"Swarthy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... but could not see the likeness. You know how differently people seem to be affected by the same face. I failed to see in the sweet countenance framed in curling fair hair, and in the slight girlish figure of surpassing grace, my swarthy friend Pedro. She seemed startled at first by my father's abrupt manner. He questioned her. What was her name—'Mariquita,' she said. 'I was sure of it,' rejoined my father. ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... was early in the season a few deal tables were set out by the waterside, and a swarthy waiter, with huge mustaches and a napkin over his arm, came delicately over the ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... representing a palace in Venice. Several others portrayed foreign scenes. Among them was a street scene in Rome. An entire family were sitting in different postures on the portico of a fine building, the man with his swarthy features half-concealed under a slouch hat, the woman holding a child in her lap, while another, a boy with large black eyes, leaned ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... current. It was said to be the body of a dead Turk, bound for the Persian Gulf, after its voyage of two hundred odd miles from Kut. We landed, uncomfortably hot. The men fell in and we prepared to march off. A swarthy Arab, in red and white headgear held in position by two thick rings of camel hair, wearing curved slippers and saffron-coloured robes, stood scowling before us, spitting at intervals. A group of sappers near ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... A swarthy boy opened a book and propped it nimbly under the breastwork of his satchel. He recited jerks of verse with odd glances at ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... experienced married man?—will probably retort, that all love between young folks is not only folly but sheer madness; and he will be the more confirmed in this opinion when he learns that, according to certain grave Persian writers, Layla was really of a swarthy visage, and far from being the beauty her infatuated lover conceived her to be: thus verifying the dictum of our great dramatist, in the ever-fresh passage where he makes "the lunatic, the lover, and the poet" ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... present to his imagination; but so soon as he opened them, the graceful and richly-gemmed turban, the light hauberk of steel rings entwisted with silver, which glanced brilliantly as it obeyed every inflection of the body, the features freed from their formal expression, less swarthy, and no longer shadowed by the mass of hair (now limited to a well-trimmed beard), announced the soldier ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... lying on the grass, looking much lazier than my cousins—which is saying a good deal—and only turning his swarthy face when the gipsy girl, as she moved about and tended the fire, got out of the sight of his eyes. Then he moved so that he could see her again; not, as it seemed, to see what she was doing or to help her to do it, but as leaves move with the wind, or as we unpacked ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... project, for during the next four weeks she coaxed back to earth warm, golden days from the fast fleeing Indian summer. The magic touch of sunshine and fresh air flooded Nat's cheek with healthy color and as if by miracle, strength returned to the delicate ankle; as for Peter he became swarthy as a young Arab. So delighted was Mrs. Jackson in watching the transformation in her two boys that she was quite unaware that a soft pinkiness was stealing into her own face. A vacation had seemed such an impossible thing that she had never dared picture how ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... and the monte-dealer was left to keep his promise to his dead brother. He turned his back upon the grave and went about the fulfilment of that vow as ambitious men go about the making of careers; and in the days that followed, while his swarthy company was sweeping through California like fire on a chaparral hillside when the wind is high, he gained a dark fame, so lasting that there is hardly an old settled community from Mount Shasta to the Mexican line which has not some tale of ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... The roadway had become a flowing ribbon of silk, gemmed with yellow cat-like eyes that floated past wary and curious in their regard for him and his nervous horse. Two Basque herders brought up the rear. They were short, broad, swarthy men, black-eyed, vivid-faced, contemplative and philosophic of expression. They pulled off their hats and ducked their heads to him. Forrest lifted his right hand, the quirt dangling from wrist, the straight forefinger touching the rim of his Baden ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... aspect from this unlovely race; for an historian tells us, whom I have already made use of, that "his features bore the stamp of his national origin; and the portrait of Attila exhibits the genuine deformity of a modern Calmuck; a large head, a swarthy complexion, small deep-seated eyes, a flat nose, a few hairs in the place of a beard, broad shoulders, and a short square body, of nervous strength, though of a disproportioned form." I should add that the Tartar eyes ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... his head uncovered. One of his hands, still clutching a pistol, has fallen to his side; the other presses a bloody handkerchief over his mouth. The spasm of mortal agony convulses his features; but I know them for the features of a swarthy man who twice frightened me by taking me up in his arms when I was a child at Wincot Abbey. I asked the nurses at the time who that man was, and they told me it was my uncle, Stephen Monkton. Plainly, as if he stood ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... appears a hat of scarlet satin with a divided brim, which, rising, is revealed to surmount the head of an extraordinarily swarthy person, to whose dark skin much powder has only loaned the hue of death: his cheeks, however, are vividly carmined. This is all that the audience can now see of the young DUKE of FLORENCE, whose proximity the two in the garden are just now too ...
— The Jewel Merchants - A Comedy In One Act • James Branch Cabell
... insignificant man, in appearance; pot-bellied, of a swarthy complexion, but with keenness, cunning, and mockery in his eye; and whose form and figure, as well as his turn of mind, must have made it ridiculous to have quarrelled with him. I therefore waited for some more fortunate opportunity, to repay him in his own coin: for I was as unwilling ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... Portraits of Du Guesclin and other Breton worthies are in one of the rooms (Salle de l'Odeon). That of the Constable answers to the description given of his appearance. He was low in stature, with large Breton head, broad shoulders, long arms, and large hands. His eyes were green, and his complexion swarthy: "la peau noire comme ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... defence of fatherland! Yet let us go not forth the city-gates To battle with yon foe. Nay, from our towers And from our ramparts let us make defence, Till our new champion come, the stormy heart Of Memnon. Lo, he cometh, leading on Hosts numberless, Aethiopia's swarthy sons. By this, I trow, he is nigh unto our gates; For long ago, in sore distress of soul, I sent him urgent summons. Yea, and he Promised me, gladly promised me, to come To Troy, and make all end of all our woes. And now, I trust, he is nigh. Let us ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... the wicket-door of the great arched gate was thrown open, and a gun about six feet long and of very large bore was presented at us. The quarrymen drew aside briskly, and I was about to move somewhat hastily, when the great, swarthy man who was holding the gun withdrew it, and lifted his hat to me, ...
— George Bowring - A Tale Of Cader Idris - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... of swarthy complexion, tall, thin, with bushy eyebrows and thick black hair and short beard. He spoke English with just the faintest suspicion of a ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... which got there we know not how. We do not know what kind of a spot it is; perhaps it is a soup stain, perhaps it is due to a shrimp salad we had with Endymion at that amusing place that calls itself the Crystal Palace; we will not attempt to trace the origin of that swarthy blemish on the soft silk of our tie; but we have cunningly taught ourself to knot the thing so that the spot does not show. (Good, we have made that plain: ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... gaze enraptured upon their varied beauty. Foremost of all rode a man richly habited, a man of great strength and breadth of shoulder, and of a bearing high and arrogant. His face, framed in long black hair that curled to meet his shoulder, was of a dark and swarthy hue, fierce looking and masterful by reason of prominent chin and high-arched nose, and of his thin-lipped, relentless mouth. Black were his eyes and bold; now staring bright and wide, now glittering 'twixt heavy, narrowed lids; yet when he smiled they glittered brightest, ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... brim and a fluttering red ribbon; but beneath it his coal-black hair behind was chopped as close as could be, leaving a single long and well-oiled ringlet on each side, which curled like snakes around a pair of large gold rings pendent from his ears. His complexion was dark, bilious, and swarthy, with a thin, sharp nose, and a million of minute wrinkles, all meeting above, at the corners, and under a small line of a mouth; quite like rays, in fact, and only relaxed when the lips parted to show a few ragged, rotten pegs of sharp teeth. But perhaps the most noticeable feature in his ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... protect his master's private apartments, was rudely thrust aside, and a fierce looking old warrior entered, followed by a man who was obviously more of a Levantine than a Serb. The older man, small, slight, gray haired, and swarthy, but surprisingly active in his movements for one of his apparent age, raced up to Prince Michael. He fell on his knees, caught that nerveless right hand, and pressed it to ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... now become so large as to occupy the greater part of the hall, and was especially swelled by sundry new arrivals at this moment. In particular, there came one swarthy, tall, wretched-looking creature, with wild eyes, wan face, and black hair of extraordinary length, who took up his position, standing immediately opposite to the tribune. Other new comers also stood near him, all of ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... nevertheless, nothing in his outward mien to give rise to so much emotion. He was a robust and rather handsome fellow, of about twenty-five, bold, swaggering, and free and easy in his deportment—a perfect specimen of the race of half-breeds so common in Mexico. His skin was swarthy, his features regular, and his beard luxuriant and soft as silk. His eyes were large and black as sloes, his teeth small, regular, and white as ivory, and his whole countenance, when in repose, wore an expression ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... dark beard was plentifully sprinkled with gray. Bowlby was short and stocky in appearance. When in the woods he allowed his black beard to grow all over his face, but at home he was always smooth-shaven. He was of a swarthy complexion, inclined to be silent, and often moody, but like his companions he was brave, industrious and patient, holding a strong dislike of all Indians, though not inclined to go to any ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... pour out huge columns of black smoke, and from which long tongues of crimson and bluish flame leap forth at night against the pitchy