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Black   /blæk/   Listen
Black

adjective
1.
Being of the achromatic color of maximum darkness; having little or no hue owing to absorption of almost all incident light.  "As black as coal" , "Rich black soil"
2.
Of or belonging to a racial group having dark skin especially of sub-Saharan African origin.
3.
Marked by anger or resentment or hostility.  "Black words"
4.
Offering little or no hope.  Synonyms: bleak, dim.  "Prospects were bleak" , "Life in the Aran Islands has always been bleak and difficult" , "Took a dim view of things"
5.
Stemming from evil characteristics or forces; wicked or dishonorable.  Synonyms: dark, sinister.  "A black lie" , "His black heart has concocted yet another black deed" , "Darth Vader of the dark side" , "A dark purpose" , "Dark undercurrents of ethnic hostility" , "The scheme of some sinister intelligence bent on punishing him"
6.
(of events) having extremely unfortunate or dire consequences; bringing ruin.  Synonyms: calamitous, disastrous, fatal, fateful.  "A calamitous defeat" , "The battle was a disastrous end to a disastrous campaign" , "Such doctrines, if true, would be absolutely fatal to my theory" , "It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it" , "A fateful error"
7.
(of the face) made black especially as with suffused blood.  Synonym: blackened.
8.
Extremely dark.  Synonyms: pitch-black, pitch-dark.  "Through the pitch-black woods" , "It was pitch-dark in the cellar"
9.
Harshly ironic or sinister.  Synonyms: grim, mordant.  "A grim joke" , "Grim laughter" , "Fun ranging from slapstick clowning ... to savage mordant wit"
10.
(of intelligence operations) deliberately misleading.
11.
Distributed or sold illicitly.  Synonyms: black-market, bootleg, contraband, smuggled.
12.
(used of conduct or character) deserving or bringing disgrace or shame.  Synonyms: disgraceful, ignominious, inglorious, opprobrious, shameful.  "An ignominious retreat" , "Inglorious defeat" , "An opprobrious monument to human greed" , "A shameful display of cowardice"
13.
(of coffee) without cream or sugar.
14.
Soiled with dirt or soot.  Synonym: smutty.  "His shirt was black within an hour"



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"Black" Quotes from Famous Books



... framed in black, each with its white tomb and overhanging willow, and severally inscribed to the memories of Mark, John, James, Martha, and Mary Newell. All their flock. None left to honor and obey, none to cheer, none to lighten the labor or ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... twenty-three who escaped immediate death in the Black Hole of Calcutta were soon attacked with inflammation of the lungs, by which these organs were consolidated, and thus prevented the permeation of air into their cells. This disease of the lungs was caused ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter

... navy and transports ran the batteries successfully. The troops marched across the point of land under cover of night, unobserved. By the time it was light the enemy saw our whole fleet, ironclads, gunboats, river steamers and barges, quietly moving down the river three miles below them, black, or ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... German Rural Life. By the Author of "An English Girl's Account of a Moravian Settlement in the Black Forest." ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous

... at the station, oceans of heavy, black smoke lazily flowing from the locomotive; negroes were hoisting empty fruit-crates aboard the baggage-car, through the door of which I caught a glimpse of my steel cage and remaining paraphernalia, ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers

... Black smoke begins pourin' out of the stack and the engines are tuned up to top speed. All the awnin's are taken in and every flag pulled down. The Agnes proceeds to hump ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... "So, you black scamp, you thought you'd run away with the tag, did you!" Just then he perceived the primer that was peeping out of Lewis's shirt bosom. "Ha! what's here?" said he; "a primer, as I live! And what are you doing with this, I'd ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various

... preliminary announcement of the History was a humorous and skillful piece of advertising. Notices appeared in the newspapers of the disappearance from his lodging of "a small, elderly gentleman, dressed in an old black coat and cocked hat, by the name of Knickerbocker." Paragraphs from week to week, purporting to be the result of inquiry, elicited the facts that such an old gentleman had been seen traveling north in the Albany stage; that his name was Diedrich Knickerbocker; ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner

... vertical bands of black (hoist), red, and green, with a gold emblem centered on the red band; the emblem features a temple-like structure encircled by a wreath on the left and right and by a ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... back into slavery, causing an era of terror, family dismemberment, and flight, only to be remembered with sadness and horror. For had not the heartless dictum come from a Chief Justice of the United States—the "Jeffry of American jurisprudence," that it had been ruled that black men had no rights a white ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... in the middle. The eyebrows have few hairs; the eyes are rather small than otherwise, the colour is that of horn, but changing, with sparkles of yellow and blue; the ears in proportion; the hair black, and beard also, but, in this his seventy-ninth year, plentifully sprinkled with grey; his beard is forked, four or five fingers long and not very thick, as may be seen in his portraits. Many other things remain to be said, but ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd

... asked him if he durst not trust his own native country, he made answer, "In every thing else, yes; but in a matter that touches my life, I would not even my own mother, lest she might by mistake throw in the black ball instead of the white." When, afterwards, he was told that the assembly had pronounced judgment of death against him, all he said was "I will make them feel ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... black outside Nan's window as it could be. She lit her oil lamp and dressed swiftly, running at last through the cold parlor and sitting room into the kitchen, where the fire in the range was burning briskly and the coffee pot was on. Tom and Rafe were there comfortably ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr

... Hagar's kitchen window," said Noll; "Hagar's our black cook, and there's only three of us in that great ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord

... our early history looms out of the past like Endicott's. The harsh face still looks down from under the black skull-cap, the gray moustache and pointed beard shading the determined mouth, but throwing into relief the lines of the massive jaw. He is almost heroic in his ferocious bigotry and daring,—a perfect champion ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... Cush, black. Of Ham and Mizraim came the Ethiopians, or blackamoor (Psa 105:23): The land of Ham was the country about Egypt; wherefore Israel was first ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... proceeding to the country where the cassia is cut, and occasioned his return towards the hills on the 10th of October, stopping at Tabat Bubut. The land in the neighbourhood of the Musi he describes as being level, the soil black and good, and the air temperate. It was his intention to have crossed the hills to Ranne-lebar, on the 11th, but missing the road in the woods reached next day Beyol Bagus, a dusun in the Company's district, and thence proceeded to ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... presented by it along with other more familiar phenomena of vaporization and condensation. But the primitive man explained the same thing to his own satisfaction when he had classified it along with the well-known phenomena of human volition, by constructing a theory of a great black dragon pierced by the unerring arrows of a heavenly archer. We consider the nature of the stars to a certain extent explained when they are classified as suns; but the Mohammedan compiler of the "Mishkat-ul-Ma'sabih" ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske

... Aunt Marg. What if every seam isn't bound just as you like it? Your general make-up is always superb. By the way, who was that girl in black who just came in and went up stairs?" the young man concluded, as if it had only just occurred to ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... waited again, avoiding the infuriated charge by a scant step; and, when the bull stopped he had Mochales' hat placed squarely upon his horns. Lavinia watched now in fascinated terror; she could not remove her gaze from the slim figure in the short black jacket and narrow crimson sash. At the moment when her tension relaxed, Mochales, with a short running step, vaulted cleanly to the top of the wall. His cigarette was still burning. She wanted desperately to add her praise to Anna Mantegazza's enthusiastic plaudits, Gheta's subtle smile; but only ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer

... and solitary, he attempted to mount to his usual place, but even this exertion was more than he could accomplish. One black and burning thought tormented him, and he sat down by his own cheerless hearth, more cheerless than he had ever felt before. Matty was preparing dinner; but it was a meagre and homely fare—a little oaten bread, and one spare collop which had been given her by a neighbour. Scanty ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... Mahatma," she had cried, "if he were my husband I would have given him a black eye for such an ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... rouses the wood folk's curiosity; but as he lay quiet, listening, his ears shot back and forth nervously at a score of sounds that I could not hear, as if above the music he caught faint echoes of the last fearful chase. Then I brought out my lunch and, nibbling a bit myself, pushed a slice of black bread over the crust towards him with ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long

... was all she ever got. Serious, meticulous persons called her "Mrs" Beggarlegs, slightly lowering their voices and slurring it, however, it must be admitted. The name invested her with a graceless, anatomical interest, it penetrated her wizened black and derisively exposed her; her name went far indeed to make her dramatic. Lorne Murchison, when he was quite a little boy was affected by this and by the unfairness of the way it singled her out. Moved partly by the oppression of the feeling and partly by a desire for information ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

... yellow-streaked sky the stars were coming out, flickering like newly lighted lamps, growing steadier and more golden as the sky darkened and the land beneath them fell into complete shadow. It was a cool, restful darkness that was not black or forbidding, but somehow open and free; the night of high plains where there is no moistness or ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... got back to the little brown house in Jermyn Street he went to his library, and took from a certain drawer an ivory miniature framed in black. He looked at it for some time. It had a sweet, old-fashioned face, with a very high forehead, blue eyes, and dark hair arranged in two festoons of plaits, turned up at the sides. It represented his mother in the early sixties and he thought it was like Edith. He had ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson

... go abroad. The gentry are no doubt philosophers enough to bring up their bairns like sheep to the slaughter, and dispatch them as cadies to Bengal and the Cape of Good Hope, as soon as they are grown up; when, lo and behold! the first news they hear of them is in a letter, sealed with black wax, telling how they died of the liver complaint, and were buried by six blacks two ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir

... devoted to the causes which determine the aptitude or immunity with animals for maladies. This is in a general sense called medical geography, as a physician who has prescribed for patients in various parts of the world, and belonging to different races—the white, yellow, and black—has been able to note the diversities in the same disease, and the contradictions in the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various

... the end of the garden walk, a large young man with a pale face, clad in a kind of black cassock, suddenly appeared at the railing. He entered without knocking and bowed to Madame Pierson; it seemed to me that his face, which I considered a bad omen, darkened a little when he saw me. He was a priest I had often ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset

... was not attired in what Mary Ann called his "glad rags" now, but in a dark gray suit of homespun that was nearly the color of the night. The blond wig was carefully locked in a suit case, a small black cap was drawn over his eyes, and thus—completely transformed—Mr. Hopper's guest had no difficulty in gaining the street without a particle of noise betraying him to the ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)

... town he found that the houses were of stone, and that one long street on the level connected the three divisions. Flights of steps, hewn out of the solid rock of that black and barren range, led to the little palaces that crowned the cones, and there were palms, cocoanuts, and tamarind trees to soften the brilliancy of facade and roof. Above the town was Blackbeard's Castle; and Bluebeard's so high on the right that its guns could have ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... collar on which he intended to perch, Chris took heart and with a last quick effort, climbed the collar to hide behind Osterbridge Hawsey's head, under the thick cluster of curls tied with what was now a ratty black bow. He was, in this precarious shelter, about to change himself into a fly, when a scraping noise froze him with fear. Looking around Osterbridge's neck he saw that Captain Chew was making desperate efforts to get out of his ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson

... sweet short sward under the hawthorn on the Down I looked over the Idover plain, and thought of the olden times. As I gazed I presently observed, far away beside some ricks, the short black funnel of an engine, and made it out to be a steam-plough waiting till the corn should be garnered to tear up the stubble. How much meaning there lay in the presence of that black funnel! There were the same broad open fields, the same beautiful crops of golden wheat, the same green ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies

... I'll give you a couple of two-bit pieces if you'll get me a bite of something," I persist. John's small, black eyes twinkle at the suggestion of two-bit pieces, and his expressive countenance assumes a commerical air as, with a ludicrous ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... [of South Carolina] from time to time, has passed many restricted and penal acts, with a view to bring under direct control and subjection the DESTINY of the black population." See the Remonstrance of James S. Pope and 352 others, against home missionary efforts for the benefit of the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... are going through dirt again and all of a sudden we come out of it and I see a city below us all lit up and the buildings are made of stuff that looks like jade run through with streaks of black. ...
— Operation Earthworm • Joe Archibald

... turnkeys' voices were heard in the refectory, recalling the prisoners to table, another moment and it would have been too late; it was, then, less by persuasion than by actual force I compelled him to yield, and pulling off his black serge gown, drew over his shoulders my yellow blouse, and placed upon his head the white cap of the "Marmiton." The look of shame and sorrow of the poor cure would have betrayed him at once, if any had given themselves the trouble to look ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... description— A dose of brandy the prescription— Oft as required to be repeated— With which the learned J.P. was treated; And history affirms that he Oft took the prescribed remedy. John Cameron, oft called "Black John," Comes o'er my dream of old, as one Who should not now forgotten be In this memorial strain by me, In days of yore, his true-nosed hounds To the Chaudiere with certain bounds, Oft chased the anther'd buck before Their deep-mouthed yells to Ottawa's shore. ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett

... valleys,—and thou Where the Black Warrior murmurs in echoes the vow; And thou, youngest son of our sires, who roves Where Apala-chicola[1] glides ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... unsettled, and, whenever determined, it will be subject to strong popular influences, and there can be no security. I almost apprehend earlier mischief from the popular influences of the United States. They have had a task of conquest and annexation, and Cuba lies temptingly. The uneasiness of the black population of many of the West India Islands may lead to opportunities, and disagreeable events may grow out of such circumstances. But these are matters of speculation, and nothing turns out as men think that they foresee. I wish that your squadron was stronger; ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane

... force of volunteers in the nursery, and never was colonel more despotic. His brothers and sister were by turn infantry, cavalry, engineers, and artillery, according to his whim, and when his affections finally settled upon the Highlanders of "The Black Watch," no female power could compel him to keep his stockings above his knees, or his ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... and the cutter was eight miles off the land. By the directions of the informer, for we have no other name to give him, they now bore up and ran along the island until they were, by his calculations, for it then was dark, abreast of a certain point close to the Black Gang Chyne. Here they hove-to, hoisted out their boats, three in number, and the men were sent in, well armed with pistols and cutlasses. Short had the charge of one, Coble of the second, the stern sheets of the third was occupied by Vanslyperken and the informer. ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... a pause. A gentleman, the Marquis de Feuquieres, had come in, bringing with him a very young lad, in the plian black gown and white collar of a theological student; and it was made known that the Marquis had been boasting of the wonderful facility of a youth was studying at the College of Navarre, and had declared that ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... substances, when reduced to a certain degree of tenuity, would reflect these colours. Near the highest point of the bubble, just before it bursts, is always observed a spot which reflects no colour and appears black. Newton shewed that the thickness of the bubble at this black point was the 2,500,000th part of an inch! Now, as the bubble at this point possesses the properties of water as essentially as does the Atlantic Ocean, it follows that the ultimate ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various

... room now he crossed himself, turning toward the front corner of the room, and went up to Dolokhov, holding out a small, black hand. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... transformed by the magic of his pen into the Monte Bene of the "Marble Faun." Not far off is the "tower" wherein Aurora Leigh sought peace,—and found it. The inmate of this villa was a little lady with blue-black hair and sparkling jet eyes, a writer whose dawn is one of promise, a chosen friend of the noblest and best, and on her terrace the Brownings, Walter Savage Landor, and many choice spirits have sipped tea while their eyes drank in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... lies the black country, an area of some twenty square miles. Here, if we have read the evidence of the Truck Commissioners, we can interpret a dumb-show in ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... plates were cleaned with ordinary sand-paper and water; others with chalk and water; others with emery and water; others, again, with black oxide of manganese and water; and others with a piece of charcoal and water. All of these acted in tubes of oxygen and hydrogen, causing combination of the gases. The action was by no means so powerful as that produced by plates ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday

... the island of Molokai, commencing at the eastern end and stretching along a distance of about twenty miles, the coast is a sheer precipice of black rock varying in height from eight hundred to two thousand feet. The only interruptions to the continuity of this vast sea wall are formed by the four romantic valleys of Pelekunu, Puaahaunui, Wailau, and Waikolu. Between the valleys of ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various

... eyes, which, however, did not express what she felt: they rather gave the idea of storing up impressions to be re-acted upon by some interior power. She had a delicate complexion, a great deal of soft, black hair compactly dressed, and a neat figure. Her disposition was dreamy and self-willed; occult studies fascinated her, and she was passionately fond of moonlight. She was simply dressed in a white muslin frock, with a black ribbon around her slim ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... slave enjoys, Nor wishes freedom, though the spell destroys. To save our land from this MAGICIAN's charms, And rescue maids and matrons from his arms, Our knight poetic comes. And Oh! ye fair! This black ENCHANTER's wicked arts beware! His subtle poison dims the brightest eyes, And at his touch, each grace and beauty dies: Love, gentleness and joy to rage give way, And the soft dove becomes a bird of prey. May this our bold advent'rer break the spell, And drive ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore

... hurt you much. You're the third person he's bitten to-day." She kissed the animal in a loving and congratulatory way on the tip of his black nose. "Not counting bell-boys, of course," she added. And then she was swept from him in the crowd and he was left thinking of all the things he might have said—all those graceful, witty, ingratiating things which just make a bit ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse

... that they were unreasonably impatient. Karissima also pleads. Well, he will see what he can do. But there's an awful penalty. For a new Russian dancer cannot be made unless another surrenders life. Anyway he fetches his black bag. And Karissima dances down the main staircase with her babe, who grows apace and is shortly seen prancing in the garden (on his ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various

... horses. They are not indigenous to any other part of the world but Europe,—not even to the polar regions,—and are obviously of Scandinavian origin. En passant, it is my conviction that a white skin is not natural to man, and that by nature he has either a black or brown skin like our forefathers, the Hindoos, and that the white man was never originally created by nature; and that, therefore, there is no race of white people, much as it is talked about, but every white man is a bleached ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... year, the act for the emancipation of the negroes came into operation. In some islands symptoms of insubordination were exhibited, and the planters were obliged to have recourse to punishment and force, in order to overcome the reluctance of the black population to regular labour; yet this great change took place without any serious disturbances. In Barbadoes, indeed, there was perfect tranquillity and order; and in Jamaica the transition was accompanied ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... thick and dark. A few lights shone in the Chateau de Chatillard, but Willet and his rangers stood in black gloom. Almost at their feet the great St. Lawrence flowed in its mighty channel, a dim blue under the dusky sky. Nothing was visible there save the slow stream, majestic, an incalculable weight of water. Nothing appeared upon its surface, and ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler

... richest sable. A mark of a dark-ruby color, in shape like an anchor, crowns its elegant little head. Nothing can be prettier than the delicate wings of pale purple with which its snowy belly is faintly penciled. Its jet-black eyes, rimmed with silver within a circlet of rare sea-blue, gleam like diamonds, and its whole graceful shape is gilded with a shimmering sheen infinitely lovely. When I watch it from across the room as it glides slowly round its crystal palace, it reminds me of a beam ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe

... preface please to listen while I tell you that once in a little black-timbered cottage, at the skirts of a wood, a young woman sat before the fire rocking her baby, and, as she did so, building a castle in the air: "What a good thing it would be," she thought to ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow

... hair and dark eyes like her father, while Buster John had golden hair and brown eyes like his mother. As for Drusilla, she was as black as the old black cat, and always in a good humor, except when she pretended to be angry. Sweetest Susan had wonderful dark eyes that made her face very serious except when she laughed, but she was as full of fun as Buster John, who was always ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris

... undulated to the wind around the figure of the Father, from the folds of which cherubs peeped out; and there were other ornaments besides which made a very beautiful effect. The work was executed in white stucco on a black stone. When the money came, the Pope gave it to me with his own hand, and begged me in the most winning terms to let him have it finished in his own days, adding that this ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... account of its thick shell; it needs, therefore, to attract some four-footed creature that will carry it away from the parent tree, and this is done by the mice and the squirrels. But if this is the reason of its whiteness, there is the dusky butternut and the black walnut, both more or less concealed by their color, and yet having the same need of some creature ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs

... "black labour" for the French and German planters in Samoa and Tahiti, I was, of course, sailing in ships of those nationalities, and had no worrying Government agent to harass and hinder me by his interference, for only ships under British colours were ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke

... it to be their duty to wipe the Hottentots off the face of the earth. "The Hottentots," they said, "have no souls; they belong to the race of baboons." They called them children of the devil; they called them "black wares," "black beasts," and "black cattle"; and over one church door they painted the notice "Dogs and Hottentots not admitted." They ruined them, body and soul, with rum and brandy; they first made ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... through important reforms. It impeached (for the first time in English history)[1] certain prominent men for fraud (S243). But in the end its work failed for want of a leader. The King's last days were far from happy. His son, the Black Prince (S238), had died, and Edward fell entirely into the hands of selfish favorites and ambitious schemers like John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. Perhaps the worst one of this corrupt "ring" was a woman named Alice Perrers, ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... was like their own. Then one of the Indians volunteered to try the experiment, and nearly choked himself with the penny, which, it must be remembered, was one of the large, old-fashioned, copper coins, in circulation before the war. It cannot be said that he turned black in the face, but he certainly gasped, and rolled his eyes in a manner that alarmed his friends, and they instinctively looked to Tom for help. Tom was equal to the emergency. He rose hastily, slapped the Indian forcibly on the back, and the cent was ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger

... many a battle-field! What fatigue, what suffering, what sacrifices, dangers, wounds, how many glorious deaths, what seas of blood, to come at last to the most lamentable disasters I Had the future been seen, those drums would have been draped in black. But the army imagined itself invincible. The thought of defeat would have called forth a smile of pity. Proud of itself, of its commander, it shouted with joy and pride as it passed ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... salt,' and after taking the money of the Ranee of Inglistan [Queen of England], steal from her officers. But such misdeeds never go unpunished. Last night" (here the Colonel's tone suddenly became very deep and solemn) "I had a dream. I dreamed that a black cloud hovered over me, and out of it came ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... his path, black volcanic rock shining like wet glass. He hit it at full speed. He almost walked up its face and in the instant when his momentum was gone caught a root and yanked himself to the top. Again he was out of their sight. He sprang around another ...
— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson

... with his lips and disappeared. A moment later his curly black poll came stealing round the door-jamb, half-way down, like the head of a ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... operations in Italy," he wrote to him on April 24; "every day's delay is extremely disastrous to us." On April 26, Moreau passed the Rhine at Strasburg, at Brisach, and at Basle, thus deceiving General Kray, who defended the defiles of the Black Forest, whilst the different divisions of the French army reascended and repassed the Rhine, in order to cross it afresh without difficulty at Schaffhausen. The Austrians had not yet collected their forces, ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... any part of Western Europe, may easily visit the great mountain-chain on which Prometheus was found, by crossing the Black Sea from Constantinople or from Odessa, and landing at Poti, where the Russians have constructed a railway to Tiflis, once the capital of Georgia, now the residence of the Governor-General ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... man shook his head mournfully, and taking out a steel tobacco-box he opened it and cut off a piece of black, pressed weed, to transfer to his cheek, as he again shook ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn

... it, was wet, but not with the moisture of the scrubbing. The outlook was clear enough, but a strong head-wind was blowing that whistled through the cordage of the vessel, and caused the black smoke of the funnels to float back like huge sombre streamers. The prow of the big ship rose now into the sky and then sank down into the bosom of the sea, and every time it descended a white cloud of spray drenched everything forward and sent a drizzly ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr

... in a childish tone, "you ought to have given me something better to do, then. If you had taught me an honest trade, I should not have been so given to making penny whistles and cutting cockades out of foolscap paper. Nay, don't look so black, and mutter, 'Fool's cap paper, indeed!' between your teeth. I'll go, I'll go," and he accordingly quitted ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... containing about fifteen thousand inhabitants, and may be considered the centre of the trade and judicial system of a district which possesses some importance in the sphere of Scottish industry. Our residence is not in the town itself, but fifteen miles to the north-west, among the granite hills and the black morasses which stretch westward through Galloway, almost to the Irish Sea. In this wilderness of heath and rock, our estate stands forth a green oasis, a tract of ploughed, partly enclosed, and planted ground, where corn ripens, and trees ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle

... strange meeting—this facing for the first time between the supreme representative of the dominant race of the new era and the freed black men whose very existence the President held to be an eternal menace against the Nation's future. It is remarkable that the first words Abraham Lincoln ever addressed as President to an assemblage of negroes should have been the words ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon

... left the Jewess taller, in proportion, than the Jew—Judith Montmarte was tall, with a full figure. The contour of her face suggested Spanish blood. Her hair—what a wealth of it there was—was blue-black, finer than such hair usually is, and with a sheen on it like unto a raven's wing. Her eyes were large, black, and melting in their fullness. Her lips were full, ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson

... puncture the whole surface over which the tattooing extends. The greater part of the body from the waist down to the knee is covered with it, variegated here and there with neat regular stripes of the untattooed skin, which when they are well oiled, make them appear in the distance as if they had on black silk knee-breeches. Behrens, in describing these natives in his narrative of Roggewein's voyage of 1772, says: "They were clothed from the waist downwards with fringes and a kind of silken stuff artificially wrought." ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner

... through Greece, he reached Constantinople in the Salsette frigate May 14, 1810. The two island rocks—the Cyanean Symplegades—stand one on the European, the other on the Asiatic side of the Strait, where the Bosphorus joins the Euxine or Black Sea. Both these rocks were visited by Lord Byron in ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... by a war-office; but they all must be such as will adapt themselves to the human body and its movements. The will of a government may prescribe that the trousers shall be tight or loose, that they shall be black or brown or bright green or vermilion. But no government can prescribe that they shall be only three inches round the waist, or that the soldier's sleeves shall start, not from the shoulders, but from the pockets of the coat-tails. The human body is here a legislator which is supreme ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock

... responsibility of his post. To safeguard and promote the welfare of the Democratic party had long been a cardinal principle of the paper whose utterances he now controlled. Still, it must be true that Neal was painting the situation in colors altogether too black. ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... boy was with the monk under the black arch. The old man embraced him and blessed him and stood still for a moment watching him as he went down. Then he, also, turned and went back, and ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford

... the Persian (English) walnut, and so far have had very satisfactory results. I am trying some of the California varieties—the "Franquette" and "Parisienne" especially—and last spring I grafted a number of them on the wild seedling black walnut and they grew as much as four feet in height during the summer. There are several very fine varieties of the Persian walnut that are hardy throughout our latitude, and when grafted on the native black walnut stocks, make very satisfactory growth. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association

... never was more mistaken in my life. I could have bet my black horse against Trevanion's Julia, which is certainly the most worthless thing I know, that Linden had been a brave fellow: but these English heroes almost go into fits at a duel; one manages such things, as Sterne says, better ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... on that subject; but what I do know is, that you, Madame la Duchesse, will be conducted to the scaffold, you and many other ladies with you, in the cart of the executioner, and with your hands tied behind your backs.' 'All! I hope that in that case I shall at least have a carriage hung in black.' 'No, Madame; higher ladies than yourself will go, like you, in the common car, with their hands tied behind them.' 'Higher ladies! what! the princesses of the blood?' 'Yea, and still more exalted ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita

... when I try to cajole them into the henhouse they fly all ways. Lesbia, you may come and act guard, but I won't have the boys; they only rush about and frighten the chickens. The last time I took Stumps the Buff Orpington with the black feather in its tail flew over the hedge into the turnip field. I didn't get him back till it was moonlight, then I caught him perching on a stump, ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil

... regulations followed a statute entitled "An act for rendering the Province of Georgia more defencible, by prohibiting the importation of black slaves, or negroes, into the same." For this enactment, besides the consideration stated in the title, the following reasons are assigned: 1. On account of the cost of purchase, which, the settlers themselves being too poor to defray, ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris

... three widows, in garments of silk, and suits of lawn and cypress; Heresy and False Interpretation, like sisters of Bohemia, apparelled in silk of divers colours; the heretic Luther, like a party friar, in russet damask and black taffety; Luther's wife, like a frau of Spiers, in red silk; Peter, Paul, and James, in habits of white sarcenet, and three red mantles; a Cardinal in his apparel; the Dauphin and his brother, in coats of velvet ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... God there, and you must rest in him. He will not forget you, for that would be ceasing to be God. If God were to forget for one moment, the universe would grow black—vanish—rush out again from the realm of law and ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... tinselled furniture, a few tables with marble tops, and on the pillars between the windows large Venetian mirrors. Otherwise the walls were bare, except over the sofa, where hung, in a finely-carved and gilded frame, a painting, which however was covered with a large veil of black crape. ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... shelves being taken down and put away and the tables joined together, everybody sat down to the tea, coffee, bread, butter, salmon, shad, liver, steak, potatoes, pickles, ham, chops, black-puddings, and sausages, all over again. Some were fond of compounding this variety, and having it all on their plates at once. As each gentleman got through his own personal amount of tea, coffee, bread, butter, salmon, ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens

... eighteenth century, the despised ages of monkery, feudalism, and superstition began to reassert their claims upon the imagination. Ruined castles and abbeys, coats of mail, illuminated missals, manuscript romances, black-letter ballads, old tapestries, and wood carvings acquired a new value. Antiquaries and virtuosos first, and then poets and romancers, reconstructed in turn an image of ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... old face with figures black! So when dismal, stormy days Keep him from his out-door plays, Most that he cares for is to sit Watching, always watching it. And when the hour strikes he thinks,— (A dear, wise head has the little Ginx!) "The clock strikes one, The ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates

... must be diluted before use with three or four times its bulk of water, as if concentrated it burns up the grass, and it is also advisable to use it during wet weather. The ammoniacal liquor of the ivory-black works contains about 12 per cent of ammonia, or about four or five times as much as gas liquor. It has been used in some parts of England, made into a compost, and applied to the turnip and other crops, ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson

... to be pretty," thought Rosy. "I daresay she'll have beautiful black hair, and blue eyes like Lady Albertine." Albertine was Rosy's best doll. "And I daresay she'll be very clever, and play the piano and speak French far better than me. I don't mind that. I like pretty people, and I don't mind people being clever. What I don't like is, people who are dedfully good ...
— Rosy • Mrs. Molesworth

... and an angry flush rising on her white cheeks. Abstaining from showing any surprise, I asked her who Mercy Merrick was. "A vile woman, by her own confession," was the quick reply. "How am I to find her?" I inquired next. "Look for a woman in a black dress, with the Red Geneva Cross on her shoulder; she is a nurse in the French ambulance." "What has she done?" "I have lost my papers; I have lost my own clothes; Mercy Merrick has taken them." "How do you know that Mercy Merrick has taken them?" "Nobody ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins

... superseded every other beverage, and is taken without sugar or milk. It was not used at all in ancient times, but its use is universal at the present time. The plant is not grown in the north. Black tea comes from the central provinces, and green from two eastern mainly. Next to silk, if not equal to it, tea is the principal article of export. The doctor says that tea-drinking promotes the temperance of the people more ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic

... more than one quarter of the letters have other forms. But the changes, though few, give to a printed page a very different appearance. Under William the Conqueror, this alphabet was superseded by the modern Gothic, Old English, or Black letter; which, in its turn, happily gave place to the present Roman. The Germans still use a type similar to the Old English, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... them was a torment to Lily; calculating the percentage made her head split—not to speak of the complicated nature of the contracts, worse than insurance policies. The poor artiste was bound down on every side, at the mercy of the manager; everything was foreseen, down to the prohibition of black tights, which concealed one's poverty. And it was bad enough in England; but in the Dago countries, on ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... single loose garment of woven cloth which permitted free action for both limbs and wings. A small, flat black box with a mouthpiece into which he could speak, was strapped to his chest in such a position that it was almost concealed by the folds of his blouse. We were to find out presently the purpose of this instrument, but I did not examine it carefully then. As the creature ...
— The Winged Men of Orcon - A Complete Novelette • David R. Sparks

... so, and fixed her great grey eyes on him with some curiosity. The effect was remarkable; her father fidgeted, made a mistake in his calculations, glanced all round the room with his shifty eyes (ah, how changed from those bold black eyes with which Maria Lee fell in love four-and-twenty years ago!) and finally threw down his pen with an exclamation that would have shocked Angela ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... eyes in a white, bloodless face watched her beneath thin black brows. A shock ran through her, as though she had been drenched with icy water. She shivered. There was a sinister menace in that steady, level gaze. More than once she had felt it. Deep in her heart she knew, from the ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine

... bags some distance down the road, and had found them quite a comfortable couch in a certain box-clump commanding a sufficient view of the road. Nevertheless, when the little coach came swaying on its leathern springs, its scarlet enamel stained black as ink in the moonshine, he was on the spot to stop it ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... the garden was a summer-house, and on entering this we found it occupied by an old man, who sat reading therein. We were about to draw back, but he rose, leaning upon a stout stick, and very courteously invited us to be seated. His hooded black cassock, and the tonsure which was visible, as he had removed his cap, marked the priest. He was very feeble, as we could see, though his eyes, bright and piercing, contrasted strangely with the deadly pallor of his ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... afternoon, but none came; until toward sundown, when I saw a speck on the water, and as it drew near, I found it was the gig, with the captain. The hides, then, were not to go off. The captain came up the hill, with a man, bringing my monkey jacket and a blanket. He looked pretty black, but inquired whether I had enough to eat; told me to make a house out of the hides, and keep myself warm, as I should have to sleep there among them, and to keep good watch over them. I got a moment to speak to the man who ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... cry. "I see by his face he has failed. Never mind them, Roland. Your chair at the head of the table always awaits you. There is a piece of black bread left, and though the wine ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... the Black Forest—sometimes the Rhine far off, on its Rhine plain, like a bit of magnesium ribbon. But not to-day. To-day only trees, and leaves, and vegetable presences. Huge straight fir-trees, and big beech-trees sending rivers of roots into ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence

... neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black."[36] ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham

... kept clean and sweet; the houses built of brick, generally uniform, most in the frontispieces, and covered with tile; at the entry into them, usually the first and lower room is largest, paved with Orland stone, full of streaks of red and white, and some with black and white rich marble. In this first room they use to set their best household stuff, as the chief room for entertainment; yet they will also in some part of the room have a partition with boards, above a man's ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke

... 357; celebrated as historian and essayist, being a disciple of Socrates; joined the expedition of Cyrus the Younger in 401, and after the battle of Cunaxa became the chief leader of ten thousand Greeks in their march to the Black Sea, the story being chronicled in his famous "Anabasis"; fought on the Spartan side in the battle of Coronea; banished from Athens, he settled at Scillus in Eleia; spent his last years in Corinth; among his writings besides the "Anabasis" ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various

... which bristled over their chin-straps, without feeling a glow of confidence, and, between ourselves, I have no doubt that that was exactly how they felt when they saw their young Colonel on his great black war-horse riding ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle

... approval. "There's an old trail to it, see!" she led Diana beyond the camp pine, and pointed to the faint black line, that was traceable in the sand under the trees. The pine forest was absolutely ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow

... appearance was by this time incredibly changed for the better. His countenance, naturally expressive of feeling, firmness, and intellect, now appeared to additional advantage; so did his whole person, when dressed in a decent suit of black. No man acquainted with life can be ignorant of the improvement which genteel apparel produce in the carriage, tone of thought, and principles of an individual. It gives a man confidence, self-respect, and a sense of equality with his companions; it inspires him with energy, independence, ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... times his dress was in complete contrast with the costume of the morning, for he appeared in a well-powdered wig, and always wore his band and cassock. On extraordinary occasions he was arrayed in a full-dress suit of black velvet, of the cut of the old times, when his appearance ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various

... given moment; the crowd surges a little towards a black-bearded man in a brown frock, with an apron over it, and five minutes later a deep silence, broken only by the sound of supping and swallowing, falls upon the crowd. There they stand, with the roar of London sounding overhead, the hooting of cars, the noise of innumerable feet, ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... allus was repugnant to him. He never was partners with nobody, understand? He blows the show; he bows out and leaves the Kid flat. He forsakes the Milky Way for the Great White one, and he's out there now, smokin' Coronas and wearin' a red vest under his black coat, with a diamond horseshoe in his tie. It looks to me like the James boys could 'a' learned ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... turning his hand to Fourrierism, homoeopathy, table-turning, Gothic art, and humanitarian painting, had become a photographer; and he was to be seen on every dead wall in Paris, where he was represented in a black coat with a very small body and a ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... in thy very middle stands a broom, On the broom a young gray eagle sits, And he butchers wild a raven black, Sucks the raven's heart-blood glowing hot, Drenches with it, too, the moistened earth. Ah, black raven, youth so good and brave! Thy destroyer is ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson

... their long, black hair was braided in locks hanging down behind to their waists, and tied up with ribands. They were dressed exceeding rich, and were as beautiful as their mistresses; for none of them had any masks on. They waited ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe

... nebula whirled aimlessly through space. At length it began to take shape, the central mass threw off planets, the planets cooled, boiling seas and burning mountains heaved and tossed, from black masses of cloud hot sheets of rain deluged the barely solid crust. And now the first germ of life grew in the depths of the ocean, and developed rapidly in the fructifying warmth into vast forest trees, huge ferns springing from the damp mould, sea monsters breeding, fighting, ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell

... large portion of the territory of the United States which has been humane and has substantially ended Indian hostilities in the whole land except in a portion of Nebraska, and Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana Territories—the Black Hills region and approaches thereto. Hostilities there have grown out of the avarice of the white man, who has violated our treaty stipulations in his search for gold. The question might be asked why the Government has not enforced obedience to the terms of the treaty prohibiting the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... a story somewhat like this in D'Herbelot, about the Karmathian Heretics carrying off the Black Stone from Mecca, and being obliged years after to bring it back across the breadth of Arabia; on which occasion the stone conducted itself in a ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... town, mountain, plain, or river. I wish my bitterest foe no worse fate than the reading of them. Frigid? Caspian snows, Celtic ice, are warm in comparison. A whole book hardly suffices him for the Emperor's shield—the Gorgon on its boss, with eyes of blue and white and black, rainbow girdle, and snakes twined and knotted. Why, Vologesus's breeches or his bridle, God bless me, they take up several thousand lines apiece; the same for the look of Osroes's hair as he swims the Tigris—or what the cave was ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... these stern and black-browed Puritans would have thought it quite a sufficient retribution for his sins that, after so long a lapse of years, the old trunk of the family tree, with so much venerable moss upon it, should have borne, as its topmost ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... charlatanism as if it was sublimity Cannot be expressed, and if expressed, would not be believed Feeling, however, the want of consolation in their misfortunes Future effects dreaded from its past enormities God is only the invention of fear Gold, changes black to white, guilt to innocence Hail their sophistry and imposture as inspiration Invention of new tortures and improved racks Labour as much as possible in the dark Misfortunes and proscription would not only inspire courage My means were the boundaries of my wants Not suspected ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Memoirs of Napoleon • David Widger



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