"Coal-black" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... women, and even children. They envied Nan for her yellow curls or her blue eyes, or her pretty snuff-colored gown. When the sun set, the yard in front of Dame Clementina's cottage was full of people. Lastly, just before dark, the count himself came ambling up on a coal-black horse. The count was a majestic old man dressed in velvet, with stars on his breast. His white hair fell in long curls on his shoulders, and he had a pointed beard. As he came to the gate, he caught a glimpse of Nan ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... palaces bears no comparison with the beauteous proportions of extinct vegetable forms with which the galleries of these instructive coal-mines are overhung.... The effect is heightened by the contrast of the coal-black colour of these vegetables with the light groundwork of the rock to which they are attached"—for you must not forget that it is upon the roof of the mine that the impressions of the plants which have been turned into coal are found, ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... his day's work was over, Fettes dropped into a popular tavern and found Macfarlane sitting with a stranger. This was a small man, very pale and dark, with coal-black eyes. The cut of his features gave a promise of intellect and refinement which was but feebly realised in his manners, for he proved, upon a nearer acquaintance, coarse, vulgar, and stupid. He exercised, however, a very remarkable ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... naturalized British subject, who showed his love for his adopted country by trading as Stanley Harcourt. He was a striking figure with his coal-black hair and nails, his drooping eye-lashes and under-lip, and the downward sweep of his ingratiating nose. The war found him burning with enthusiasm, and I give here one verse of a fine poem which he wrote and, as I will remember, recited in Mrs. ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... a coal-black poodle, with half of his right ear gone, and absurd little thick moustaches at the end of his nose; he was shaved in the shamlion fashion, which is considered, for some mysterious reason, to improve a poodle, but the barber ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... and confidence in all that gazed. A white ostrich plume, secured to his helmet by a rich clasp of pearls and diamonds, fell over his left shoulder till it well-nigh mingled with the flowing mane of his charger, whose coal-black glossy hide was almost concealed beneath the armor which enveloped him, and the saddle-cloth of crimson velvet, whose golden fringe nearly swept the ground. King Robert was clothed in the same superb suit of polished steel armor, inlaid and ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... not an ill-tempered girl, but the sight of those gay city people annoyed her, and when, at she sang the Jubilate Deo, she saw the soft blue orbs of the blonde and the coal-black eyes of the brunette, turning wonderingly toward her, she was conscious of returning their glance with as much of scorn as it was possible for her to show. Anna tried to ask forgiveness for that ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... painfully nascent Times, with their distresses, inarticulate gaspings and 'impossibilities;' meeting a tall Lifeguardsman in his snow-white trousers, or seeing those two statuesque Lifeguardsmen in their frowning bearskins, pipe-clayed buckskins, on their coal-black sleek-fiery quadrupeds, riding sentry at the Horse-Guards,—it strikes one with a kind of mournful interest, how, in such universal down-rushing and wrecked impotence of almost all old institutions, this oldest Fighting Institution is still so young! Fresh-complexioned, firm-limbed, six ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... reason of this excess of embroidery, they are a little vague and difficult to follow. It is very well to have orgulous messires and men of courteoisie, with cotehardie of crocus or hose of purpure (showing how History repeateth herself), gearing and graithing for battle, mounted on coal-black destriers and generally behaving right this, that and the other withal; but when Yolande, asking Harvanger what will happen to her when he is away, receiveth for answer, "Truly I fear that thou wilt be very dull"; or when ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... is a thick-set, sinewy man, rather short than tall. He is of an absolute sooty blackness. Hair and moustache coal-black, and complexion so scorched and swarthy that at a little distance you might almost take him for a nigger. There is about his face a look of unmistakable determination amounting to ferocity in moments of excitement. He looks and is a born fighter, but is apt to be over headlong in action. His scouts ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... carriage, drawn by a pair of coal-black horses in silver-mounted harness, drove to the humble home of the Richardsons in Hughes street, and the colored driver presented a note from Mrs. Mencke, saying that Violet was to return home at once; that she had an important engagement and could not come ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... and less distinct as it receded, showing that the miserable creature had been in the clearing for several days, dragging itself slowly, and doubtless with infinite suffering, toward the water, which it had thus far failed to reach. Its coal-black coat, "watered" with the characteristic markings of the panther, also in black, was dull and staring, the result of neglect, and probably also of suffering; its tongue, dry and parched, lolled out of its open ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... time bale-fires will be lighted on a hundred hills, and on the following morning we shall throw large quantities of blood, flour, or charcoal, into our mountain-torrents, that their blood-red, flour-white, or coal-black waters, flowing into and out of the country, may proclaim to the people that the time has come when all must rise, rifle in hand, to conquer or die for the dear Tyrol and ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... bed, this good woman was summoned by a strange, squint-eyed, little, ugly old