"Grimness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said with a pathetic grimness, "I think I am the most cursed blunderer that ever ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... this large and rambling jungle with the rest of the five-year-olds. There was something a bit humorous, yet sad, about their unchildlike grimness. Though they still might laugh in their quarters, they realized there was no laughing outside. To them survival was linked up with social acceptance and desirability. In this way Pyrrus was a simple black-and-white society. To prove your value to yourself ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... ice two men, apparently several days in the water, and with the usual look of drowned people of good condition—glassy and of fixed expression, as if in the moment of death a consenting grimness had stolen into their countenances, ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... the above about Argentina's coast trade, that Tugg kept his seamen at work through fear. He never changed his drawl in speaking; but when he gave an order there was a grimness about his mouth and a flash in his gray-blue eyes that gave one a cold, creepy feeling in the region of the spine. I don't know that Captain Tugg went armed. But if an order had been neglected by any man aboard I had the feeling that a weapon ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... shot a duck, and, besides, a red-breasted diver, a noble bird; and with these prizes we set sail for another island, frequented by "Tinkers." The day meanwhile had cleared, the sun shone richly, and we began to see somewhat of the glory, as well as grimness, of Labrador. Away to the southwest, eminent over the lesser islands, rose Mecatina, all tossed into wild billows of blue, with purple in the hollows; while to the north the hills of the mainland lifted themselves up to hold fellowship with it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... sent him, To West-Dane warriors, I ween, for to render 'Gainst Grendel's grimness gracious assistance: I shall give to the good one gift-gems for courage. 15 Hasten to bid them hither to speed them,[2] To see assembled this circle of kinsmen; Tell them expressly they're welcome in sooth to The men of the Danes." To the ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... he took up his food and water, made certain of his bearings and went on. It was a gamble, but a gamble his life had always been, and a fair gamble, an even break, is all that men like Alan Howard ask. He realized with a full measure of grimness that never until now had he placed a wager like this one; he was betting heavily and he knew not against what odds that at the end of twenty miles he would ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... to be an extraordinary work: but whether popular! Attwater is a no end of a courageous attempt, I think you will admit; how far successful is another affair. If my island ain't a thing of beauty, I'll be damned. Please observe Wiseman and Wishart; for incidental grimness, they strike me as in it. Also, kindly observe the Captain and Adar; I think that knocks spots. In short, as you see, I'm a trifle vainglorious. But O, it has been such a grind! The devil himself would allow a man to brag a little after such a crucifixion! And indeed I'm ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with a grimness which probably escaped her. "But how did Mrs. Harman know that I was ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... it looks like outside," he said with a certain grimness. "I don't quite believe what the ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... to call her that) trembles before her, and that makes Bella worse. She wants someone to stand up to her, to laugh at her grimness; she simply thinks when Pamela is charming to her that ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... disturb this idea, though his scheme was far enough removed from one wherein the education of youth should be made a mere channel of social ascent. He had no desires of that sort. He had reached the stage in a young man's life when the grimness of the general human situation first becomes clear; and the realization of this causes ambition to halt awhile. In France it is not uncustomary to commit suicide at this stage; in England we do much better, or much worse, as the ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... laughing he at once opened his mouth, and laughed with enthusiasm. Probably he was a man of grateful heart who wished to repay his employers for the good treatment which he had received. Once, however, his features assumed a look of grimness as, fixing his eyes upon his vis-a-vis, the boys, he tapped sternly upon the table. This happened at a juncture when Themistocleus had bitten Alkid on the ear, and the said Alkid, with frowning eyes and open mouth, was preparing himself to sob in piteous fashion; until, recognising that ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... closed it without saying good-bye, in answer to Madame Beattie's oblique nod over her shoulder and the farewell wave of her hand. For an instant Anne felt like slipping the bolt lest her adversary should return, but she reflected, with a grimness new to her gentle nature, that if Madame Beattie did return her own two hands were ready. She stood a moment, listening, and when the carriage wheels rolled away down the drive, she went to the big closet under ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... the Grove, mistress?" Hanglip and Spotted Dog, too, cringed back in fright. Stumpy concealed his uneasiness, yet his eyes searched Dolores's face questingly. None truly believed in the queen's magic powers; yet none was bold enough to openly avow his unbelief; and the added grimness of the storm, assisted by the unearthliness of that howl of anguish, brought the four godless pirates to the ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... Baden-Powell in some measure obscured from the popular view the grimness of his task. Like the