"Complexion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were broad; and, rising from the midst of a slender throat, adorned with a fall of lace, appeared his stately head crowned with a wealth of long, brown curls. His face was of a beautiful oval, his complexion clear, his mouth wreathed with happy smiles. The brow was high and arched, and the fine gray eyes beamed with hope and energy. In one hand he held a rose, which he extended to a person not represented in the picture; the other band, ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... George Decker, was making a furious charge upon Field's Cavalry, which was doing outpost duty ten miles from Falmouth. On the very first assault Lieutenant Decker fell from his horse, pierced through the heart with a fatal bullet. He was a daring young man, well formed, light complexion, blue eyes, and about twenty-three years of age. He was much lamented by his many friends. His fall, shocking as it was to the command, being our first fatal casualty, only seemed to nerve the men for bold revenge. And we had it. ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... beauty is of a celestial splendour, and, in fact, a ray of Divinity itself; goes into raptures, not merely over her eyes, but over her hair (which simply effaces sunbeams); the brightness and whiteness of her complexion; the just proportion of her features; and, above all, her singularly blended air of modesty and gallantry; her intellectual and spiritual match; her bodily graces; and he is finally sure that though somebody's misplaced acuteness may discover faults which nobody ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... red, with an adorable droop in the corners, and the skin had that flower-fairness of youth which makes older women's faces look either sallow or artificial. If we—Terry and I—had not already divined that the auburn lady got her complexion out of bottles and boxes, we would have known it with the lifting of ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... a very good man to look at. He was certainly over fifty, and his closely trimmed hair was white, but he had a fresh and florid complexion. He was tall and well made, fashionably dressed, and had an erect and somewhat military carriage. He was fond of talking, and seemed fond of me, and these points in his ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton
... other place in the world is there so much variety of complexion and physiognomy as in Lima. From the delicately fair creole daughter of European parents, to the jet black Congo negro, people of every gradation of color are seen living in intimate relation one with another. The two extreme classes—the whites and blacks—are as distinct ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... freehold, a right of way may be claimed through them by prescription. The right to burial may be subject to the payment of a fee to the incumbent, if such has been the immemorial custom of the parish, but not otherwise. The spirit of the ancient canons regarded such burial fees as of a simoniacal complexion, inasmuch as the consecrated grounds were among the res sacrae—a feeling which Lord Stowell says disappeared after the Reformation. No person can be buried in a church without the consent of the incumbent, except when the owner ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... branches of the human race, the Sarmatians form a very remarkable shade; as they seem to unite the manners of the Asiatic barbarians with the figure and complexion of the ancient inhabitants of Europe. According to the various accidents of peace and war, of alliance or conquest, the Sarmatians were sometimes confined to the banks of the Tanais; and they sometimes spread themselves ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... you out sugar, by no means reconciles the Northern stomach to its prevalence. I have observed that priests, and those who have much to do in the frigid churches, are the worst sufferers in this way; and I think no one can help noting in the harsh, raw winter-complexion (for in summer the tone is quite different) of the women of all classes, the protest of systems cruelly starved of the warmth ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... rapine, but seek it not without peril, and sword in hand. Every other way of purveying for their necessities they view as base and ignominious. It is enough for them to be seen to be hated and dreaded. The sound of their voice is ferocious; their physiognomy horrible, and their complexion cadaverous." Just such are the inhabitants of Sonnino and its vicinity at present, and among such Spatolino came to complete his band, which, when formed in Rome, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 282, November 10, 1827 • Various
... Lady among ourselves is only the remnant of this absurd tradition. In the seaside town where I write, ladies of fashion usually go veiled in the streets, and so general is the practice that little girls often veil their dolls. They all suppose it to be done for complexion or for ornament; just as people still hang straps on the backs of their carriages, not knowing that it is a relic of the days when footmen stood there and held on. But the veil represents a tradition of seclusion, whether we know it or not; and the dread of ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... former mastery over the unfortunate gentleman. But what an extraordinary delusion! I took a candle, and examined the picture with renewed curiosity. It certainly bore a strong resemblance to Mrs Irwin: the brown, curling hair, the pensive eyes, the pale fairness of complexion, were the same; but it was scarcely more girlish, more youthful, than the young matron was now, and the original, had she lived, would have been by this time approaching to thirty years of age! I went softly down stairs and found, as I feared, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... be her complexion," said aunt Helen; "her skin is whiter than the fairest blonde, and her eyebrows and lashes very dark. Be very careful you do not say anything that would let her know you think her not nice looking. She broods over her appearance in such a morbid manner. It is a weak point with her, so be careful ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... plants, torn from their native darkness, only to wither in the upper light and air, than like human organisms just restored to their normal climate. As they moved among the tanned and ruddy-faced people, their abnormal complexion made them look like representatives of the strange race ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... portrait of him painted when he was Nuncio in Brussels at about the age of thirty-four years. The family type is strong. One of the Pope's nieces might have sat for a portrait of his mother. The extraordinarily clear, pale complexion is also a family characteristic. Leo the Thirteenth's face seems cut of live alabaster, and it is not a figure of speech to say that it appears to emit a light of ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... was originally set for the morning, but as Fannie saw in her fashion paper that freckled people often developed a peculiarly charming complexion when seen by lamplight, the time was changed to eight at night, in spite ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... pretty often filled them. A short upper lip, delicately curved and curiously mobile, a full lower lip, a chin expressive of great firmness, but softened by a dimpled hollow in the very middle of its roundness, a nose neither Grecian nor tilted, but betwixt the two, and delightful, and a complexion familiar with sun and air, wholesome, robust, and fine. In stature she was no more than on a level with Reuben's chin; but Reuben was taller than common, standing six feet in his stockings. This fact of superior height was not in itself ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... collation prepared against they came. I waited for the two ladies with impatience, and at last they arrived. They both unveiled themselves, and as I had been surprised with the beauty of the first, I had reason to be much more so when I saw her friend: she had regular features, a lively complexion, and such sparkling eyes that I could hardly bear their splendour, I thanked her for the honour she did me, and entreated her to excuse me if I did not give her the reception she deserved. No compliments ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... those lines, with his whole soul he yearned to have her look at him. He watched the colour come and go in her clear, bright complexion, and was rejoiced to see in her the personification of activity and health. Beneath his own effusion on the photograph he saw something written in pencil, in the hand ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... the shops in Broadway are very tempting this season. Such beautiful things! Well, you know (no, you don't know that, but you can guess) what a delightful thing it would be to appear in one of those charming, head-adorning, complexion-softening, hard-feature-subduing Neapolitans, with a little gossamer veil dropping daintily on the shoulder of one of those exquisite balzarines, to be seen any day at Stewart's and elsewhere. Well, you know (this you must know) that shopkeepers have the impertinence ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... of the most gentleman-like appearance, not less than six feet high, and showing the utmost nicety in the care of his person and equipment. His umbrella was especially remarkable for its neatness, though perhaps he swung it unduly in walking. His complexion was fresh, his eyes small, bright, and twinkling. He was seen to great advantage in a hat and greatcoat—garments frequently fatal to the impressiveness of shorter figures; but when he was uncovered in the drawing-room, it was impossible ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... titles and the vastness of his power? His form is below the middle height and very slender, the limbs having even an attenuated look. The whole appearance is that of a man of delicate and even feeble organization. The blonde complexion, the pale blue eyes, and the light sandy hue—save where they are prematurely touched with gray—of the hair, moustache, and short, pointed beard, all indicate the Flemish origin of one who would fain be regarded as "wholly a Spaniard." The protruding under-jaw is another proof of his descent ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... again. The veins stood out on Farrington's forehead, and the pallor of Weathers' complexion changed to peony. Their hands and arms trembled under the stress. After a long struggle Weathers again brought his opponent's hand slowly on to the table. There was a murmur of applause from the spectators. The curate, who was standing beside the table, nodded his red head towards the ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... said the damsel, throwing back her veil, and discovering the juvenile countenance of Rose, the daughter of Wilkin Flammock, her eyes sparkling, and her cheeks blushing with anger, the vehemence of which made a singular contrast with the very fair complexion, and almost infantine features of the speaker, whose whole form and figure was that of a girl who has scarce emerged from childhood, and indeed whose general manners were as gentle and bashful as they now seemed bold, impassioned, and undaunted.—"Doth ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... Lydiard's widow was short and fat, and, in the matter of age, perilously near her sixtieth birthday. But it may be said, without paying a compliment, that she looked younger than her age by ten years at least. Her complexion was of that delicate pink tinge which is sometimes seen in old women with well-preserved constitutions. Her eyes (equally well preserved) were of that hard light blue color which wears well, and does not wash out when tried by the test of tears. Add ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... went on winning, and he was cheerful and talkative, making tedious remarks at every turn of the game. He was a good-looking young fellow, with a short black beard, regular features, large expressionless eyes, and a delicate pink complexion. His father, who had been parochial administrator of the province, had died the previous year, leaving him an income, according to report, of between 70,000 and 80,000 reales,[E] and this money gave him a certain ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... they would not have been taken for brothers. The King was a large man, and my husband a small one: the latter had very effeminate inclinations; he loved dress, was very careful of his complexion, and took great interest in feminine employments and in ceremonies. The King, on the contrary, cared little about dress, loved the chase and shooting, was fond of talking of war, and had all manly tastes and habits. Monsieur ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... than in harmony with this habit of mine, that when, next morning in the common-room of the Connetable, I espied Jeanneton, the landlord's daughter, and remarked that she was winsome and shapely, with a complexion that would not have dishonoured a rose-petal, I permitted myself to pinch her dainty cheek. She slapped mine in return, and in this ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... quite true; but when the noble Lord the Chief Secretary opened his speech, the first portion of it was of a very different complexion. I am willing to admit that to a large extent it was equally true. He told us that the condition of the people of Ireland was considerably better now than it was at the time of the Devon Commission. At the time of the Devon ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... Parisian, I grew (or declined) into a waterside prowler, a lingerer on wharves, a frequenter of shy neighbourhoods, a scraper of acquaintance with eccentric characters. I visited Chinese and Mexican gambling-hells, German secret societies, sailors' boarding-houses, and "dives" of every complexion of the disreputable and dangerous. I have seen greasy Mexican hands pinned to the table with a knife for cheating, seamen (when blood-money ran high) knocked down upon the public street and carried insensible on board short-handed ships, shots exchanged, and the smoke (and the company) dispersing ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... Frejus on a balmy day in April, when the air was soft as butter-milk, and the sun was hot, not scorching, my thoughts went at once to poor Zosimus, with his hacking cough, his delicate complexion, come here to inhale the soft air and drink the warm milk. And I thought of him the more from certain experiences of my own relative to Como. I went to that city in January from England, thinking that it lay in a warm nook, and that there I might bask ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... The affections of some "tremble, like a leaf, at every breath of love; while others, like the ocean, are moved only by the breath of a storm." Yet in all, its approach causes great changes in the character, and usually alters the entire complexion of life. Where the individual has enjoyed great mental culture, it brings in its train increased hazards; and in not a few hearts, its involutions are strangely complex, and its abysses of ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... swerve had the effect of overturning the cariole gently, and emptying its contents at our feet, and out from the mass of wraps and furs there arose—not a red-headed six-footer, but a young and sprightly girl, with clear dark complexion, a neat, rounded little figure, and a pair of magnificent black eyes, which, at the moment, were opened to their utmost with an expression ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the yellow light, while pleasing to the complexion, is, however, objectionable as disturbing the color composition of dress or furnishings. A gaslight sends a yellow glow over all that it reaches, and has the same effect as the introduction of yellow into every color tint in the room. The walls that are red take on a ...
— Color Value • C. R. Clifford
... not yet become grave. The conscription act, passed in April, 1862, had kept the ranks full. The hope of foreign intervention, though distant, was by no means wholly abandoned. Financial matters had not yet assumed an entirely desperate complexion. Nor had the belief in the royalty of cotton received its coup de grace. The vigor and courage of the Confederacy were unabated, and the unity of parties in the one object of resistance to invasion doubled its effective strength. Perhaps ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... de Lesseps is very striking. Though long past middle age, he has a fresh and even youthful appearance. Both face and figure are well preserved; his slightly curling gray hair sets off in pleasing contrast his bronzed yet clear complexion, his bright eye, and genial smile. He is somewhat over the medium stature, possessed of a compact and well-knit frame, carries his head erect, and moves about with a buoyancy and animation perfectly marvelous in one of his years and experience. His address is that of the well-bred, well-educated ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... lite complexion man wouldn't run his hands down into sugar barrels so often, when visitin' grosery stores, it would be money in the pocket of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 19, August 6, 1870 • Various
... common use among the settlers. Nor had his physical appearance undergone a much less change. Instead of the pallid brow, leaden eye, fleshly look, and the red cheek of the wine-bibber and luxurist of the cities, he exhibited the embrowned, thin, but firm and healthy face, and the clear and cheerful complexion of the contented laborer of the country,—tell-tale looks both, which we always encounter with as much secret disgust in the former as we do with involuntary respect in the latter. He now paused in his labors, and stood for some time looking about the horizon, ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... Ashby, some ten miles, for picket service to supply the place of Chew's battery, which exhausted its ammunition in daily skirmishes with the enemy. Ashby himself was always there; and an agreeable, unpretending gentleman he was. His complexion was very dark and his hair and beard as black as a raven. He was always in motion, mounted on one of his three superb stallions, one of which was coal-black, another a chestnut sorrel, and the third white. On our first trip we had a lively cannonade, and the white horse ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... and scalloped flounces of white and graduated tints of green! With her pale, sodden complexion, she must have looked like an ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... Egyptian sailors in the enemy's ships. They seemed to be a motley group. Most of them wore turbans of white, with a red cap below, small brown jackets, and very wide trousers; their legs were bare. They were active, brawny fellows, of a dark-brown complexion, and they crowded the Turkish ships, which accounts for the very great slaughter we occasioned among them. Many dead bodies were tumbled through their ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 356, Saturday, February 14, 1829 • Various
... gather that the 'Restaurant du Grand Vatel' has some queer patrons. The landlady sits behind a little desk in the corner. She is a woman of enormous girth, with short petticoats which reveal her thick, white woolen socks; her complexion is dark, her eyes are black and deep, and large golden rings dangle ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... traveller, and after plundering him of his money, left him so severely wounded that he could do nothing to help himself, and must soon have died if he had not obtained help. Although it is not expressly stated, it appears from the whole complexion of the narrative that this man was a Jew. Indeed this is so obvious and so necessary that the point of the parable would be lost if it were otherwise: I think the nationality of the unfortunate sufferer is not stated, precisely because it could ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... know. But from my own experience of life, I should say that if you take a comfortable, elderly man who hasn't been near a college for about twenty years, who has been pretty liberally fed and dined ever since, who measures about fifty inches around the circumference, and has a complexion like a cranberry by candlelight, you will find that there is a degree of absolute certainty about what he thinks he knows that will put any young man to shame. I am specially convinced of this from the case of my friend Colonel Hogshead, a portly, choleric gentleman who made a fortune in ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... was passionately fond of music; good-natured and affable; warm in his friendships, and visionary in his pursuits; and, as long as I knew him, very temperate in his eating and drinking. He was of moderate stature, of a light and clear complexion, with gray eyes, so very weak at times as hardly to bear a candle in the room; and often raising within him ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... her beauty by not drawing away the attention from it. If she is plain, let her not attract all eyes to her plainness. Let not people say of her, "Did you see that ugly girl with that scarlet feather in her hat?" or, "with that bonnet covered with pearl beads, contrasting with her dark and sallow complexion?" or, "with that bright green gown, which ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... of age, very stout—no fool—a man of decided resolution, and of the very best black complexion produced in the South. Matthew had a very serious bill of complaints against Samuel Simmons, who professed to own him (Matthew), both body and mind, while in this world at least. Among these complaints was the charge ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... a young man, though more than ten years older than Lothair. His appearance was striking. Above the middle height, his form, athletic though lithe and symmetrical, was crowned by a countenance aquiline but delicate, and from many circumstances of a remarkable radiancy. The lustre of his complexion, the fire of his eye, and his chestnut hair in profuse curls, contributed much to this dazzling effect. A thick but small mustache did not conceal his curved lip or the scornful pride of his distended nostril, and his beard, close but not long, did not veil the ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... a noble appearance both in person and countenance; his features were rather large and cheerful, with lively eyes. His age was about twenty-three or four years, and his complexion very fair for an Indian. His queen, the niece of Montezuma, was ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... I'm a stickler for the rights of property, at home; but somehow the notion of an island like this belonging to any one had never entered my head. Yet the thing is reasonable enough when you come to think it over; and, of course, I saw that it put an entirely different complexion upon our business here." ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... shoulders, and with small neat hands and feet, with more of sheer muscular strength and power of endurance than of healthiness, so that though seldom breaking down and capable of undergoing a great deal of fatigue and exertion, he was often slightly ailing, and was very sensitive to cold. His complexion was very dark, and there was a strongly marked line between the cheeks and mouth, the corners of which drooped when at rest, so that it was a countenance peculiarly difficult to photograph successfully. ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... may have existed in the Roman laws between citizens and free inhabitants, they are unknown to our institutions. Before our Revolution, all free persons born within the dominions of the King of Great Britain, whatever their color or complexion, were native-born British subjects—those born out of his allegiance were aliens. Slavery did not exist in England, but it did in the British colonies. Slaves were not in legal parlance persons, but property. The moment the incapacity, the ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard
... belle in her youth, and she was still pretty with the pathetic beauty that often shines in the faces of those who have suffered great loss. Her once flaxen hair was almost entirely gray, but she had kept her delicate complexion, and there was a gentle sweetness about ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... complexion seemed to have changed in a remarkable manner, and then the students fell to asking him if he really ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... my!" Roy said. "Isn't Temple Camp getting famous? Talk about red! Oh, boy, watch Hervey's beautiful complexion when he hears this. He'll have ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Alice, and her first husband had been her own cousin. She was the orphan niece of a sea-captain in Liverpool: a quiet, grave little creature, of great personal attraction when she was fifteen or sixteen, with regular features and a blooming complexion. But she was very shy, and believed herself to be very stupid and awkward; and was frequently scolded by her aunt, her own uncle's second wife. So when her cousin, Frank Wilson, came home from a long absence ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... The complexion of the Jewish question changes according to the State in which Jews find themselves. In Germany, where no political State, no State as State exists, the Jewish question is a purely theological question. The Jew finds himself in religious antagonism to the State, which acknowledges ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... is a magnificent specimen. You might say to all the world, "This is our Yankee-Englishman; such links we make in Yankeeland!" As a logic fencer, advocate or Parliamentary Hercules, one would incline to back him at first sight against all the extant world. The tanned complexion; the amorphous, craglike face; the dull black eyes under the precipice of brows, like dull anthracite furnaces needing only to be blown; the mastiff mouth accurately closed; I have not traced so much of silent Berserker rage that I remember of in any other ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... and beauty over her that all the Achaeans might admire her. She washed her face with the ambrosial loveliness that Venus wears when she goes dancing with the Graces; she made her taller and of a more commanding figure, while as for her complexion it was whiter than sawn ivory. When Minerva had done all this she went away, whereon the maids came in from the women's room and woke Penelope with the sound of ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... upon it the name of a public enemy, and an inscription written in blood. That those men wished my safety rouses my liveliest gratitude, but I could have wished that they had not chosen to take my bare safety into consideration, like doctors, but, like trainers, my strength and complexion also! As it is, just as Apelles perfected the head and bust of his Venus with the most elaborate art, but left the rest of her body in the rough, so certain persons only took pains with my head, and left the rest ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... resembled Napoleon. His eyes, not so large as those of Napoleon, and sunk deeper in their sockets, had the same expression, the same fire, the same energy. His forehead was like that of his father, and so was the lower part of his face and his chin. Then his complexion was that of Napoleon in his youth, with the same pallor and the same colour of the skin, but all the rest of his face recalled his mother and the House of Austria. He was taller than ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... Goldsmith was short and strongly built. His complexion was rather fair, but he was deeply scarred with small-pox; and—if we may believe his own account—the vicissitudes and privations of his early life had not tended to diminish his initial disadvantages. 'You scarcely can conceive,' he writes to his brother in 1759, 'how ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... the singing of a Te Deum in honor of the day at half-past nine, just half an hour before the time set for the other service. Then he got the Filipino Governor to send out written invitations from his office in such a way that the affair assumed the complexion of a national courtesy offered by the Filipino to the American. For us, as Government employees, to disregard this was impossible. So we went en masse to the Roman Catholic church, where two rows of high-backed chairs were arranged facing ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... Fred turned in amazement; and there stood a plump, rosy little creature of about two years, with dimpled cheek, ruby lips, and long, fair hair curling about her sweet face. She was dressed in a blue pelisse, trimmed with swan's down, and her complexion was so exquisitely fair, her eyes so clear and sweet, that Fred felt almost as if it were an angel. The little thing toddled up to him, and holding up before him a new wax doll, all splendid in silk and lace, seemed quite disposed to make his acquaintance. Fred thought of ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... person at least I saw upon the plains who seemed in every way superior to her lot. This was a woman who boarded us at a way station, selling milk. She was largely formed; her features were more than comely; she had that great rarity—a fine complexion which became her; and her eyes were kind, dark, and steady. She sold milk with patriarchal grace. There was not a line in her countenance, not a note in her soft and sleepy voice, but spoke of an entire contentment with her life. It would have been fatuous arrogance to pity such a woman. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... times blushful and bewitching. All those graces of symmetry, smoothness and lustre, which assemble in the imagination of the painter when he calls from the bosom of her natal deep the Paphian divinity, blended their perfections in the shade, complexion, and hair of this lady." But, alas! "Helena's intellectual deficiencies could not be concealed. She was proficient in the elements of no science. The doctrine of lines and surfaces was as disproportionate with her intellects as with those of the mock-bird. She had not ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... every tree with a thousand sweet tunes; cranes and herons of white, crimson, and carnation, perching on the river's side; the air fresh, with a gentle, easterly wind; and every stone we stooped to pick up promising either gold or silver by its complexion." ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... people, and alone of the nations in these parts feed on fir-cones; 107 but the Gelonians are tillers of the ground and feed on corn and have gardens, and resemble them not at all either in appearance or in complexion of skin. However by the Hellenes the Budinoi also are called Gelonians, not being rightly so called. Their land is all thickly overgrown with forests of all kinds of trees, and in the thickest forest there is a large and deep lake, and round it marshy ground and reeds. In ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... offended, and that the daughter must be sacrificed, or he would not be appeased. She was a beautiful creature for a native, and was to have been married about the very time that she was now to be sacrificed. I see her now—she was dark in complexion, as they all are, but her features were beautifully small and regular, and her form was perfect symmetry. They took off the gold ornaments with which she was decorated, and, in their avarice, removed her garments, as she implored and entreated on her knees in vain. The boat that she was in ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the morning, when she expired in the fiftieth year of her age, and in the thirteenth of her reign. Anne Stuart, queen of Great Britain, was in her person of the middle size, well proportioned. Her hair was of the dark brown colour, her complexion ruddy; her features were regular, her countenance was rather round than oval, and her aspect more comely than majestic. Her voice was clear and melodious, and her presence engaging. Her capacity was naturally good, but not much cultivated by learning; nor did she exhibit any ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... splendidly dressed, sollicited her acquaintance. He was a valuable piece of antiquity, being then, 1684, in the hundredth year of his age. His person was tall, his bones very large, his hair like snow, a venerable aspect, and a complexion, which might shame the bloom of fifteen. He enjoyed a sound judgment, and a memory so tenacious, and clear, that his company was very engaging. His visits greatly alleviated the solitude of this lady. The last visit he made to Mrs. Thomas, he drew on, with much attention, a pair of rich Spanish ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... winter approaches, and it will be more comfortable for the Electoral Prince not to find it necessary to travel that long way to Doornward to see his dearly beloved one. She must be quite a pretty girl, the Princess Ludovicka Hollandine, and, moreover, of very tender complexion, and not at all disposed to play the prude with the young, handsome Electoral Prince, who seems ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... the complexion of this question to say that propellers are generally constructed of iron. There is not such a difference in their prime cost or their stowage capacity as to enable them to take the large receipts necessary to their ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... Brantome thinks he draws by saying that her complexion was as beautiful and delicate as the ladies of her suite were charming and agreeable, and that her figure was fine though rather short, was of little account at her own court. Suffering from a double grief, her saddened attitude added another ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... temperaments of various persons. Thus thin, nervous, delicately organized individuals, and those of lymphatic and soft, easy-going, passive types, require a slightly warmer apartment than the more positive class who are known by their dark eyes, hair and complexion, combined with prominent joints. Should a fire, or any form of artificial light be necessary, it should be screened off, so as to prevent the light rays from being reflected in, or in any other manner directly reaching the crystal. The room should not ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... was puzzled a little now, but there was not a wrinkle, nor the tiniest indication of perplexity in his face. Instead he began talking of Raphael's cherubs, the remark being called into life by the high complexion of a young man who was passing. Miss Thorne glanced at him once keenly, her splendid eyes fairly aglow, and the fan rattled ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... the wound of no consequence (to Everard's intense disgust), telling her to take a glass of wine and go to bed, and she would be none the worse for her fright in the morning—in fact treated the whole thing quite lightly, and laughed at Isabel for her pale cheeks, saying that such an alabaster complexion was not at all becoming. He promised to send her something to prevent the wine making her sleep too soundly, meaning a composing draught to enable her to sleep, as he saw very little chance of her doing so ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... Carvin and Lisle we saw Dumouriez, who is going to take the command of the army, and has now been visiting the camp of Maulde. He appears to be under the middle size, about fifty years of age, with a brown complexion, dark eyes, and an animated countenance. He was not originally distinguished either by birth or fortune, and has arrived at his present situation by a concurrence of fortuitous circumstances, by great and various talents, much address, and a spirit of intrigue. He is now supported by ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... proving the truth of prophecy by becoming a resident of every country. And yet while he is a Jew he has faces of all colors. In the plains of the Ganges, he is black; in Syria, lighter and yet dusky; in Poland his complexion is ruddy and his hair as light as yours. There was a little Jewess boarding around here last summer as olive as I imagine Rebekah and Sarah, and another as fair and rosy as a Dane. But have you enough of this? Don't you care for what Livingstone says or Humboldt? Don't you want to know the ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... put in an appearance. She remained in bed or in her room on such occasions, and only sallied forth in time for luncheon, thereby presenting a fresh complexion and bright eyes with which to ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... unhappiness that she could herself experience, which for one moment she could put in competition with the existence of her child. When that was the question, every feeling that had hitherto impelled her conduct assumed a totally different complexion. That conduct, in her view, had been a systematic sacrifice of self to secure the happiness of her daughter; and the result of all her exertions was, that not only her happiness was destroyed, but her life was fast vanishing away. ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... quiet laugh. Her back was towards him, so that he could not catch her expression, but she seemed to him culpably indifferent to the complexion which Mallinson had given to ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... her footfall because she was walking on the sand, and yet he must have realised her presence, for he turned, and she almost stopped at the sight of his face. He might have been a European; his complexion was fair, though his eyebrows and eyes were jet black, as also was the tiny beard and moustache he wore. Beneath the conventional jellab he wore a dark green jacket, and she had a glimpse of glittering decorations before he pulled over his cloak ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... me for two years, winter and summer, and it was a great pleasure to witness his gracious development of body, mind, and character. Clean-limbed, smooth-skinned, slender, and supple, his Indian blood showing chiefly in a slight swarth of complexion and aquilinity of feature, he now approached his twentieth year and began to gain the strength of his manhood and to give promise of more than the average stature and physical power. With only one full year's schooling behind him, the year before he came to me, his active intelligence ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... him silly?" asked Williams. He was an unhealthy, scorbutic-looking youth, and his pallid complexion had assumed a greenish tinge of fear as he listened to the clergyman's words. He had the makings in him of a mean and dangerous criminal, but not of a violent one—belonging to the jackal tribe rather than ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... recesses of circulating libraries for some novel published sixty years ago, the chance is that the villain or sub-villain of the story will prove to be a savage old Nabob, with an immense fortune, a tawny complexion, a bad liver, and ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was not borne out by his face. Like my Lord Cornwallis's, his eyes were womanish large, and nose and mouth and the lift of the brow were cast in a mold to match; yet there was that in his face which made it the mask of a soul thoughtful and serene; and his ruddy complexion and fair hair gave him a look of openness that a dark ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... into the largest of the huts and given food and warm Hunza wine. The place was hot to suffocation; large beads of moisture stood on the mud walls, and the smell of uncleanly clothing and sweating limbs was difficult to stand. But the man's complexion was hard, and he made an excellent supper. Thereafter he became utterly drowsy. He had it in his mind to question this Fazir Khan about his dark sayings, but his eyes closed as if drawn by a magnet and his head nodded. It may have been something in the wine; it may have been ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... college reminiscences, however interesting to the parties concerned, are not exactly the material for a biography. He was then a youth, with the boy and man in him, vivacious, mirthful, slender, of a fair complexion, with light hair that had a curl in it: his bright and cheerful aspect made a kind of sunshine, both as regarded its radiance and its warmth; insomuch that no shyness of disposition, in his associates, could well resist ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... him in a few words, and we both sat down. The stout young man had left us, but his sister still remained with her hand in that of the invalid. She was a striking-looking woman, a little short and thick for symmetry, but with a beautiful olive complexion, large, dark, Italian eyes, and a wealth of deep black hair. Her rich tints made the white face of her companion the more worn and haggard ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... significant things that I would like to be. It's what we would 'like to be' that really tells most about us, isn't it, Carl Stanton? The brown that I have to wear talks loudly enough, for instance, about the color of my complexion, but the forbidden pink that I most crave whispers infinitely more intimately concerning the color of my spirit. And as to my Face—am I really obliged to have a face? Oh, no—o! 'Songs without words' are surely the only songs in the world that are ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... their complexion when they go to heaven? This is a question of some importance to the members of the Diocesan Convention of the Protestant Episcopal churches of Charleston, S.C. Not long ago the Convention appointed a special committee ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 5, May, 1889 • Various
... the golden radiance of the summer noon, she presented an almost faultless specimen of a type of beauty that is rarely found nowaday, that has always been peculiar, and bids fair to become extinct. A complexion of dazzling whiteness and transparency, rendered more intensely pure by contrast with luxuriant silky hair of the deepest black,—and large superbly shaped eyes of clear, dark steel blue, almost violet in hue,—with delicately ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... scattered in the soil of these Islands. A man who carries his eyes about him will rarely enter a large Irish assembly, or an assembly of Canadian Frenchmen whose blood comes principally from Bretagne, without noticing here and there a swarthy complexion surrounding intensely bright flashing eyes which speak of Spain and Carthage and the ...
— Prehistoric Structures of Central America - Who Erected Them? • Martin Ingham Townsend
... shut like a vise, with a muddy complexion and thin arms, treat themselves to the malicious pleasure of promenading their Adolphe through the quagmire of falsehood and contradiction: they question him (see Troubles within Troubles), like a magistrate examining a criminal, reserving the spiteful enjoyment of crushing his denials ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... conscious of having a stiff frozen manner, and we never dream that everyone has the same manner. It takes a foreigner to perceive this; and so in Germany it takes a foreigner to appreciate and even to see the characteristic trifles that give a nation a complexion of ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... remarkable race of people. The most common type of the adult unmixed Hydah is about five feet, seven inches in height, thick-set, large-boned, with fairly regular broad features, coal-black hair and eyes, and a bronze complexion. They have generally—both men and women—finely developed breasts and fore-arms, caused by their almost daily use of the canoe paddle from infancy. A few have well-formed legs, though the greater number are defective in this respect, ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden
... swiftly into her satiny complexion while, with a pretty, inquisitive frown, she scrutinized him; and then, with a flick of her black eyelashes, she ran toward the arched doorway, leaving Peter to ponder, and scratch his blond head, and ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... Madame Recamier led a secluded life, on account of the troubles and dangers incident to the times, but when she did emerge from retirement she had developed into the most beautiful woman in France, and was devoted to a life of pleasure. Her figure was flexible and elegant, her head well-poised, her complexion brilliant, with a little rosy mouth, pearly teeth, black curling hair, and soft expressive eyes, with a carriage indicative of indolence and pride, yet with a face beaming with ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... sacrifice. Endued with merit and freed from every kind of stain, he attains to the region of the Apsaras that echo with the sound of songs and dance, and passes his days in the company of a thousand damsels of great beauty. He rides on a car of the complexion of melted gold and receives high honours in the region of Brahma. After the exhaustion of that merit such a person comes back to earth and attains to pre-eminence of position. That man who passes one whole year, confining himself every day to only one meal, attains ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... two persons that I thought to be curiosities. They were of Indian parentage, light complexion and had eyes of a pink color. One was a boy about twenty years old and the other a girl of sixteen, and were brother and sister. It was claimed that they could see well after night, but could not see their way on a bright, ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... aeroplanes, supported by and supporting cavalry or automobiles. At the present time I should imagine there is no more perplexing consideration amidst the many perplexities of the German military intelligence than the new complexion put upon pursuit by these low level air developments. It may mean that in all sorts of positions where they had counted confidently on getting away, they may not be able to get away—from the face of a scientific advance properly commanding ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... barren plain. The other, a smaller-made man, lay on his back, making a pillow of his arms, and gazed at the gloomy sky. Both wore the Bedouin dress and were provided with arms which were fastened into, or suspended from, their clothes. Their woolly heads were protected by kerchiefs. Their complexion was as brown as the bark of the pine-tree, their eyes big and sparkling, their lips full and red. The one had a snub nose; the nose of the other was long and thin. So do these men of the desert ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... satisfaction in Grand Opera. Her voice, a pure soprano, reached to D in alt., with upper notes like silvery bell-tones, and its natural pliability was cultivated by taste and incessant study. She was of medium stature, elegant form, with light hair, fair complexion and soft, expressive blue eyes that lent an enchantment to features that were not otherwise striking. In demeanor she was artless, unaffected and ladylike. Romantic stories were continually in circulation regarding suitors ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... same year, from the Holston River in southwestern Virginia, the noble Benjamin Logan, of Irish birth but as dark in hair and complexion as James Harrod. Since the age of fourteen he had been caring for his mother, his brothers ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... aquiline nose. One of the oldest New England families is known for its singular length and strength of arm. Beauty is a mark in one family, and size is a mark in the other. Because man is made in the image of God we naturally look for those divine trademarks in man's body called comeliness and complexion, just as we look for the artist's name on the corner of his picture, or the sculptor's name on the pedestal of his statue. By so much as a babe's cheek is higher than the blushing peach, it ought to be more beautiful. And because the ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... almost wholly in that pervasion. He was meagre and modest and clearbrowed, and his eyes, if they wandered without fear, yet stayed without defiance; his shoulders were not broad, his chest was not high, his complexion was not fresh, and the crown of his head was not covered; in spite of all of which he looked, at the top of his table, so nearly like a little boy shyly entertaining in virtue of some imposed rank, that he COULD only be one of the powers, the representative of a force—quite as an infant king ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... shall spend it for the benefit of my complexion, Lowry. Now, hurry up with our traps, Tommy, I'm going to eat a supper that ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... so, how would you have me act, in order to avoid seeing Pepita Ximenez? Unless I made myself ridiculous by closing my own eyes in her presence, how could I fail to notice the beauty of hers; the clearness, the roseate hue, and the purity of her complexion, the evenness and pearly whiteness of her teeth, which she discloses with frequency when she smiles, the fresh carmin of her lips, the serenity and smoothness of her forehead, and a thousand other attractions with which Heaven has endowed her? ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... fruit, and an old-fashioned dress of rather faded green silk, and a large locket that she wore gave her a settled, tranquil air as though she had always been the same, and would continue so for many years. She had a high, fresh colour, a beautiful complexion and her hands had the delicacy of fragile egg-shell china. She was cheerful and friendly, but was, nevertheless, a sad woman; her eyes were dark and her voice was a little forced as though she had accustomed herself to be in good spirits. The love between herself ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... boys in many respects. Smoking often leads to boys into bad company. Smoking often makes them precocious, undutiful, impudent and callous. Smoking often ruins the health. Smoking generally stunts their growth. Smoking generally sallows their complexion. Smoking often leads them to lying. Smoking often leads them to stealing. Smoking often leads them to drinking. Smoking degenerates the boy physically, mentally, and morally. Smokers cannot excel in athletic sports, such as boating, cricket, cycling. ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... little too thick, it looked better in profile than in front face." Moore says that it was in "the mouth and chin that the great beauty as well as expression of his fine countenance lay." The upper lip was of a Grecian shortness and the corners descending. His complexion was pale and colourless. Scott speaks of "his beautiful pale face—like a spirit's good or evil." Charles Matthews said that "he was the only man to whom he could apply the word beautiful." Coleridge said that "if you had seen him you could scarce ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various |
