"Swarthy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which made this newspaper's library before the fire the most valuable on this Coast, if not in the country. He was also much impressed with the many devices for securing speed in typesetting and other mechanical work. The only feature of his swarthy face that impressed one was his brilliant black eyes, which behind his large glasses, seemed to note every detail. He talked very well, but although he made friends among local newspapermen, he was unsuccessful in selling any of his stories to the editors ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... 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 of the square nostrils, with the broad irregular line of ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... for Camillus, beginning forthwith to hum, with visions of a long roll of swarthy cavalry, headed by a clear-eyed young chief, sunlight ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... swarthy than the Indians themselves was the dark face of the Spanish friar. As he came forward into the open space, he raised his eyes to the great cross at the foot of which we were standing, and straightway bent the knee and crossed himself. Some few of the Indians ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... described as "a man of meane stature, rather lowe than otherwise, square made, somewhat stouping, neere fortie yeares of age, his haire and beard browne, his beard not much and his haire short"; Stephen Littleton, another conspirator, as "a verye tall man, swarthy of complexion, of browne coloured haire, no beard or litle, about thirty yeares of age"; and Thomas Percy, another, as "a tall man, with a great broad beard, a good face, the colour of his beard and head mingled with white heares, but stoupeth somewhat in the shoulders, well coloured in ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... young, a girl of twenty in fact; very fair—a rare complexion in this corner of Brittany, where the race runs swarthy—very fair, we say, with great grey eyes between almost black lashes; her brows, as fair as the hair, seemed as if they had a darker streak in their midst, which gave a wonderful expression of strength and will to the beautiful face. The rather short profile was very dignified, the nose continuing ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... man regarded him with a stare from heavy lidded and nearly closed eyes. He had a swarthy, greasy, fat face, this officer of the Black Cruiser, and moist, thick lips. Martin recalled Little Billy's reminiscence concerning the "slithering about of fat and greasy varlets." Was this the varlet? ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... then spoke the brother, "Martha'll love us just as well As before she parted from us,— Trust me, mammy, I can tell." Then he passed a hand in silence O'er his damp and swarthy brow, Brushed a tear from off the eyelid,— "O that she were ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... of the country, undisputed sovereign, the best gun man north of the Rio Grand and south of the Line, if one excepted Jim Last. With him tonight were Black Bart, tall, swarthy, gimlet-eyed, a helf-breed Mexican, and Wylackie Bob his right-hand man. Without these two he seldom moved. They were both able lieutenants, experts with firearms. A formidable trio, the three went where and when they listed, and few disputed ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... the room and went to the chamber where his swarthy boy of five lay still luxuriously in his crib, although he was fully awake. Nino gave a soft cry of joy at the sight of his father, ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... climbed the wide stone stairs to the first floor, and rang the bell. My summons was answered by a tall, swarthy, dark-eyed Italian maid, who wore a dainty muslin apron, but no cap—as is the custom in Italy. She was a Piedmontese, for in her hair she wore several of those large pins with round heads of silver filigree placed in a semicircle at the ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... was surprising to meet him in the middle of the week, as he generally came home only for week-ends. That glance was her undoing—a certain cordiality must have crept into it, inspired by his broad shoulders and handsome, swarthy face, for Mr. Pratt was immediately encouraged, and pounced. He broke away from ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... of Conemaugh! Many a tear ran over swarthy cheeks for him to-day. All his family, his wife and children, had been swept from his sight in the flood. He wandered over the gorge yesterday looking for them, and last night the police could not bring him away. At daylight he found his wife's sewing ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... platform of no great breadth; and the drivers—about a dozen men in all—were seen seated upon the rocks, a little way in advance of the animals. Each wore a capacious cloak of brown cloth—a favourite colour among the Pyrenean Spaniards; and what with their swarthy complexions, bearded lips, and wild attire, it would have been pardonable enough to have mistaken them for a band of brigands, or, at all