"Swarthy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... extraordinary confidence of the men, in themselves and in their commander. This feeling now exhibited itself either in joyous laughter and the spirit of jesting among the troops, or in an air of utter indifference, as of men sure of the result, and giving it scarcely a thought. The swarthy gunners, still begrimed with powder from the work of the day before, lay down around the cannon in position along the crest, and passed the moments in uttering witticisms, or in slumber; and the lines of infantry, seated or lying, musket ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... remain in their old homes? "We came 'case our men was conscripted," they said. One woman and her daughter of eighteen had each a filthy, ragged bed quilt over her shoulders, and their faces were so swarthy that their eyes and teeth presented as great a contrast as those whose natural skin was of darker hue. As the little boy of four years had no shoes, and I had a pair left that would fit him, I told the mother to wash his feet and try them. "Sal, bring me that cup ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... the Charleston light, "the pale, star-like beacon, set by the guardian civilization on the edges of the great deep." Lying on the shore he watched "the swarthy beauty, Night, enveloped in dark mantle, passing with all her train of starry servitors; even as some queenly mourner, followed by legions of gay and brilliant courtiers, glides slowly and mournfully in sad state and solemnity on a duteous pilgrimage to some holy shrine." ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... strongly from the east were bringing some of the wreckage in an eddy into the bay. He lay closer and watched the spars and splintered poops as they neared him. These were no galleys of the Hellenes. Then came a drowned man, swollen and horrible: then another-swarthy, hooknosed fellows, all yellow with the sea. Atta was puzzled. They must be the men from the East about whom he had been hearing. Long ere he left Lemnos there had been news about the Persians. They were coming like locusts out of the dawn, swarming over Ionia and Thrace, men and ships numerous ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... fifty, with a large, massive head, and a broad pile of forehead, overhanging two piercingly bright black-eyes, and features which would be heavy, were they allowed a moment's repose from the continual play of the facial muscles, sending a never-ending series of varying expressions across the dark, swarthy visage. Two sentences of his conversation were quite sufficient ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... of anarchic hordes, But reasoned kindness, whose benignant code Upon the emblazoned walls of history We carved with our good swords, And crimsoned with our blood. Last, from our eye we plucked the obscuring mote, (Not without tears expelled, and sharpest pain,) From swarthy limbs the galling chain With shock on mighty shock we smote, Whereby with clearer gaze we scan The heaven-writ message that we bear for man. Not ours to give, as erst the Genoese, Of a new world the keys; But of the prison-world ye knew ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... first feeling was one of great surprise—Henry Dornham was so different from what he had expected to find him; he had not thought that he would be fair like Madaline, but he was unprepared for the dark, swarthy, gypsy-like type of the ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... winter live partly on a kind of gruel called yuryu, and badly prepared cheese named skurt. They are hospitable but suspicious, apt to plunder and to the last degree lazy. They have large heads, black hair, eyes narrow and flat, small foreheads, ears always sticking out and a swarthy skin. In general, they are strong and muscular, and able to endure all kinds of labour and privation. They profess Mahommedanism, but know little of its doctrines. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... this was a cartoon of the Good Samaritan, by Dadd, the young artist of promise who went mad and murdered his father, and who is now confined for life in Broadmoor. The picture is now at Bedlam. There was a fine full-length of swarthy Charles II., by Lely, and full-lengths of George III. and Queen Charlotte, after Reynolds. There were also murky portraits of past presidents, including an equestrian portrait of Sir William Withers (1708). Tables of benefactions also adorned the walls. In this hall the governors ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... of men, became aware of a mild interest. These swarthy visitors should prove an agreeable antidote to the poisonous calm of Harry Grantham. She was trying with all the strength of her strange, stifled soul not to think of Grantham, and she was incapable of recognizing the fact that she could think of nothing ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... man whom we had come to see. In spite of the warm weather he was crouching over a fire, and the little room was like an oven. The man sat all twisted and huddled in his chair in a way which gave an indescribably impression of deformity; but the face which he turned towards us, though worn and swarthy, must at some time have been remarkable for its beauty. He looked suspiciously at us now out of yellow-shot, bilious eyes, and, without speaking or rising, he ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... complexion, looked like a sickly little boy. In her bright eyes there was none of the humid softness which lends such charm to children's faces; they seemed, like courtiers' eyes, to be dried by some inner fire; and in her pallor there was a certain swarthy olive tint, the sign of vigorous character. Twice her little brother came to her, holding out a tiny hunting-horn with a touching charm, a winning look, and wistful expression, which would have sent Charlet into ecstasies, but she only scowled in answer to his ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... insignificant man, in appearance; pot-bellied, of a swarthy complexion, but with keenness, cunning, and mockery in his eye; and whose form and figure, as well as his turn of mind, must have made it ridiculous to have quarrelled with him. I therefore waited for some more fortunate opportunity, to repay him in his own coin: for I was as unwilling to ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... years of age, and at his full height, he was hardly so tall as Helen. Swarthy of complexion, his hair dark as the night, his eyes large and lustrous, with what Milton calls "quel sereno fulgor d' amabil nero," his frame nervous and slender, he looked compact ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... door opened at once on a chamber of no describable shape, with a groined roof, which in its turn opened on another chamber of no describable shape, with another groined roof: their windows small, and in the thickness of the walls. These two chambers, close as to their atmosphere, and swarthy as to their illumination by natural light, were the apartments which Mrs. Tope had so long offered to an unappreciative city. Mr. Datchery, however, was more appreciative. He found that if he sat with the main ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... of Bethune," muttered Grimaud; "a man between fifty-five and sixty, tall, strong, swarthy, ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... man, and seemed like an artisan who had been drinking; he was shabbily and scantily dressed; a cloth cap, soaked by the rain and with the brim half torn off, perched on his shaggy, curly head. He looked a thin, vigorous, swarthy man with dark hair; his eyes were large and must have been black, with a hard glitter and a yellow tinge in them, like a gipsy's; that could be divined even in the darkness. He was about forty, and ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... is something fascinating to the average youth in the very idea of buried treasure. A vision arises before his eyes of swarthy Portuguese and Spanish rascals, with black beards and gleaming eyes. There were many famous sea rovers, but none more celebrated than Capt. Kidd. Paul Jones Garry inherits a document which locates a considerable treasure ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... the white of a man's teeth gleamed as he opened his mouth to speak, and closed it again in anger as he realized that the words which came to his lips were words in the white man's tongue. Quickly a man sprang to his feet, and stood with the red glow of the embers playing over his swarthy skin and the spots and streaks of the wet white clay. Another sprang up and leaped away into the darkness, but returned a moment later with a bundle of long, thin, pointed sticks, which he flung to the ground by the fire. They were the spears ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... forest monarchs had fallen from old age, and where they had left a vacancy hazel stubs flourished, springing up gaily, and revelling on the rotten wood and dead leaves which covered the ground, and among which grew patches of nuts and briar, with the dark dewberry and swarthy dwale. ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... ear, and satisfied both imagination and judgment in that first act. Like many people who are much alone, I have the habit of speaking sometimes to myself—a habit I repented of that day, yes, verily I did; for when, at Cyprus, Othello entered and fiercely swept into his swarthy arms the pale loveliness of Desdemona, 'twas like a tiger's spring upon a lamb. The bluff and honest soldier, the English Shakespeare's Othello, was lost in an Italian Othello. Passion choked, his gloating eyes burned with the mere lust of the "sooty Moor" for that white creature of Venice. It was ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... water, while among them little boats and sloops flitted in and out, carrying arms and provisions for the great galleons. The clanking of armourers and hammering of ship-wrights was going on busily, and the swarthy sailors were singing at their toil as they coiled the ropes, polished brasses, and put the finishing touches to the preparations which were being made for the ...
— Stories from English History • Hilda T. Skae
... predicament, the Scottish Highlands afford an example: What a country is that Highland region! What scenery! and what associations! If Wales has its Snowdon and Cader Idris, the Highlands have their Hill of the Water Dogs, and that of the Swarthy Swine: If Wales has a history, so have the Highlands—not indeed so remarkable as that of Wales, but eventful enough: If Wales has had its heroes, its Glendower and Father Pryce, the Highlands have had their Evan Cameron and ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... Albanian kirtled to his knee, With shawl-girt head and ornamented gun, And gold-embroidered garments, fair to see; The crimson-scarfed men of Macedon; The Delhi with his cap of terror on, And crooked glaive—the lively, supple Greek And swarthy Nubia's mutilated son; The bearded Turk that rarely deigns to speak, Master of all around, too potent ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... contention is sought to be made good by the citing of a case of a young, fair-skinned boy, who, taking up with an Indian tribe, and adopting in every particular their mode of life, developed by his seventieth year a complexion as swarthy, and of as distinctively Indian a hue, as that of any pure specimen of ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... dear. My lady Temple made up a party for Temple Bow at the course, two other coaches to come and some gentlemen riding. As Nick and I were running through the paddock we came suddenly upon Mr. Harry Riddle and a stout, swarthy gentleman standing together. The stout gentleman was counting out big gold pieces in his hand and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... The swarthy countenance of the Templar grew darker with a bitter scowl of rage as he listened to these words; but his angry confusion became only more marked as the pilgrim went on to give the names of the English knights who had so distinguished themselves. He paused as ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... awful curse he spoken, Cast out your swarthy sacrilegious train, And give—ere dancing cease and hearts be broken— Give us our ravished ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... got the hungry parson's air!' And all looked up, and took the joke, As I dropped gladly to the ground Among them, where they all lay gazing Upon the bubbling and the blazing. My eyes were dazzled by the fire At first; and then I glanced around; And in those swarthy, fire-lit faces— Though drowsing in the glare and heat And snuffing the warm savour in, Dead-certain of their fill of meat— I felt the bit between the teeth, The flying heels, the broken traces, And ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... mulberry coloured velvet and gold. He not only took off his hat in return to our salutations, but persisted in keeping it so, as if in the presence of the whole people of England. This fairly transported us. The royal features were strong, somewhat grim even, and he had a black brow and a swarthy complexion, reminding us of the southern part of his stock; but there was good temper in the smile of his wide