true Briton that he is, he considered it part of his duty to make light of his difficulties. But the holding of Mafeking was stern work. The Boers themselves never dreamed the defence would be seriously maintained, and in the ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... boy was filling Huish's glass, the bottle escaped from his hand and was shattered, and the wine spilt on the verandah floor. Instant grimness as of death appeared in the face of Attwater; he smote the bell imperiously, and the two brown natives fell into the attitude of attention and stood mute and trembling. There was just a moment of silence and hard looks; then followed a few savage words in the native; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... leaving Bous-Bous in a prayerful attitude, his paws raised devoutly towards the heavens. When he saw that it was the priest who had addressed him his face changed, hardened to grimness, ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... handsome livery who, touching smart hat to his shabby master, brought the vehicle to a halt, into which we mounted forthwith and away we drove. Soon before us rose stately parapet, battlement and turret above the green of trees ancient like itself, a mighty structure, its frowning grimness softened by years. Diana viewed massive wall and tower with eyes of delighted wonder, then suddenly turned to clasp the hand of the slender, shabby ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... was following. He was, indeed. She ran round behind the cabin, out on the slope, halting at the first trees. Cleve came striding after her. She ran on, beginning to pant and stumble. The way he strode, the white grimness of him, frightened her. What would he, do? Again she went on, but not running now. There were straggling pines and spruces that soon hid the cabins. Beyond, a few rods, was a dense clump of pines, and she made for that. As she ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... but Mrs. Carbuncle quite understood that to persons situated in great difficulty things might be grim. A certain amount of grimness must be endured. And she knew, too, that Lucinda was not a girl to be driven without showing something of an intractable spirit in harness. Mrs. Carbuncle had undertaken the driving of Lucinda, and had been not altogether unsuccessful. The thing so necessary ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... philosophy of life from any dramatist. Yet Webster so often returns to dark and doleful meditations, that we may fairly class him among constitutional pessimists. Men, according to the grimness of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... least have something.' He spoke with a grimness which was a little startling. He held the silken tresses at arm's length. 'This points to murder,—foul, cruel, causeless murder. As I live, I will devote my all,—money, time, reputation!—to gaining vengeance on the wretch who ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... idea of justice; but faith, of any national kind, shut up from one Sunday to the next, not artistically beautiful even in those Sabbatical exhibitions; its paraphernalia being chiefly of high pews, heavy elocution, and cold grimness of behaviour. ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... upward almost to the top of the hill, the which took me nigh three hours. And surely, when I was come that I could see the grimness of the Pyramid, going upward very desolate and silent into the night, lo! an utter shaking fear did take me; for the sweet cunning of my spirit did know that there abode no human in all that great and dark bulk; but that there did ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... matter-of-fact romance. Therefore our story drags us from the meadows round Grassmere to a massive, castellated building, glaring red brick with white stone corners. These colors and their contrast relieve the stately mass of some of that grimness which characterizes the castles of antiquity; but enough remains to strike some awe ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... Emily not to say a word about it," said John, smiling with as much grimness as utter want of practice, together with the natural cast of ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... grimness faded from the wrinkled old face, and the housekeeper, for this her appearance proclaimed her to be, bowed in a queer Victorian fashion which suggested that a curtsy might follow. One did not follow, however. "I am sure I apologize, sir," she said. "Benson ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... of course, cannot mean that revelation makes us sinners, but it does mean that it makes us more guilty, and that it declares the fact of human sinfulness as no other voice has ever done. And then the grimness of the picture is all relieved and explained, and the office ascribed to God's revelation harmonised with God's love, by the strong, steady beam of light that falls from the last words, which tell us that the prisoners have not been bound in ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the valley held fresh and delightful surprises for her; in the craggy peaks she pointed out castlements, and towers, and battlemented strongholds of ancient princes and kings. Her mind was a wild and beautiful riot of imagination, of wonder, and of happiness, and in spite of the grimness of the mission they were on even MacDonald found himself rejoicing in her spirit, and he laughed and talked with them as they ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... hastened to explain, whereupon Mrs. Trapes's grimness abated, and her bristling elbows subsided; and now, perceiving how the abashed Spider, meeting her eye, flushed, plucked at his cuffs, and shuffled his feet, she reached out to pat ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... afore I'm wanted!" exclaimed Miss Lavender, with assumed grimness, as she obeyed the call. "I s'pose you thought there was no watch needed, and both ends o' the path open to all the world. Well—what am I to do?