darkness of the sky. Here, as one whirls by in the train after nightfall, he may catch hurried glimpses of swarthy men, stripped to the waist, stirring the molten iron with their long levers or standing amid showers of sparks as the brilliant metal slips to and fro among the rollers that mould it into the forms of commerce. If upon a summer evening ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... the question, for Halbert Glendinning, the elder of the two, had hair as dark as the raven's plumage, black eyes, large, bold, and sparkling, that glittered under eyebrows of the same complexion; a skin deep embrowned, though it could not be termed swarthy, and an air of activity, frankness, and determination, far beyond his age. On the other hand, Edward, the younger brother, was light-haired, blue-eyed, and of fairer complexion, in countenance rather pale, and not exhibiting that rosy hue which colours the sanguine cheek ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... event," occupied the foot as the representative of the O.S.N. Company in Sulaco, the hosts of that informal function, with the captain of the ship and some minor officials from the shore around him. Those cheery, swarthy little gentlemen cast jovial side-glances at the bottles of champagne beginning to pop behind the guests' backs in the hands of the ship's stewards. The amber wine creamed up to the rims of ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... dwarf that squeaked and screeched, distorting its face in hideous grimaces. Scattered about the room, singing, bawling or brawling, were indigent morris dancers; bare-footed minstrels; a pinched and needy versificator; a reduced mountebank; a swarthy clown, with a hare's mouth; joculators of the streets, poor as rats and living as such, straitened, heedless fellows, with heads full of nonsense and purses empty, poor in pocket, but rich ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... or Svart-alfar, were bred like maggots in the flesh of the slain giant Ymir. The gods, perceiving these tiny, unformed creatures creeping in and out, gave them form and features, and they became known as dark elves, on account of their swarthy complexions. These small beings were so homely, with their dark skin, green eyes, large heads, short legs, and crow's feet, that they were enjoined to hide underground, being commanded never to show ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... someone shouting. "Stop all work. Stop all work," and a swarthy hunchback, ridiculously gay in green and gold, came leaping down the platforms toward him, bawling again and again in good English, "This is Ostrog's doing, Ostrog the Knave! The Master is betrayed." His voice was hoarse ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... of narrow, crowded streets. The women were mostly without hats; and swarthy men, rolling cigarettes, lounged against doorways. The place had a quaint foreign flavour. Tiny cafes, filled with smoke and noise, and clean, inviting restaurants abounded. She was feeling hungry, and, choosing one the door of which stood ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... to give drink to the pheasants and hares of the Grand Duke's Cascine on its banks. Opposite my lodgings, at the south end of the Ponte alla Carraia, is a little oratory, before the door of which every good Catholic who passes takes off his hat with a gesture of homage; and at this moment a swarthy, weasel-faced man, with a tin box in his hand, is gathering contributions to pay for the services of the chapel, rattling his coin to attract the attention of the pedestrians, and calling out to those who seem disposed to pass without paying. To the north ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... was, like all of us, tall, but not quite so broad as we other Wynnes. He was of swarthy complexion from long service in the East, and had black hair, not fine, but rather coarse. I noticed a scar on his forehead. He shook hands, using his left hand, because, as I learned, of awkwardness from an old wound. But with his left lie was an ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... the head of the Hermeneutai—the guild of the Dragomans of that period—was a swarthy and surly native of Memphis; whenever he accidentally came too close to the fierce-looking riders of the dromedaries he shrunk his shoulders as if he expected a blow or a push, while he poured out question and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... I finished my long prayer and had put away my phylacteries, the young chambermaid removed the bedding and the swarthy old ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... a tall, swarthy-faced man with well-trimmed black mustache, a typical Spaniard, lounged in and sat at her table, while she gave him tea. Mr. Lloyd, Lola and Mrs. Charlesworth were busily chatting, but I noted that the Spanish woman whispered some words to her companion which caused him to glance ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... important night, which was of great darkness, made the more intense by the black environment of densely-wooded hills which surrounded Schloss Eltz, the swarthy Spaniard became almost pale with anxiety as he listened for the solemn peal that was to be his signal. At last it tolled forth, and he, with knife to hand in his girdle, crept softly along the narrow halls to his fatal task. The interior of Schloss Eltz is full of intricate ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... stopped to spend a few days with George Sand at her country home at Nohant. He found his "comrade George" in her dressing-gown, smoking a cigar after dinner in the chimney-corner of an immense solitary chamber. In spite of her dreadful troubles, she did not have a white hair; her swarthy skin had not deteriorated and her beautiful eyes were still dazzling. She had been at Nohant about a year, very sad, and working tremendously. He found her leading about the same life as he; she retired at six in the morning and arose at noon, while ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... began to rise: Fast streams a tide from beauteous Helen's eyes; Fast for the sire the filial sorrows flow; The weeping monarch swells the mighty woe; Thy cheeks, Pisistratus, the tears bedew, While pictured so thy mind appear'd in view, Thy martial brother; on the Phrygian plain Extended pale, by swarthy Memnon slain! But silence soon the son of Nestor broke, And melting with fraternal ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... of fracture extending for thousands of miles,—but the Saracens of the Nineteenth Century; a fierce, intolerant, fanatical people, the males of which will be a perpetual standing army; hating us worse than the Southern Hamilcar taught his swarthy boy to hate the Romans; a people whose existence as a hostile nation on our frontier is incompatible with our peaceful development? Their wealth, the proceeds of enforced labor, multiplied by the breaking up of new cottonfields, and in due time ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... He was of swarthy complexion, dressed in a plain suit of tweed, well made, and neither new nor old. His hat was of the newest fashion, and glossy. He had no ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... dating back to the Ostrogothic invasion), was fair. Her hair was blond, her eyes blue-gray, her eyebrows and lashes dark brown, and as he caught sight of her Felipe wondered how he ever could have believed the swarthy Rubia beautiful. ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... I hear the bitter plaint Of the passing of a haughty race, The wronged, friendly, childlike, peaceable tribes, The swarthy archers of the wilderness, The red men to whom Nature opened all her secrets, Who knew the haunts of bird and fish, The hidden virtue of herb and root; All the travail of man and beast they knew— Birth and death, heat and cold, Hunger and thirst, ...
— The Song of the Stone Wall • Helen Keller
... as gossamer and varied as the colours in the rainbow! They were like a living bouquet, as they sat under the shade of the verandah, with the green lawns and the palm trees in front, the red-coated orchestra behind, and the noiseless forms of swarthy Bednouins and ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... A short swarthy-looking boy, with a leering and unfavourable countenance, here stepped forward, taking his station upon one of the steps beside his mother. A notion had gone abroad that the boy was the fruit of some unhallowed intercourse with an immortal of the fairy or pixy kind, whose illicit amours the old ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... around him, and the glimmer of the dying fire no longer fell upon the barbarian. With an audacity of daring that marked the eagerness and intensity of his curiosity, Nathan with his hands pushed the bushes aside, so as again to bring a gleam upon the swarthy countenance; which he perused with such feelings as left him for a time unconscious of the object of his enterprise, unconscious of everything save the spectacle before him, the embodied representation ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... of their swarthy prisoner, Gratz provided the uncomfortable Robert with the relief he required by instructing him to hasten to his uncle and summon him to the scene, and to avoid giving him any of the details of ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... armed with rifles, to Mosita, our destination, where it was hoped they would be out of the way of marauding Boers. At last we reached the native stadt of Mosita, where our appearance created great excitement. Crowds of swarthy men and youths rushed out to question our driver as to news. The latter waxed eloquent in words and gestures, imitating even the noise of the big gun, which seemed to produce great enthusiasm among these simple folk. Their ruling passion, I afterwards found, was hatred ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... Martian spirits, we learn that "they appear in a tall body, cholerick, a filthy countenance, of colour brown, swarthy or red, having horns like Harts horns, and Griphins claws, bellowing like wilde Bulls. Their Motion is like fire burning; their signe Thunder and Lightning about the Circle. Their ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... was as misshapen as his mind. His head was disproportionately large, his limbs were rickety, one shoulder was higher, one leg longer than the other. With features resembling those of his father, but with a swarthy instead of a fair complexion, with an expression of countenance both fierce and foolish, and with a character such as we have sketched it, upon the evidence of those who knew him well, it is indeed strange that he should ever have been transformed by the magic of poetry ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... us. There seemed to be at least ten of them—men as tall as myself, though not so tall as Georg. Swarthy, gray-skinned fellows—one or two of them squat, ape-like with their heavy shoulders and dangling arms. Men of the Venus Cold Country. They were talking together in their queer, soft language. One of them I took to be the leader. Argo was his name, I afterward learned. ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... spoke very good English, and there were moments when I forgot his smooth oily manner and dark countenance, and could almost feel that he was some swarthy sportsman who had invited us to his place for a ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... been in many countries, and lived many different lives, since I was a little girl. I have been months together at sea, when dry land itself seemed almost to become a dream. I have been for long years in India, and grown so used to burning skies and swarthy faces that I could hardly believe in the reality of cool England, with its fresh fields and shady lanes; yet all these scenes are growing hazy, while clearly, and yet more clearly, there rises before me the ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... the banqueters and then took their places behind the chairs at the table. The captain's face was shining like a full moon; the doctor's was swarthy, sinister and piratical; the judge's possessed the dignity of a splendid ruin; the mate's was haunted by an expression of unsatisfied and insatiable desire. Observing it and calling the attention of the others, the justice remarked, "Like the old Romans, we have a skeleton at our table to remind ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... and, guarded by faithful duenna, strolled slowly up and down, exchanging furtive signal of hand or kerchief with some gallant among the throngs of captive soldiery that swarmed towards sunset on the parapet. Swarthy, black-browed Spanish officers in cool summer uniform and in parties of three or four lined the roadway, or wandered up and down in search of some distraction to the deadly ennui of their lives now that their soldier occupation was gone, vouchsafing ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... and their own rags and squalor? They entered the Porziuncola singing: they came out at the side-door transfigured, and silent except for some breathless "Maria!" or "Gesu!" Their arms were thrown upward, their glowing black eyes were upraised, their thin swarthy faces burned with a vivid scarlet, their white teeth glittered between the parted lips. Round and round they went like a great water-wheel that revolves in sun and shadow, and the spray it tossed up ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... a man of swarthy countenance, with signs of the bottle glowing through the dark skin; small fierce pig eyes, a rather flat pendulous nose, and a grim forbidding mouth, with a large wart a little above it. On the head hung one of those ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... servant would be waiting for me. I was much rejoiced on hearing this good news: I forgot that I required rest and a change of clothes, packed up my bundle, and hurried to the beach. Of the town I only saw a few streets, where there was a great bustle. I also noticed many swarthy Arabs and Bedouins, who wore nothing but a shirt. I did not feel particularly anxious to see Beyrout and its vicinity, as I intended to return soon and visit any part I could not ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among these ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... half-armour of a kind unknown to antiquarians, and great jack-boots of gilded leather. He was tall, and the towering mass of waving feathers that crowned his helmet made him look taller still. His vizor was raised, showing a swarthy, hook-nosed face, with quick, restless eyes like a lizard's, a fierce moustache, and a bristling beard that spread out ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... Ireland, where they were captured and sold as slaves, and that was all Thorhall got by worshipping the Red Beard. Karlsefni sailed south and reached a rich country of wild maize, where also was plenty of fish and of game. Here they first met the natives, who came in a fleet of skin-canoes. 'They were swarthy men and ill-looking, and the hair of their heads was ugly. They had great eyes ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... feeling was one of great surprise—Henry Dornham was so different from what he had expected to find him; he had not thought that he would be fair like Madaline, but he was unprepared for the dark, swarthy, gypsy-like type of the man ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... place there were Parthians, Medes and Elamites, and all the rest of the list. There was even a Chinaman. Two Hindus were unpacking bundles out of a creaking araba, watched scornfully by an unmistakable Pathan. A fat swarthy-faced Greek in black frock coat and trousers, fez, and slippered feet gesticulated with his right arm like a pump-handle while he sat on the balcony-rail and bellowed orders to a crowd mixed of Armenians, Italians, Maltese, Syrians and a Turk or two, who ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... was a swarthy, sinewy man of forty, with all his fibres indurated and worked down to the whip-cord meagreness and rigidity of a racer, his frame presenting a perfect picture of the sort of being one would fancy suited to the exhausting motion of a dromedary, and ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... familiar with the face of the little town itself, the more you are impressed by the strange swarthy tone it preserves in all this splendid expanse of radiant tinting. There are only two points of visible color in it,—the church and hospital, built of stone, which have been painted yellow: as a mass in the landscape, lying between the dead-gold of the cane-clad ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... rambles to meet them. He had camped on the spurs of the Rocky Mountains; he had threaded the valleys of New Mexico; looked at the adobe villages of the Pueblos, and among the race, neither Indian nor Spaniard, with swarthy face and unkempt hair. He had occasion to moralize over those who had voluntarily become the slaves of others even meaner than themselves, who spoke a jargon neither Indian nor Spanish. Catholics in name, who ate red pepper pies, gambled like the ...
— Se-Quo-Yah; from Harper's New Monthly, V. 41, 1870 • Unknown
... taking of Namur, amidst other public rejoicings made on that occasion, there was a gold ring given by a Whig justice of peace to be grinned for. The first competitor that entered the lists was a black, swarthy Frenchman, who accidentally passed that way, and being a man naturally of a withered look and hard features, promised himself good success. He was placed upon a table in the great point of view, and, looking upon ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... they thought, an attractive person; his countenance was swarthy, his eyes were black his hair was black, his heavy jaw was shadowed by an enormous black mustachio. A kerchief of brilliant red tied about his throat gave him the appearance of the matador in a Spanish bullfight rather than the officer of an English merchantman. He glanced ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... the dull monotony of our life at sea did the scene present which awaited us on landing in Lisbon. The whole quay was crowded with hundreds of people eagerly watching the vessel which bore from her mast the broad ensign of Britain. Dark-featured, swarthy, mustached faces, with red caps rakishly set on one side, mingled with the Saxon faces and fair-haired natives of our own country. Men-of-war boats plied unceasingly to and fro across the tranquil river, some slender ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... stood immoveable before a large portrait, whose frame had once been richly gilt, although it now scarcely retained a few tarnished vestiges of its former splendour. The subject was an old man, his face swarthy and bronzed, with furrowed brow and hollow temples, and sharp high cheekbones; a physiognomy on which the ravages of time, and climate, and suffering were plainly legible. The figure was draped in a flowing Asiatic ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... not move from his seat. He sat erect and placid, one knee crossed over the other, his serious, rather swarthy face perhaps a shade paler than usual: otherwise it seemed as if the insult had never reached his ears, or ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... we heard the click of the anchor-chain in the forecastle, the blessedest sea-sound I wot of; a sailor sang while he hung in the ratlines and tossed down the salt-stained shrouds. The afternoon waned: the man at the wheel struck two bells—it was the delectable dog-watch. Down went the swarthy sun into his tent of clouds; the waves were of amber; the fervid sky was flushed; it looked as though something splendid were about to happen up there, and that it could hardly keep the secret much ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... shepherd-prophet of Hebraic legends; but the shadow of that great sadness which for so long had brooded over him was gone; the grief that once he had fancied deathless was, indeed, dead, or rather swallowed up in a victorious joy that radiated like sunlight at dawn from the deep-set eyes, and the hollow, swarthy cheeks. They talked together till nearly sundown, but to Presley's questions as to the reasons for Vanamee's happiness, the other would say nothing. Once only he allowed himself ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... touched in their way to Italy. The harbour was crowded with masts and strange prows and uncouth sails, and the quays always busy with loading and unloading; while in the streets might be seen men of all languages and all dresses, copper-coloured Egyptians, swarthy Jews, lively, bustling Greeks, and haughty Italians, with Asiatics from the neighbouring coasts of Syria and Cilicia, and even dark Ethiopians, painted Arabs, Bactrians, Scythians, Persians, and Indians, all gay with their national costumes. ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... Canning's room a quarter of an hour after Elizabeth's arrival. The girl said she was almost starved to death in a house on the Hertfordshire road, which she knew by seeing the Hertford coach, with which she was familiar, go by. The woman who cut her stays was 'a tall, black, swarthy woman.' Scarrat said 'that was not Mrs. Wells,' which was fair on Scarrat's part. Elizabeth described the two young women as being one fair, the other dark; so Scarrat swore. Wintlebury, her old master, ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... insisted upon attending them to the tents, with his young brother, a pretty, libertine boy of sixteen, the brother's tutor, an Arab black as a negro but without the negro's look of having been freshly oiled, and two attendants. To them joined himself the Caid of the Nomads, a swarthy potentate who not only looked, but actually was, immense, his four servants, and his uncle, a venerable person like a shepherd king. These worthies surrounded Domini and Androvsky, and behind streamed the curious, the envious, the greedy and the desultory Arabs, who follow in the ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... near to her. Most of them were Italians and swarthy. But not one had that peculiar, ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... attention. So daylight When shutters are thrown back spreads through a house; As then the dreams and terrors of the night Decamp, so from my mind were driven All its own thoughts and feelings. Close she leant Propped on a swarthy arm, while the other helped With eloquent gesture potent as wizard wand, Veil the world off as with an airy web, Or flowing tent a-gleam with pictured folds. These tauten and distend—one sea of wheat, Islanded with black cities, borders now The voluminous blue pavilion of day. There-under ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... father's house was drawing near, and one fine morning I received the visit of a man about forty years old, with a black wig, a scarlet cloak, and a very swarthy complexion, who handed me a letter from M. Grimani, ordering me to consign to the bearer all the furniture of the house according to the inventory, a copy of which was in my possession. Taking the inventory in my hand, I pointed out every article marked down, except when the said ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... he wrinkled up his brown visage, and once again took to howling. Half an hour later his father, steadily following up the little track in the snow, reached the spot and heard the howls. A smile lit up his swarthy features, and there was a gleam of satisfaction in his black eyes as he descended to the spot ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... grow fainter and fainter. Are the tall maidens of Capri already looking out for the swarthy sailors, that these turn no longer to the shores they are leaving?... "O dolce Napoli! O suol beato!" ... Fainter and fainter grow the notes on the trembling string, so that you can scarcely tell them from the cool plashing of the fountains ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... by a slim, swarthy, black-eyed, elderly person of twenty-five or thirty, with a crooked nose and a crooked mind, half clerk and half familiar spirit—Mr. Joseph Pelman, to wit; who appeared perpetually on the point of choking himself by suppressed chucklings at ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... carved brass handle, was thrust under one arm, though the sky was cloudless; a profusion of raven hair, in waving curls that seemed as fine as silk, escaped from the sides of a straw-hat of prodigious brim; a complexion sallow and swarthy, and features which, though not without considerable beauty to the eye of the artist, were not only unlike what we fair, well-fed, neat-faced Englishmen are wont to consider comely, but exceedingly like what we are disposed to regard as awful and Satanic—to ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... Crawfords were a very handsome race; he was anxious that this, their thirteenth representative, should be worthy, even physically, of his ancestors. He drew a long sigh of gratification as young Colin, with open hands, came up to him. The future laird was a noble-looking fellow, a dark, swarthy Highlandman, with glowing eyes, and a frame which promised in a few years to fill ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... of Bethune," muttered Grimaud; "a man between fifty-five and sixty, tall, strong, swarthy, black hair ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... once looked a female in the face, his own wife not excepted. As he approached Egypt and was crossing some water, he saw in it the reflection of her face, and it was then that he exclaimed, "Behold now I know that thou art a fair woman." As the Egyptians are swarthy, Abraham at once perceived the magnitude of the danger, and hence his precaution to hide ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... coming towards us; when far distant my companions knew them to be Indians, by their long hair streaming behind their backs. The Indians generally have a fillet round their heads, but never any covering; and their black hair blowing across their swarthy faces, heightens to an uncommon degree the wildness of their appearance. They turned out to be a party of Bernantio's friendly tribe, going to a salina for salt. The Indians eat much salt, their children sucking it like sugar. This ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... library before the fire the most valuable on this Coast, if not in the country. He was also much impressed with the many devices for securing speed in typesetting and other mechanical work. The only feature of his swarthy face that impressed one was his brilliant black eyes, which behind his large glasses, seemed to note every detail. He talked very well, but although he made friends among local newspapermen, he was unsuccessful in selling any of his stories to the editors of the Sunday ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... this alone, for Cuba and some of the neighbouring islands, it was stated, had been ransacked for delicacies. Crowds of elegantly-dressed ladies (in general of very sallow look and languid air) and spirit-like children, with swarthy-looking men, many of whose visages bore evident traces of exposure to the ill effects of the climate and of dissipation, crowded the festive board. The negro attendants in dozens moved about with automatic order, as is characteristic ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... fleet was brought to anchor, and the master sent again on shore to examine more narrowly into the state of the country and its inhabitants. His account was that the natives were well proportioned, and of a swarthy colour, armed with bows and arrows, and all naked. A storm arising at night, the fleet weighed anchor and stood along; the coast, till they found a good harbour, in which they all came to anchor, naming it Puerto Seguro, or the Safe Port, as it was quite ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... that shone like dusky rubies; they were agile at the chase, could capture a lion or trap the wild beasts that are so useful in gladiatorial games. There were Greeks here, pale of face and gentle of manner who could strike the chords of a lyre and sing to its accompaniment, and there were swarthy Spaniards who fashioned breast-plates of steel and fine chain mail to resist the assassin's dagger: there were Gauls with long lithe limbs and brown hair tied in a knot high above the forehead, and Allemanni from the Rhine with two-coloured hair heavy and crisp like a lion's mane. There ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... in did come the strangest figure! His queer long coat from heel to head Was half of yellow and half of red, And he himself was tall and thin, With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin, 60 And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin, No tuft on cheek nor beard on chin, But lips where smiles went out and in; There was no guessing his kith and kin; And nobody could enough admire 65 The tall man and his quaint attire. Quoth one: "It's as my great-grandsire, Starting up at ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... obsolete and effaced for all artistic purposes. The atmosphere of London will have performed its inevitable function. Every 'scroll work' and 'pinnacle' will be a mere clot of soot, and the bronze gilt Virtues will represent nothing but swarthy denizens of the lower regions; the plumage of the angels will be converted into a sort of black-and-white check-work. 'All this fated transformation we see with the mind's eye as plainly as we see with those of the body, the similar change which has been effected in the Gothic ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... and I was about to tell him my opinion," interposed De Lude, "when I saw him escape through the crowd like a squirrel, laughing greatly with some suspicious looking men with dark, swarthy faces; I do not doubt, however, that Monsieur de Cinq-Mars sent him, for he gave orders to that Ambrosio whom you must know—that Spanish prisoner, that rascal whom he has taken for a servant. In faith, I am disgusted with all this; and I was ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... spread eagle, and the inscription in Greek, Basileus Ptolemaion. Ptolemy, flushed with the victory he had won for Alexander, issued it over two thousand years ago. After subserving the purposes of Athenian barter, some swarthy Egyptian obtained it; but our friend the Egyptian, in time, was gathered to his fathers. He was embalmed, and slept in the shadow of the Pyramid, where his royal predecessors were sleeping, and by the side of the eternal Sphynx, whose ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... well the curious scholar loved the old Traditions that his swarthy neighbors told By wigwam-fires when nights ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... took one step toward the Elder's chair, his swarthy old face alight with anticipation and hope. One promise! He would give a hundred, and keep them all. The Captain was fine-looking at all times, every span of him a man and a seaman. But when his face was bright with eagerness, and his muscular body tense with anticipation, ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... the lines of care grew deeper on the master's swarthy cheek, While around the weakest fainted ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... mouth and stared at him. The broad swarthy face loomed like a menace in the uncertain light before us. It was dark; it was inscrutable; a heavy resolution was marked in that thick neck, low brow, and salient chin. We ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... there is considerable variety in the colour of the Cape lions—is regarded as possessing less courage; but there is some doubt about the truth of this. The young "black-manes" may often be mistaken for the true yellow variety, and their character ascribed to him to his prejudice,—for the swarthy colour of the mane only comes after the lion ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... spoke, the chief arose, and, dark though it was, I could see a gleam of intelligence on his swarthy visage. ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne |
