"Coal-black" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the small drawing-room which still retained some of its ancient splendour. Maria was a short, stumpy woman with a slight moustache and a wart on her chin, and was dressed in green satin, cut low to disclose her generous figure. About her stiff, coal-black hair was a heavy diamond bandeau. She was sitting on a settee, her feet hardly touching the ground, cleaning her nails with a little pocket-knife as the girl entered. Evidently this was her maid of honour, and she could ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... on his coal-black steed, And fast he rade awa'; But ere he came to Clyde's water Fu' ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)
... coal-black steed.] In his old age Dietrich, weary of life and imbittered by its many trials, ceased to take pleasure in anything except the chase. One day, while he was bathing in a limpid stream, his servant came to tell ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... lady appeared before them in a most rich gown of purple velvet, costly embroidered; her hair hanging down loose, as fair as the beaten gold, and of such length that it reached down to her hams; having most amorous coal-black eyes; a sweet and pleasant round face, with lips as red as any cherry; her cheeks of a rose colour, her mouth small; her neck white like a swan, tall and slender of personage; in sum, there was no ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... lost 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 and ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... 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 feeling in the prayers ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... still muttering furiously over this daring act of defiance when a shrill bugle-call pealed down the avenue. Bishop Chuff rode out into the middle of the street on his famous coal-black charger, John Barleycorn. There was a long hush. Then, with a wave of his hand, he gave the signal. One hundred bands burst into the somber and clanging strains of "The Face on the Bar-Room Floor." The great ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... Christmas tree. She is just the queerest doll, Much the strangest of them all. Now you see her, cheeks of red, Muslin cap upon her head, Bright blue eyes and golden hair, Never face more sweet and fair. Presto! change! She's black as night, Woolly hair all curling tight, Coal-black eyes, thick lips of red, Bright bandanna on her head. She's not two, as you'd suppose, When Topsy comes, Miss Turvy goes. Perhaps it's as it is with me. Sometimes another child there'll be, And mother says, "Where is my Flo? I wish that ...
— A Jolly Jingle-Book • Various
... mourning by those who desire to express conventionally their regret for the dead; but very broad borders of black look like ostentation, and are in undoubted bad taste. No doubt all these things are proper enough in their way, but a narrow border of black tells the story of loss as well as an inch of coal-black gloom. The fashion of wearing handkerchiefs which are made with a two-inch square of white cambric and a four-inch border of black may well be deprecated. A gay young widow at Washington was once seen dancing at a reception, a few months after the death of her soldier husband, with a long black veil ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... was a rare old fellow! He sate where no sun could shine; And he lifted his hand so yellow, And poured out his coal-black wine. Hurrah! for the ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... out, they saw the princess passing by; and she was really so beautiful that everybody forgot her wickedness, and shouted "Hurrah!" Twelve lovely maidens in white silk dresses, holding golden tulips in their hands, rode by her side on coal-black horses. The princess herself had a snow-white steed, decked with diamonds and rubies. Her dress was of cloth of gold, and the whip she held in her hand looked like a sunbeam. The golden crown on her head glittered like the stars of heaven, and her mantle was formed ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... and she flew like a sylph right into the tile-stove to the tin soldier, blazed up in flame, and was gone. Then the tin soldier melted to a lump, and when the maid next day took out the ashes, she found him as a little tin heart. But of the dancer only the star was left, and that was burnt coal-black. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... go to the church; the vicar, on second thoughts, mounting his coal-black mare to avoid exerting his foot too much at starting. Stephen said he should want a man to assist ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... was sitting weaving with her child on her lap. She wore a black cloth on her head, a red neckerchief, a white shift, and a coal-black petticoat. When her husband came home, he pushed his wife away, and destroyed the loom with an axe. Then he killed the child with a blow of his fist, and beat his wife till she fell senseless. But Ukko took pity on ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... with these two short breathings from the Wordsworthian shell. He mistakes the logic. Wordsworth does not celebrate any power at all in Paganism. Old Triton indeed! he's little better, in respect of the terrific, than a mail-coach guard, nor half as good, if you allow the guard his official seat, a coal-black night, lamps blazing back upon his royal scarlet, and his blunderbuss correctly slung. Triton would not stay, I engage, for a second look at the old Portsmouth mail, as once I knew it. But, alas! better things than ever stood on Triton's pins are now as little able to stand ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... morning an elegant 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 for her herself, but wished ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... same who in Molly's lifetime shall be an official of the great railroad; and when in the course of time he is turned a sturdy boy of seven, with coal-black eyes and a round cropped head, she would place the book in his hands for purposes of learning. But detecting the fear of Michael as he smokes in the evening with eyes on the shelf, that the mysterious volume ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... who are supposed to be hovering unseen on the day "when autumn to winter resigns the pale year." Witches then speed on their errands of mischief, some sweeping through the air on besoms, others galloping along the roads on tabby-cats, which for that evening are turned into coal-black steeds.