"Comely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... accepting of his terms, after the time was over, he made the wedding-feast; and when it was night, without Jacob's perceiving it, he put his other daughter into bed to him, who was both elder than Rachel, and of no comely countenance: Jacob lay with her that night, as being both in drink and in the dark. However, when it was day, he knew what had been done to him; and he reproached Laban for his unfair proceeding with him; who asked pardon for that necessity which forced him ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... the curate, "hath set a comely example of continence to her subjects, and will doubtless do justice on this inhospitable robber. But wert thou not better apply to the Earl of Leicester, in the first place, for justice on his servant? If he grants it, thou dost ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... but not very brightly, save at the upper end; but amidmost a flickering heap of logs sent a thin line of blue smoke up to the luffer. There were some sixty folk in the hall, scattered about the end-long tables, a good few of whom were women, well grown and comely enough, so far as could be seen under the scanty candle-light. At the high-table, withal, were sitting both men and women, and as they drew near to the greater light of it, there could be seen in the chief seat a man, past ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... hyperbolical admiration. He knew perfectly the type of woman with whom he had to deal. "Ah, it is den you, fair maid? You be fair widout dem, but much fairer wid de ear-rings, I you assure. Ah, if you had but a comely ouche at your t'roat, just dere,"—and Ivo laid a fat brown finger at the base of his own—"your beauty would be ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... cald Concoctioen, A careful man, and full of comely guise; The kitchen-clerk, that hight Digestion, Did order all the achates in ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... has been no more than mentioned. He was a comely, intelligent, active, energetic man; a very good specimen of a typical Yankee who has enjoyed the advantages of education and society. He had plenty of common sense, acute business faculties, and genial manners; and so was generally a popular man among his compeers. His inherited family property ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... a temporary platform in the center of the group. He looks around upon the swarthy faces, glowing with all the eagerness which the stolid Indian nature will permit them to display. It is not always the tallest nor the most comely men who are selected. The unerring judgment of the scout, trained in Indian warfare, tells him who may be relied upon and who are untrustworthy. A face arrests his attention—with a motion of his hand he indicates the brave whom he has selected; another ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... down on the crumbling tower of Roland and the convent of Nonnenwerth—the unfortunate Gebhard had sustained a conclusive defeat. A small, melancholy man, accomplished, religious, learned, "very poor but very wise," comely, but of mean stature, altogether an unlucky and forlorn individual, he was not, after all, in very much inferior plight to that in which his rival, the Bavarian bishop, had found himself. Prince Ernest, archbishop of Liege ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... back and gazed at his wife as connoisseurs are wont to do when examining a picture. And truly Nuna's countenance was a picture-round, fat, comely, oily, also open-mouthed and eyed, with unbounded astonishment depicted thereon; for she thoroughly believed her husband, knowing that he was upright and never ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... a hale, comely, well-favoured race, notwithstanding the assertion of the author of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 536, Saturday, March 3, 1832. • Various
... Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth they at once assigned a Lord's Day meeting-place for the Separatist church,—"a timber fort both strong and comely, with flat roof and battlements;" and to this fort, every Sunday, the men and women walked reverently, three in a row, and in it they worshipped until they built for themselves a meeting-house ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... friars, who had a rich howf in the town, seeing that my grandfather was a shrewd and sharp child, of a comely complexion, and possessing a studious observance, were fain to wile him into their power; but he was happily preserved from all their snares and devices in a manner that shows how wonderfully the Lord worketh out the purposes of His will, by ways and means of which no ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... she could never be got to own. But if there came a woman with even a semblance of beauty to Castlewood, she was so sure to find out some wrong in her, that my lord, laughing in his jolly way, would often joke with her concerning her foible. Comely servant-maids might come for hire, but none were taken at Castlewood. The housekeeper was old; my lady's own waiting-woman squinted, and was marked with the small-pox; the housemaids and scullion were ordinary country wenches, to whom Lady Castlewood was kind, as her nature made ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... whither are scatter'd the wits that were famous aforetime, Not with the Trojans alone, but afar in the lands of the stranger? Wo to me! thou to adventure, alone, to the ships of Achaia, Into the sight of the man by whose fierceness thy sons have been murder'd, Many, and comely, and brave! Of a surety thy heart is of iron; For if he holds thee but once, and his eyes have been fasten'd upon thee, Bloody and faithless is he, hope thou neither pity nor worship. Him that is taken away let us mourn for him here in our dwelling, Since we can see him no more; the immoveable ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... now is, made most desperate love to her who is now my Wife, d'ye mind me?—but you, being a Man of an exact Judgment, to her great grief, gave her to me, who best deserv'd her, both for my civil Behaviour, and comely Personage, d'ye understand me? but now this Carlos, by his Father's death, being made Governor, d'ye see? is to marry me your other daughter Clara, and to exasperate me, wou'd never let me be ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... sense of "foreign devil" to human and superhuman adversaries of certain monarchs. Some of the supernatural beings resemble our elves and fairies and the Indian Rakshasas. Occasionally they appear in comely human guise; at other times they are vaguely monstrous. The best known of this class is Lilith, who, according to Hebrew tradition, preserved in the Talmud, was the demon lover of Adam. She has been ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... I knew you!" exclaimed the old woman. "God greet you!" She held out her hand to Amrei, and said: "You have grown to be a strong, comely girl. Now tell me what ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... by come a few tears, with a struggle at first, then more easily. Kind darkness lets us think of Salome bright and comely as in the old days, with the added grace of inward beauty wrought by sad experience. But, in truth, she is marred past earthly recovery. Nothing removes a soul so far from human sympathy as self-repression,—especially for ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... with cushions, appeared at the edge of the wharf. Landless, standing in the bow below her, relieved her of her burdens, and taking her by the hands, swung her down into the boat. She thanked him with a smile that showed every tooth in her comely brown countenance, and tripped aft, where, with the assistance of Regulus, she proceeded to arrange a cushioned ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... am the colour of copper, I am comely. I am well-bred also; there is no higher blood than ours in Zululand, both on my father's and my mother's side, and, Macumazahn, I have a fire in me that shows me things. I can be great, and I long for greatness. Take me to wife, Macumazahn, ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... difficulty the master found the house. There was a man and woman sitting in the shade on the stoop. Reading the letter he was asked to sit down. The master described the man as short and thin and well up in years, but wiry and active. His wife was comely for her years, with a placid expression. In reply to his first question, the master addressed him as Sir. 'Use not that word again; all men are equal before God; use not the vain distinctions by which so ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... to the nymph Egeria, to live there, unknown and solitary, under the name of Virbius, in the depth of the Italian forest. There he reigned a king, and there he dedicated a precinct to Diana. He had a comely son, Virbius, who, undaunted by his father's fate, drove a team of fiery steeds to join the Latins in the war against Aeneas and the Trojans. Virbius was worshipped as a god not only at Nemi but elsewhere; for in Campania ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... the excellency of the understanding then, by the glorious remainders of it now: and guess at the stateliness of the building by the magnificence of its ruins.... And certainly that must needs have been very glorious, the decays of which are so admirable. He that is comely when old and decrepit, surely was very beautiful when he was young! An Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam; and Athens but ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... big tramp steamer,' we were consoled by the thought that we were only going through the mill as others had done before us. When the painting was finished we had the satisfaction of knowing that our barque was not the least comely of the many tall ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... a while, I think," she said again. "You are too comely and I like you," and she smiled at him. There was nothing coarse in the smile, indeed it had a certain spiritual quality which thrilled him. "I like you," she went on in her dreamy voice, "I would keep you with me until your spirit is drawn up into my ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... the door by the comely looking grey-haired woman who had played the part of nurse, and she drew back, smiling, to show them into a cheerful sitting room, well-furnished, with a canary on one side of the window and a particularly sage-looking starling in a wicker ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... heart that her daughters might not need the strong arm of the male to defend them. She thought as she surveyed them while they awaited the arrival of the fly that no mother had ever possessed such treasures to guard. Bessie was always especially comely in evening dress. Her plump, clearly pale cheeks were now pink with excitement. Her white skin against the black ribbon round her throat and threaded through the lace over her ample young bosom ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... compelled the Bear and the Snake to bring the two young women back. The one the Bear had married had grown very fat and coarse, like her master. "What have you done to make this girl so fat?" demanded Naye{COMBINING BREVE}nayezgani in anger. "You must give her medicine to make her comely again." So the Bear sang songs and made medicine until the girl was herself again. Then came the Snake with the girl he had stolen. She had become thin, like her master. "What have you done to make this girl so thin?" cried Naye{COMBINING ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... there; none were left in the castle save a few of the elder serving-maids, and the old porter, who was lame. About midday, however, it seemed that one had been left; for Paul, now a tall man, strongly built and comely, yet with a somewhat dreamful air, as though he pondered difficult things within himself, and a troubled brow, under which looked out large and gentle eyes, came with a quick step down a stairway. He turned neither to right nor left, but passed through the porter's lodge. Here ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... and could sooner forgive an Injury, than do one. She had Wit, Honour, Good-Humour, and Judgment. She was Mistress of all the pleasing Arts of Conversation, but us'd 'em not to any but those who love Plain-dealing.' So she comes before us. A graceful, comely woman,[53] merry and buxom, with brown hair and bright eyes, candid, sincere, a brilliant conversationalist in days when conversation was no mere slipshod gabble of slang but cut and thrust of poignant epigram and repartee; warm-hearted, perhaps too warm-hearted, and ready to lend a helping ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... their canoes their wives and children, cooking-pots, and sleeping-mats. When they reach a good game district, they erect temporary huts on the bank, and there dry the meat they have killed. They are rather a comely-looking race, with very black smooth skins, and never disfigure themselves with the frightful ornaments of some of the other tribes. The chief declined to sell a harpoon, because they could not now get the milola bark from the coast on account ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... by many as no very wonderful effort. But he was a man who was pleasant to other men,—not combative, not self-asserting beyond the point at which self-assertion ceases to be a necessity of manliness. Nature had been very good to him, making him comely inside and out,—and with this comeliness he ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... Deborah's beauty and Andrew's love for her, were revealed to me one day when, with Deborah's master, his lumbering sons and comely daughters, and my chum Fred Harcourt, an artist from "across the water," we were cutting some early grass in May, just before the full bloom of the gorse had begun to fade from the hillsides and from the tops of the hedges where it ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... the women of a family that give the tone and place to it. One glance at his aunt and cousins satisfied Julius. Mrs. Sandal was stately and comely, and had the quiet manners of a high-bred woman. Sophia, in white mull, with a large hat covered with white drooping feathers, and a glimmer of gold at her throat and wrists, was at least picturesque. Of Charlotte, he saw nothing in the first moments ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... rescuer was requested to meet a girl at the corner of Stockton and Jackson streets. She did so. K—— Y—— was comely and refined looking. She had been sold into a brothel at a tender age. When about 22 she met a young Chinese man who wished to marry her, and he paid down $600 for her, promising $1,400 more in time. Another man objected to the sale, because the girl had mortgaged herself ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... all was Giulietta, her blue-black hair recently braided and polished to a glossy radiance, and all her costume arranged to show her comely proportions to the best advantage,—her great pearl ear-rings shaking as she tossed her head, and showing the flash of the emerald in the middle of them. An Italian peasant-woman may trust Providence for her gown, but ear-rings she attends to herself,—for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... shortly afterwards, the king married Hiordis, the young Sigurd, as he was named, was brought up at the palace, with all care and love, as the king's foster-son. Tall and straight did he grow, and very comely of countenance; and there was no man ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... put in the Count, with a solemn shake of his head. And then, before another word was uttered, young Fanfulla degli Arcipreti leapt of a sudden to his feet, his brows knit, and an expression of alarm spreading upon his comely face. A second he remained thus; then, going swiftly to the door, he opened it, and stood listening, followed by the surprised glances of the assembled company. But it needed not the warning cry with which he turned, to afford them the explanation of his odd behaviour. ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... grant the lady, but as to her being "priceless," I should think for my own poor particular, that when I bartered my liberty for a comely bedfellow, I was paying full value for my goods, besides a swinging overcharge for ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... securing the gun, and keeping the old fellow from doing mischief; at the very suggestion of which, the self-important man with the cocked hat retired with some precipitation. At this critical moment a fresh, comely woman pressed through the throng to get a peep at the gray-bearded man. She had a chubby child in her arms, which, frightened at his looks, began to cry. "Hush, Rip," cried she, "hush, you little fool; the old man won't hurt you." ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... comely. Nature gave him a royal body, nobly planned and proportioned, and noted for its great strength. There was that in his countenance, which bespoke a mind within to match that body, a mind of uncommon native intelligence, ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... deceive me by attributing all your joyousness of heart to the dawn? Your thoughts have been wandering all this while upon one who hath, I will engage, a pair of sloe-black eyes, an olive skin, and yet withal a clear one—'black, yet comely, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon'—a mesh of jetty hair, that hath entangled you in its network—ripe lips, and a cunning tongue—one of the plagues of ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... returned Mrs. Mayne, hastily. She was a stout, comely-looking woman, but beside Mrs. Challoner she looked like a housekeeper dressed in her mistress's smart clothes. Mrs. Mayne's dresses never seemed to belong to her; it could not be said that they fitted her ill, but there was a want of adaptability,—a lack of taste that failed to ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... blow As over leagues of myrtle-blooms and may; Bevies of spring clouds trooping slow, Like matrons heavy-bosomed and aglow With the mild and placid pride of increase! Nay, What makes this insolent and comely stream Of appetence, this freshet of desire (Milk from the wild breasts of the wilful Day!), Down Piccadilly dance and murmur and gleam In genial wave on wave and gyre on gyre? Why does that nymph unparalleled splash and churn The ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley
... goldsmith loved the city at once and, encouraged by the business activity of the place, he made it his permanent abode. He found employment with Hieronymus Holper, and soon married his master's comely daughter, Barbara. They resided in a little house which was a sort of appendage to the great house of Pirkheimer. A few months after a much longed for son came to bless the Pirkheimers, a little ...
— Great Artists, Vol 1. - Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer • Jennie Ellis Keysor
... assent: 'Yes. The convict,' and I, far from indulging in a reminiscent excursion into the past, remained sufficiently in the present to muse in a vague, absent-minded way on the respectable proportions and on the (upon the whole) comely shape of his great pedestrian's calves, for he had thrown one leg over his knee, carelessly, to conceal the trouble of his mind by an air of ease. But all the same the knowledge was in me, the awakened resonance of which I spoke just now; I was aware of it on that beautiful day, so fresh, so warm ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... people. So she went and fetched out white raiment and laid it down before him. And then he commanded them to put it on. It was fine linen, white and clean. Now, therefore, they began to esteem each other better than themselves. For, You are fairer than I am, said one; and, You are more comely than I am, said another. The children also stood amazed to see into what fashion they had been brought. William Law—I thank God, I think, every day I live for that good day to me on which He introduced me to His gifted and saintly servant—well, ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... carried out his purpose, why or wherefore I neither knew nor cared, and in that niche some Magnifico that was kindly minded to the people had set up a stone image, a relic of the old beautiful pagan days, that had been unearthed in some garden of his elsewhere. It was the figure of a very comely youth that was clothed in a Grecian tunic, and because, when it was first dug up, it showed some traces of color on the tunic and the naked legs and arms and the face and the hair, therefore one of the artificers of the ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... has. I think it was Gilbert Haven, a Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, a man for whose tombstone I do not think America has any marble too white or any laurel too green, who saw on his travels a statue of Cleopatra, which suggested to him this thought, 'I am black, but comely, the sun has looked down upon me, but I will make you who despise me feel that I am your superior,' and, Annette, I want you to be so noble, true and pure that if everybody should hate you, that no one could despise you. No, Annette, if Miss Joseph ever attempts to quarrel ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... Minna! They would like me to think that you are there, in that comely, stout woman, shouting at the top of her voice, and boring me to death. But I know that it is not so. Come