though not unhandsome mouth; and his carriage was eminently that of the gentleman. Lady Castlemain at that time was little more than twenty. The Queen, though short of stature, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... a certain indescribable thing called glamour; which was the whole stock-in-trade of the Brontes, which we feel in Dickens when Quilp clambers amid rotten wood by the desolate river; and even in Thackeray when Esmond with his melancholy eyes wanders like some swarthy crow about the dismal avenues of Castlewood. Of this quality (which some have called, but hastily, the essential of literature) George Eliot had not little but nothing. Her air is bright and intellectually even exciting; but it is like the air of a cloudless day ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner. The ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... the horses midway up the canon. As they rode on again, Waring noticed that Vaca did not thrust his foot clear home in the stirrup, but he attributed this to the other's condition. The Mexican was a sick man. His swarthy face had gone yellow, and he leaned forward, clutching the horn. The heat was stagnant, unwavering. The pace ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... heard behind him the footsteps of a horse following in his track, and a man of middle age, swarthy, robust, dressed like a semi-bourgeois, shouted to him to stop. Germain had never seen the farmer of Ormeaux; but an angry instinct led him to determine at once that it was he. He turned, and, eyeing him from head to foot, waited to hear what he ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... gave the order to fire, and immediately they opened with spherical case-shot, grape and canister, the former thrown with great accuracy into the middle of the fort, while the latter quickly sent some of the swarthy heroes under shelter, and put the greater number to flight. Several of the men in the boats had been hit, which excited the eagerness of the crews to get at the foe. The first thing, however, to be done was to destroy the dhows. As the boats ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... imagine that sumptuous and splendid retinue. Roman soldiers and officials in all the splendour of their accoutrements and mounting; carriages conveying the royal consort, Herodias, Salome, and their ladies; large numbers of native soldiers; swarthy Bedouin and Greek traders; priests and levites, who lived on the smile of the Court; court officials, camp-bearers, a motley following of servants and slaves. In the front of the cavalcade, Herod, on a magnificent steed. The line of march, enlivened by ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... the preacher, who, when describing Jonah's sea-storm, seemed tossed by a storm himself. His deep chest heaved as with a ground-swell; his tossed arms seemed the warring elements at work; and the thunders that rolled away from off his swarthy brow, and the light leaping from his eye, made all his simple hearers look on him with a quick fear that ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... lay at his feet. Meanwhile the showers of dust and ashes, still borne aloft, fell into the wave, and scattered their snows over the deck. Far and wide, borne by the winds, those showers descended upon the remotest climes, startling even the swarthy African; and whirled along the antique soil of Syria and ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... scattered claims round about, and women from the northern forts, whose eyes, strange to dainty things or long starved of them, fed greedily on the smooth skin of the ivory boots and the soft folds of the dress. Shortly after the chaplain's stay, a swarthy Polish woman, shod in buckskin, came on a pilgrimage to the farm-house, and the little girl's mother, eager to show her handiwork, lifted the dress tenderly, but with a flourish, from the pasteboard box ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... for drying cod. The rude inmates of these huts gathered round the company that landed from the English ships; and the captains and officers of the other vessels were there by special summons. A very curious and motley group was that which then stood on the beach of St. John's harbor—swarthy, bronzed sailors and fishermen of Spain, Portugal, and France, in the costumes of the sixteenth century. Soon a circle formed round one commanding figure—a man of noble presence, wearing the richly slashed and laced doublet, velvet cloak, trunk-hose, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... was one of the most remarkable women, whether for character or intellect, that I have ever come across. In appearance she had, what can be best described as, the gipsy look, though she did not believe herself to have gipsy blood. Her complexion was swarthy, her hair was black, and her eyes dark and full of an eager and scintillating brightness which made her face light up and change with every mood of her mind and radiate a vivid intelligence. If anyone who knew her was asked to state the most memorable thing about her, I am sure ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... in the batting order, took a ball and a strike, and then dribbled an easy roller to the box, which the swarthy pitcher had no trouble in ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... raised his hands as if to protest, but before he could speak a shadow fell upon the window, and the figure of a small, swarthy man covered with a steeple-crowned hat advanced up ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... ball in Liverpool, a gentleman who had assumed the swarthy hue of a "nigger," was requested to favour the company with Matthews's song—"Possum up a gum tree."—"Non ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... birds in spring. Now the root fact in all history is Race. Race produces religion; Race produces legal and ethical wars. There is no stronger case than that of the wild, unworldly and perishing stock which we commonly call the Celts, of whom your friends the MacNabs are specimens. Small, swarthy, and of this dreamy and drifting blood, they accept easily the superstitious explanation of any incidents, just as they still accept (you will excuse me for saying) that superstitious explanation of all incidents which you and your Church represent. It is not remarkable that such people, ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... galley reached the coast of Barbary, and the slaves were unchained from the oars and taken ashore. In all his misery Filippo's keen eyes still watched with interest the people around him, and he was never tired of studying the swarthy faces and curious garments of ...
— Knights of Art - Stories of the Italian Painters • Amy Steedman
... the Kelts began to flow over and around the Pyrennees; and also that the physical characteristics of this people are the same as those of their ancient progenitors; small-framed, dark, with a faint suggestion of the Semitic in their swarthy faces. ...
— A Short History of Spain • Mary Platt Parmele
... a pause. The afternoon sun was sinking with southern precipitancy, and Kentish had got his back to it by cool intent. He studied the play of suppressed mortification and strenuous philosophy in the swarthy face warmed by the reddening light; and admired the arduous triumph of judgment over instinct, even as a certain admiration dawned through the monocle which ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... tea, in the vestibule of the reading-room, an eccentric citizen of Arkansas varied the entertainment. A short, thin man, of the cracker type, swarthy, long-bearded, and untidy, he was dressed in well-worn civilian costume, with the exception of an old blue coat showing dim remnants of military garniture. Heeling up to a gentleman who sat near ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... individual, made prisoner before he received the rite of baptism, became a slave. At that period no attempt had yet been made to prove that the blacks were an intermediate race between man and animals. The swarthy Guanche and the African negro were simultaneously sold in the market of Seville, without a question whether slavery should be the doom only of men with ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... an elderly man, with long black hair, swarthy complexion, fine eyes, and a peaked forehead, was admitted, and greeted by her, Mrs. Fairmile, and Dr. Lelius as an old acquaintance. He sat down beside them, was given tea, and presented to Mr. and Mrs. Barnes. Daphne, who knew the famous dealer ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the large table, and who wheeled about in a revolving chair as Tom and Harry entered, was perhaps forty-five years of age. His head was covered with a mass of bushy black hair. His face was as swarthy, in its clean-shaven condition, as though the owner had spent all of his life under a hot sun. His clothing like that of all the rest of the engineers in camp was of khaki, his shirt of blue flannel, with a long, flowing ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... answered, his indolent eyes lighting up in the gloaming. She said nothing, but hung her head. The swarthy lover saw that she took no offence at his declaration. Indeed he gathered from the quivering of her red, moist lips, and from the tenderness in her eye, that the avowal had more than pleased her. She continued for ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... Madonnas. Another was a fine photograph, representing a palace in Venice. Several others portrayed foreign scenes. Among them was a street scene in Rome. An entire family were sitting in different postures on the portico of a fine building, the man with his swarthy features half-concealed under a slouch hat, the woman holding a child in her lap, while another, a boy with large black eyes, leaned his head ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... golden haired Mamma, Auntie Gertie, and Mary, standing before me, as if I had to chose which was most desirable; the last named a swarthy beauty of twenty, with small figure, but a model of gracefulness, seemed indeed to challenge comparison with my two lovely relatives, and much as I longed to possess Mamma, this vision of Mary made a very lasting impression on my mind; beyond them stretching away in the dim perspective ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... swaggering out of the aspens. He was the man I met in Payson and who so kindly had made me take his rifle. I had engaged him also for this hunt. A brawny man he was, with powerful shoulders, swarthy-skinned, and dark-eyed, looking indeed the ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... were captured and sold as slaves, and that was all Thorhall got by worshipping the Red Beard. Karlsefni sailed south and reached a rich country of wild maize, where also was plenty of fish and of game. Here they first met the natives, who came in a fleet of skin-canoes. 'They were swarthy men and ill-looking, and the hair of their heads was ugly. They had great eyes and were ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... road began to descend, by easy grades, from the fair, rolling uplands into a lower and wilder region. When the train stopped, women and children whose swarthy skin and black eyes betrayed a mixture of Tartar blood made their appearance, with wooden bowls of cherries and huckleberries for sale. These bowls were neatly carved and painted. They were evidently held in high value; for I had great difficulty in purchasing one. We moved ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... fierce a blaze of light No nearer he sustain'd. In purple clad, The god a regal emerald throne upheld; Encircled round by hours which space the day; By days themselves; and ages, months, and years. Crown'd with a flowery garland Spring appear'd: Chaplets of grain the swarthy brows adorn'd Of naked Summer: smear'd with trodden grapes Stood Autumn: icy Winter fill'd the groupe;— Snow-white his shaggy locks. Sol from the midst His eyes all-seeing glanc'd upon the youth, Startled ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... cheek's rose from the rain, For teeth and hair with shopmen deal; My swarthy tint is in the grain, The rocks ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... thing, despite its swarthy hue, was most beautifully made; its features bore none of those marks peculiar ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... not need to open his eyes, for he could see mentally vividly enough the swarthy, brown, deeply-lined face, with the keen dark eyes, and the crafty look about the mouth, drawn into an unpleasant smile, while the big earrings seemed to glisten in the ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... of these native settlements in southern Kamchatka are a dark swarthy race, considerably below the average stature of Siberian natives, and are very different in all their characteristics from the wandering tribes of Koraks and Chukchis who live farther north. The men average perhaps five feet three or four inches in height, have broad flat faces, prominent cheek ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... precipices; the tall, thick-walled, narrow-windowed houses, small fortresses in themselves; the shaven monks, who looked terribly hot in their heavy black robes; the slim, dark-eyed Greeks, with their jaunty red caps, and the gaunt, swarthy Moors scowling from under their huge white turbans; the queer little Maltese boats, with high prows and sterns, quaintly carved and painted; the files of donkeys plodding past under big baskets of fruit, with their bare-footed drivers yelling behind ...
— Harper's Young People, May 4, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... to scan the field. Presently they went back and turned their wagons into the siding and began to unhitch. Then a lot of barefooted children, and women under gay shawls, overran the field gathering wood and making ready for night. Meanwhile swarthy drivers took the horses to water and tethered them with long ropes so they could crop the ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... thrust under one arm, though the sky was cloudless: a profusion of raven hair, in waving curls that seemed as fine as silk, escaped from the sides of a straw hat of prodigious brim; a complexion sallow and swarthy, and features which, though not without considerable beauty to the eye of the artist, were not only unlike what we fair, well-fed, neat-faced Englishmen are wont to consider comely, but exceedingly like what we are ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... man born to struggle in obscurity, or with the eyes of all men turned upon him. The strong shoulders, rising above the broad chest, were in keeping with the full development of his whole frame. With his thick crop of black hair, his fleshy, high-colored, swarthy face, supported by a thick neck, he looked at first sight like one of Boileau's canons: but on a second glance there was that in the lines about the thick lips, in the dimple of the chin, in the turn ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... his father be abroad when he is born, and Postumus if he be dead. If one of twins survive, he is named Vopiscus. Of names taken from bodily peculiarities they use not only Sulla (the Pimply), Niger (the Swarthy), Rufus (the Red-haired), but even such as Caecus (the Blind), and Claudus (the Lame), wisely endeavouring to accustom men to consider neither blindness nor any other bodily defect to be any disgrace or matter of reproach, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... poodle. Madelon could afford to be civil to the poodle before company. The contrast between the two girls was sufficiently striking. Cydalise was fair and bright-looking—Mademoiselle Frehlter was square and ungainly of figure, swarthy of ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... upon a Mexican here who had married a Tarahumare woman. His predilection for her tribe was also attested by his dress, which was exactly like that worn by the natives. He had a dark, almost swarthy complexion, but otherwise he did not resemble an Indian. His big; stomach and short arms and legs betrayed his real race, and contrasted strangely with the slender limbs and graceful movements ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... I threaded my way at a snail's pace through the dense crowd of waiting passengers, swarthy-faced sons of Italy, apparently bound for the steerage. The great gray bulk of the Re d'Italia loomed before me, floating proudly at her stern the green, white, and red flag blazoned with ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... Captain Ducie's swarthy cheek deepened its hue. He paused to blow a speck of cigar ash off his sleeve before he spoke. "I did not know your Captain Charles Chillington," he said, in slow, deliberate accents. "Till the present moment I never heard of ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... still on his way to the other world. When he has reached his destination, the fire is suffered to die down on the grave, and his widow or other female relative is free to quit the house and resume her ordinary occupations. Through her long seclusion in the shade her swarthy complexion assumes a lighter tint, but it soon deepens again when she is exposed once more to the ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... country," added Euergetes, "for though I seek to extirpate other foes I would rather win over the priests; and I must try to win them if Philometor's kingdom falls into my hands, for the Egyptians require that their king should be a god; and I cannot arrive at the dignity of a real god, to whom my swarthy subjects will pray with thorough satisfaction, and without making my life a burden to me by continual revolts, unless I am raised to it by the suffrages of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... his trousers and lit an old pipe that he held between his teeth, but as the match flared up and showed his own face a lowering brow, shifty eyes, a swarthy, unkempt visage, sullen and sly, the shifty eyes were not looking at the pipe but up at the face above him which shone out white and fine with its gold halo in the little gleam in the dark court. The watchers crowding at the ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... sea shore, Uriah recalled the swarthy, leering face of Sam Jones, recently punished for infraction of discipline, and the crooked smile of Martin, he who puffed everlastingly at his pipe and wore a red handkerchief for a turban and earrings of heavy gold. He had known them for ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... tall, well built, and swarthy, with a bad scowling eye, and a kind of favorite lock of hair left to grow down before their ears, which rather increases the gloominess of their features; their women are nimble and supple jointed; when young they are generally handsome, with fine black eyes. Their ears and necks are loaded with ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... When he went to the Hipodromo it was for the sporting, not the social, aspect of the affair. Nevertheless, as he strolled about, he watched for that occasional velvety glance that gave him pleasure, and amused himself with the types seated around him, or crossing his path—heavy, swarthy Argentines, looking like Italian laborers grown rich—their heavy, swarthy wives, come out to display all the jewels that could be conveniently worn at once—pretty, dark-eyed girls, already with a fatal tendency to embonpoint, ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... breeding stock; "to note the tribe, the lineage, and the sire; whom to reserve for husband of the herd;"—to brand the progeny;—to select sheep of the purest white, and to examine if their tongues are swarthy. We have seen that the Romans kept pedigrees of their pigeons, and this would have been a senseless proceeding had not great care been taken in breeding them. Columella gives detailed instructions about breeding ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... almost certain death," he said, with nonchalant oriental calm. But Craven did not answer and Said relapsed into a silence that was protracted. From the midst of the blue haze surrounding him, his earnest scrutiny hidden by the thick lashes that curved downwards to his swarthy cheek, he gazed intently through half-closed eyes at the friend whose presence he found for the first time embarrassing. Fatalist though he was in all things that concerned himself, western influence had bitten ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... him," answered the other, with a flush on his swarthy cheek. "I lose all patience when I think of the many mischiefs entailed upon my country by the cruelty and greed of that house. When his late uncle, your protector, made Sir George a substitute in the Government of the island, he was but 23 years old: but old enough to be a serpent more ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... met him he was laying the foundation for a small dynamo in the engine-room of the repair shop at Spike, and he was most unusually loud in his protestations and demands. He had with him a dozen Italians, all short, swarthy fellows of from twenty-five to fifty years of age, who were busy bringing material from a car that had been pushed in on the side-track next to the building. This was loaded with crushed stone, cement, ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... was, like all of us, tall, but not quite so broad as we other Wynnes. He was of swarthy complexion from long service in the East, and had black hair, not fine, but rather coarse. I noticed a scar on his forehead. He shook hands, using his left hand, because, as I learned, of awkwardness from an old wound. But with his left lie was an expert swordsman, ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... at that sight, frankly, I thought that he was become bereft of reason. I ran back; and I had almost reached the scene of this incredible contest, and Smith now was evidently hard put to it to hold his own when a man, swarthy, with big rings in his ears, ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... amused with the talk of one long fellow, with a great curling red moustache, and blue eyes, that was half a dozen inches taller than his swarthy little comrades on the French side of the stream, and being asked by the Colonel, saluted him, and said that he belonged to the ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... swamp, making both ends impassable. Jackson had 3,500 expert marksmen at his command. They were a strange mixture of men, including long-limbed, hard-faced backwoodsmen, Portuguese and Norwegian seamen, dark-skinned Spaniards and swarthy Frenchmen, besides about 1,000 militiamen selected from the Creoles of Louisiana. They were a rough and violent lot. Theodore Roosevelt characterizes them as: "Soldiers who, under an ordinary commander, would have been fully as dangerous ...
— The Mentor: The War of 1812 - Volume 4, Number 3, Serial Number 103; 15 March, 1916. • Albert Bushnell Hart
... the carriage-drivers who shouted at him and even dogged him along street after street, he sauntered in the broad sunshine, plucking his grapes and relishing them. Coming out by the sea-shore, he stood for a while to watch the fishermen dragging in their nets—picturesque fellows with swarthy faces and suntanned legs of admirable outline, hauling slowly in files at interminable rope, which boys coiled lazily as it came in; or the oyster-dredgers, poised on the side of their boats over the blue water. At the foot of the sea-wall tumbled ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... The officer was swarthy of complexion with a short, black mustache, and his eyes, small and near together, roamed carelessly over the throng. As the groups approached the head of the stair-case, one after the other, he saluted smiling, half heeding, and his eyes roved on still more ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... bunch of mountain flowers in one hand, his felt hat in the other; and three men bobbed up behind, Indian file, over the crest of the trail, the Missionary, Williams, stepping lightly, MacDonald swarthy and close-lipped, taking the climb with the ease of a mountaineer, Bat Brydges, the Senator's newspaper man, hat on the back of his head, coat and vest and collar in hand, blowing with the zest of a ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... curiously watching us. There seemed to be at least ten of them—men as tall as myself, though not so tall as Georg. Swarthy, gray-skinned fellows—one or two of them squat, ape-like with their heavy shoulders and dangling arms. Men of the Venus Cold Country. They were talking together in their queer, soft language. One of them I took to be the leader. Argo was his name, I afterward learned. He was somewhat ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... a scout came flying, All wild with haste and fear: "To arms! to arms! Sir Consul; Lars Porsena is here!" On the low hills to westward The Consul fixed his eye, And saw the swarthy storm of dust Rise fast ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... and McMurtagh were standing on the very verge of the wharf, and the crowd around had made a little space for them, as the owners of the ship; Mr. James Bowdoin was standing farther back with the captain of a file of soldiers. But the second of the pirates was a swarthy Spaniard, with as evil-flashing eyes as you would care to see. And it was he who held in his arms a little girl, almost a baby, whose long yellow hair had made that note ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... tacit embrace was typical in his mind of the way they hung together, these two young women. It had been forced upon his perceptions all the evening, that this fair-haired, beautiful, rather stately Lady Cressage, and the small, swarthy, round-shouldered daughter of the house, peering through her pince-nez from under unduly thick black brows, formed a party of their own. Their politeness toward him had been as identical in all its little shades of distance and reservation ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... has said so. She has complained that you call her daughter simply Anna. In future you must give her a handle to her name." Daniel Thwaite was a dark brown man, with no tinge of ruddiness about him, a thin spare man, almost swarthy, whose hands were as brown as a nut, and whose cheeks and forehead were brown. But now he blushed up to his eyes. The hue of the blood as it rushed to his face forced itself through the darkness of his ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... experienced married man?—will probably retort, that all love between young folks is not only folly but sheer madness; and he will be the more confirmed in this opinion when he learns that, according to certain grave Persian writers, Layla was really of a swarthy visage, and far from being the beauty her infatuated lover conceived her to be: thus verifying the dictum of our great dramatist, in the ever-fresh passage where he makes "the lunatic, the lover, and the poet" to be "of imagination all compact," the lover seeing "Helen's beauty in the brow of ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... in the height of these transports, that at length he saw that clearly, of which God had often given him a glimpse, under some mysterious figures. In effect, Xavier had frequently dreamed by night, that he carried on his shoulders a gigantic and very swarthy Indian; and opprest with this strong imagination, he groaned and sighed, in that uneasy slumber, as one out of breath, and labouring under an intolerable burden; insomuch that the noise of his groans and heavings waked those who were lodged in the ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... eyes black as sloes, hair black as ink, a swarthy complexion and a poor little skin stretched over poor ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... picturesque appearance. He was bowing to her with an obvious intention of overdoing it. Voice and manner had the habit of the South rather than of the West. A kind of indolent irony sat easily upon the swarthy face crowned with a black sleek ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... sort of caroling melody with their work. There were some strange faces she had never seen before, swarthy people with great gold ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... young for a delegate, slightly built, aquiline, brown skinned, black haired, shaved clean in the English and American manner, which Latins seldom use, and which he had picked up, among other things, in the course of an Oxford education. The private secretary and the stenographer were a swarthy young man and woman with ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... face, now swarthy with shame, aside from that smiling look, and began to plunge her little foot down angrily into the moss, biting her lips till the blood came. At last, she lifted her head with a toss, and turning her black eyes boldly ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... threading his way with devilish ingenuity through mazes of narrow streets, scattering with his hooter little groups of gibbering, swarthy foreigners, Aaron Thurnbrein, bent double over his ancient bicycle, sped on his way towards the Commercial Road and eastwards. With narrow cheeks smeared with dust, yellow teeth showing behind his parted lips, through which the muttered words came with uneven vehemence, ragged clothes, ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Zealand; from Bermuda, Borneo, Fiji, and the Gold Coast; from Rhodesia, Cape Colony, Natal, Sierra Leone and Gambia, Nigeria, and Uganda; from Ceylon, Cyprus, Hong-Kong, Jamaica, and Wei-Hai-Wei; from Lagos, Malta, St. Lucia, Singapore, Trinidad. And here the conquered men of Ind, swarthy horsemen and sword wielders, fiercely barbaric, blazing in crimson and scarlet, Sikhs, Rajputs, Burmese, province by province, and caste ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... was rendered extremely swarthy by the long exposure to weather, and tropic weather at that, which he had undergone. The expression of his face was of that abstract and thoughtful, nay, even melancholy, cast which we commonly associate with the student rather than ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... this part of the government, also mingle in the passing or seated crowd; when the solemn, saturnine air of the latter, with their flowing, gaudy apparel, forms a striking contrast to the daring, dirty, independent air of the almost ungarmented, swarthy Arab. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various
... but unable to write her own name. She had a great love for old ballads, and Robert as a boy must often have listened to her chanting the quaint old songs with which her retentive memory was stored. The poet resembled his mother in feature, although he had the swarthy complexion of his father. Attempts have been made now and again to trace his ancestry on the father's side, and to give to the world a kind of genealogy of genius. Writers have demonstrated to their own satisfaction that it was perfectly natural that Burns should have been the man ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... of a gayer fancy. Well— Let then the gentle Manitou of flowers, Lingering amid the bloomy waste he loves, Though all his swarthy worshippers are gone— Slender and small, his rounded cheek all brown And ruddy with the sunshine; let him come On summer mornings, when the blossoms wake, And part with little hands the spiky grass, And touching, with his cherry lips, the edge ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... devil of delusion, who was on Lucifer's left hand, arose, and turning his grim visage to the king, began: "It is unnecessary for me to recount my deeds to thee, Oh lost Archangel, or to you, swarthy princes of Destruction: for 'twas I who dealt the first blow to man, and mighty was that blow, to be the cause of death from the beginning of the world to its end. Is it likely that I, who erst ravaged all the earth, could not now give ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... force of the wind, The slash of the rain? Go face them and fight them, Be savage again. Go hungry and cold like the wolf, Go wade like the crane. The palms of your hands will thicken, The skin of your cheek will tan, You'll grow ragged and weary and swarthy, But ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... slowly, carefully, seeming to weigh every word, his eyes darkening, and a flush creeping into his swarthy cheeks. ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... himself. He noted anew the uniforms, mostly white faced with blue or violet or red or yellow, and with black, three-cornered hats. There were the battalions of Guienne, La Reine, Bearn, La Sarre, Languedoc, Berry and Royal Roussillon. The Canadians, swarthy, thick and strong, wore white with black facings. Some Indians were about, but fewer than Robert had expected. It was true then that they had become alarmed at Abercrombie's advancing might, and were leaving the French to ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... we have already remarked, had taken the initiative several times, and whose voice, even in its most familiar intonations, denoted the habit of command, was about thirty years of age. His black hair was parted in the middle, falling straight from his temples to his shoulders. He had the swarthy skin of a man who has travelled long in southern climes, thin lips, a straight nose, white teeth, and those hawk-like eyes which Dante gives to Caesar. He was short rather than tall, his hand was delicate, his foot slender and elegant. His ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... watched the wreathed pillars, Groves of stately palms arose, And a group of swarthy Indians Stealing ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... heard at the door: the crowd gives way: a beautiful mulatto girl, in a black silk dress, with low waist and short sleeves, and morocco slippers on her feet, is led in and placed upon the stand Mr. O'Brodereque has just vacated. Her complexion is that of a swarthy Greek; her countenance is moody and reflective; her feelings are stung with the poison of her degraded position. This last step of her disgrace broods in the melancholy of her face. Shame, pain, hope, and fear, combine to goad her very soul. But it's all for a bit of fun, clearly legal; ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... of destinations hung on the track gates. Chicago (the plains! the Rockies! sunset over mining-camps!), Washington, and the magic Southland—thither the iron horses would be galloping, their swarthy smoke manes whipped back by the whirlwind, pounding out with clamorous strong hoofs their sixty miles an hour. Very well. In time he also would mount upon the iron coursers and charge upon Chicago and the Southland; just as ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... the trap-door. A melancholy-looking little procession slowly emerged. First of all came Joseph, stepping backwards, supporting the head and shoulders of Graham, still bound and gagged. After him came a dark, swarthy-faced wine waiter, who supported Graham's feet. Behind followed Fischer, carrying his silk hat and cane in his hand. He paused for a moment as he stepped on the floor of the chapel, and brushed the ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... offering a mailed hand in farewell. But Perry buttons his Prince Albert, waves his brown derby under the very vizor of the departing guest, rests easily on his right leg, bends the left knee slightly, folds his arms and speaks. "Burned Marmion's swarthy cheek like fire." Little wonder! If Perry Thomas spoke to me like that I'd cleave his head. But Marmion spares proud Angus. He beards the Doogulus in his hall. He dashes the rowels in his steed, dodges the portcullis, and gallops over the ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... outset, I felt an uncontrollable inclination to laugh; but for a time succeeded in restraining it. But when, in close succession upon the minister's words, there arose from the next room (separated from us by a thin board partition) a sepulchral echo in the voice of my room-mate, a grim and swarthy miner, who probably had not heard the prayer since he repeated it after his mother at her knee, and from the still potent though long dormant force of habit, now joined in its utterance, the incongruity of my surroundings ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... at the face of the Sheik and found that, in place of the malicious wink with which he proclaimed himself a victor in a game of draughts, his glass eyes, with their whites in sharp contrast to his swarthy wax skin, were both wide open and set in a glare of such ferocity and malign hatred that they seemed to flash the fire of life and lighten the gloom of the ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... all. He was a soldier. His conversation was yea and nay. But when you could get "yes, sir," and "no, sir," out of him his voice was as soft and gentle as a maid's when she says "yes" to her lover. Fancy, if you please, a man about thirty years old, a dark skin, made swarthy by exposure to sun and rain, very black eyes that seemed to blaze with a gentle luster. I never saw him the least excited in my life. His face was a face of bronze. His form was somewhat slender, ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... A short swarthy-looking boy, with a leering and unfavourable countenance, here stepped forward, taking his station upon one of the steps beside his mother. A notion had gone abroad that the boy was the fruit of some unhallowed intercourse with an immortal ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... "Old Orlick," though not above five and twenty, journeyman to Joe Gargery, blacksmith. Obstinate, morose, broad-shouldered, loose-limbed, swarthy, of great strength, never in a hurry, and always slouching. Being jealous of Pip, he allured him to a hut in the marshes, bound him to a ladder, and was about to kill him, when, being alarmed by approaching steps, he fled. Subsequently, he broke into Mr. Pumblechook's house, was arrested, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... bringing with him two swarthy, heavy-set, little Sicilian lads, each with his inevitable basket and some clean rags. A smile and gesture to the store-keeper, a word to the boys, and in a moment the barrel was upturned, and the pair were washing, wiping, and sorting the sound and unsound ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... invention and gold medal granted at the exposition of 1825). Madame Baudoyer, whose only daughter was treading—to use an expression of old Saillard's—on the tail of her twelve years, laid claim to Falleix, a thickset, swarthy, active young fellow, of shrewd principles, whose education she was superintending. The said education, according to her ideas, consisted in teaching him to play boston, to hold his cards properly, and not to let others see his game; ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... I saw my friend's swarthy cheek burn. He started up, and was about to make some fierce retort, when a fine old man, a general, with as many orders as the marquis, and a still whiter head, averted the storm, by saying, "Whether the chevalier was with M. Dumourier in that predicament, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various |