[575] The fairies, too, are all let loose, and hobgoblins of every sort roam freely about In South Uist and Eriskay there ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... His coal-black eye, his balanced walk, His sable apron, white with chalk, His listless meditation, His curly locks, his sallow cheeks, His board of celebrated Greeks, Proclaim his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... hair and eyebrows, both wearing their contrasted and unbound tresses flowing over their graceful shoulders. And hark! 'tis Dolly, dear Dolly Hosmer, with her rollicking, noisy laugh. And pretty Mary Donnelly—oh, how pretty! with the dimples and the peach-bloom on her face, her white teeth and coal-black hair—ever pretty whether she was smiling at you or peeling potatoes. And Charles Newcomb, the mysterious and profound, with his long, dark, straight locks of hair, one of which was continually being brushed away from his forehead as it continually fell; with his gold-bowed ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... that your taste ran rather in the way of drinking-songs. I should have thought now you would have said, 'The Coal-Black Wine.'" ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... 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 word is a ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... I was looking for my patrol to the exclusion of thought of anything else. The first shell burst so close that I lost control of my machine for a moment. Three others followed, two in front, and one behind, which I believed had wrecked my tail. They burst with a terrific rending sound in clouds of coal-black smoke. A few days before I had been watching without emotion the bombardment of a German plane. I had seen it twisting and turning through the eclatements, and had heard the shells popping faintly, with a sound like the bursting ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... a cold 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 chatting volubly, while Bombay Memons in gold ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... very soon contrive to hire the 'contraband,' get him to working, and make something better of him than planterocracy ever did. At least, this is what Northern ship-captains and farmers contrive to do, in their way, with numbers of coal-black negroes, and we have no doubt that the soldier-planter will manage, 'somehow,' to get out a cotton-crop, even with the aid of hired negroes! Here, again, a bounty could be given to the wounded. Observe, we mean a bounty which shall, to as high a degree as is possible ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... spacious grounds of her suburban residence, a large number of East-Side children. On her rounds of hospitality she was impressed with one strikingly beautiful little girl. She could not have been more than nine years old, but her coal-black eyes flashed with intelligence. The hostess introduced herself ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... was exactly the same as usual; only the crumpled dress flung carelessly across a chair told its tale. The flush on her face at waking soon gave place to an ashen pallor that was heightened by her coal-black eyebrows. With the awful clearness of an overwrought brain she rehearsed her experiences of the last few hours. She saw herself walking through silent streets at sunrise and hostile windows seemed watching her, while the few persons she met turned ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... to begin at once. He cut a big square piece of white fanned deerskin, and upon this he marked the little squares with coal-black. Then the three of them went to work with their sharp hunting knives, carving out the wooden figures. The results were crude, but they had enough shape for identification, and then Paul began ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... er confab wid 'em," remarked the negro, seating himself on the top step of the veranda, and mopping his coal-black face with a red cotton handkerchief; "an' hit do beat all. Niggahs is mos'ly eejits, spacially w'en yo' wants 'em to hab ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... 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 gallant ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... point out was that the mare was chestnut-brown, and when not in harness was kept close within the confines of the corral, while here was a colt of a dark-fawn color which would develop with maturity into coal-black. And there was not a single black horse in the mountains for miles and miles around. Nor was the ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... sent for me. 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 ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... name was Lilias too) was a merry, plump, ruddy-skinned little woman—a very baby in these strong arms of mine. She had laughing black eyes, and coal-black tresses, and lips which were always at vintage-time. Although her only child takes after me, not her, in face and carriage, in all things else she resembles my Saint. She is as merry, as light-hearted, as pure and good, as she was. She has the same humble, pious Faith; the same strong, inflexible ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... a stern-looking man, 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