—move mountains like a grain o' mustard seed (or however it runs), dip ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... passed since they buried him in the little boot-hill at Florence, Arizona. To-day the town is as conventional as any Eastern village, but it saw a time when men lived up to the rude clean code of our American age of chivalry. During that era Joe Phy met his end with a grimness befitting a son ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... been written about the grimness of the French in this war. Naturally they were grim in the early days; but what impresses me most about the French Army whenever I see it is that it is entirely French. Some people had the idea that when the French ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... for a final climax. The ex-valet cleared his throat. And it was to his ex-valet that Tabs listened; he had forgotten the General. It was as though the grimness of reality had interrupted a piece of play-acting. There was less heat in Braithwaite's voice now and more reproach. "You said nothing about caste in those days, when you hurried us to the shambles. You promised us—— What was it that ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... Miss West said, with just a hint of grimness. "And if this keeps up I'll be in my bunk in ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... window, from which could be seen a piece of waste ground overgrown with grass and weeds, and shaded by some great plane and elm trees. There was nothing particularly fascinating in the outlook, which partook of the usual grimness of a London atmosphere; but the young green of the budding trees spoke, in spite of the blackness of their branches, of spring and spring's delight; and there was a brightness in the tints of the tangled grass which gave a restful satisfaction ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... in his tone that somehow made further offence impossible. A faint, half-grudging smile took the place of the grimness on his ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... former failure in kidnapping strangers, he now pursues a quite different plan. When seamen come ashore, he makes up to them like a free-and-easy comrade, invites them to his hut, and with whatever affability his red-haired grimness may assume, entreats them to drink his liquor and be merry. But his guests need little pressing; and so, soon as rendered insensible, are tied hand and foot, and pitched among the clinkers, are there concealed till the ship departs, when, finding themselves entirely dependent ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... a very silent meal that morning, quite oppressively silent; Erica felt like a child in disgrace. Every now and then the grimness of it appealed to her sense of the ludicrous, and she felt inclined to scream or do something desperate just to see what would happen. At length the dreary repast came to an end, and she had just taken up a newspaper, with a sort of gasp of relief at the thought of escaping for a moment into ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... of the day's work, a thing not to talk about but to do. But my frequent meetings with British soldiers, naval men, members of the flying contingent and the army medical service, revealed under the surface of each man's quiet manner a grimness, a red heat of patriotism, a determination to fight fair but to fight ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Viscount Mirabeau, called Barrel Mirabeau, on account of his rotundity, and the quantity of strong liquor he contains. Among the clergy is the Abbe Maury, who does not want for audacity, and the Cure Gregoire who shall be a bishop, and Talleyrand-Pericord, his reverence of Autun, with sardonic grimness, a man living in falsehood, and on falsehood, yet ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... There was a grimness as well as fear in his tone. "I've heard of Sears, but not Cordts. Where does ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... the motor his handkerchief was bound about the knuckles of his right hand, and his face wore a faint smile that had in it more of grimness than humour. ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... a loss what to say, decided to say nothing. The sight of John, discreetly gazing at the roof of the chicken house, the grimness of Grandfather's face, the discomfort of the choking smoke, urged a dignified retreat. She turned abruptly and left them, overwhelmed at the exhibition furnished by Mr. McBride, confounded at his sudden leap into activity after years of serene floating and absolutely ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... he turned round, the air of grimness was perceptible again. He held out the glass to Nick. "I think I'll go," ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... the horizon. With eager eyes you take all in; nothing escapes you; you have cast off care for the day. How pleasant and cheerful everything and everyone looks! Even the cocks and hens, scratching by the road-side, have a friendly air. The turnpike-man relaxes, in favour of your 'pink,' his usual grimness. A tramping woman, with one child at her back and two running beside her, asks charity; you suspect she is an impostor, but she looks cold and pitiful; you give her a shilling, and the next day you don't regret ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... After several attempts I got up. They formed a circle around me; and together we marched a few steps to a sort of storeroom, where my great sack, small sack, and overcoat were handed to me. A rather agreeably voiced guard then handed me a half-cake of chocolate, saying (but with a tolerable grimness): "You'll need it, believe me." I found my stick, at which "piece of furniture" they amused themselves a little until I showed its use, by catching the ring at the mouth of my sack in the curved end of the stick and swinging the whole business unaided on my back. Two new guards—or rather ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... renovators, and