fellow to follow him straightway, and attend upon his wife. In spite of her instinctive repulsion she could not resist the command; and in a moment the little man whisked her, with himself, upon a large coal-black horse with eyes of fire, which stood waiting at the door. Ere long she found herself at the door of a neat cottage; the patient was a decent-looking woman who already had two children, and all things were prepared for her visit. When the child—a fine, bouncing babe—was born, its mother ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... and by its light I saw that we had been conducted by two girls. One, whom from her attention to Aleck I concluded to be her of the reaping-hook, was a pretty interesting soft maiden. The other, however, had attractions of a very different class: fine-featured, dark-eyed, coal-black-haired and tall; as she stood—her right hand holding the rude torch over her head, while the left gathered the folds of a long cloak under her bosom, with her eyes of coy expectation and merry amazement—she seemed more the ideal of a robber's daughter in some old romance, ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... of his coal-black locks, His hands so long and lean They scarcely seemed to grasp at all The keys that hung between: Both were of gold, but one was small, And with this last did he Wag in the air, as if to say, "Come hither, ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... Sir Galahad, or Chivalry itself, going forth to conquer wrong and violence. His eager, worn face looks out from the helmet so calmly and so steadily, the flash of his armor, which gleams like real metal, the coal-black horse, which comes forward out of the landscape shaking his head-piece of blood-red plumes against the golden sunset sky and champing the golden bit, the grasp of the lance by the noble rider: well, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... court. Mr. Phillips, on her first visit to the drygoods store, described her as dazzling and imperious. Mrs. Phillips describes her as being near thirty years old, tall, rather graceful, regular features, a perpetual sneer, coal-black hair and a coppery skin never seen on another. Her dress was normal, with few adornments. She was bareheaded, wore mannish gloves, and sported large circlet earrings. She differed little in appearance from other women; her voice was low and deep; she could read. ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... an empty cradle, sat a shrivelled hag—a gaunt, forbidding anatomy, with hooked nose and brown skin. Tousled grey hair, like that of a Skye terrier, hung over her forehead, half concealing a pair of coal-black eyes. She rose up, barred the entrance with one claw-like hand, and scrutinized ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... of very different exterior. Tall, thick, ungainly, with a very heavy, stupid face, coarse hands, outrageous lower extremities. A mass of coal-black hair seemed to weigh down his head. His attire was un-English, and, one might suspect, had been manufactured in some lonely cottage away in the remote Swiss valley which had till lately been the poor fellow's home. Dr. Tootle never kept his foreign ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... But the coal-black Celt with the second-sight did not see fit to reply till he had tapped Dan on the shoulder, and for the twentieth time croaked the old, old prophecy in ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... infinite pleasure their host's tall commanding figure, his snowy drooping whiskers, the sun-shade that was rarely out of his hand, his old-fashioned courteous manners, and his famous family of cats, whereof the coal-black Nerone was the prime favourite, a feline monster almost as tyrannical as his Imperial namesake of evil reputation. Signor Vozzi's striking personality, the sable fur of agate-eyed Nerone, the eternal sunshine, and the wide all-embracing ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... till they had reached a wharf, just above a lock. There an empty barge, painted with a red and yellow cabin hood, but with a long, coal-black hold, was lying moored. A man, lean and grimy, was sitting on a box against the cabin-side by the door, smoking, and nursing a baby that was wrapped in a drab shawl, and looking into the glow of evening. A woman bustled out, sent a pail dashing into the ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... half in dreams, Aasmund Olavsen Vinje's Long figure and spare, a contemplative genius; Thin and intense, with the color of gypsum, And a coal-black, preposterous beard, Henrik Ibsen. I, the youngest of the lot, had to wait for company Till a new litter came in, after ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... and displayed her in a robe of azure; and she reappeared like the full moon when it riseth over the horizon, with her coal-black hair and cheeks delicately fair; and teeth shown in sweet smiling and breasts firm rising and crowning sides of the softest and waist of the roundest. And in this second suit she was as a certain master of high conceits saith ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... had supper, for it was yet early, and the American girl had dropped a hint that we should not go near Frenbury till past midnight. As we sat at table in a private room, I saw that she was exceedingly handsome, with a pair of coal-black eyes and a shrewd, alert expression, but her American accent was not always pronounced. Indeed, when she liked, ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... lady, a wealthy widow of forty years, and the mother of three children, was highly pleased at Mohammed's story. As she listened to the proof of his business ability and fondly scanned his large, nobly formed head, his curling coal-black hair, his piercing eyes, and his comely form, it naturally occurred to her that this vigorous and handsome young fellow would make an excellent successor to her deceased husband. She had her way ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... seems to have dropped into disuse as a feature of theatrical entertainment, and thenceforward, for many years, to have survived only in the performances of circuses and menageries. Between acts the extravaganzaist in cork and wool would appear, and to the song of "Coal-Black Rose," or "Jim along Joe," or "Sittin' on a Rail," command, with the clown and monkey, full share of admiration in the arena. At first he performed solus, and to the accompaniment of the "show" band; but the school was progressive; couples ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... early afternoon that Norvin Blake received a note from a coal-black urchin, who, after many attempts, had finally succeeded in penetrating ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... asked suddenly, interrupting him, for I saw that the rock above the nameless ship was pierced with tunnels leading down to the shafts, and that forty or fifty coal-black fellows were shooting the stuff into ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... were joined by a short, stout man whose olive face and coal-black hair proclaimed his Southern origin, though his speech was that of an educated Englishman. He shook hands eagerly with Sherlock Holmes, and his dark eyes sparkled with pleasure when he understood that the specialist was anxious to ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... against them, To molest them and destroy them. Hiawatha, wise and wary, Often said to Chibiabos, "O my brother! do not leave me, Lest the Evil Spirits harm you!" Chibiabos, young and heedless, Laughing shook his coal-black tresses, Answered ever sweet and childlike, "Do not fear for me, O brother! Harm and evil come not near me!" Once when Peboan, the Winter, Roofed with ice the Big-Sea-Water, When the snow-flakes, whirling ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... a child five years ago, And thoughtless as bird on bough. One evening Hugo the Norman came, And, to shorten a weary tale, I fled that night (let me bear the blame) With Harold by down and dale. He had mounted me on a dappled steed, And another of coal-black hue He rode himself; and away at speed We fled through mist ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... dressed all in black, still young, with a cold and impassive face, the extreme pallor of which was heightened by his close-cut, coal-black hair, and his small, piercing, beady ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... wont, and caused a large steel mirror after the fashion of a corselet to be made for him, which he placed upon his breast and covered with a cloak of black frieze, bordered with purflew and gold braid. He was mounted on a coal-black steed, well caparisoned with everything needful to the equipment of a horse, and such part of this as was metal was wholly of gold, wrought with black enamel in the ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... image in his memory, a face he would have difficulty in forgetting. It was a long, chalk-white face, topped by a black fedora hat—a face garnished at the thin gray lips by a mustache, black and spikelike, resembling nothing more closely than the coal-black mustache affected by ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... not cleanly. The women bathe their hands once a day, but any other washing is unknown. They never wash their clothes, and wear the same by day and night. I am afraid to speculate on the condition of their wealth of coal-black hair. They may be said to be very dirty—as dirty fully as masses of our people at home. Their houses swarm with fleas, but they are not worse in this respect than the Japanese yadoyas. The mountain villages have, however, the appearance of extreme cleanliness, being ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... hearts, bidding her good-by, they walked along the golden strand. When they had gone what seemed to them a long way, they began to feel weary; and just then they saw coming towards them a little man in a red jacket leading a coal-black steed. ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... some of the dark somberness of face that had impressed Shefford. He had a noble head, in poise like that of an eagle, a bold, clean-cut profile, and stern, close-shut lips. His eyes were the most striking and attractive feature about him; they were coal-black and piercing; the intent look out of them seemed to come from a keen ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... still more ugly than the negroes. Their complexion is a light bronze, stunted in stature, well-knit, and about the middle size. They have broad and somewhat compressed features, and thick, coal-black hair, hanging straight down, which the women sometimes wear in plaits fastened to the back of the head, and sometimes falling down loose about them. Their forehead is broad and low, the nose somewhat flattened, the eyes long ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... and more. He looks at that wretched dwelling,—he glances aside at Mr. Williams, that coal-black Christian, of sad and resigned demeanor, waiting ruefully to see the roof torn off,—the only roof that had afforded shelter to the perishing outcast. Mr. Frisbie is not one of the "soft kind," but he feels the prick of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... sprinkling of russet-brown Indian camels; and, lest the female element be neglected, a company of flighty "nitties," very full of their own importance. The native drivers were of as many shades as the camels they led, from the pale brown of the town-bred Egyptian to the coal-black Nubian or Donglawi. Twenty-five thousand camels carrying water! The first relays were filing stolidly into the nullah in the early hours of the morning after the battle, as though their business were the most ordinary ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... the hall in dismay. At first not a white member was visible. The galleries were packed with negroes. The Speaker presiding was a negro, the Clerk a negro, the doorkeepers negroes, the little pages all coal-black negroes, the Chaplain a negro. The negro party consisted of one hundred and one—ninety-four blacks and seven scallawags, who claimed to be white. The remains of Aryan civilization were represented by twenty-three white men from ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... some difficulty in buckling his belt after the good fare he had enjoyed, he set forth from the southern gate of the capital towards the unknown regions which lay beyond. The sweet Princess looked out of a turret window, and waved her coal-black hand, while tears coursed each other down her sable cheeks as she saw the Knight going away and leaving her all forlorn; for in her bright eyes not one of the neighbouring princes, nor any of her father's courtiers, could in any way be compared to the ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... he was brought downstairs. His appearance was most unprepossessing. He was very short, with a huge head and a remarkable shock of coal-black hair. Having hastily risen from bed, he had retained his pyjamas, but a long frock-coat hung nearly to his slippers, and in one hand he carried a pair of gloves, and in the other a huge eccentric silk hat of ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... thunderbolt out of a clear sky, rolling up the Army of the Tennessee in great confusion. The brave and talented McPherson was killed early in the action, Logan succeeding. "McPherson and revenge," he cried, as upon his coal-black steed he careered from post to post of danger, inspiring his men and restoring order. The veterans soon recovered from their surprise. The Union lines were completely re-established, and by night Hood's army was driven back into the ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... have selected. There were, indeed, attributes in the man, very objectionable in the sight of some people, which to her were not specially disagreeable. She thought him rather good-looking than otherwise, in spite of a slight defect in his left eye. His coal-black, glossy hair commanded and obtained her admiration, and she found his hooky nose to be handsome. She did not think much of the ancestral blood of which he had boasted, and hardly believed that he would ever become a bishop. But he was popular, and with a rich, titled wife, might become more so. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... bounded from it, fled with inconceivable rapidity across the front of the house and vanished through the other window, which opened to receive him. He had scarcely gained that shelter before a coal-black figure followed him, leaping out of the one window and in at the other with the same astonishing swiftness—a swiftness which was so great that before any of us could utter more than an exclamation, the two figures appeared again round the corner of the house, in the same order, but this ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... like any of them; and on top of it all he had some of the white man's dog in him, for on one side, in the thick of the mixed yellow-brown-red-and-dirty-white that was his prevailing colour, there was a spot of coal-black as big as a water-bucket. That was why we called ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... the greatest and the finest that ever I saw in my life". With that Theodoric wrapped a bathing-cloak round him, and calling for his horse, prepared to set off in chase of the stag. The horse was long in coming, and meanwhile a mighty steed, coal-black, suddenly appeared before him. Theodoric sprang upon the strange charger's back, and it flew off with him as swiftly as a bird. His best groom on his best horse followed vainly behind. "My lord", cried he, "when ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... canst, have wind and tide thy friend, This hand, fast wound about thy coal-black hair, Shall, whiles thy head is warm and new cut off, Write in the dust this sentence with thy blood, 'Wind-changing Warwick now can change ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... seaweed-like hair, Who haunts that room, and, gazing o'er the deep, Calls it her mother, with a childish glee, Because she knew no other." "This," said she, "Was not a child, but woman almost old, Whose coal-black hair had partly turned to grey, With sorrow and with madness; and she dwelt, Not in that room high on the cliff, but down, Low down within the margin of spring tides." And then she told me all she knew of her, ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... and when we have fitted it up suitably to our trade, I'll engage to put an advertisement in the papers that shall draw us customers. How do you think I could pass for a Jew?" "Pretty well, with your coal-black eyes and hooked nose: but what is that notion?" "I think it would cause a great sensation if the Wandering Jew were to appear again in real life. What between Croly and Eugene Sue, he has been kept very extensively before the public in books: but I believe no one has had the audacity as yet to ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... gang alang with thee, my ain pretty May, Wi' thy red rosy cheeks, any thy coal-black hair; Wad I be aught the warse o' that, kind sir, she says, With a double and adieu to ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... feet like ducks' feet, its tail forked like a swallow, but longer and broader, and the fork deeper than that of the swallow, with very long wings; the top or crown of the head of this noddy was coal-black, having also small black streaks round about and close to the eyes; and round these streaks on each side, a pretty broad white circle. The breast, belly, and under part of the wings of this noddy were white, and the back and upper part of its wings of a faint ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... Scotch, who before Burns and after have given many such dark eyes and dark emotions to the world. But in him the unmistakable strain, Gaelic or whatever it is, was accentuated almost to oddity; and he looked like some swarthy elf. He was small, with a big head and a crescent of coal-black hair round the back of a vast dome of baldness. Immediately under his eyes his cheekbones had so high a colour that they might have been painted scarlet; three black tufts, two on the upper lip and one under the lower, seemed to touch up the face with the fierce moustaches of ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... unfortunate smile on his face as he said so, which made Mountjoy Scarborough very angry. The two men were both handsome, two as handsome men as you shall see on a summer's day. Mountjoy was dark-visaged, with coal-black whiskers and mustaches, with sparkling, angry eyes, and every feature of his face well cut and finely formed; but there was absent from him all look of contentment or satisfaction. Harry was light-haired, with long, silken beard, and bright ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... spoke his prognathous jaw snapped to with a click-like sound, and in his eyes now coal-black were glints of fire. At the same instant there was a blinding flash, accompanied by a terrific crash, and the splinters of the flag-pole on the building opposite, which had been struck by a bolt, ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... New Orleans between four and five o'clock in the afternoon. From three o'clock onward, they would be burning resin and pitch-pine (the sign of preparation) and so one had the spectacle of a rank, some two or three miles long, of tall, ascending columns of coal-black smoke, a colonnade which supported a roof of the same smoke, blending together and spreading abroad over the city. Every outward-bound boat had its flag flying at the jack-staff, and sometimes a duplicate on the verge-staff astern. Two or three miles of ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... with his telescope valise, which contained his twelve Correspondence School lessons, "The Pale Avengers," a pair of handcuffs, his revolver, and three extra disguises, walked toward the Harburger House. He was already thoroughly disguised, wearing a coal-black beard and a red mustache and an iron-gray wig with long hair. Luckily he passed no one. With that disguise he would have drawn an immense crowd. Nothing like it had ever been seen on the streets of Derlingport—or elsewhere, ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... wolfish dogs were standing ready to breakfast as soon as the slaughtering was over. A Cossack officer in a picturesque costume stood on the bank near the boat. He wore an embroidered coat of sheepskin, the wool inside, a shaggy cap of coal-black wool, and a pair of fur-topped boots. All his garments were new and well fitting, and contrasted greatly with the greasy and long used coats of the Cossacks on the boat. Sheepskin garments can look more repulsive than cloth ones with equal ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... curious, unforgettable eyes looking out from a swarthy face that told of Indian blood. They were round rather than the oblong shape to be expected in his type, and the iris a muddy blue-gray. The effect was indescribably queer, and was accentuated by the coal-black lashes and straight black brows which met above a rather thick nose. He had a low forehead, and when he grinned his teeth gleamed like ivory in his dark face. He boasted of Apache-Mexican blood ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... appropriate to his character of plenipotentiary, he beheld at last the object of his mission; and whether or not she was the absolutely peerless beauty her father had vaunted, he at once decided that she was lovely enough to grace Hechnahoul, or any other, Castle. Black eyes and a mass of coal-black hair, an ivory pale skin, small well-chiselled features, and that distinctively American plumpness of contour—these marked her face; while as for her figure, it was the envy of her women friends and the distraction of all mankind who ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... young girls said this also, but they did not say: "Beware of Rudy!" No, not even the grave mothers, for he nodded to them quite as amicably as to the young girls. He was so bold and gay, his cheeks were brown, his teeth fresh and white and his coal-black eyes glittered; he was a handsome young fellow and but twenty years old. The icy water did not sting him when he swam, he could turn around in it like a fish; he could climb as did no one, and he was as firm on the rocky ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... fence. First they tried to find a crack somewhere through which they might peep, but as they found no gap, they climbed up the board fence and hung dangling and looking over. Yonder, on the other side, was hell, and before its gate a crowd of little devils were just running about. They were coal-black, and had horns on their heads and long tails behind. One of them chanced to look up and noticed the angels, and immediately begged imploringly that they would let them into Heaven for a little while; they would behave quite nice and properly. This ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... thy Native Strand, With the wild wind ruffling thine uncomb'd hair, And thy nostril upturn'd to the od'rous air, Would not woo thee to pause till his skill might trace At leisure the lines of that eager face; The collarless neck and the coal-black paws And the bit grasp'd tight in the massive jaws; The delicate curve of the legs, that seem Too slight for their burden—and, O, the gleam Of that eye, so sombre and yet so gay! Still away, my lithe Arab, ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... without being baptized, and in his anger cried, "I wish the boys were all turned into ravens." Hardly was the word spoken before he heard a whirring of wings over his head in the air, looked up and saw seven coal-black ravens flying away. The parents could not recall the curse, and however sad they were at the loss of their seven sons, they still to some extent comforted themselves with their dear little daughter, who soon grew strong and every day became more beautiful. ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... a wretched, shivering little figure that he left behind him,—a small girl, with coal-black hair escaping from the folds of a bright kerchief that was tied about it; with immense dark eyes, that seemed to light up her poor, pinched face and make it beautiful; with tattered dress and torn shoes, and ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann
... once tasted, all other meat lost its flavor. None of them had ever even seen the animal, and we may imagine the wonder with which they first beheld the vast herds that almost darkened the valley. Lolling in the shade of the trees, or cropping leisurely the thick grass of the "openings," their coal-black beards sweeping the ground, and their long tails lashing their sleek dun sides, the noble beasts would gaze unconcernedly on the intruder, totally unconscious that this slender biped, with the slim smoke-breathing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... little arrangement of cloaks and sarapes, to be less crowded. A padre with a very Indian complexion sat between K—— and me, and a horrible, long, lean, bird-like female, with immense red goggle-eyes, coal-black teeth, fingers like claws, a great goitre, and drinking brandy at intervals, sat opposite to us. There were also various men buried in their sarapes. Satisfied with a cursory inspection of our companions, I addressed myself to Blackwood's Magazine, but the road which leads towards ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... sky. As the eyes became more used to the obscurity one learned that there were different degrees of darkness among the trees—that some were dimly visible, while between and among them there were coal-black shadowed patches, like the mouths of caves, from which I shrank in horror as I passed. I thought of the despairing yell of the tortured iguanodon—that dreadful cry which had echoed through the woods. I thought, too, of the glimpse I had in the light of Lord John's torch of ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... more money than I had told Fred, and when he said he was thirsty, offered to send for drink, thinking my liberality would make amends for my impotence. Gin and ale was got; then I began to feel as if I could do it. "She's got a coal-black cunt," said Fred, and I seemed to fancy his woman; then he said to mine, "What colour is yours?" and began to lift her clothes; "let's change and have them together," and we went at once into the back room, whither the ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... yellowish-green, and their muddy helmets sporting the crescent in place of our grenade. Their eyes are like balls of ivory or onyx, that shine from faces like new pennies, flattened or angular. Now and again comes swaying along above the line the coal-black mask of a Senegalese sharpshooter. Behind the company goes a red flag with a green hand ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... it resumed its spirits and its song—recommenced its rivalry with the mavis; but, after every moulting, the new feathers were always of the same coal-black colour. The mavis evinced no corresponding feeling of attachment—neither, so far as I recollect, missing its companion, nor rejoicing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... turn his head or his eyes when a coal-black stallion, guided only by the pressure of its rider's knees, came to a stand directly beneath him in the shadow of the wall, having scrambled and slithered, jumping like a deer, climbing like a goat down the ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... Ruiz, the coal-black cook, served a good supper at sundown. Shortly afterward the boys went to their bunks, for both were tired after the long flight. Then too, Tom was still feeling the effects of the gas ...
— Tom Swift and His Giant Telescope • Victor Appleton
... say, I thought, I dreamed of nothing else, day or night. Waking, I walked arm-in-arm with a clown, and cracked a portentous whip to the brave music of a band. Sleeping, I pursued—perched astride of a coal-black horse—a princess all gauze and spangles, who always managed to keep just one unattainable length ahead. In the early morning Harold and I, once fully awake, cross-examined each other as to the possibilities of this or that circus tradition, and ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... Coal-black pearls occur in one of the pinnas, the interior of which is sooty, shot with iridescent purple, and since the pearl, whether produced by oyster, mussel, pinna, or window-shell, is generally more brilliant than the containing shell, that of the black pinna, with the ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... owner, old and ugly, stands before the priest at the altar. But hark! ere the fateful vows are spoken there is a clatter of galloping hoofs, a manly form rushes in, hurls the groom insensible to the ground, snatches away the bride and before any can interfere, is off on a coal-black steed, his bride before him. Let ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... appearance, Mr. Greatorex would have stood in no danger of being overlooked, even if he had not those twinkling jewel-like eyes, and two strands of coal-black hair trained across his large bumpy cranium, from the left ear to the ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... heart! Lo,—petal on petal, fierce rays unclose; Anther on anther, sharp spikes outstart; And with blood for dew, the bosom boils; And a gust of sulphur is all its smell; And lo, he is horribly in the toils Of a coal-black giant ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... will back him there, But afoot through the cold slaked ashes of yester-eve doth fare, With his eyes cast down to the earth; till he heareth the wind, and a cry, And raiseth a face brow-knitted and beholdeth men anigh, And beholdeth Hogni the King set grey on his coal-black steed, And beholdeth the image of Sigurd, the King in the golden weed: Then he stayeth and stareth astonished and setteth his hand to his sword; Till Hogni cries from his saddle, and his ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... luncheon; there a small party of Memons are discussing affairs over their 'bidis' while on all sides are children playing with the paper toys, rattles and tin wheels which the hawkers offer at such seasons of merry-making. Coal-black Africans, ruddy Pathans and yellow Bukharans squat on the open turf to the west of the Victoria and Albert Museum; Mughals in long loose coats and white arch-fronted turbans wander about smoking cigars and ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... Great hippopotamuses, "like huge islands," walked about in the shallows, and sometimes bellowed and fought all night. Troops of monkeys, "with very long tails stuck up straight like swords all over their backs," came down to drink. Herds of elephants and of fierce, coal-black buffaloes eyed the boat threateningly from the banks, while giraffes, looking like steeples, nibbled the tops of trees. At Khartoum the sight of flocks of English sparrows had gladdened Gordon's heart. Now ...
— The Story of General Gordon • Jeanie Lang
... took on eight sledges, tents, and cooking utensils, also two Scotch sheep dogs and a little coal-black kitten, which lived in the captain's berth till it grew accustomed to the sea, when it slept in the forecastle by day and ran about stealing the food of the ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... that Colonel Toll, One of Field-Marshal Price Kutuzof's staff, In the retreating swirl of overthrow, Found Alexander seated on a stone, Beneath a leafless roadside apple-tree, Out here by Goding on the Holitsch way; His coal-black uniform and snowy plume Unmarked, his face disconsolate, his grey eyes Mourning in tears the fate of his brave array— All flying southward, save ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... 'Sit thee down; this much sufficeth;' so she sat down and he signed to the brunette. Now she was a model of beauty and loveliness and symmetry and perfect grace; soft of skin, slim of shape, of stature rare, and coal-black hair; with cheeks rosy-pink, eyes black rimmed by nature's hand, face fair, and eloquent tongue; moreover slender-waisted and heavy-hipped. So she rose and said: 'Praise be to Allah who hath created me neither leper-white nor bile-yellow nor charcoal-black, but hath ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... name is, trig in his glossy black long-tailed coat, his vest with reddish side facings, white trousers, and light-brown shoes and stockings. A knowing glance has he in the ruby-red eyes that sparkle in his coal-black head, while inside that little head ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... directed towards his neighbor, the ruffler, in whom he recognized a famous impostor of the day, with whose history he was sufficiently well acquainted to be able at once to identify the individual. We have before stated, that a magnificent coal-black beard decorated the chin of this worthy; but this was not all—his costume was in perfect keeping with his beard, and consisted of a very theatrical-looking tunic, upon the breast of which was embroidered, in golden wire, the Maltese cross; while over his shoulders ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... left a breathing form Wedged up against me, close and warm; The beak that crowned the bistred face Betrayed the mould of Abraham's race,— That coal-black hair, that smoke-brown hue,— Ah, cursed, unbelieving Jew I started, shuddering, to the right, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... follows: "We can sometimes plainly see the proximate cause of the transmission of ornaments to the males alone; for a pea-hen with the long tail of the male bird would be badly fitted to sit on her eggs, and a coal-black female capercailzie would be far more conspicuous on her nest, and more exposed to danger, than in her present modest attire." The passages in Edition I. (pages 89, 101) do not directly bear on the question of protection.) If you will look at page 240 of the fourth edition of ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... out of his pocket a small parcel from which he drew a lock of coal-black hair, which he spread ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... dressed in European clothes but wore the green turban of a Sherif. With his snowy beard and coal-black eyes he seemed like a vision of the Prophet, of the Prophet in whose name he had ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... the party was about to leave, a tall, thin, and well-dressed man dashed up, riding a coal-black steed. As he came closer Laura gave a start and motioned ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... believed him to have committed some great crime; but none rightly knew his history, and his present sanctity and power and holiness were never doubted. A single look into that stern, worn, powerful face, with the coal-black eyes gleaming in their deep sockets, was enough to convince the onlooker that the man was intensely, even terribly in earnest. His was the leading spirit in that small and austere community, and he began at once to exercise a strong influence ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... hark! from the branch of a tree a coal-black bird sings: "Frithiof, now thou mayest slay thine enemy, the old king. Human eyes do not behold thee!" But a snow-white bird sings: "Though no human eye behold thee, Odin sees and hears each word. Wouldst thou be a coward and slay an old man now defenceless and sleeping! The hero-crown ...
— Northland Heroes • Florence Holbrook
... late another's pain, To griefs domestic turn thy coal-black steed! With slowest steps thy funeral steed must go, Nodding his head in all the pomp of woe: Wide scatter round each dark and deadly weed, 5 And let the melancholy dirge complain, (Whilst Bats shall shriek and Dogs shall howling run) The ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... company of butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers, which would do no discredit to the regular army. Driving close after is a four-horse carriage with two of the king's ministers; and then, at a rapid pace, six coal-black horses in silver harness, with mounted postilions, drawing a long, slender, open carriage with one seat, in which ride the king and his brother, Prince Otto, come down the way, and are pulled up in front of the pavilion; while the cannon ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... such mythical personages by the score. What they were like depended on what she had just been reading. If fairy-tales, then it was a blond-haired prince who came to her on bended knee to kiss her hand and beg her to fly with him upon his coal-black steed to his castle. If she had been dipping into some forbidden novel like Lady Agatha's Career, then the fond suppliant was a haughty duke whom she spurned at first, but graciously accepted afterward. Through many a day-dream, ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... guide awaiting him was a coal-black negro named Dionysio, who was of such huge stature that the other Cubans seemed pygmies beside him. He was armed only with a great machete, ground to exceeding sharpness, and he disdained to ride a horse, declaring that he could, ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... meadow that it shook? What ailed the air of Sicily? She wondered by the brattling brook, And trembled with the trembling lea. "The coal-black horses rise—they rise: O mother, mother!" low ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... and looked fixedly towards the house. Brett, too, gazed in silence. They saw a small, pale-faced, exceedingly handsome Italian—a young man, with coal-black eyes and a mass of shining black hair—scowling at ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... does in Goethe's poem) the shade of Helen of Troy. You will wish for a description of Helen—at least of her dress. She appeared in a splendid robe of black-purple ... her hair, of a glorious golden hue, hung down to her knees—she had coal-black eyes, a lovely face, and a round head, her lips red as cherries, with a little mouth and a neck like a white swan, cheeks red as a rosebud, ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... educational spectacle to any sympathetic foreigner than some of this elementary teaching. In the first room which I visit a class of very little girls and boys—some as quaintly pretty as their own dolls—are bending at their desks over sheets of coal-black paper which you would think they were trying to make still blacker by energetic use of writing-brushes and what we call Indian-ink. They are really learning to write Chinese and Japanese characters, stroke by stroke. Until one stroke has been well ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... journey through the two hundred and forty miles of that waterless plain of coal-black rocks and yellow sand, and sleep in his berth upon the way. The morning will show to him, perhaps, a tent, a great pile of coal, a water tank, and a number painted on a white signboard, and the stoppage ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... cyclist was coming towards us. His head was down and his shoulders rounded, as he put every ounce of energy that he possessed on to the pedals. He was flying like a racer. Suddenly he raised his bearded face, saw us close to him, and pulled up, springing from his machine. That coal-black beard was in singular contrast to eyes were as bright as if he had a fever. He stared at us and at the dog-cart. Then a look of ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... limb, forming a series of indurated pigmented cords and nodules (Fig. 104). Lastly, the dissemination may be universal throughout the body, and this usually occurs at a comparatively early stage. The secondary growths are deeply pigmented, being usually of a coal-black colour, and melanin pigment may be present in the urine. When recurrence takes place in or near the scar left by the operation, the cancer nodules ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... cat were held sacred to Freya in heathen times, these creatures were supposed to have demoniacal attributes, and to this day witches are always depicted with coal-black cats beside them. ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... feasting and shouting in the King's hall, but Horn went to the stable, armed from head to foot. He stroked his coal-black steed, then sprang upon his back and rode off, his armour ringing as he went. Down to the seashore he galloped, singing joyously and praying God soon to send him the chance to do some deed of knightly daring, and there he met a band ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... to be daunted, and, taking from his father-in-law a black steed, he set out for the fortress of Fiach O'Duda. Over the first high wall nimbly leaped the magic horse, and Sculloge called aloud on the Druid to come out and surrender his sword. Then came out a tall, dark man, with coal-black eyes and hair and melancholy visage, and made a furious sweep at Sculloge with the flaming blade. But the Druidic beast sprang back over the wall in the twinkling of an eye and rescued his rider, leaving, however, his tail behind in the court-yard. Then Sculloge returned ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... following day, I could perceive a marked improvement in his appearance. The deadly pallor of his countenance had departed; and although no healthy colour had taken its place, the living blood seemed again in motion, restoring expression to those wan and withered features. His coal-black eye had recovered the faintest power of speculation, and the presence of a stranger was now sufficient to call it into action. He was clean and properly attired, and he sat—apart from his keeper—conscious of existence. There was good ground, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... purlieus of his abode. His house fell under such a load of infamy that no one dared to sleep in it, until municipal improvement leveled the structure with the ground. And my father has often been told in the nursery how the devil's coach, drawn by six coal-black horses with fiery eyes, would drive at night into the West Bow, and belated people might see the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... talk for a while. In the morning when they were rising for their candlelight breakfast, the hotel man glancing from the window exclaimed, "Here he is now!" and Josh peered forth to see in the light of sunrise something he had often heard of, but never before seen, a coal-black Fox, a giant among his kind. How slick and elegant his glossy fur, how slim his legs, and what a monstrous bushy tail; and the other Foxes moved aside as the patrician rushed in impatient haste to seize the food thrown ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... will one day be an Ash, No human eye hath seen it, yet silently it grows Among the graves, and every year it bears a single sprout. Each New Year's night a rider white upon a snow-white steed, Comes silently among the graves to hew the sprout away; But there comes a coal-black rider upon a coal-black horse, And he strives to save the new-born tree and drive the foe afar: Long they fight till the New Year's dawn—until black knight yields, And the foeman hews away the twig, and rides into the dawn, But there will come a time,'tis said, when the white ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... companion to my liking. Although he is only twenty-seven, he has been for a number of years a correo, or mail-rider, and a guide for travelling parties. His olive complexion is made still darker by exposure to the sun and wind, and his coal-black eyes shine with Southern heat and fire. He has one of those rare mouths which are born with a broad smile in each corner, and which seem to laugh even in the midst of grief. We had not been two hours together, before I knew his history from beginning to end. ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... That was our first meeting after two years. I found him in the hospital—dying. Heaven can witness that I felt all my old love for him return then, but he was delirious, and never recognized me. And, Nathalie, his hair,—it had been coal-black, and he wore it very long,—he wouldn't let them cut it either; and as they knew no skill could save him, they let him have his way,—his hair was then as white as snow! God alone knows what that brain must have suffered to blanch ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... clear brow in sunlight glow'd; On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode; From underneath his helmet flow'd His coal-black curls as on he rode, As he rode down to Camelot. From the bank and from the river He flashed into the crystal mirror, "Tirra lirra," by the ...
— Standard Selections • Various |