... down upon the grass. For a little time Sylvia sat idly watching the great battle ships at firing-practice in the Bay. It was an afternoon of August; a light haze hung in the still air softening the distant promontories; and on the waveless sparkling sea the great ships, coal-black to the eye, circled about the targets, with now and then a roar of thunder and a puff of smoke, like some monstrous engines of heat—heat stifling and oppressive. By sheer contrast, Sylvia began to dream of the cool glaciers; ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... later we 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 ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... disturbed me very much had I been living in those days when—if there is any truth in legendary lore—the devil only needed half a pretext for forcing his society upon lonely travellers. This man—for man it was—had a face so overgrown with coal-black hair that very little could be seen of it excepting the eyes and nose. Beard, whiskers, and moustache were inseparably mixed up. What skin was visible through the matted jungle of hair was little less swarthy than a Hindu's. All the upper part of this astonishing head was hidden by ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... Saint said this when the little old woman went straight up the chimney, and came out at the top changed into a red-headed woodpecker with coal-black feathers. ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... coal-black ware is entirely smooth on the outside, and indicates an unusually well finished and symmetrical vessel. Another shows the impression of basket-work, in which a wide fillet or splint has served as ...
— Illustrated Catalogue of a Portion of the Collections Made During the Field Season of 1881 • William H. Holmes
... this project, and was about to indulge in one of his characteristic outbreaks, when there came an interruption which ended in a drama that put silver streaks among my coal-black locks! Some one came in where we were and called off the workmen, who went out with the others in great haste. Of course we followed at their heels. On reaching the principal cavern, we found a singular scene. Two natives, whom we had never seen before, were evidently in charge ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... The coal-black charger, who, despite his jaded air and look of neglect, had evidently come of a good stock, and had both blood and mettle of the true soldier sort in him, pricked his ears, arched his neck, and appeared to be fully aware of what was required of him by his loved master. He broke into a gentle ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... a ghost-like stealthiness to Miss Margaret's movements, though there was nothing whatever of the ghost about Miss Margaret herself. She was a plump, short person, no longer young, with coal-black hair growing low on the forehead, and a round face that would have been nearly meaningless if the features had not been emphasized—italicized, so to speak—by the small-pox. Moreover, the brilliancy of her toilet would have rendered any ghostly hypothesis untenable. ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... specimens of the nobler tribes, she might look like Brigit Mead. The girl had a clean-cutness of feature, a thin compactness of build, a stag-like carriage of her small head that, together with her almost bronze skin and coal-black hair, gave her an air remarkably and arrestingly un-English. The picture in the Luxembourg gallery, a typically French, subtle, secretive face, gives the expression of her face and the strange gleam in the long eyes. But it, the ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... the king of men with speed, And saddled strait his coal-black steed: Down the yawning steep he rode, That leads to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... was so broken and rocky; and in another hour's space Sure-foot led down-hill due east to where the stony neck sank into another desolate miry heath still falling toward the east, but whose further side was walled by a rampart of crags cleft at their tops into marvellous-shapes, coal-black, ungrassed and unmossed. Thitherward the hound led straight, and Gold-mane followed wondering: as he drew near them he saw that they were not very high, the tallest peak scant fifty feet from ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... spoke, he took out of his pocket a small parcel from which he drew a lock of coal-black hair, which he ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... rubbed her bony hands together; and laughed deprecatingly. She was a little woman, with very bright, beady black eyes, and hair that was still coal-black in spite of her wrinkled face. Her son was like her, but taller and better looking. One had but to glance at the child to realise that she must be ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... disappeared, the bull became restive and refused to work any longer. The Kunbi being helpless, again complained to Mahadeo, when the god appeared, and in his wrath at the conduct of the bull, great drops of perspiration stood upon his brow. One of these fell to the ground, and immediately a coal-black man sprang up and stood ready to do Mahadeo's bidding. He was ordered to bring the bull to reason, and he went and castrated it, after which it worked well and quietly; and since then the Kunbis have always used bullocks ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... with a red patch on it that spreads and spreads. They stare dully, but make no sound. As I crank the car there is a shrill screaming noise. . . . About thirty yards away I hear an explosion like a mine-blast, followed by a sudden belch of coal-black smoke. I stare at it in a dazed way. Then the doctor says: "Don't trouble to analyze your sensations. Better get off. ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... Mother Bunch's wonders, without mention), but an Eastern King with a glittering scimitar and turban. By Allah! two Eastern Kings, for I see another, looking over his shoulder! Down upon the grass, at the tree's foot, lies the full length of a coal-black Giant, stretched asleep, with his head in a lady's lap; and near them is a glass box, fastened with four locks of shining steel, in which he keeps the lady prisoner when he is awake. I see the four keys at his girdle now. The lady makes signs to the two kings in the tree, who softly descend. It ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... so truly mimicked she Coal-black Mumma's tender growls, That poor Atta Troll was lured From the safety ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... I dreamt I shore in a shearer's shed, and it was a dream of joy, For every one of the rouseabouts was a girl dressed up as a boy— Dressed up like a page in a pantomime, and the prettiest ever seen— They had flaxen hair, they had coal-black ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... is a 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
... fight," was her discreet rejoinder. Then leaning over the wheel, she advanced her snow-white head to the head of coal-black. ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... from one stem; and the perfume which came from its flowers gladdened the broad heaven above, and the earth and sea around it. Eagerly Persephone stretched out her hand to take this splendid prize, when the earth opened, and a chariot stood before her, drawn by four coal-black horses; and in the chariot there was a man with a dark and solemn face, which looked as though he could never smile, and as though he had never been happy. In a moment he got out of his chariot, seized Persephone ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... 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
... Simon had taken her place upon the chair near the open door in the porter's lodge, and sat there with her cold, immovable face staring into empty space with her great coal-black, glistening eyes, while her hands were busily flying, making the polished knitting-needles click against ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... mois, I thought from your features and the straightness of your coal-black hair, that you were." Riel's blood was nigh unto boiling in his veins, but he had craft enough to preserve a ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... familiarly known to men as "Slippery," was the possessor of a biased conscience, if any at all. Tall, gaunt and weather-beaten and with coal-black eyes set deep beneath hairless eyebrows, he was sinister and forbidding. Into his forty-five years of existence he had crowded a century of experience, and unsavory rumors about him existed in all parts of the great West. From Canada to Mexico and from Sacramento to ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... the neat red buildings of the Armenian convent. The last oleander blossoms shine rosy pink above its walls against the pure blue sky as we glide into the little harbour. Boats piled with coal-black grapes block the landing-place, for the Padri are gathering their vintage from the Lido, and their presses run with new wine. Eustace and I have not come to revive memories of Byron—that curious patron saint of the Armenian colony—or to inspect the printing-press, which issues ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... the most perfect belief in the existence of vampires, and even assured me that he had seen them. The description he gave me perfectly corresponds with the features and character of the man before us. Oh, he is the exact personification of what I have been led to expect! The coal-black hair, large bright, glittering eyes, in which a wild, unearthly fire seems burning,—the same ghastly paleness. Then observe, too, that the woman with him is altogether unlike all others of her sex. She is a foreigner—a stranger. Nobody knows who she is, or where she comes from. No doubt she belongs ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Down into the cold, coal-black water? And then, in the spring, to float up to the surface, all horrible and unrecognisable, with ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... destitute of decency and propriety, are 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, ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... holes in very soft stuff—but I am very weak, and my stamping powers are never on at all a Nasmyth Hammer sort of scale—but—good luck again!—Major Ewing's orderly arrived with papers to sign—a magnificent individual over six foot—with larger boots than mine and a coal-black melodramatic moustache! Had the Major been present—I should not have dared to ask an orderly in full dress and on duty to defile his boots among Zomerset red-earth, but as I caught him alone I begged his assistance. He looked down very superbly upon me (swathed in fur and woollen shawls, ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... imperturbable, that was all. There was an awkward silence. Then it was broken by a bounding step on the stairs, a wide-open fling of the door, and Enriquez pirouetted into the room: Enriquez, as of old, unchanged from the crown of his smooth, coal-black hair to the tips of his small, narrow Arabian feet; Enriquez, with his thin, curling mustache, his dancing eyes set in his immovable face, just as I had always ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... the base of the poetic mount, A stream there is, which rolls in lazy flow Its coal-black waters from oblivion's fount: The vapour-poison'd birds, that fly too low, Fall with dead swoop, and to the bottom go. Escaped that heavy stream on pinion fleet Beneath the mountain's lofty-frowning brow, Ere aught of perilous ascent you meet, A mead of mildest charm ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... indeed with terror and newly dispelled drunkenness; and his horse, a great African, coal-black save for one white hoof, seemed to partake of his master's frenzy. With ears lying flat along his head, and eyes that burned into those of Sergius, when he ventured to glance behind him,—glaring sheer through distance and dust like the very eyes ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... attend her as was his 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
... 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, ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... bricks and in through the window to bring him water. When I visited him there one day, and, after giving the password, got behind the bolted door, I found him, the room, and everything else absolutely covered with soot, coal-black from roof to rafters. The password was "Letter!" yelled out loud at the foot of the stairs. That would always bring him out, in the belief that the government had finally sent him the long-due money. Barney was stubbornly defiant, he would stand by his guns to the end; but he was weakening ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... 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 ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... "store goods." The features of the people are unmistakable testimony of their Mongolian origin. They are short of stature, with broad, flat faces, high cheek bones and bright, smiling eyes wide apart. The men grow no beards, but have long pigtails of coarse coal-black hair. The women are sturdy, good-natured and unembarrassed; they are adorned with a great quantity of jewelry, chiefly of silver, but often of gold. They wear circlets around their heads made of coral, turquoise, ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... sir.' Nature's poor wild scholar paid that tribute to the regimental sectarian. Enough for proud philosophy to have done the thing demonstrably right, Gower's look at his Madge and the world said. That 'European rose of the coal-black order,' as one of his numerous pictures of her painted the girl, was a torch in a cavern for dusky redness at her cheeks. Her responses beneath the book Mr. Woodseer held open had flashed a distant scene through Lord Fleetwood. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... mutual. The dog rose slowly to his haunches, and sat there looking at me. His apple-green bow had wandered to the side of his neck, and one ear was turned back. Yet notwithstanding the fact that his appearance was so far grotesque, I felt no inclinations whatever towards mirth. His coal-black eyes were fixed upon me steadfastly, his tiny wrinkled face seemed like the shrivelled and age-worn caricature of some Eastern magician. He showed no signs of pleasure or of welcome at my coming, nor did he share any of the bewilderment with which ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 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 moved the angels to pity, and because they ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... Now it was turned into a place of recreation. Around the walls were seated a variegated, almost motley, array of men and women, from the dear old fat mother of Fraeulein Therese and the three boys, the daughters-in-law, the granddaughters, to a picturesque old man, whose coal-black beard fell almost to his waist, our friend the "shipmaster," and the band of four musicians, all dressed in the Tyrolese costume, with the exception of the women ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... as telegraph posts. Her scant, red calico skirt met her leggings at the knee; and her red mantle, of Navajo weave, fell back from her head, but wrapped closely her waist and arms, and then dropped long ends down the front of her dress. Her coal-black hair, heavy and shining, was combed smoothly back from her forehead and fastened in a chongo behind. Her brown face was handsomer than that of most Indian maidens, being longer in proportion to its ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... 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
... horse, very spirited, was selected for the President to ride. When the time came, Mr. Lincoln walked up to the animal, and the instant he seized the bridle to mount, it was evident to horsemen that he 'knew his business.' He had the animal in hand at once. No sooner was he in the saddle than the coal-black steed began to prance and whirl and dance as if he was proud of his burden. But the President sat as unconcerned and fixed to the saddle as if he and the horse were one. The test of endurance soon came. McClellan, with his magnificent staff, approached the President, who joined them, and away they ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... 