purifiers are needed. The walls want mundifying, so does the ceiling, so do the floors; the Ten Commandments need improving; the Apostles' Creed isn't plain enough; the spirit of a time worn grimness requires ostracising from the place. All is substantial; but there is an ancient unwashed dulness about the general establishment, which needs transforming into cleanness and brightness. The pews are high, and on the average they will hold six persons each. Seven might get into them on ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... sprinting easily toward her, and as the distance shortened, he recognized her. Edith Bailey, a second-year psychology major who had been attending his classes two semesters. Very intelligent, reclusive, not a local-grown product. Her work had a grimness about it, as though psychology was a dire obsession, especially abnormal psychology. One of her theme papers had been an exhaustive, mature but somehow overly determined, treatise on self-induced hallucination ...
— Strange Alliance • Bryce Walton
... although it had nothing of the savage grandeur Agatha expected, she thought it forbidding. Its influence was insidious; one was not daunted by a glance, but realized by degrees its grimness and desolation. The North was not dramatic, except perhaps when the ice broke up; the forces that molded the rugged land worked with a stern quietness. It looked as if they also molded the character ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... the place considerably; that where he had builded romance, romance was not. Where he had softened harsh outlines, and peopled dark corridors with his own fancies, those same outlines had taken on a grimness that he could hardly believe possible, and the long, dark corridors of his mind's vision were longer and darker and lonelier than he had ever imagined any spot ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... there ever a more sombre scene than was presented by that waste of tumbling waves, stretching to the horizon, arched over by a clouded sky? It grew clearer, more distinct, yet remained the same dead expanse of restless water, on which they tossed helplessly and alone. Nothing broke the grimness of it, not even a bird in the air, or a leaping fish; complete desolation met the eye in every direction, a threatening, menacing dreariness amid which each approaching swell seemed about to sweep them to destruction. ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... to me! I have to live in the same neighborhood with this man, after you have gone away, and I insist upon knowing the whole length and breadth of his baseness and malignity, that I may know how to judge and punish him!" said Capitola, with such grimness of resolution that Mr. Stone, provoked at ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... possible. Perhaps he saw such cities as Dore saw London: sullen majesty of arched glooms, and granite deeps opening into granite deeps beyond range of vision, and mountains of masonry with seas of labor in turmoil at their base, and monumental spaces displaying the grimness of ordered power slow-gathering through centuries. Of beauty there was nothing to make appeal to him between those endless cliffs of stone which walled out the sunrise and the sunset, the ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... for that kind of rat and was watching you," continued Joe in his same awful grimness. "I'm not going to shoot you, unless you make me. I'm going to twist that pretty neck of yours. But first, out with anything you've got to say ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... a husband and a three-year old son," Mary said with equal grimness. "That's why I'm here. I want to destroy the thing that killed my family. I want to do something. I ...
— Pandemic • Jesse Franklin Bone
... creature of almost heraldic grimness—rampant, disregardant, gules. What I did meet—but I'm afraid that isn't the right way to begin. Please consider that I haven't begun. I'll go back to the time when Ellaline and her chaperon (me) started away from school together ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... pleasure and satisfaction in directing his nephew's tasks than he would have been willing to acknowledge. The boy brought so much brightness and pleasant life into the gloomy stone house that the stern master, as week after week passed by, visibly began to lose something of his grimness and gloominess, and to take something like a faint interest in what was passing around him. And, after a time, he himself began to be sensible of this gradual change which was stealing over his thoughts and actions, and, vexed with himself, strove to check these new emotions, and wrap himself again ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... The grimness had all gone from his face. He even smiled a little as he resigned himself to spending the night in his own room. The idea of disturbing the brother and sister never crossed his mind. It was enough for him that Chris ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... be doing nothing of the sort to-night," he returned, with a certain grimness. "The motor has gone back to Redlands for your things. I saw to that an ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... mules pulled strongly up the heavy grades the man on the high seat of the wagon repaid the indifference of his surroundings with a like indifference. Unmoved by the forbidding grimness of the mountains, unthoughtful of their solemn warning, he took his place as much a part of the lonely scene as the hills themselves. Slouching easily in his seat he gave heed only to his team and to the road ahead. When he spoke to the mules his voice was a soft, good-natured drawl, ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... grimness of the jest. She was too busy thinking what a tangle she had made of her life. Gerhardt would not come now, even if they had a lovely home to share with him. And yet he ought to be with Vesta again. ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... pair sit down to "have it out," face to face across the table, then indeed the spectator feels that a new thing has been born in drama, and, incidentally, that the "well-made play" has suddenly become as dead as Queen Anne. The grimness, the intensity of life, are amazing in this final scene, where the old happy ending is completely abandoned for the first time, and where the paradox of life is presented without ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... the form of a mediaeval idyll, and so give himself away, is true to life. But my final impression of Mr. HERBERT'S book—he will perhaps think I am taking him too seriously—is that his many gifts and notably his humour, whose gaiety I prefer to its grimness, are here exercised on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various