events, a ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... where it fell half open and neglected. The names traced by his scratching pen brought clearly before him the individuals designated: Elias Wellbogast had a long, tangled grey beard and a gaze that peered anxiously through a settling blindness. Thirty acres—eight dollars an acre. P. Ville was a swarthy foreigner, called, in Greenstream, the Portugee; every crop he planted grew as if by magic. Old Matthew Zane would endeavor to borrow from Gordon the money with which to repurchase the option ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... ox-carts had hushed the bird songs all up and down El Camino Real, and the popping of the drivers' lashes, which punctuated their objurgations to the shambling oxen, told eloquently of haste. Within canopies formed of gay, patchwork quilts and gayer serapes, heavy-jowled, swarthy senoras lurched resignedly with the jolting of the carts, and between whiles counseled restive senoritas upon the subject of deportment or gossiped idly of those whom they expected to meet at ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... moment the Interpreter's look of surprise increased; then an indescribable smile lit up his swarthy features as he turned to the jailor and spoke a few words. The man went immediately to the curled-up wretch in the corner and relaxed his chains so that he was enabled to give vent to a great sigh of relief. Hockins and Ebony uttered sighs of sympathy almost as loud, and Mark, turning ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... Black Forest Mountains. Mile after mile of steep incline has now been trundled, following the Bench River to its source. Ere long the road I have lately traversed is visible far below, winding and twisting up the mountain-slopes. Groups of swarthy peasant women are carrying on their heads baskets of pine cones to the villages below. At a distance the sight of their bright red dresses among the sombre green of the pines is suggestive of the fairies with which legend has peopled the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... twenty, thirty. Thirty years of national life, thirty years of renewal and development, and yet the swarthy ghost of Banquo sits in its old place at the national feast. In vain does the nation cry to its ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... and went forward with Kinney, in her spoiled way, and addressed a swarthy, gleaming-eyed young logger in French. He answered with a smile that showed all his white teeth, and turned to one of his comrades; then the two rose, and got violins out of the bunks, and came forward. Others of their race joined them, but the Yankees hung gloomily back; they clearly ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... awhile Let it not seem that I behold her smile. O, weary Love, O, folded to her breast, Love in each moment years and years of rest, Be calm, as being not. Ye oceans of intolerable delight, The blazing photosphere of central Night, Be ye forgot. Terror, thou swarthy Groom of Bride-bliss coy, Let me not see thee toy. O, Death, too tardy with thy hope intense Of kisses close beyond conceit of sense; O, Life, too liberal, while to take her hand Is more of hope than heart can understand; Perturb my golden patience not with joy, Nor, through ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... were they in the hardy voyageurs, or trip men, who constituted these brigades. Dark and swarthy they were, with beardless faces, and long black hair that rested on their shoulders. From remote and different regions had they come. Here were brigades from the Assiniboine, Red River, Cumberland, and the Saskatchewan region. Many of the ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... pretty ones, both words and tunes. I remember, when I was in those parts, I was surprised at the difference which I found between the people on one side, and those on the other side of the Rhone. The Provencaux were, in general, surly, ill-bred, ugly, and swarthy; the Languedocians the very reverse: a cheerful, well-bred, handsome people. Adieu! Yours ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... apart from the gathering of the band, was to be seen a set of beings of an entirely different origin. Taller and far more muscular in their persons, the lingering vestiges of their Saxon and Norman ancestry were yet to be found beneath the swarthy complexions, which had been bestowed by an American sun. It would have been a curious investigation, for one skilled in such an enquiry, to have traced those points of difference, by which the offspring of the most western European was still to be ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... 