away, Minna. What have we to do ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... from beside the Queen, and looketh before him and seeth a youth tall and strong and comely and young, that was hight Chaus, and he was the son ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... true in terms and yet a libel, a misogynistic masterpiece. Her forehead was perhaps too high, but it became her; her figure somewhat stooped, but every detail was formed and finished like a gem; her hand, her foot, her ear, the set of her comely head, were all dainty and accordant; if she was not beautiful, she was vivid, changeful, coloured, and pretty with a thousand various prettinesses; and her eyes, if they indeed rolled too consciously, yet rolled to purpose. They were her most attractive feature, yet they continually ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... yesterday three kiple chined, by the grease of God, in the holy bands of mattermoney, and I now subscrive myself Loyd at your sarvice. — All the parish allowed that young 'squire Dallison and his bride was a comely pear for to see. — As for madam Lashtniheygo, you nose her picklearities — her head, to be sure, was fintastical; and her spouse had rapt her with a long marokin furze cloak from the land of the selvidges, thof they say it is of immense bally. — The captain himself had a huge hassock of air, ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... asked for more; and being told they had no cow, he lingered five minutes on the doorstone with his sooty pail in his hand, putting idle questions about the way and distance to the mother while he refreshed himself with the sight of a well-dressed and comely-looking young ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... sister mine, an thou incline not unto sleep, prithee tell us a tale which shall beguile our watching through the dark hours." She replied:—With love and gladness.[FN259] It hath reached me, O magnificent King, that whilome there was in the city of Baghdad, a comely youth and a well bred, fair of favour, tall of stature, and slender of shape. His name was Ala al-Din and he was of the chiefs of the sons of the merchants and had a shop wherein he sold and bought. One day, as he sat in his shop, there passed by him a merry girl[FN260] who raised ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... the low, rich pastures, thick with hedgerow elms, to Lechlade, another pretty town with an infinite variety of habitations. Here again is a fine ancient church with a comely spire, "a pretty pyramis of stone," as the old Itinerary says, overlooking a charming gabled house, among walled and terraced gardens, with stone balls on the corner-posts and a quaint pavilion, the river running below; and so on to a bridge over the yet slender Thames, where ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the Roman people to his (Declan's) sanctity of life and nobility of blood. He (Declan) therefore received marks of honour and sincere affection from the people and clergy of Rome when they came to understand how worthy he was, for he was comely, of good appearance, humble in act, sweet in speech, prudent in counsel, frank in conversation, virtuous in mien, generous in gifts, holy in life ...
— The Life of St. Declan of Ardmore • Anonymous
... some mysterious way; and round about her on the road stood three others, of whom the two younger were almost absolutely naked. The eldest of the five was not above seven. They all had the same wild black eyes, and wild elfish straggling locks; but neither the mother nor the children were comely. She was short ad broad in the shoulders, though wretchedly thin; her bare legs seemed to be of nearly the same thickness up to the knee, and the naked limbs of the children were like yellow sticks. It is strange how various are the kinds of physical development among ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... stranger comes to view, Though he's black, {121} he's comely too Comes to join the choirs ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... 'Haue thou here, King Arthure, haue thou heere of mee; Give itt to thy comely queene, shapen ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... and to the village where the old woman lived. She was sent for and the old black mammy and the beautiful young girl faced each other. The young lady was disappointed. She expected to see a nice, comely old woman, but there she stod, crippled with rheumatism, gray headed, wrinkled, and poorly clad. The old woman was surprised, for there before her stood a beautiful young woman, with rosy cheeks, blue eyes, auburn locks ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... practically a day or two longer. Tired as I was of the sluttish land, the clean sea had an inviting look. Dusty car and ringing rail wore no Circean graces, when the long-haired mermaid, decked in robes of comely green, looked out from her bower beneath the waves, and beckoned me to come. What more welcome than her sea-green home? What sight finer than the myriad diamond-sparkles in her eye? What sound sweeter than the murmurs of her soothing, never-ceasing voice? What perfume ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... I have no doubt, was an angel of God, that led the brother forth, that he might be about his Father's business. So I prayed the more earnestly. But when our other brother rose, I looked up; and I saw that he had been plucked by the sleeve by a little naked, comely boy, very swarthy of hue, that I saw had no business among our holy prayers; he wore a mocking smile on his face, as though he prevailed in evil. So I rose and followed; and just as they came to the door, I aimed a shrewd blow, for it was told me ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... her blue clay, and you could mark that she chuckled. These peculiarities were strange and unpleasing; but another was alleged, one really incomprehensible. In company she had a strange way of touching, as by accident, the arm or hand of comely young men, and seemed to reap a secret delight from it, but whether from the humane satisfaction of having given the evil-touch, as it is called, or whether it was something else in her, not equally wonderful, but quite as deplorable, remained ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... our old friend Laurie, but comely and genial as ever; for time had ripened the freakish boy into a noble man. Care and sorrow, as well as ease and happiness, had done much for him; and the responsibility of carrying out his grandfather's wishes had been a duty most faithfully performed. Prosperity ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... House of Lords. My Lord Monk rode bare after the King, and led in his hand a spare horse, as being Master of the Horse. The King, in a most rich embroidered suit and cloak, looked most noble. Wadlow the vintner, at the Devil, in Fleet-street, did lead a fine company of soldiers, all young comely men, in white doublets. There followed the Vice- Chamberlain, Sir G. Carteret, a Company of men all like Turkes; but I know not yet what they are for. The streets all gravelled, and the houses hung with carpets before them, made ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... careless livers on this very soil; among them all he knew of not one who had gone without the smallest of his desires, nor of one who had permitted his left hand to learn what his right one cast away. Big, blithe, mettlesome, they passed before him in a long, comely line, flushed with the pleasant follies which had helped to sap the ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... up in Burgundy a noble maiden, in no land was a fairer. Kriemhild was her name. Well favoured was the damsel, and by reason of her died many warriors. Doughty knights in plenty wooed her, as was meet, for of her body she was exceeding comely, and her virtues were an adornment ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... speaking to his wife, a blond comely woman in a fan-shaped cap (I am afraid to think how long it is since fan-shaped caps were worn, they must be so near coming in again. At that time, when Mrs. Tulliver was nearly forty, they were new at St. ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... and fairly easy flight of steps enables you to descend. Pierre fortunately found there some French Trappists, who guard these catacombs and show them to strangers. One brother was on the point of going down with two French ladies, the mother and daughter, the former still comely and the other radiant with youth. They stood there smiling, though already slightly frightened, while the monk lighted some long, slim candles. He was a man with a bossy brow, the large, massive jaw of an obstinate believer and pale ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... look round at you with a conscious anxiety which seems to say that, though in the picture, they are not of it, but of your own sentient life of commingled love and weariness; the stately apostles, with comely heads and harmonious draperies, who gaze up at the high- seated Virgin like early astronomers at a newly seen star—there comes to you the brush of the dark wing of an inward life. A shadow falls for the moment, and in it you feel the chill ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... exquisite, handsome, beauteous, comely, fair, lovely, bewitching, delightful, fine, picturesque, bonny, elegant, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... and as well attended to as the brighter clothes of happy days. She lost her colour, and the old and intent expression was a constant, not an occasional, thing; otherwise, she remained very pretty and comely. Sometimes, at night on kissing her father, she would burst into the grief she had repressed all day, and would say that her sole reliance, under Heaven, was on him. He always resolutely answered: "Nothing can ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... was nothing like! the slim, dimpled girl who had stood on the porch steps and watched her husband drive away that morning fifteen years ago. She was stout and comely; the auburn hair was darker and arched away from her face in smooth, shining waves instead of the old-time curls. Her face was unlined and fresh-coloured, but no woman could live in subjection to her own unbending ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... was well selected, convention was waived, and ladies were present. Hermione sat on a wide chair beside Lysistra, her comely mother; her younger brothers on stools at either hand. Directly across the narrow table Glaucon and Democrates reclined on the same couch. The eyes of husband and wife seldom left each other; their tongues flew fast; they ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... cried at the sight of a poor man, till something was given him to bestow on the object of his compassion. In his childhood he gave to the poor whatever he received for his own use. He was exceeding comely and beautiful; but innocence and virtue were his greatest ornaments. It was his pious custom to give a very large alms to the first poor man he met every morning, without being asked. He rose at midnight, and assisted at matins in the church, as then ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... they had run away, and were going to Poker Flat to be married, and here they were. And they were tired out, and how lucky it was they had found a place to camp, and company. All this the Innocent delivered rapidly, while Piney, a stout, comely damsel of fifteen, emerged from behind the pine-tree, where she had been blushing unseen, and rode to the side of ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary; (23)and those which we think to be less honorable parts of the body, on these we bestow more abundant honor; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness. (24)And our comely parts have no need; but God attempered the body together, giving more abundant honor to that which lacked; (25)that there may be no division in the body, but that the members should have the same care one for another. (26)And whether one ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... a shout of greeting everywhere. The hostlers ran to walk the horses till they cooled, and to rub them down before they fed, for they were all afoam. Master Davenant himself saw to the storing of the wains; and Mistress Davenant, a comely dame, with smooth brown hair and ruddy cheeks, and no less wit than sprightly grace, was in the porch to meet the company. "Well, good Dame Clout," said she, "art home again? What tales we'll have! Didst see ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... But Melissa, that comely and comfortable person, remained practical even when most loving. The grandeur of Red Hoss' dress-up clothes may have entranced her, and certainly his conversational brilliancy was altogether in his favor, but beyond the glamour of the ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... says of him: 'Dr. Smith was rather above the middling stature, straight, and well proportioned. His head was well formed, though blanched and bald somewhat in advance of his years. His face, too, as to its lineaments, was very regular and comely. His eyes were of a light-blue color, ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... occasion to speak to you, Rose Budd, in the same way," was the solemn answer. "I do not flatter myself that I ever was as comely as you, or that yonder poor dying wretch was a Harry Mulford in his youth; but we were young and happy, and respected once, and loved each other; yet you see ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... angle which led to the gate giving admittance to the gardens of Wyndfell Hall, she suddenly met Helen Brabazon face to face, and for one wild moment Blanche thought that Helen knew. The girl's usually placid, comely face was disfigured. It was plain that she had ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... parliamentary, returning one member. The place long ago obtained the appellation "beautiful." Leland says, "because of its present site men first began to resort there;" adding, "the towne itself of Bewdley is sett on the side of a hille, so comely that a man cannot wishe to see a towne better. It riseth from Severne banke by east, upon the hille by west, so that a man standing on the hille trans-pontem by east may discern almoste every house in the towne; and att the rising of the sun from ...
— Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway - Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from - Worcester to Shrewsbury • J. Randall
... given, 'he was again reduced to poverty. The brave man by this unavoidable mischance came, by degrees, so low that he had to give-up his house in the Market-Place, and in the end to dwell in a poor hut, as Porter at one of the Toll-Gates of Marbach. Elisabetha was a comely girl to look upon; slender, well-formed, without quite being tall; the neck long, hair high-blond, almost red, brow broad, eyes as if a little sorish, face covered with freckles; but with all these features enlivened by a soft expression ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... morosely. Indeed, though this is not strictly relevant to the discussion, my wife informed me after Josie's party was over that I had behaved like an angel. Now, my sister-in-law, Julia, is still unmarried, and she cannot be far from thirty. As I reflected at the time she came out, she is less comely than my wife and not so sagacious, but she is decidedly an attractive girl. She has had every advantage in the line of social entertainments, and every opportunity to meet available young men. She has waltzed all winter and ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... she lifted her veil of ceremony, and the soft earnestness of her voice, fell into reflection. "Black lady" indeed! What, I wondered, would this young gentleman think if ever he should live to set his eyes upon her sweet and comely face? ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... a modest grace which perhaps would not have marked them if it had depended upon Lydia alone. In this respect, as in many others, Thyrza had repaid her sister's devotion with subtle influences tending to a comely life. ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... Norwich. He was[36] "a lover of hospitality, keeping a very free house, and having always a numerous family, yet was so careful of posterity that he left a fair estate to his heirs." He was buried in the north transept. "Over his body was erected a very comely monument of long quadrangular form, having four corner pilasters supporting a fair table of black marble, and, within, the pourtraiture of the bishop lying in his Episcopal habit." This was destroyed in 1643. There ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... living consists in having a mansion exquisitely fitted up with all the expensive bijouterie compatible with true elegance, yet avoiding the lavish superabundance of gimcrackery which borders on vulgarity; comely serving men in suitable liveries, all so well initiated into the mysteries of their respective duties, that a guest could imagine himself in a fairy palace, where plates vanish without the contamination of a mortal finger ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... description, as one may tell even from what is seen in the outer court; for the innermost sanctuary is invisible to every being except the high priest." The majesty of the ceremonial within equalled the splendor without. The high priest, in the words of Ben Sira (xlv), "beautified with comely ornament and girded about with a robe of glory," seemed a high priest fit for the whole world. Upon his head the mitre with a crown of gold engraved with holiness, upon his breast the mystic Urim and Thummim and the ephod with its twelve brilliant jewels, upon his tunic golden pomegranates ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... Eustace, in whose breast the brand Of love and pity kindled had the flame, While others softly whispered underhand, Before the duke with comely boldness came: "Brother and lord," quoth he, "too long you stand In your first purpose, yet vouchsafe to frame Your thoughts to ours, and lend this virgin aid: Thanks are half lost ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... to the minster, / and with her many a maid. In such rich apparel / Kriemhild was arrayed, That hearty wishes many / there were made in vain: Her comely form delighted / the eye of many ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... the great stream of time, tumbled about and rubbed one against another. Let us take our rubbing patiently, and give ourselves a chance of getting rid of our unevennesses, and of being brought to a comely shape. Have patience, my friends. The trouble will not continue long. When we have got our proper shape, God will remove us to our proper places in that living temple which He is building in the heavens, and our rubbing will be at an end ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... time went on, my father and the teachers instructed me in the ancient learning of our people, and in such matters appertaining to the Gods as it is meet that children should know. So I grew strong and comely, for my hair was black as the hair of the divine Nout, and my eyes were blue as the blue lotus, and my skin was like the alabaster within the sanctuaries. For now that these glories have passed from ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... exercise, enjoyed proper returns of rest, and was free from violent passions (which you and I know is not the case) she might be a good nurse for her child; but, as matters stand, I do verily think, that the milk of a good comely cow, who feeds quietly in her meadow, never devours ragouts, nor drinks ratifia, nor frets at quadrille, nor sits up till three in the morning, elated with gain, or dejected with loss; I do think, that the milk of such a cow, or of a nurse that came as near ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... feet.' The less comely and inferior parts of that fiery corporeity were veiled lest they should be seen by the Eyes that see all things. The wings made no screen that hid the seraph's feet from the eye of God, but it was the instinctive lowly sense of unworthiness that folded them across the feet, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... king had come to the throne, a grand, and great, and mighty king, Solomon, the most comely of the sons of David. The fierce fightings of David, the man of war, were over. The glittering crown of Israel had been placed upon the head of Solomon the Peaceable; and the people hoped great things, and celebrated his accession with loud and hearty rejoicings. The dominion ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... of the cottages on the mission. Here dwell one of the native teachers, her mother and grandmother. The aged grandmother in her whole appearance bespoke the wild Indian. Gray and bent with age, she loved best to sit on the floor in a corner, after the fashion of her people. The mother, a comely matron of perhaps forty-five, was evidently more cultivated, was lady-like in her appearance, and had lines of thoughtfulness on her thin face. The work of civilization had made great advance in her. But the daughter, ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 38, No. 06, June, 1884 • Various
... the yellow heads were darker than others, some of the cheeks brown instead of rosy, and the ages varied all the way from sixteen-year-old Archie to Jamie, who was ten years younger. None of them were especially comely but the Prince, yet all were hearty, happy-looking lads, and Rose decided that boys were not as dreadful as she had ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott |