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 presently appeared, and, dispensing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... go to the Tennessee Shad's nag, which had that superiority which one sacrificial horse in a Spanish bullfight ring has over another, Dennis de Brian de Boru suddenly produced the remnants of a bag of cream puffs and, by means of three well-directed, squashing shots on the rear quarters of his coal-black steed, plunged ahead and won the road, ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... down the well, then tipping the water out into gutters of mud to irrigate. They do it pretty much the same way up the Nile. The cottages have low mud walls, and are thatched with dried palm leaves and scraps of corrugated iron, and the naked children, with their coal-black mops of hair, play about in the dust with the hens, and seem to have a good time. They are chubby and jolly, and don't quarrel so much, or speak so harshly as school board children in our Bonnie Lowlands. Here and there are quaint little temples, stone built, under the palms between the ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... 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 ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... 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 ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... everything about him denotes symmetry and strength. His limbs are almost straight, and their muscles are as hard as iron. The elasticity of his movements, when in the least excited, shows a high degree of physical training. His coal-black eye exhibits an amount of treachery rarely seen elsewhere, proving the truth of the Chinese adage, that "the tongue may deceive, but the eye can never ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... plumed riding-hat. There was a side-saddle and a most elegant bridle; indeed, the whole equipment would not have disgraced Rotten Row. But, the horse! My courage had to be "screwed to the sticking point" before I could mount him. He was a very fine animal—a magnificent coal-black charger sixteen hands high, with a most determined will of his own, not broken for the saddle. Mr. Forrest rode a splendid bay, which seldom went over six consecutive yards of ground without performing some erratic movement. ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... leaves are stirred by the wind. The Rozzolo a vento is an ambitious plant, which grows beyond its strength, snaps short upon its overburdened stalk, and is borne away by any zephyr, however light. Large crops of oats are already cut; and oxen of the Barbary breed, brown and coal-black, are already dragging the simple aboriginal plough over the land. Some of these fine cattle (to whom we are strangers, as they are to us) stood gazing at us in the plain, their white horns glancing in the sun; others, recumbent and ruminating, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... chariot of ebony drawn by two plunging, coal-black horses. A robust Egyptian, who shifted from one foot to the other and talked to his horses continually, drove therein alone. As he approached, the Hebrew woman raised herself so suddenly that one ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... the waxwork figures, arranged about the quaint and impossibly clean houses in their various occupations, but having the air of "tableaux morts" rather than of "tableaux vivants." The best group was al fresco, representing half-naked gipsy-like creatures with coal-black hair squatting outside tents and mud-houses, the women smoking pipes. And this exhibition of unrealities brings me on to the most original feature of the Exhibition, which seems to have escaped all the reporters—to wit, the ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... feature in their faces. Their hair is black, short, and curled like that of the negroes; and not long and lank like the common Indians. The colour of their skins, both of their faces and the rest of their body, is coal-black like that of the negroes of Guinea. They have no sort of clothes but a piece of the rind of a tree tied like a girdle about their waists, and a handful of long grass, or three or four small green boughs full of ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... General, the mysterious, invincible General, of whom men tell such romantic tales?" And the army would march in, and the guns would rattle and leap along the village street, and, last of all, you—you, the General, the fabled hero—you would enter, on your coal-black charger, your pale set face seamed by an interesting sabre-cut. And then—but every boy has rehearsed this familiar piece a score of times. You are magnanimous, in fine—that goes without saying; you have a coal-black horse, and a sabre-cut, and you ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... the average of his subjects, being quite five feet ten in height, and is strongly built: his face is of a broad, massive type, he has a low, square forehead, large dark eyes, a short straight nose with dilated nostrils, and a coal-black beard and mustache; while an enormous mouth, with irregular but white teeth, and a chin somewhat concealed by his beard, and not at all in character with the otherwise determined appearance of his face, must complete ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... after the departing insect, till it is lost in the evening sky! Wind and sunshine have slightly tanned her delicate cheeks, but their roses are only heightened into the glow of perfect health. Beneath her high and polished brow, coal-black eyes shine through long and silken fringes, while a chiselled mouth discloses rows of faultless pearls between lips which shame the coral! Her stately head is framed in masses of long, curling hair; and, ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... tell how fast I ran; how feverishly I haled poor Rosinante out of sleep, and pushed her down into the deeps of that coal-black stream; with what agility ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... in size," said he, pointing to the lads. "Let us see which can bear off the palm for strength." He called out a few words in Spanish to the young mulatto, who raised his dark head—curled over with shiny rings of coal-black hair—and showed a gleaming row of white teeth as he turned his smiling ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... for Chad when he came out on the porch, and she shook her curls and flashed her eyes in a way that almost alarmed him. Old Mammy dropped him a curtsey, for she had had her orders, and, behind her, Snowball, now a tall, fine-looking coal-black youth, grinned a welcome. The three girls were walking under the trees, with their arms mysteriously twined about one anther's waists, and the poetess walked down toward them with the three lads, Richard Hunt following. Chad ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... of riding side by side, were strung along in a line, with the leader several paces in advance and mounted on a rather large horse of a coal-black color. Directly behind him came one upon a bay, while a little further back rode another on a white steed. There could be no question that they were on their way to ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... was coal-black when he gaed awa'— Oh, Randal's cheeks were roses red when he gaed awa', And in his bonnie e'e, a spark glintit high, Like the merrie, merrie look ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... when one was commending an Eminent and Learned Divine, what occasion in the World had I to say, Methinks he would look more Venerable if he were not so fair a man? I remember the Company smiled. I have seen the Gentleman since, and he is Coal-Black. I have Intimations every Day in my Life that no Body believes me, yet I am never the better. I was saying something the other Day to an old Friend at Will's Coffee-house, and he made me no manner of Answer; but told me, that an Acquaintance ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... with long yellow hair, glittering green eyes, round, tumid, rosy cheeks, and flowing beard. Foremost among the Spanish grandees, and close to Philip, stood the famous favorite, Ruy Gomez, or, as he was familiarly called, "Re y Gomez" (King and Gomez)—a man of meridional aspect, with coal-black hair and beard, gleaming eyes, a face pallid with intense application, and slender but handsome figure; while in immediate attendance upon the Emperor was the immortal Prince ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... sho is lookin' stylish and pretty since she come back with her white folks from up North. Wearin' the swellest clothes. And that coal-black hair of hers ...
— The Mule-Bone: - A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts • Zora Hurston and Langston Hughes
... furnished 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 out ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Some even 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 upon each of the three youths ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... come the middle of March, We was building flats near the Marble Arch, When a thin young man with coal-black hair Came up to watch us ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... boat presented itself before they were hastened out of the exit of the tunnel, their situation would be just as bad as ever. Ramon would, of course, lose no time in following them up, either by a spare boat, which he might have had concealed in the vaulted chamber, or else on his fast, coal-black horse which he might ride across the rocky range, far ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... chose a bird that closely resembled the one belonging to his sister. The bird with its beautiful yellow plumage, its clear, brilliant, coal-black eyes, afforded Albert much pleasure. Soon the bird became tame, flew upon Albert's outstretched finger and ate ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... sheriff's office, not more than thirty or forty feet distant, she saw a tall, well-built man standing beside the hitching rail that fringed the board sidewalk. He had evidently just dismounted, and he was standing at the head of a big, coal-black horse. He was in the act of hitching the animal, and his back was ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... 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, ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... a pure race, and even among the few I came across variations so considerable occurred as to puzzle one in tracing their origin. They invariably possess luxuriant coal-black hair, which never attains more than a moderate length. It is not coarse in texture, but is usually so dirty that it appears coarser than it really is. They have very little hair on their bodies except in the arm-pits, and their moustaches and beards ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... cloven hoof; The small square windows are full in view Which the midnight hags went sailing through, On their well-trained broomsticks mounted high, Seen like shadows against the sky; Crossing the track of owls and bats, Hugging before them their coal-black cats. ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... 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 flash'd into the crystal mirror, 'Tirra lirra,' by the river Sang ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... troops under arms for the first time—the most of the organization of colored soldiers having been, done since our capture. It was startling at first to see a stalwart, coal-black negro stalking along with a Sergeant's chevrons on his arm, or to gaze on a regimental line of dusky faces on dress parade, but we soon got used to it. The first strong peculiarity of the negro soldier that impressed ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... Canadian," said Bounce; "a little chap, with a red nose an' a pair o' coal-black eyes, but as bold ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne |
