"Steely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... over a torn sea, and the drift was swept so that the moon was obscured with every fresh gust. High overhead a clear, steely sky was flecked here and there with fleecy white, and, ever and again, the moon slipped her mantle of cloud from her rounded shoulder, and looked around her with large, calm glances. But there was an evil-looking sky away to the eastward, and the black wreaths ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... infectious. Cuthbert felt more like a light-hearted boy than ever he had done in his life before. His lively little companion, clinging to his arm and chattering like a magpie, effectually drove away all grave thoughts. The sun shone brightly in the steely-blue sky; the frost had made the streets absolutely clean and dry. Walking, even in the most trodden places, was easy and pleasant, and everybody seemed ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... push the man a little farther. "Castelnuovo," he said with what he hoped was a steely glint in his eyes, "isn't going to like a curse ruining business." He took another deep breath of ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... said. And though my voice was suave, a close observer in a position to watch my eyes would have noticed a steely glint. Nobody has a greater respect for Jeeves's intellect than I have, but this disposition of his to dictate to the hand that fed him had got, I felt, to be checked. This mess-jacket was very near to my heart, and ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... short paces behind the brawler's back. The Kid turned a little in his chair, slowly, very slowly like a machine. His eyes came to rest full upon Thornton's. And Thornton, looking back steadily into the hard eyes, steely and blue and fearless, low lidded and watchful, knew that the man had fully expected to see straight into the barrel of a revolver. For a moment it was as though this place had come under such a spell as ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... this ridiculous climate? And then, woollen is stuffy, color draws the sun, and one at least knows when one is clean or dirty." Artistically the result was far from unsatisfactory. It was a pretty figure under the sombre pines, against the gray granite and the steely sky, and seemed to lend the yellowing fields from which the flowers had already fled a floral relief of color. I do not think the few masculine wayfarers of that locality objected to it; indeed, some had betrayed an indiscreet admiration, and had ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... The first of the steely stars were shining through the naked rafters of leafless boughs overhead, as Donal and the cobbler stepped, gently talking, into the aisle of trees. The old man looked up, gazed for a moment in ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... hunters glanced significantly at the two who had been the cause of their banishment. Jock Horner, quiet as was his way, gave no sign; but the blood surged darkly across Smoke's forehead, and he half opened his mouth to speak. Wolf Larsen was watching him, waiting for him, the steely glitter in his eyes; but Smoke closed his mouth ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... unrehearsed effects; that's why I think twice before taking on old Shylock again. I admire him, Bunny, as a steely foeman. I look forward to another game with him on his own ground. But I must find out the pace of the wicket before I put ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... well-defended insects are the dark steely or iridescent greenish blue fossorial wasps or sand-wasps, Sphex and the allied genera. Many Longicorn beetles mimic these in colour, slender shape of body and limbs, rapid movements, and the readiness with which they ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... things to say, but assent is not one of them;" in a voice that, though low, seemed to cleave the air with a steely ring. "You think you love me. Perhaps you do—as far as you are capable of loving any thing beside yourself. You have seen a good deal of me this summer, and have made up your mind to marry. I possess some of the necessary requirements, and doubtless suit ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... of anatase crystals may be distinguished. The commoner occurs as simple acute double pyramids {111} (fig. 1) with an indigo-blue to black colour and steely lustre. Crystals of this kind are abundant at Le Bourg d'Oisans in Dauphine, where they are associated with rock-crystal, felspar and axinite in crevices in granite and mica-schist. Similar crystals, but of microscopic ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... flesh hung flabbily, bulging in deep pouches under the eyes and in loose folds at the corners of the mouth. His head was grizzled an iron-grey but the hair at the temples was white as driven snow. Only his eyes were unchanged. They were the same grey, steely eyes, restless, shifting, unreliable, mirrors of the man's impulsive, wayward and ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... with the air dark like that before a storm, and in the east, over the steely wall of stone, shone a ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... hundred Crees swathed in furs bringing up a ragged rear. The bright uniforms of the soldiers were patches of red among the snowy everglades. Bivouac was made on beds of pine boughs,—feet to the camp-fire, the night frost snapping like a whiplash, the stars flashing with a steely clearness known only in northern climes. The march was at a swift pace, for three weeks by canoe is short enough time to traverse the Minnesota and Manitoba Borderlands northwest to Lake Winnipeg; and in seventeen days M. de la ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... hardness, nine parts bravado, a savagery not difficult to subdue with an oak belaying pin in the fist of a bucko mate. But the hardness of this big, scar-faced man was of a different sort. You sensed, immediately you looked at him, that he possessed a steely armor of indifference that penetrated to his very heart. He was a real hard case, a proper nut, a fellow who simply did not care what happened. It was nothing he said or did, but his demeanor declared plainly he was utterly reckless of ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... the gloomy building from the fields which lie between it and the town. The flying afterguard of the late storm was hurrying across the sky, the fields were sodden, and rainpools lay here and there reflecting the dull steely hue of the heavens. A single light burned red and baleful in one window, and right over the black bulk of the gaol one star beamed. It seemed to me like a promise of mercy beyond, and I went back to my hotel filled with thoughts ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... station, and waited for the first train going to Newhaven. When it came in, she took her place, and away the train went, at no breakneck speed, down the wide valley of the Ouse, which, even on this cold December morning, looked pleasant and cheerful enough. For here and there the river caught a steely-blue light from the sky overhead; and the sunshine shone along the round chalk hills; and there were little patches of villages far away among the dusk of the leafless trees, where the church spire rising into the blue seemed to attract the wheeling of pigeons. To Nan ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... Captain Osborne sat forward, steely gaze mercilessly boring into Lanyard's eyes. "Monsieur Duchemin," he said slowly, "Lieutenant Thackeray was not the only passenger to suffer through to-night's villainy. ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... sergeant heard the steely clatter and rushed over. "That's funny," he growled ominously, "I coulda sworn I set up a machine-gun emplacement here but it's makin' noises like ...
— I Was a Teen-Age Secret Weapon • Richard Sabia
... gleam of his eye. Fool that I had been, ever to have imagined that I could conquer McNab's steely glance! ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... resistless streams; how they carved their own valleys; how the lower valley and glacier were often the resultant in size and velocity of the two or three glaciers that now formed the branches of the main glaciers; how the harder strata of rock resisted and turned the masses of ice; how the steely ploughshares were often inserted into softer leads and a whole mountain split apart as ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... Fate is strong And will not lightly bend, Nor yet the stubborn gates of steely Hell. Nay, I can see full well His life will not be long: Those downward feet no more will earthward wend. What marvel if they lose the light, Who make blind Love their guide by ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... hands are too too weak, To penetrate the bulwark of my breast; My fingers, used to tune the amorous lute, Are not of force to hold this steely glaive. So I am left to wail my parents' death, Not able for to work my proper death. Ah, Locrine, honored for thy nobleness! Ah, Estrild, famous for thy constancy! Ill may they fare ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... Against the steely mirror in the twilight a long line was visible, like a distressful note of exclamation or a pause in life. It was the topmast ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... bitter recess, even though I learned her wonderful name and the enchanted state "back East" from which she had come. A still more bitter experience awaited me when we were again in the schoolroom. Miss Berham, fastening a steely gaze upon Solon Denney, launched heaven upon him from tightly drawn lips, without in the least meaning to ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... room now. Through the narrow barred window the steely rays of the moon fought with the dim yellow light of the oil lamp, and lit up the pale face of the Committee's agent with its lines of cruelty in sharp ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... and unhappily told Father that they were letting him go because the department was overstocked with younger, liver men. "I'm mighty sorry, and I wish you good luck," he said, with flash of the real man under the smooth, steely exterior. ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... touched the water, all fresh and bleeding, it was seized by a heavy fish, which he dragged in successfully, for it to be flapping about with its scales as large as florins flashing in the sun, all silver and steely blue. ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... half-past eleven the lookout signalled that a steamer without lights was creeping in towards the Creek. I ran out to the Flagstaff, and saw her steal in like a ghost. She is painted a steely blue-grey, and it is almost impossible to see her at any distance. She certainly goes wonderfully. Although there was not enough throb from the engines to mar the absolute stillness, she came on at a fine speed, and within a few minutes was close to the boom. I ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... Marking her solar and sidereal day, Her slow nutation, and her varying clime, 170 And trace with mimic art the march of Time; Round his light foot a magic chain they fling, And count the quick vibrations of his wing.— First in its brazen cell reluctant roll'd Bends the dark spring in many a steely fold; 175 On spiral brass is stretch'd the wiry thong, Tooth urges tooth, and wheel drives wheel along; In diamond-eyes the polish'd axles flow, Smooth slides the hand, the ballance pants below. Round the white circlet in relievo bold 180 A Serpent twines his scaly length in gold; And brightly ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... way," she repeated. "They have left me but one weapon, and it's for my life;" and the lips set themselves in hard lines, and the dark eyes looked steely and resolute. What wild purpose was taking shape in the tortured brain of Sybil Burrill? planted there by the impulsive revelation of ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... being observed, than my eyes were drawn involuntarily to his face; I could not keep their lids under control: they would rise, and the irids would fix on him. I looked, and had an acute pleasure in looking,—a precious yet poignant pleasure; pure gold, with a steely point of agony: a pleasure like what the thirst-perishing man might feel who knows the well to which he has crept is poisoned, yet stoops and drinks divine ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... sight enough, as solitary and impenetrable as the Sphinx. He did not like such faces in this genial and gracious time, so hurried over his examination. The eye was cool, the pulse steady, the man's body, battered though it was, strong in its steely composure. "Ja wohl!—ja wohl!" he went on chuffily, summing up: latent fever,—the very lips were blue, dry as husks; "he would go,—oui?—then go!"—with a chuckle. "All right, glueck zu!" And so shuffled out latent fever? Doubtless, yet hardly from broken bones, the doctor ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... irresponsibility of a rabbit seeking covert where none exists. There was not so much as to hide his head. Conyngham looked up towards the foe in time to see a puff of white smoke thrown up against the steely sky. A second report, and the fugitive seemed to trip over a stone. He recovered himself, stood upright for a moment, gave a queer spluttering cough, and sat slowly down against ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... west! Against yon steely sky Lone Mountain rears its holy cross on high. About its base the meek-faced dead are laid To share the benediction of its shade. With crossed white hands, shut eyes and formal feet, Their nights ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... all heard a tremendous crackling, like that of nearby lightning, while enormous clouds of dust arose from the two concealed ends, which were now become connections. And at the same time a loud, steely click, just one and no more, sounded from ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... ex-mistress a long, keen suspicious stare, pinned her with a glance as steely as her own for an instant, in search of a possible ulterior motive, and then turning on her little fat heel, vanished like a small fast racer in the direction ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... also contributed to heighten the interest. It was not long after the invention of gunpowder, when firearms and artillery mingled the flash and smoke and thunder of modern warfare with the steely splendor of ancient chivalry, and gave an awful magnificence and terrible sublimity to battle, and when the old Moorish towers and castles, that for ages had frowned defiance to the battering-rams and catapults of classic tactics, were toppled down ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... some figure and motto to manifest to the world his intent, this figure and motto together is called an impress, made to signify an enterprise, whereat a noble mind levelling with the aime of a deep desire, strives with a steely intent to game the prize of his purpose. For the valiant and hautie gentlemen, disdayning to conjoine with the vile and base plebeians in any rustique invention, have procured to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... Lights After their steely play? The lonely watcher feels an awe Of Nature's sway, As when appearing, He marked their flashed uprearing In the cold gloom— Retreatings and advancings, (Like dallyings of doom), Transitions ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... in the girl's voice was akin to anguish. The steely look came over the swarthy face again; but there was tenderness and courtesy in both voice and ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... she cried. "I foresee we shall be chums! I love Towhead, too, but I'm a little afraid of her. See her steely blue eyes, even now, fixed ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... "Bully" Hayes, who knew him well, said that John Brabant was the only clean-living, single man in Fiji, and that if he ever did marry his wife would be "some bony Scotch person of about forty, with her hair screwed up into a Turk's knot at the back of her long head, and with a cold, steely eye like a gimlet. Nine out of ten of good fellows like Jack Brabant do get mated with ...
— The Trader's Wife - 1901 • Louis Becke
... others disposed beneath the spreading trees, others still, precariously perched on clifty promontories beetling out from the sharp ascent. Above all, Chilhowee Mountain, aflare with the scarlet glow of its autumnal woods, touched the blue sky. The river, of a kindred blue, with a transient steely change under the shadow of a cloud, showed flashes of white foam, for the winds were rushing down from the Great Smoky Mountains, which were revealed for an instant in a clear hard azure against the pearl-tinted horizon—then ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... down beside the desk at the foot of her bed, and spreading out the cheque, read over and over the TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS written across it in a steely business hand. Ten months earlier the amount it stood for had represented the depths of penury; but her standard of values had changed in the interval, and now visions of wealth lurked in every flourish of the pen. As she continued to gaze at it, ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... suddenly the storm ceased. The rain disappeared with a last futile spray, and the dark clouds overhead parted sullenly to reveal a cold frozen moon of silver. The thousands of tiny aberrations in the tossing wavelets on the ocean's bottom sent steely reflection of the moon's luminescence in sparkling sheens to the Searcher's eyes. For long he hung there motionless, a gaunt shadow peering into the distant darkness ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... at almost a snapping point, Henry moved on behind the fourth man. He was horribly afraid, he wanted to break from the line and run, it didn't matter where, any place to get away from that steady, steely light in front of him. He had seen three men step into it, glow for a second, and then disappear. A fourth man had placed his foot ...
— Hellhounds of the Cosmos • Clifford Donald Simak
... thou withdrawn thyself? Thy brother's blood the thirsty earth hath drunk, Broach'd with the steely point of Clifford's lance; And in the very pangs of death he cried, Like to a dismal clangor heard from far, 'Warwick, revenge! brother, revenge my death!' So, underneath the belly of their steeds That stain'd ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... would be hard to tell, though his thick, short hair is iron gray and his beard many shades whiter. Short of stature, with very high shoulders, that suggest physical deformity, squarely built and stout, a square, rugged face, with light, steely eyes and overhanging brows. It is a repellent face and form, and Floyd ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... among the men who, after finishing their meal, were lounging about, their small talk filling the room. The talk died away as he entered, the men adroitly gave him room, for there was something in the expression of his eyes, in the steely, boring glances that he cast about him, that told these men, inured to danger though they were, that the stray-man was in no gentle mood. He dropped a short word to the one among them that he knew best, at which they all straightened, for through ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... look of the keenest inquiry, followed instantly and superseded by another flash of expression. I could not comprehend it at the time. The eyes, which had startled me by their steely gleam, softened wonderfully with what looked like nothing so much as reverence, along with some other expression which I could neither read at ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... into the wood-land, Muckintosh, the great and mighty, Muckintosh, the famous thinker, He whose brain was all his weapons, As against his rival's soarings, High unto the vaulted heavens, Low adown the swarded earth, Rolled he round his gaze all steely, And his voice like music prayed: "Oh, Creator, wondrous Spirit, Thou who hast for us descended In the guise of knowledge mighty, And our brains with truth o'er-flooded; In the greatness of thy wisdom, Knowest not our limitations? Wondrous thoughts have we, thy ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... the stranger with eyes of steely hardness. "You have made a mistake," he said, briefly ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... his head simply, with a steely gleam in his eyes that matched the other's, "when I try to cheat you or Lewiston or any man out of what has been put up on me, I'll give you leave to say what you please. At present ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... makes me feel quite Dizzy. A CODLINGSBY to the rescue!" and to fling open the window, amidst a shower of malodorous missiles, to vault over the balcony, and slide down one of the pillars to the ground, baring his steely biceps in the process, and shying the "castor" from his curly looks with all the virile grace of the Great Earl, was the work of exactly ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various
... cry, appeared on the stairway. For a moment her eyes refused to grasp the scene before them; Conward cowering, terror-stricken; Dave fierce, steely, implacable, with his revolver lined on Conward's brain. Through some strange whim of her mind her thought in that instant flew back to the bottles on the posts of the Elden ranch, and Dave breaking five out of six on the gallop. Then, suddenly, she became aware of one thing only. A tragedy was ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... long, weary night gave way to a gray and gloomy dawn. The tempest had not abated, and the sea thundered as furiously as ever. The wet and shivering women had gone back to their houses and their little ones; and as the cold, steely light of the coming day began to whiten in the east, Hagar made her way back to her kitchen, where she kindled a fire to warm her numb limbs. Never more, she thought,—rocking to and fro before the pleasant blaze,—could the old house be bright or cheerful. The sea had quenched its life and its joy, ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... into the night, with the moon silvering the sky, and the steely frost eating into the sentient life of this northern world. Inside the house, with the bearskin blind dropped at the window again, and the fire blazing high, Loisette sat with the Governor's reprieve in her hand. Looking at it, she wondered why it had been given ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... the cold, steely gleam of his eyes which was driving lucidity home to the dulled brain. By a power as unyielding as death Jim was destroying the screen Truedale had managed to raise against the homely codes of life and was leaving his guest naked ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... detected this consciousness too plainly in his persistent eyes. Up to that moment she had only watched the glittering stretches of yellow grain, in which occasional wind-shorn evergreen oaks stood mid-leg deep like cattle in water, the distant silhouette of the Sierras against the steely blue, or perhaps the frankly happy face of the good-looking young fellow at her side. But it seemed to her now that an intruder had entered the field—a stranger before whom she was impelled to suddenly fly—half-laughingly, ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... so white when he rejoined Mary in the veranda that she sprang up with an involuntary cry and would have had him lie down, where she had been sitting. But the fine steely ring in his ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... back to England Miss Winchelsea on six separate occasions made Fanny promise to write to her the longest of long letters. Fanny, it seemed, would be quite near Mr. Snooks. Her new school—she was always going to new schools—would be only five miles from Steely Bank, and it was in the Steely Bank Polytechnic, and one or two first-class schools, that Mr. Snooks did his teaching. He might even see her at times. They could not talk much of him—she and Fanny always spoke ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... little brown flecks danced in clear pale yellow. Evidently Snap had not located the perplexing dust-clouds, for his glance drifted. Suddenly the remarkable vibration of his pupils ceased, and his glance grew fixed, steely, certain. ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... disturbed Major Colquhoun's calm countenance for a moment, and then he stood, twisting the ends of his fair moustache slowly with his left hand, and gazing into the fire, which shone reflected in his steely blue eyes, making them glitter like pale sapphires, coldly, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... I'm dreadfully in the way of the only two folks we care a pin about—either of us. You've got plenty to do with, and nothing to spend it on. I can't get myself out of their way by dying without going against what's Scripture and proper, but——" Her steely calm broke. She burst out in a screaming, hysterical voice: "You've just got to, Emma Hulett! You've just got to! If you don't I won't never go back to 'Niram's house! I'll lie in the ditch by the roadside till the poor-master comes ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... put his nose outside the door than the summer air, sweet and fresh, began to play upon his face and reminded him of a certain wood. As he went through the streets of the town, a glimpse of the river, steely blue that morning in the sunshine, brought up a pool where a fat trout was sure to be lying. As he crossed the North Meadow, the wind was blowing free from the Highlands, and was laden with the scent of hay ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... good story calling up another. But Merle could not help noticing the steely gleam of Ferdinand Holm's eyes, even when ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... the sun's rays, swept the ocean clear of its storm-wraiths. Soon after passing the pillar rock, Courtenay thought he could make out the unwavering outline of mountainous land amid the gray mists. A few minutes later the waves racing alongside changed their leaden hue to a steely glitter which told him the fog was dispersing. The nearer blue of the ocean carpet spread an ever-widening circle until it merged into a vivid green. Then, with startling suddenness, the curtain was drawn aside on a panorama at once ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... tentative signs of its coming. March in Marbridge used to mean violets and daffodils, tender green shoots and balmy middays. March here means days of pale clean light and great sweeping wind which chased grey clouds across a steely sky, and stirred the lust for fight and freedom in men's minds and set them longing to be up and away and at battle with the world or the elements. This restlessness, which those who have lost it ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... were fit, He'd no small cunning, and had some small wit; Had that calm look which seem'd to all assent, And that complacent speech which nothing meant: He'd but one care, and that he strove to hide - How best for Richard Monday to provide. Steel, through opposing plates, the magnet draws, And steely atoms culls from dust and straws; And thus our hero, to his interest true, Gold through all bars and from each trifle drew; But still more surely round the world to go, This fortune's child had neither friend nor foe. Long lost to us, ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... intelligence, and hundreds of eager eyes on board the liner saw, sweeping down from the grey-blue of the early morning sky, a vessel whose hull seemed to be constructed of some metal which shone with a pale, steely lustre. ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... on the brace, his face was clear, even white, his eyes steely, and he never moved a muscle. When Jo thought it was funny, that he was loose in the pasture, and kicked up a little behind, father gave him a sharp cut with the whip and said: "Steady boy! Get ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... A thousand steely points on every scale Form the bright terrors of his bristly male.— 165 So arm'd, immortal Moore uncharm'd the spell, And slew the wily dragon of the well.— Sudden with rage their injur'd bosoms burn, Retort the insult, or the wound return; Unwrong'd, as gentle as the ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... SOMME FRONT, May 3l.—Somewhere in the tangle of smashed walls there was a steely jingle. At first the sound was hard to identify, so odd are acoustics in this which was once a little town. There were stub ends of walls here and there—bare, raw snags of walls sticking up—and now and then a rooftree tilted pathetically against a ruin, or a pile of dusty masonry that had ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... which so many have known in so many human houses when they consented to stop to tea or were allowed to stop to supper. The slowly reviving chauffeur was set in the back seat; Turnbull and MacIan had fallen into the middle one; the lady with a steely coolness had taken the driver's seat and all the handles of that headlong machine. A moment afterwards the engine started, with a throb and leap unfamiliar to Turnbull, who had only once been in a motor during a general election, and utterly unknown ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... thinking that possibly the chauffeur wanted some sandwiches, left the cash register and crossed the pavement eagerly. Every eye in the restaurant was turned upon the glittering limousine, whose panels of dove-throat gray shone with a steely lustre. In a moment the proprietor returned with a large basket and a small folded paper, looking puzzled. He glanced about the room, ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... it is based, following exactly the measure of length, each larger area in the ascending scale represents 144 times that below it. Thus the styly being a little more than a foot, the steely is about 13 feet, or one-twelfth of the staly; but the steelta (or square steely) is 1/144th part of the stalta. The stolta, again, is about 600 yards square, or 360,000 square yards, 144 times the stalta. The highest note, so to speak, in circulation represents this last area; but all calculations ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... sadly dejected that Crispin returned to his chamber and sate himself wearily upon the bed. With elbows on his knees and chin in his palms he stared straight before him, the usual steely brightness of his grey eyes dulled by the despondency that sat upon his face and drew deep ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... all the afternoon, and the shrubbery hung heavy and silent with heaped, clinging, feathery snow, dazzling white by contrast with the dark sustaining branches, and the yellow lamps flamed warmly amid the all-surrounding steely blue and glistening white. The damp pavements, where the snow had melted, were banded with gold and crimson from the reflected light of the lamps and the warning glare ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... blind him to the extraordinary mental and physical efficiency displayed by the engineer. Never once did the steely muscles permit a slip or false step, never once did the cool brain miscalculate the next most ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... close-shaven, hard-bitten face, sat smoking, with a glass of whisky before him, in a bay window at the end of the room, which looked out on the harbour. There was a maritime flavour about him which at once enlisted Mr. Chalk's sympathies and made him overlook the small, steely-grey eyes and large and ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... scarecrow and Mr. Luther Barr's sharp features were not improved by a small growth of gray hair; of the kind known as a "goatee" that sprouted from his lower rip. For the rest of the boys noticed that Mr. Barr was gifted with a singularly gimlet-like pair of steely blue eyes that ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... beardless chin. There was a hard, calculating light in his eyes—eyes which alternated between a soft, friendly blue and a steely gray. Finally he ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... to Scott's eyes; they shone with an almost steely gleam. "You needn't be afraid of that," he said quietly. "Now tell me, Dinah, for I want to know; how long have you known that you didn't ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... from each rusty nail, Helmet and steely dress, With bright and gilded morion, To grace ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various
... eyes turned a trifle steely. "In fact, I'd like to know exactly how he found out about ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... at last thrown open, and I was led into his presence, my confidence underwent a shock. His cold glance, that, roving over me, regarded me not as a man but an item, the steely glitter of his southern eyes, chilled me to the bone. The room was bare, the floor without carpet or covering. Some of the woodwork lay about, unfinished and in pieces. But the man—this man, needed no surroundings. His keen pale face, his brilliant ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... the sky. The shadows of the tree-trunks lie black and defined across the road—branches, twigs, every thing—then comes a sweep of steely cloud, and they disappear, swallowed up in one uniform gray: a colorless moment or two passes, and the sun pushes out again; and they start forth distinct and defined, each little shoot and great limb, into new life on the bright ground. I laugh out loud, out of sheer jollity, ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... streamed dark figures, each with a steely glitter on head and breast, and with something that shone in their hands; till the little court seemed half full of armed men; but the silence was ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... Tuttle turned and encountered a pair of eyes steely in their determination. Re-adjusting the gold cage more comfortably on its camp-stool and murmuring a blessing on the hooked-beak occupant, the azure lady tripped off in the wake of her ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... has a touch of frost, and is steely-clear. High and dominant amidst the Populations of the Sky, the restless and the steadfast alike, hangs the great Plough, lit with a hard radiance as of the polished and shining share. And yonder, low on the horizon, but half resurgent as yet, crouches ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... system carried on by these blind, intelligent things in the dark depths of the subterranean cells! Lions? Suppose you were suddenly confronted by a thing as big as a horse, with fifteen-foot jaws of steely horn that could slice you in two and hardly know it! How would you ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... his long gown and fled onwards, and the crowd scattered helter skelter, terrified and desperate. None seemed to have a thought for the miserable man smitten down before their very eyes. All took care to avoid approaching him in their hasty flight. He lay with his face upturned to the steely, pitiless summer sky. A woman coming furtively along with a market basket upon her arm suddenly set up a dolorous cry at sight of him, and setting down her basket ran towards him, the tears ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... reputation of being a just and able judge, a man of fine intellect, great vigour, and immense determination of character. On the bench he looked the part which popular imagination had given him to play. His eyes were described as "steely" by a lady journalist, who had occasion to watch him during the sensational trial of Mrs. Lorimer. His chin she described later on in her article as "characteristic of a strong fighter." His manner in court was exceedingly severe. In private life, especially during his ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... on again. Wetherill worked around to circle the huge amphitheater. The way was a steep slant, rough and loose and dragging. The rocks were as hard and jagged as lava, and cactus hindered progress. Soon the rosy and golden lights had faded. All the walls turned pale and steely and the bridge ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... a precipice of black rocks, behold, there were the terrible Gorgons! They lay fast asleep, soothed by the thunder of the sea; for it required a tumult that would have deafened everybody else to lull such fierce creatures into slumber. The moonlight glistened on their steely scales, and on their golden wings, which drooped idly over the sand. Their brazen claws, horrible to look at, were thrust out, and clutched the wave-beaten fragments of rock, while the sleeping Gorgons dreamed of tearing some poor ...
— The Gorgon's Head - (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... governed by the movement of troops, not to mention other conditions. This time I took the regular noon express to Nancy, as I might have done to Marseilles, or Rome, or Madrid, had I chosen. The sprinkling of quiet army officers on the train were in the new uniform of peculiar steely grey, in place of the target blue and red. But for them and the number of women in mourning and one other circumstance, the train might have been bound for Berlin, with Nancy only a ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... attractive, though his riding habit was the fashionable product of a London tailor in the style of 1772. His hair was dark, his eyes steely blue and set close to a long nose; his mouth was ill adapted to ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... Arles's hair, that it had refined away through various shades of lace till at last even the delicate cobweb on the back of the head was gone and the glossy locks lay bare, that the sables had become simply black gauze over a steely shine of silk, that the little Andalusian foot lay relieved on a white embroidered cushion, that its owner was glancing up and smiling at a gentleman who bent above her, and that that gentleman was Mr. St. George. When this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... south towards Meaux, passing Vareddes to our left. The weather clears a little, and from the high ground we are able to see Meaux to the west, lying beside its great river, than which our children's children will greet no more famous name. The Marne winds, steely grey, through the white landscape, and we run down to it quickly. Soon we are making our way on foot through the dripping streets of Meaux to the old bridge, which the British broke down—one of three—on their retreat—so soon ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... glance downward I found myself staring squarely into the mouth of a blunderbuss. The mouth of this blunderbuss, I may say, was of about the width of a fair-sized water-pitcher; in colour it was bright and steely. Its appearance attracted me to such an extent that I lost all idea of the man behind the gun. But presently I heard ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... gloom was not at all lightened by the discovery of the flapper in the waiting car. She gave him the little double-nod and regarded him with that peculiar steely kindness he so well remembered. It was undoubtedly kind, that look, yet there was an implacable something in its quality that dismayed him. He wondered what ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... need in very much the same way that he called on his stenographer. But of true courtesy or consideration Mr. Murch's makeup was singularly and flawlessly free. On the contrary he could, on occasion, summon to his face a congealment and to his eye a steely gleam which nobody admired but which all respected. Ordinarily this was either for his inferiors, or for those unfortunates who had come to cross purposes with him, or for those who had made blunders costly to him that his most glacial manner was reserved; but every one about the Salamander ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... her head proudly. Farewell to her look of compassion! Farewell to the melancholy mood in which she had listened to the youth!... Her eyes shone with a steely glance; her voice ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... him stood a globe, whose figures traced A future empire in each present waste; All former works of men behind him shone Graved by his hand in ever-during stone; On his calm brow a various crown displays The hero's laurel and the scholar's bays; His graceful limbs in steely mail were drest, The bright star burning on his lofty breast; His sword, high waving, flash'd the solar ray. Illumed the shrouds and rainbow'd far the spray; The smiling crew rose resolute and brave, And the glad sails hung bounding o'er ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... fixed her husband with a steely eye. She saw opportunity for a shattering retort. " You don't mean, Harrison, to include Marjory and I in the same breath with ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... again the two people, and they were both older and both in their prime. And the two did not speak to each other, but were silent with their thoughts. And when I looked up the sky was grey, and the two walked up the white castle-stairway, and she was full of indifference, yes full of hate in her steely eyes, and when I looked for the third time I saw also anger and hate in his glance, and his hair was ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... I had said good-bye to the hot immediate life of passion, to Nettie and desire, to physical and personal rivalry, to all that was most intensely myself, it was wrong to leave me alone and sore hearted, to go on at once with these steely cold duties of the wider life. I felt new born, and ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... in the lane a lonely hut he found, No tenant ventured on the unwholesome ground: Here smokes his forge, he bares his sinewy arm, And early strokes the sounding anvil warm; Around his shop the steely sparkles flew, As for the steed he shaped the ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... Brezon and the Mole. With each mile, now, the landscape took on new beauty and wildness. The superb mountains—some with cloudy white turrets, some thrusting out huge snow-powdered prongs, and others tapering to steely dagger-points—hemmed ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... at last taken off, and they were permitted once more to go on deck. Grey was the prevailing colour. The great seas, which seemed unable to recover from the wild turmoil into which they had been lashed, were of a cold greenish grey, flecked and tipped with white. The sky was steely grey with clouds that verged on black; and both were so mingled together that it seemed as if the little vessel were imbedded in the very heart of a ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... have no beauty either of warmth or serenity—at least it seemed so here in Turner Road. Above the torn and dingy strip of lace that shrouded the lower part of the window towered the black fronts of the high houses against the steely western sky. It was extraordinarily quiet. Now and then a footstep echoed and died suddenly as some passer-by crossed the end of the street; but there was no murmur of voices yet, or groups at the doors, as, no doubt, there would be when ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... summer was of a blazing heat. Every morning saw a sky of steely blue, the corn stood like a golden band about the hills, and little clouds like the softest feathers were blown by the Gods about the world. A mist clung about the distant hills and clothed them in purple grey. As the term grew to its close ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... blackberry vines and sumach bushes overran the gradines almost to the margin of the pool which filled the centre; at the edge of the water some clumps of willow and white birch leaned outward as if to mirror their tracery in its steely surface. But of the life that the thing inarticulately recorded, there was not the slightest ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... stare at him, his expression changed; the gray eyes grew less steely, and presently, clapping his hand upon my ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... and Hugh Ritson entered, followed by the lawyer, Mr. Bonnithorne. There was a steely glimmer in his eyes as he stood just inside ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... the other was Little Hammer. The horses they rode travelled so close that the leg of the Indian crowded the leg of the white man; and the wilder the storm grew, the closer still they rode. A 'poudre' day, with its steely air and fatal frost, was an ill thing in the world; but these entangling blasts, these wild curtains of snow, were desolating even unto death. The sun above was smothered; the earth beneath was trackless; the compass stood for loss ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Had he refused it would have been the first time in his life he had refused a wager offered as this one was. "Name the sum and if it's anything I can raise I'm satisfied. And," his eyes steely, "I'll name the ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... on for another two weeks, on into the best time of the year. For now came the nights of the first snapping frosts when the dome of the heavens was steely blue, and clear sparkling mornings, the woods aflame with scarlet and gold. And across the small field below the house, at sunset Roger would go down to the copse of birches there and find it filled with glints of light that took his glance far in among the slender, creamy stems ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... effects of his late exhaustion; and, sitting down upon a large stone, he threw his eyes over the steely surface of the sea. Looking upwards again,—he was shocked at beholding a few paces from him the tall erect person of his hostess. She stood upon a point of rock with her back to the sun, and intercepting his orb from Bertram, so that her grey hair streaming upon ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... he had faced the steely-eyed man across the long table in the Directors Room—faced him and replied to questions from this man and the half-dozen others seated there. Skeptical questions, tricky questions; and ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... husband," the city clergyman, declined the task of "bringing Lydia to her senses." He merely sent for her to go to his study, and, as she stood timidly in the doorway, he set his small steely eyes on her ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... big Scotchman's steely eyes relaxed to a smile that was genial and disarming. If this news hit him hard he gave no sign of it. And that it was an unexpected blow ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... was captivating, but it was artificial, surrounded by dimples, and displaying teeth white, small, strong, but divided from each other. The expression of that smile would have been frank and candid to all who failed to notice that it was not in harmony with the brooding forehead and the steely eye; that it seemed to stand distinct from the rest of the face, like a feature that had learned its part. There was that physical power in the back of the head which belongs to men who make their way in life,—combative and destructive. All gladiators have it; so have great debaters and great ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hands, nervous at last, and her appealing eyes would have softened a gentler heart than that of the steely Carlos. ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... Lord spoke. The class went down in hopeless, abject terror before the storm. Miss Lord's icy sarcasm was, in moments of intensity, lightened by gleams of fire. She had Irish ancestors and red hair. Patty alone listened with head erect and steely eyes. The red blood of martyrs dyed her cheeks. She was fighting for a CAUSE. Weak, helpless, little Rosalie, sniffling at her elbow, should be saved—the cowardice of her comrades put to shame. She, single-handed, would fight ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... and when Amory found her in Philadelphia he thought her steely blue eyes held only happiness; a latent strength, a realism, was brought to its fullest development by the facts that she was compelled to face. She was alone in the world, with two small children, ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... air, all steely-bright, With drops swept down in arrow-flight, Keen, quivering lines. Ceased in a breath the showery sound; And teasingly, now, as I look around, ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... wert by love appointed, In my life's night to guide me to my end; Stedfast and true my heart shall be forever, Like thee, like thee, my steely ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi
... thou bestoweth upon him the priceless gift of thy heart as a locker for his secrets; by God! give his name, quick, ere I slay a dozen for one paltry fool that would rob me!" She read aright the steely light 'neath his half-closed lids and was distraught, for she dared not give him the name of one of his guests; for the noble Russian Adrian Cantemir had pressed his suit and was upheld by Lady Constance, who told him of Katherine's vast demesne, knowing well he could not marry one without ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... eyes dilated with fear and bewilderment. The artist lounged in the window seat, watching Veronica closely and smiling slightly to himself, and facing Veronica sat a small, keen-looking man with little, steely gray eyes that bored ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... steely stores of war To distant rooms, disposed with secret care: The cause demanded by the suitor-train, To soothe their fears, a specious reason feign: Say, since Ulysses left his natal coast, Obscene with smoke, their beamy ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... The steely light poured down upon the slim back of the fugitive, and left both horse and rider sharply outlined. The distance diminished under the terrific spurt of the police horses, and a confident look began to dawn in the eyes ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... the cloud-veil lifted; and the mountains of Sinai and Midian, which before had been hidden as if by a November fog in London, again stood out in sharp and steely blue. I proposed to board the gunboat. Afloat we should have been much more comfortable than ashore in the raw, high, and dusty-laden wind. The Egyptian officers, however, quoted the unnautical Fellah's favourite saws, El-barro birr li-Ahlihi—"Earth is a blessing to those upon her"—Zirtat el-Jimal, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... sign of impatience. It is not true, and Brisbille annoys me with the hatred which he hurls at random, hit or miss; and all the more because he is himself visibly impressed by the approach of this man who is richer than the rest. The rebel opens his steely eye and relapses into silence, like the rest of us, as ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... turning to the bridge across the Parrett for which we were making it passed to nought but fen and mere where once had been the city. All the wide waters on either side of the hills were hard frozen, and southward, across to where we could see the blue hill of ancient Camelot, the ice flashed black and steely under the red low sun of midwinter. Before us the Quantocks lay purple and deepest brown where the woods hid the snow that covered them. Over us, too, went the long strings of wild geese, clanging in their flight in search of open water—and it ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... Roberval between his set teeth, and with a steely glitter in his eyes, "so this is the ingenious means by which you contrived to visit your paramour. We shall find a way to make both of you dearly ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... I see the bounding barb, Clad like his Chief in steely garb, For warding steel's appliance!— Methinks I hear the trumpet stir! 'Tis but the guard to Exeter, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... vigour, stern and stark As Brontes self, was not his dower; Not his to steer a storm-tost bark Through waves that whelm, and clouds that lower. Temper unstirred, unerring tact, Were his. He could not "wave the banner," But he could lend to steely act The softly silken ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... itself to its new mode of existence, "as perfectly as when it becomes adult"; and we see the insect, which was clear-sighted, become blind; it loses its feet, to recover them later; its slender body becomes ventripotent; hard, it grows soft; its mandibles, at first steely, become hollowed out spoonwise, each modification of conformation having its motive in a fresh modification of the conditions of the ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... rose clear, and revealed the blinking assembly to itself. As soon as it realized that it was a crowd we saw the shiver of horror and mutual repulsion shoot across it precisely as the steely flaws shot across the lake outside. Nothing was said, and, being half blind, of course it moved slowly. Yet in less than fifteen minutes most of that vast multitude—three thousand at the lowest count—melted ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... entered the second salon, the Nabob walked forward to meet her, expecting to descry in her wake the bloated face of his old comrade, to whom it was agreed that he should offer his hand. The baroness saw him coming and became whiter than ever. A steely gleam shot from under her long lashes. Her nostrils dilated, rose and fell, and as Jansoulet bowed, she quickened her pace, holding her head erect and rigid, letting fall from her thin lips a word in Arabic which no one else could understand, but in which the poor Nabob, for his part, understood ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... and down the rug, his pipe bubbling furiously; and something in the way he carried his head reminded me momentarily of Nayland Smith. Certainly, between this pink-faced clergyman, with his deceptively mild appearance, and the gaunt, bronzed and steely-eyed Burmese commissioner, there was externally little in common; but it was some little nervous trick in his carriage that conjured up through the smoke-haze one distant summer evening when Smith had paced that very room as Eltham paced it now, when before my startled eyes he had rung up the curtain ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer |
