could now for the moment lift their bent forms and have their dulled eyes turned to higher and better things. Moreover, there were in that room a score of deep eyes that could not but quicken ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... insisted on naming some creature of his own to the dignity of duke; but Lambert II., count of Louvain, and Robert, count of Namur, having married the sisters of Othon, respectively claimed the right of inheritance to his title. Baldwin of the comely beard, count of Flanders, joined himself to their league, hoping to extend his power to the eastward of the Scheldt. And, in fact, the emperor, as the only means of disuniting his two powerful vassals, ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... about to die; her thoughts were her own to do with as she pleased; yet furthest from them was Kulan Tith. Instead the figure of the tall and comely Heliumite filled her mind, ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the revolver inside the breast of my blue blouse and waited. A flash of lightning and a clap of thunder destroyed both the sound and the light of the signal for an instant, but she never faltered, pulling at the cord and swinging the lantern as regularly as a machine. She was a comely woman of thirty—no more. I thought to myself, 'All that's no good on a night like this.' And I made up my mind that if a body of my fellow-convicts came down to the pier—which was sure to happen soon—I would shoot her through the head before I shot ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... to her closet, and pulled out a nice, clean apron and cap, and tied, the one round her waist, and the other round her comely face, saying all the time, "Dear me, dear me, to think of it!" and away she ran down stairs, where stood her husband and the ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... comely creature, trim and smart in black and white, with that vividly coloured prettiness which is too often the omen of premature decline into the fat and florid thirties, fetched a wrap and settled it ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... dark, deep-bosomed and comely, a rich flush on her cheeks under the clear brown skin thanks to a kitchen fire which didn't burn and righteous anger which did, Mary Fisher, the upper housemaid, set a tea-tray upon the garden table beside ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... children—strange, stunted, swarthy, hairy creatures, with muddy complexions illumined by black, twinkling eyes. A few were of imposing stature, wearing coarse, dusty felt hats or peaked caps, with shaggy beards or faded scarfs around their throats. Here and there, too, was a woman of comely face and figure, but for the most part it was a collection of crones, prematurely aged, with weird, wan, old-world features, slip-shod and draggle-tailed, their heads bare, or covered with dingy shawls in lieu of bonnets—red shawls, gray shawls, brick-dust shawls, mud-colored shawls. Yet there was ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the happy home— Jehovah's throne on high! O sacred city, queen, and wife Of Christ eternally! O comely queen with glory clad, With honor and degree, All fair thou art, exceeding bright— No spot there is ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... fan coquettishly at a man—a creature in the costume of Goldsmith's day—who stood near her, bowing low. On his head was a wig, powdered and in queue, his face a mask of paint and powder and patches. He was clad in a huge waistcoat, long coat, knee breeches and hose—blue hose—upon his comely legs! Putting out his hand toward Helen's, he said with sickening affectation, seizing her hand and raising ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... she, "What are comely robes to me? I would wear a grass green dress, Dew pearls for my gems—no ...
— Fires of Driftwood • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... people most assisted always appearing proportionally wretched and discontented. No one could, with more ease and more knowledge of her ground, than Lady Dashfort, do the dishonours of a country. In every cabin that she entered, by the first glance of her eye at the head, kerchiefed in no comely guise, or by the drawn-down corners of the mouth, or by the bit of a broken pipe, which in Ireland never characterizes stout labour, or by the first sound of the voice, the drawling accent on "your honour," or, "my lady," she could distinguish ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... to purvey new vigor to the life. The blood is allowed to grow stagnant. The life of the woman, even as mere animal, becomes poor and morbid and artificial. By dint of much attention and many devices, the outside of the body is maintained comely in the eyes of people whose notions of comeliness are thoroughly artificial and sophisticated. But how can there be any health with high eating, little exercise, above all, with the mind left absolutely vacant of all interests? The Belgravian mother does not even ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... Tira to come as that he felt the nearness of her there in the room she had disarranged with barricading chairs and pillows and then put in order again before she left. He could see her stepping softly about, with her deft, ordered movements, making it comely for him to find. She had left pictures of herself on the air, sad pictures, most of them, telling the tale of her terror and foreboding, but others of them quite different. There were moments he remembered when, in pauses ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... them and they fought a sore battle. At last the folk of the caravan overmastered the thieves, by dint of numbers, and slew some of them, whilst the others fled. Moreover they took the boy, the son of King Azadbekht, and seeing him as he were the moon, possessed of beauty and grace, brightfaced and comely of fashion, questioned him, saying, "Who is thy father, and how camest thou with these thieves?" And he answered, saying, "I am the son of the captain of the thieves." So they took him and carried him to the capital of ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... but he had, perhaps, too great a wisdom to set much store by the plaudits of the many. Mrs. Gray, in a bonnet Mary had made for her and a mantle which had been Mary's gift, was in a timid rapture. She was older by some years than she had been when Mary went to Lady Anne first, but she was far more comely. Her family seemed to have reached its limits, for one thing, and she was no more the helpless drudge she had been. Several of the children were at school, and that wonderfully elastic salary of Mary's had done miraculous things in ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... with yet sweeter sounds. On the breast of the fell that lies over against Cat Bells a procession of children walked, and sung, and chattered, and laughed. It was St. Peter's Day, and they were rush-bearing: little ones of all ages, from the comely girl of fourteen, just ripening into maidenhood, who walked last, to the sweet boy of four in the pinafore braided with epaulets, who strode along gallantly in front. Most of the little hands carried ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... her not," he added, "but she will in no wise receive a refusal. She is a matron of comely appearance, though her cheeks are pale, and her eyes betoken grief and anxiety. She is accompanied, too, by a young boy, who appears to be her son, and stands holding her hand, trembling as if lately ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... she shot up so handsome and comely that her beauty shone like the sun. No bridegroom was good enough for her, unless, perhaps, it were the ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... digression to an Italian vineyard of note. There, at a long table under a vine-covered trellis that connected the stone cellar with the dwelling-house, we were served with wine by a young woman having the true Madonna features of Sunny Italy, her mother, a comely matron, in the meantime preparing the evening meal, while on the hard ground encumbered with no superfluous clothing, disported the younger members of the family. And as I sat and smoked the pipe of peace, I reflected upon ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... comely building of warm, red brick in Fisherton Street, set well back so that you can see it as a whole, behind its cedar and beech-trees—how familiar it is to the villagers! In numberless humble homes, in hundreds of villages of the Plain, and all over the surrounding ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... Although I am the colour of copper, I am comely. I am well-bred also; there is no higher blood than ours in Zululand, both on my father's and my mother's side, and, Macumazahn, I have a fire in me that shows me things. I can be great, and I long for greatness. Take me to wife, Macumazahn, and I swear to you that in ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... bribery for the officer in question. The interest of his supposed father was sufficient to put him on the quarter-deck; and the profits of his mother, who, having duly served her apprenticeship, had arrived to the dignity of bumboat woman herself, and was a fat, comely matron of about forty years of age, were more than sufficient to support him in his inferior rank. His education and natural abilities were not, however, of that class to procure him either friends or advancement; and he remained in the capacity of master's-mate, and was ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... space for repentance and the fruits of true contrition; lastly, a persuasive tumbril, a close lover for your incorrigible wanton girls—homely chastisement such as a father Abbot may bestow, and yet wear a comely face, and yet be loved by those he chasteneth. Madam, is this too much for so great a charge as ours? We of Holy Thorn nurture the good seed with scant fortune, being ridden down by evil livers, deer-stealers, notorious persons, scandalous ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... the master, being a comely man, with his sword and target, holding them vp in defiance agaynst his enemies. So likewise stood vp the Owner, the Masters mate, Boateswaine, Purser, and euery man well appointed. Nowe likewise sounded vp the drums, trumpets and flutes, which would haue encouraged ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... they slowly look up at the passer-by, show us, on those monumental faces of theirs, a strange smile, a light of bright eyes and white teeth; a smile which to us sophisticated townspeople is as puzzling as certain sudden looks in some comely animal, but which yet makes us understand instinctively that we have before us a Nencia; and that the husband yonder, though he now swears at his wife, and perhaps occasionally beats her, has nevertheless, in his day, dreamed, argued, raged, and sung to ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... to feel the beat of the rain, and the homely smell of the earth, Is a tune for the blood to jig to, a joy past power of words; And the blessed green comely meadows are all a-ripple with mirth At the noise of the lambs at play and the dear wild ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... people stood about chatting, men and women were passing along, to pay visits or to find drinks. Josephine's party stared around, talking desultorily. And at length they perceived Jim stalking along, leading Aaron Sisson by the arm. Jim was grinning, the flautist looked unwilling. He had a comely appearance, in his white shirt—a certain comely blondness and repose. And as much a ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... these are the very words: 'He was loved by his father and mother, and even by all the people, above all by his brothers. As he advanced through the years of infancy and youth, his form appeared more comely than that of his brothers; in look, in speech, and in manners, he was more graceful than they. His noble nature implanted in him from his cradle a love of wisdom above all things.' And so, through all the centuries between his time and ours, King Alfred's name has ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... how he began with a flat sheet of gold, and worked constantly and conscientiously, gradually bossing it up, until, with one tool and then another, he finally mastered the material, "till one fine day God the Father stood forth in the round, most comely to behold." So skilful was Cellini in this art that he "bossed up in high relief with his punches some fifteen little angels, without even having to solder the tiniest rent!" The fastening of the clasp was decorated with "little snails and masks and other pleasing trifles," which suggest to ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... unfaltering footsteps along the perilous ways of speculative thought. A fair life, irradiate with fairer ideals, conserved his native integrity from that incongruity between practice and precept so commonly exemplified. Comely in all respects, with his black-brown wavy hair, finely-cut features, ready and winsome smile, alert luminous eyes, quick, spontaneous, expressive gestures—an inclination of the head, a lift of the eyebrows, a modulation ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... pretty clothes and pretty people, and the girl was undeniably pretty in a dark, tropical way. She moved with graceful, gliding steps and her face under the wide drooping velvet hat looked amiable as well as comely. ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... were faces above, below, around him, faces to be struck at. But his blows grew weak and ever weaker, the cudgel was torn from his lax grip, he staggered back on stumbling feet knowing he could fight no more, and felt himself caught by a mighty arm, saw a face near by, comely and dimpled of chin, blue-eyed, and with whiskers trimmed into precise little tufts on either cheek. Thereafter he was aware of faint cries and shouts, of a rushing patter like rain among leaves, and of a voice speaking in ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... pleasantly enough along the low, rich pastures, thick with hedgerow elms, to Lechlade, another pretty town with an infinite variety of habitations. Here again is a fine ancient church with a comely spire, "a pretty pyramis of stone," as the old Itinerary says, overlooking a charming gabled house, among walled and terraced gardens, with stone balls on the corner-posts and a quaint pavilion, the river running below; and ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... has also given you something like a conscience. You are a good, sensible beast, that's all. You love and serve your master, according to your lights; night and day, you, with your fellows, guard his flocks and herds, his house and fields. Into his sacred house, however, you do not intrude your comely countenance, ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... not all beggars or in rags. Now and then a gaudily dressed rajah may be seen, with a long line of attendants, wending his steps towards the river's front. Infirm old men and little children, crazy looking fakirs and comely youths, boys and girls, people of all ages and both sexes, were represented in the motley groups who went for moral purification to these muddy waters. There is a singular mingling of races also, for ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... exceeds the years of youth. The Suevians, even when their hair is white through age, continue to raise it backwards in a manner stern and staring; and often tie it upon the top of their head only. That of their Princes, is more accurately disposed, and so far they study to appear agreeable and comely; but without any culpable intention. For by it, they mean not to make love or to incite it: they thus dress when proceeding to war, and deck their heads so as to add to their height and terror in the eyes of ...
— Tacitus on Germany • Tacitus
... ability to withstand these evils (from which, however, his good luck keeps him clear), but he enjoys all these following blessings: he is whole of limb, a stranger to disease, free from misfortune, happy in his children, and comely to look upon. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... again blessed her, and went away. She took leave of him with tears in her eyes, entreating him often to visit her in that heathen land of the Amorite, the Hittite, and the Girgashite: to which he assented, on many solemn and qualifying conditions—and then the comely bride retired ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... the door and get a breath of air. A bridge somewhat insecure-looking joined us to the next waggon, and a very amusing scene presented itself. The guard was flirting with a Finnish maid, a typical peasant, with a comely figure, set off by a well-fitting bodice. She had high cheek-bones and a wondrous round moon face; a large, good-tempered mouth filled with beautiful teeth, a good complexion, and weak, thin, straight flaxen ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... came in, his misery had grown to acuteness. His old passive wretchedness had given way to a settled nervous dread which wore the brightness from his comely face. ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... Greek of neither Ο´ nor Θ is there variation sufficient to prove that the writer differed from the one who translated the rest of the book. Rather do the indications point to the same hand having been at work throughout. Comely says of this and its companion pieces, "Neque in trium pericoparum argumentis quidquam invenitur quo illas Danielis auctori attribuere prohibeamur" (Compendium, Paris, 1889, p. 421). This, like other R.C. writings, holds of course ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney
... all. Then, with a few shillings, a knife, a handkerchief, and some brown papers and flake tobacco stowed away in my pockets, I thumped down the stairs and said good-bye to my foreboding friends. As I paused out of the door, the "help," a comely middle-aged woman, could not conquer a grin that twisted her lips and separated them till the throat, out of involuntary sympathy, made the uncouth animal noises we are wont to designate ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... For now Gudruda was a maid of maids, most beautiful to see and sweet to hear. Her hair, like the hair of Eric, was golden, and she was white as the snow on Hecla; but her eyes were large and dark, and black lashes drooped above them. For the rest she was tall and strong and comely, merry of face, yet tender, and the most witty ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... comely with the comeliness of an apple, this man was beautiful with the beauty of sun and sword ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... list of acquaintances, or you breed confusion and dissipate interest accordingly. Joan is very young in many ways. She is extravagant in the matter of the equipment of her heroes. Bob Ingleby, the farmer (a gentleman, because he had been at Winchester), is a "great comely giant," yet wins events one and three of the Hunt Steeplechase, though thrown badly in number two. I have a suspicion that this work is really Joan's tee shot, and that after a notable recovery, which on the best of her present form I can safely ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various |