... of crooks would like to." There was a trace of grimness in the old man's tone. "Pettigrew won't stand for no monkey business, pullin' a boss's head off on Monday and cuttin' him loose on Tuesday. They've got to be middlin' consistent p'formers to get by the major, and if Al Engle goes runnin' 'em in and out he'll get his jacket ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... bitter cold, the unopened door of an empty house, their future home, left a vivid impression upon the minds of her listeners; not because of its forlornness, but because of the splendid energy and patience which she brought to the occasion and the light she was able to cast over the grimness of circumstance. Of course, at the date in which this is written, it is difficult to conceive anything like grimness as associated with the comfortable and social town of Brunswick, but we must not fail to remember how rapid the growth of winter comfort ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... occurred at the Oaks Pit, near Barnsley, which led to the sacrifice of three hundred lives. Such a loss of life, exceeding that on many an historic battlefield, was in itself terrible, but the circumstances attending the accident at the Oaks Pit added to the grimness of the tragedy. When I reached the colliery a few hours after the explosion occurred I found that some two hundred of the men who had been working in it were known to have been killed, but that many more were believed to be still alive in the distant workings, and that ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... about an enigma. There it is before you—smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, 'Come and find out.' This one was almost featureless, as if still in the making, with an aspect of monotonous grimness. The edge of a colossal jungle, so dark-green as to be almost black, fringed with white surf, ran straight, like a ruled line, far, far away along a blue sea whose glitter was blurred by a creeping mist. ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... very deserving young man—and I'm glad I can use him," said Fogg, not able to keep all the grimness out of his tones. "Now, son," he went on, after a moment of pondering, "you stay on board this tug till I have been gone five minutes. There are a lot of sharp eyes around in these times, and some of Vose's friends would be glad to run to him with a story about ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... suppose she takes the surgery with it," said Miss Pole, with a little dry laugh at her own joke. But, like many people who think they have made a severe and sarcastic speech, which yet is clever of its kind, she began to relax in her grimness from the moment when she made this allusion to the surgery; and we turned to speculate on the way in which Mrs Jamieson would receive the news. The person whom she had left in charge of her house ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... allowance should be made for verbal modelling which, in many cases, is but the mere expression of a mood pro tempo. There is, however, somewhat of truth in the description. About the granite walls there is a grimness and gauntness of decay; of changed plans and projects; of devastation; of restoration; and, finally, of what is, apparently, submission ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... All the fever and excitement of the swift foray had passed, and the inevitable reaction had set in. The men were haggard, weary, sombre, and harassed. There was no elation after success either among officers or privates; only a sullen grimness, the sullenness of repletion after an orgy—the grimness of disgust for an unwelcome ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... scaffolding of his frame. He had gray hair retiring above a high brow, but worn long and untidily at the back; a wire-like straight-cut mustache, also streaked with gray, which served to accentuate the grimness of his mouth and slightly undershot jaw. A massive head, with tawny, leonine eyes; indeed, altogether a leonine face, and a frame ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... had been moving to Bishop's assistance, stood instantly arrested. Chap-fallen, with much of his high colour suddenly departed, the Deputy-Governor was swaying on unsteady legs. Peter Blood considered him with a grimness that increased ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... strengthened by long years of training, caused him to grasp the whole situation more and more clearly. He began to take a practical view of everything, and to form plans as to what must be done in the future. And even as he did so the grimness of the tragedy faced him. Throughout the day he knew that he had, to a large extent, prejudged Paul's case. His own inherent dislike of the man had caused him to feel sure he was guilty. Of course there were difficulties, and of course a clever counsel ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... unruly horse as one would speak to a mischievous child. Then, horse and rider disappeared in the darkness of the valley. The girl stood there in the darkness until the sound of hoof-beats died away. There was a certain rugged grimness in the scene. It was like the moving finger of fate—this silent horseman riding away into the dawn. Her lips moved: "I wish you—luck!" she breathed, "even if—even if—" She stepped from the cabin and glanced up at the paling stars. "Oh, I know!" she exclaimed, bitterly, ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... dog of Martin's, I suppose," said Clemantiny, grasping a broom handle with a grimness that boded ill for the dog. "Mussing up my clean doorstep with his dirty paws again. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... over the landscape in silence. In the evening sunlight his form looked more dense, dark, and real than ever before. His features were set hard in grimness. ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... least surprised," Mary assented, as she finished buttoning her gloves. She smiled, but there was a hint of grimness in the bending of her lips. That grimness remained, as she glanced at the clock, then went toward the door of the room, ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... which he answered, and the words and the grimness of his face, impressed Hamilton somehow with a new and keener sense of the seriousness ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... grimness that appears in the face of persecutors, Satan can tell how to lessen, and make to dwindle in our apprehensions, those truths unto which our hearts have joined themselves afore, and to which Christ our Lord has commanded us to stand. So that they shall now appear but little, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... longer went near the saloon. He had paid dearly for his stubbornness and would continue to pay to the end of his days. Billy Evans had swung around and was fighting the saloon now with a grimness that was terrible in one so easy-going and ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... comes to seein' disagreeable things, or folks hurt," answered the literal Susan cheerfully. "But he'll see you all right, when it's over." Her lips came together with a sudden grimness. ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... so also was the coward gone. The gaunt little old Mexican seemed oblivious of peril, as fever blinds one to every nearest emotion. There was even a grimness in the shifting gaze. And a certain merciless capacity, born of unyielding resolve—born of an obsession, one might say—was there also. He could have been some great military leader, cruel and of iron, if those eyes were all. Little ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... impatient, both with fate and with himself. He felt that he'd made Jill face reality when—if this S.O.S. signal brought help—it wasn't necessary. And there was enough of grimness in the present situation to make ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... canny Scotchman with a new child a year. Yes, my certie," offered Nanny, with an acrid grimness. Mrs. Muir's hands clasped strongly as they lay on the ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... grim than the kitchen, though there was a difference in its grimness. Seven chairs stood against the wall, like seven policemen with their hands behind their backs; a table crouched in the middle, its legs bent as if to spring. The boy John considered the table a monster, transformed by magic into its present shape, and ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... justice, did not interrupt. He listened with an expression that varied between grimness and weariness. When Joe ended he picked up a telephone. He talked briefly. Joe felt a reluctant sort of approval. Major Holt was not a man one could ever feel very close to, and the work he was in charge of was not likely ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... by no means in a direct line between Kensington and the City, yet morning and evening, as sure as the clock pointed to half-past nine and to quarter to six, Tom would stride through the old-fashioned square and past the grim house, whose grimness was softened to his eyes through its association with the bright dream of his life. It was but the momentary glance of a sweet face at the upper window and a single wave of a white hand, but it sent him on with ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... next our turn came, and then the whole line was gliding down the river, the rising roar of the angry waters with which we were soon to grapple coming to us with an added grimness. And now but a faint rim of light saved us from utter darkness. Big Bill Cowan, undaunted in war, stared at me with ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of which the town was originally built (thanks to rich quarries in the neighbourhood), and to which it owed its appellation of the Black. There are no windows, no apertures, and to-day no battlements nor roofs. These accessories were removed by Henry III., so that, in spite of its grimness and blackness, the place has not even the interest of looking like a prison; it being, as I suppose, the essence of a prison not to be open to the sky. The only features of the enormous structure are ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... no doubt, she reflected, that the man was tolerably good-looking and had enjoyed some training, though perhaps not the best, in England. He had also known adversity, she deduced from the gauntness of his face and a certain grimness of expression. She had noticed that his chin indicated a masterful expression and she was, therefore, the more surprised that he had allowed himself to be ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... Lillian began, her voice low and controlled, but deadly in its icy grimness, "we won't detain you but a moment, for we are going to get right down to ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... to him, trifle as it might have been to another. For, while all that was hard and stern in his recollection, remained Reality on being proved—was obdurate to the sight and touch, and relaxed nothing of its old indomitable grimness—the one tender recollection of his experience would not bear the same test, and melted away. He had foreseen this, on the former night, when he had dreamed with waking eyes, but he had not felt it then; and ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... Anthony to break out into betraying imprecations on Miss Smith's head, and cause a painful and humiliating explanation. She imagined him full of his mysterious ferocity. To her great surprise, Anthony's voice sounded very much as usual, with perhaps a slight tinge of grimness. "Miss Smith! No. I've seen no ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... tango with a skeleton partner. Her face is livid with terror and fatigue, her limbs are drooping, but she is held by inexorable bony claws. On the feet of the skeleton are dancing pumps, a touch which adds to the grimness. This ghoulish dance does not lack ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... so contrasting, fair and bright, It made me of my fancy ask If half earth's wrinkled grimness might Be but the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... observed of him with a shallow felicity that he looked like a "refined" Irishman. What had happened was that shortly before, at three o'clock, his fate had practically been sealed, and that even when one pretended to no quarrel with it the moment had something of the grimness of a crunched key in the strongest lock that could be made. There was nothing to do as yet, further, but feel what one had done, and our personage felt it while he aimlessly wandered. It was already as if he were married, so definitely had the solicitors, at three o'clock, ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... smile; it was rather that of the victor who salutes the vanquished in his heart. Meanwhile a more striking and a more subtle change had come over the face of Kilbride. It was not joy, but it was quite a new grimness, and in his own preoccupation the bushranger did not notice it at all. He sauntered nearer with his knife and his tobacco-plug, and there was some compassion in ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... who rides benignant before the Roman Capitol, be finer: but I was not thinking of that; I only found myself staring at the triumphant captain as if he had an oracle on his lips. The western light shines into all his grimness at that hour and makes it wonderfully personal. But he continued to look far over my head, at the red immersion of another day—he had seen so many go down into the lagoon through the centuries—and if he were thinking of battles and stratagems they were of a different quality from any I had ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... hammer, attended by Miss Pross carrying a light. There, with closed doors, and in a mysterious and guilty manner, Mr. Lorry hacked the shoemaker's bench to pieces, while Miss Pross held the candle as if she were assisting at a murder—for which, indeed, in her grimness, she was no unsuitable figure. The burning of the body (previously reduced to pieces convenient for the purpose) was commenced without delay in the kitchen fire; and the tools, shoes, and leather, were buried in the garden. So wicked ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... rampant and modesty regardant," Anthony, with some grimness, returned. "I am content to sit in my place, and watch the pantomime. You long to get upon the stage. Your unassuageable craving to write a song is, in its essence, just an unassuageable craving to make yourself an object of attention. And that's the ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... a strange, sombre, formidable character. The sweet, exquisite, icy, infernal joy with which, as Pescara, he told his rival that there should be "music" was almost comical in its effect of terror: it drove the listener across the line of tragical tension and made him hysterical with the grimness of a deadly humour. His swift defiance to Lord Lovell, as Sir Giles, and indeed the whole mighty and terrible action with which he carried that scene—from "What, are you pale?" down to the grisly and horrid viper pretence and reptile ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... hesitation in the makeup of Major Bliss. He intended to suppress this outbreak in a manner that would tend to discourage any such ebullitions in the future. Consequently, he made his dispositions with grimness and determination. His plan was simple, his orders being to "rush 'em and give 'em hell." His greatest regret was that the interests of discipline should make such a step necessary, since he was sure that a majority of the mutineers had acted upon impulse, and were already ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... to stand with all the immovable strength of some solid rock on which the waves of rebellion or invasion would have dashed and broken. It is easy to believe the saying of Lambarde, in his Perambulation of Kent, that "from time to time it had a part in almost every tragedie". But the grimness of its grey walls is relieved by a green mantle of clinging ivy, and though it can no longer be said of the Castle that it is "bathed, though in ruins, with a flush of flowers", the beautiful single pink grows wild ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... the piece of an old cord. "I was made in a place of doom, and doomed men made my fibres, working without hope. Therefore there came a grimness into my heart, so that I never let anything go free when once I was set to bind it. Many a thing have I bound relentlessly for months and years; for I used to come coiling into warehouses where the great boxes lay all open to the air, and one of them would be suddenly ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... beating—forever beating—with sullen plashings. Terrible must be the aspect of this coast in winter. Now the hundreds of water-fowl wheeling over it, and enlivening the crags with their cries, softened its grimness. Farther along the shore-ledges Kit presently espied a black animal of some kind, and called our attention ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens |