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, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... A swarthy little Mexican appeared, and led the tired horses into the stable. Then the young journalist took a good look at the man who seemed to know him so well, and endeavored, as the phrase ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... converted into an island at the will of its defenders. The sandy spit of Neutral Ground at one side of which Tommy Atkins, fresh-faced, does his sentry-go in brick-red tunic and white pith-helmet, and at the other side of which swarthy Sancho Panza y Toro, in projecting cap and long blue coat, fondles a rifle in the bend of his arm, can readily be flooded; and the bare, sheer, lofty north front, with scores of cannon of the deadliest modern pattern lying in wait ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... man nodded. Then came silence again and the absolute ticking of the clock. Presently from outside in the white heat of the road came the rush of hoofs and an abrupt stop. A spurred and booted rider, his swarthy face gray with dust, strode in, nodded to the group and called ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... room, and if a servant waited upon each with gruel; there is no earthly likeness between the soul of Catherine and the soul of Jane. I don't care if there was "hell-light" in Rochester's eyes and Heathcliff's too, if they both swore by the "Deuce", and had both swarthy complexions like Paul Emanuel; for there is a whole universe between Heathcliff and Rochester, between Rochester and M. Paul. Beside Heathcliff, that Titan raging on a mountain-top, M. Paul is merely a little ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... enough to know that the Baron Ronault de Palliac when he discovers himself at table between Miss Bines and the adorable Miss Higbee, becomes less saturnine than has for some time been his wont. He does not forget previous disappointments, but desperately snaps his swarthy jaws in commendable superiority ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... his carte-de-visite at all hours of the sunny day, persuaded that we undertake black physiognomies at four dollars a dozen; and when we assure him that ours is the legitimate colouring business, and that we have no connexion with Senor Collodion up the street, our swarthy patron produces a ready-made black and white miniature of himself, and commissions us to colour ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... at ready, eagerly looking for the first sign of an enemy. The whiz of another arrow from the left drew his eyes thither, and quick as a flash his weapon leaped to his shoulder, the rocks rang with its report, and one of the two swarthy forms he saw among the boulders tumbled over out of sight; but even as he threw back his piece to reload, a rattling volley greeted him, the carbine dropped to the ground, a strange, numbed sensation had seized his shoulder, ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... and instinctive temperateness that savoured of the Greek. Yet he was far from Greek. "I am Aztec, I am Inca, I am Spaniard," I have heard him say. And in truth he looked it, a compound of strange and ancient races, what with his swarthy skin and the asymmetry and primitiveness of his features. His eyes, under massively arched brows, were wide apart and black with the blackness that is barbaric, while before them was perpetually falling down a great black mop of hair through which he gazed like a roguish satyr from a thicket. ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... appeared a slim, swarthy Mexican girl, an Indian water-jug balanced upon her shoulders. She was clad in the straight-hanging native garment, belted in with a sash; her feet were in sandals, and she moved as silently ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... stiff, Novel and fevering hallucinations Invaded my attention. So daylight When shutters are thrown back spreads through a house; As then the dreams and terrors of the night Decamp, so from my mind were driven All its own thoughts and feelings. Close she leant Propped on a swarthy arm, while the other helped With eloquent gesture potent as wizard wand, Veil the world off as with an airy web, Or flowing tent a-gleam with pictured folds. These tauten and distend—one sea of wheat, Islanded with black cities, borders now The voluminous blue pavilion of day. There-under ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... watched the wreathed pillars, Groves of stately palms arose, And a group of swarthy Indians Stealing on ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... taken but a cursory glance at the prisoner. One glance had been sufficient to prove to her that it was not the detective, and observing the man's swarthy complexion she connected him with the Cuban Garcia, and it was the latter fact which in the excitement of the moment ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... that everything was adjusted, Ziffak now turned around, and, without the least appearance of agitation on his swarthy countenance, signified that the path was open for them to ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... in!" the Mayor cried, looking bigger: And in did come the strangest figure! His queer long coat from heel to head Was half of yellow and half of red, And he himself was tall and thin, With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin, And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin No tuft on cheek, nor beard on chin, But lips where smiles went out and in; There was no guessing his kith and kin! And nobody could enough admire The tall man and his quaint attire. Quoth one: "It's as if my great-grandsire, Starting up at the trump of Doom's ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... place. He was close on the threescore-and-ten—they were little more than children; but all three had the same gaunt, yet powerful frames; dark-red hair, which in the old man was but slightly sprinkled with gray; almost swarthy complexions; and a fierce, hard look in the deep-set eyes. By after inquiries, I learned that these were the father of the Highland cousin family, and his two youngest sons. There were three elder brothers, but they were married, and settled on rough sheep-farms; and the old man ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... his family helped runaway slaves on their way North, and in a community that was for the most part bitterly pro-slavery these negroes were held in a sort of respect for their courageous fidelity to their race. The men were swarthy, handsome fellows, not much darker than Spaniards, and they were so little afraid of the chances which were often such fatal mischances to colored people in that day that one of them travelled through ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... dark complexion 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 the man of affairs. He was dressed in ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... 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 ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... perhaps, but the majority famished and shivering. The feminine element swamped the rest, but there were about a dozen men and a few children among the group, most of the men scarce taller than the children—strange, stunted, swarthy, hairy creatures, with muddy complexions illumined by black, twinkling eyes. A few were of imposing stature, wearing coarse, dusty felt hats or peaked caps, with shaggy beards or faded scarfs around their throats. Here and ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... gaze enraptured upon their varied beauty. Foremost of all rode a man richly habited, a man of great strength and breadth of shoulder, and of a bearing high and arrogant. His face, framed in long black hair that curled to meet his shoulder, was of a dark and swarthy hue, fierce looking and masterful by reason of prominent chin and high-arched nose, and of his thin-lipped, relentless mouth. Black were his eyes and bold; now staring bright and wide, now glittering ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... then, I'll tell you all about him now, for he had more to do with the row aboard the Gulnare than anybody else! He was a regular dare-devil of a pocket-a-win, as they are called at Liverpool—a tall, lean, down-east Yankee from Boston, with jet-black hair, and a swarthy face, which made you think he had nigger blood in him and got him his name of 'Black Harry.' A powerful man and a good foremast hand; but an all-fired lazy devil about work, and as sulky as a bear when he didn't get his grub regular. He was no coward though; and no skulker in danger, ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... steeped in reeking dew; there was always stretched above it the blue intense tent of a heaven full of light,—always below and around, long level reaches of hot shining sand; the phantoms of waning desert moons have hovered over it, swarthy Arab chiefs have encamped under it; it has threaded the narrow streets of Damascus—that city the most beautiful—on the backs of gaunt gray dromedaries; it has crossed the seas,—and all for you, if you take it, this ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... William Forrest, or Black Bill as he was called by his neighbours, partly on account of his swarthy appearance, and partly because of ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... Edinburgh, and its weather-beaten comrades are up yonder in the back gallery, while this one has elbowed its way among the quality in the stalls. But it is worth a word or two. Take it out and handle it! See how swarthy it is, how squat, with how bullet-proof a cover of scaling leather. Now open the fly-leaf "Ex libris Guilielmi Whyte. 1672" in faded yellow ink. I wonder who William Whyte may have been, and what he did upon earth in the reign of the merry monarch. A pragmatical ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the morning thou didst try to cheer me With a fond gaiety. My heart was bursting, And yet I could not tell me, how my sleep Was throng'd with swarthy faces, and I saw 65 The merchant-ship in which my son was captured— Well, well, enough—captured in sight of land— We might almost have seen it from ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... attendant, the head of the Hermeneutai—the guild of the Dragomans of that period—was a swarthy and surly native of Memphis; whenever he accidentally came too close to the fierce-looking riders of the dromedaries he shrunk his shoulders as if he expected a blow or a push, while he poured out question and answer to the Merchant Haschim, the owner of the caravan, without timidity and with the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... talk of that?" asked Lola, with interest. Ana was now sixteen, and was nearly as heavy as her mother, and much more sedate. In true Mexican fashion the look of youth had left her betimes, and her swarthy plumpness had early hardened and settled to a look of maturity to which future ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... and looked into the singularly unprepossessing face of a swarthy foreigner, a powerfully-built, ungainly person of about ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... That swarthy, curl-pated youngster, in full gala dress for the theatre, drawing on his gloves, and hurrying Mr. Stewart, is, dear reader, your most humble, devoted, and obedient servant, Frank Byrne, alias, myself, alias, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... bowed affirmatively. The King was scanning Mauna Loa. The American winked at us. The King did not see the wink, but he had caught a tone in the voice of the invader, which brought, as I thought, a slight flush to his swarthy cheek. The soldier-his name was Lilikalu —looked from his King to the critic of his King's kingdom and standing army, and there was a glow beneath his long eyelashes which suggested that three-quarters of a century of civilisation had not quite drawn the old savage spirit ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... voice which went echoing across the bay. He made a brave figure in his scarlet coat, with the brass guard of his naked cutlass winking in the sun. His boat's crew had been mustered from many climes and races, several strapping Englishmen, a wiry, spluttering little Frenchman, a swarthy Portuguese with gold rings in his ears, a brace of stolid Norwegians, and two or three coal ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... 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 you'll walk like ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... did not belong to the manly simplicity of the English wardrobe. Nor were his features in the slightest degree those of one of the islanders, the outline being beautifully classical, more especially about the mouth and chin, while the cheeks were colorless, and the skin swarthy. His eye, too, was black as jet, and his cheek was half covered in whiskers of a hue dark as the raven's wing. His face, as a whole, was singularly beautiful—for handsome is a word not strong enough to express all the character that was conveyed by a conformation that might be supposed ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Spring up, and, like a band of brothers, grow In the same sun, while from their leafy lips Comes not the faintest whisper of dissent Because of various girth and grain and hue. The oak flings not his acorns at the elm; The white birch shrinks not from the swarthy ash; The green plume of the pine nods to the shrub; The loftiest monarch of the realm of wood Spares not his crown in elemental storms, But shares the blows with trees of humbler growth, And stretches forth ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... had now become so large as to occupy the greater part of the hall, and was especially swelled by sundry new arrivals at this moment. In particular, there came one swarthy, tall, wretched-looking creature, with wild eyes, wan face, and black hair of extraordinary length, who took up his position, standing immediately opposite to the tribune. Other new comers also stood near him, all of whom were remarkable for the length of their hair. ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... for Halbert Glendinning, the elder of the two, had hair as dark as the raven's plumage, black eyes, large, bold, and sparkling, that glittered under eyebrows of the same complexion; a skin deep embrowned, though it could not be termed swarthy, and an air of activity, frankness, and determination, far beyond his age. On the other hand, Edward, the younger brother, was light-haired, blue-eyed, and of fairer complexion, in countenance ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... creations whose outline he was content to borrow. He receives, as a literal fact not to be altered, the somewhat incredible assertion of the novelist, that the pure and delicate and highborn Venetian loves the swarthy Moor—and that Romeo fresh from his "woes for Rosaline," becomes suddenly enamoured of Juliet: He found the Improbable, and employed his art to ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... homewards with a light heart and a brisk step. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, with health and youthful energy expressed in every limb and feature, with jet black hair and sparkling eyes to match. His dark, almost swarthy face, was lighted up by a pleasant smile, which seemed ever hovering about the corners of his mouth, and which would make itself evident in spite of the moustache which ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... him wrapped from head to foot in a long robe,—half gown, half mantle,—such as was sometimes worn by ecclesiastics. The face of this stranger was remarkable; so sunburnt and swarthy were his hues that he must, apparently, have derived his origin amongst the races of the farthest East. His—forehead was lofty, and his eyes so penetrating, yet so calm, in their gaze that the Prince shrank ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... anchor in deep water near an island. In a moment the river was alive with nondescript craft, worked by amphibious creatures, half naked, swarthy, and grim, who rent the air with shrill, wild jargon as they scrambled toward us. In the distance were several hulks of Siamese men-of-war, seemingly as old as the flood; and on the right towered, tier over ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... pocket. The boats' guns, however, were not to be idle; the commander 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 worked their way up over the shoals towards them, a hot ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... train at a wayside hamlet and found the papers I carried sufficient. Two fellow countrymen raced away into the place as the train drew in, and returned drenched with sweat in time to continue with our leisurely convoy. Dakin was a boyish man from the Northern States, and Ems a swarthy "Texican" to whom Spanish was more native than English, both wandering southward in quest of jobs, as stationary and locomotive engineers respectively. They rode first-class, though this did not imply wealth, ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... manner, speech and disposition most of us are to-day familiar enough. He never spoke of his past, having doubtless good reasons for reticence, but any one learned in Western slang—a knowledge then denied me—would have catalogued him with infallible accuracy. He was a rather large, strong fellow, swarthy, black-bearded, black-eyed, black-hearted and entertaining, no end; ignorant with an ignorance whose frankness redeemed it from offensiveness, vulgar with a vulgarity that expressed itself in such metaphors and similes as would have made its peace with the ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... admiring Madame Frehlter's 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
... this forest a man was seen to emerge, and take his way across the meadow in the direction of the river. His swarthy complexion, and bushy black hair hanging neglected over his shoulders—his dress consisting of a single blanket-like robe, held by a leathern belt around the waist— his bare legs and sandalled feet—all ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... that people's mouths might water 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 very gold and silver fish, set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl, ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... Gutierrez was a swarthy Latin American. He smiled. "For why would I hurt him? You say he is worth much money to us, De Boer. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... she was now "learning" me. The luncheons were divested of their newspaper wrappings and spread over the ends of tables, on discarded box-lids held across the knees—in fact, any place convenience or sociability dictated. Then followed a friendly exchange of pickles and cake. A dark, swarthy girl, whom they called "Goldy" Courtleigh, was generous in the distribution of the lukewarm contents of a broken-nosed tea-pot, which was constantly replenished by application to the ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... to the land of Palestine. The impression was increased, when, the tapestry being drawn aside, a female form, dressed in a rich habit, which partook more of the Eastern taste than that of Europe, glided through the door which it concealed, and was followed by a swarthy domestic. ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... Boulogne, and all the adjoining towns and villages, belonged to the corps of General Von York. Most of the infantry regiments were composed in part of young recruits, but the old soldiers, and all the cavalry, had a truly military appearance; and their swarthy weather-beaten countenances, their coarse and patched, but strong and serviceable dresses and accoutrements, the faded embroidery of their uniforms, and the insignia of orders of merit with which almost all the officers, and many of the men, were decorated, bore ample testimony to their participation ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... 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
... notes grow fainter and fainter. Are the tall maidens of Capri already looking out for the swarthy sailors, that these turn no longer to the shores they are leaving?... "O dolce Napoli! O suol beato!" ... Fainter and fainter grow the notes on the trembling string, so that you can scarcely tell them from ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... a singular spectacle. They seemed so tall and fair, these two young people of another race, as they smilingly advanced through the swarthy multitude of their small, ragged subjects, bowing in acknowledgment of their acclamations! Involuntarily one thought of visiting angels, or, better still, of the fair god Quetzalcohuatl, whom the ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... of about twenty-eight years of age, slight, muscular, wiry, had seized his wet hand and was wringing it. He had black eyes, keen and bright, swarthy complexion, black hair and mustache. A keen observer might have seen about him some signs of a jeunesse orageuse, but his manner was frank and pleasing. Sinclair looked him in the ...
— The Denver Express - From "Belgravia" for January, 1884 • A. A. Hayes
... cousin 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 ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... of Europeans. Every 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 black ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... 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 ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... Browning's swarthy complexion, and the fine poise of the man—the entire absence of "nerves," as often shown in the savage—seemed to carry out the idea that his was a peculiar pedigree. In his youth, when his hair was as black as the raven's wing and coarse as a horse-tail, and his complexion mahogany, the report ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... may well have been—in the inexplicable way these things fell out,—the woman whom Manuel's heart had chosen, and who therefore in his eyes for the rest of time must differ from all other persons. Certainly no unastigmatic judge would have decreed this swarthy Niafer fit, as the phrase is, to hold a candle either to Freydis or Alianora: whereas Manuel did not conceal, even from these royal ladies themselves, his ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... pulled up on the grass-grown drive in front of the blotched and weather-stained door, I had doubts as to my wisdom in visiting a man whom I knew so slightly. He opened the door himself, however, and greeted me with a great show of cordiality. I was handed over to the manservant, a melancholy, swarthy individual, who led the way, my bag in his hand, to my bedroom. The whole place was depressing. Our dinner was tete-a-tete, and though my host did his best to be entertaining, his thoughts seemed to continually wander, and ...
— The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge • Arthur Conan Doyle
... still dotted the pastures, orchards, and tilled fields. The town itself was composed mainly of the dwellings of the French habitans; some of them were mere hovels, others pretty log cottages, all swarming with black-eyed children; while the stoutly-made, swarthy men, at once lazy and excitable, strolled about the streets in their picturesque and bright-colored blanket suits. There were also a few houses of loyalist refugees; implacable Tories, stalwart men, revengeful, and goaded by the memory of many wrongs done and many suffered, who proved ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... her,—not one of all the compassionate people! Not one to save her, of all the pitying angels in heaven! Not one bolt of God to strike him dead there before her! Wildly she waved him back, we waiting in silence and horror. Over the swarthy face of the gambler a pallor of passion Passed, like a gleam of lightning over the west in the night-time. White, she stood, and mute, till he put forth his hand to secure her; Then she turned and leaped,—in mid air fluttered a moment,— Down, there, whirling, fell, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... him! seize the Princess!" said a voice. It was that of Georgios, no longer humble with a merchant's obsequious whine, but speaking in tones of cold command and in Arabic. For a moment the swarthy mob hung back, as well they might in face of that glittering sword. Then with a cry of "Salah-ed-din! Salah-ed-din!" on they surged, with flashing spears and scimitars. The overthrown table was in front of them, and one leapt upon its edge, but as he leapt, the old knight, ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... bag, which the swarthy hands were grasping. "No, I'm not going to stop," he explained. "I'm ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... indeed, seek me at all? Why not confide in those swarthy attendants, who doubtless are slaves ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... leisurely cooking their morning meal. They had two fires, one for warmth, the other to cook over. Gale had an idea these raiders were familiar to him. It seemed all these border hawks resembled one another—being mostly small of build, wiry, angular, swarthy-faced, and black-haired, and they wore the oddly styled Mexican clothes and sombreros. A slow wrath stirred in Gale as he watched the trio. They showed not the slightest indication of breaking camp. One fellow, evidently the leader, packed a gun at ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... of the north coast of Africa. This is an entertaining theory, with its romantic conjectures: the picture of the Phoenician oared galleys pulling into Combe Martin or Porlock Bay; the scenes on the beach, with the swarthy, beak-nosed sailors, the Celts, eager for trade and curious to look at any foreigners come from beyond the sea; the heaps of tin and silver, the ivory and gold and Eastern gauds with which the Phoenicians bartered; the plunging, high-spirited little horses, wild ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... There, oft the ashes of the camp-fire lie, Marking the gipsy's chosen place of rest. Black roots of half-charr'd furze, and capons' bones— Relic of spoils from distant farmers' coop— Point to the revels of preceding night. And fancy pictures forth the swarthy group, Their dark eyes flashing in the ruddy glare; While laughter, louder after long constraint, From every jocund ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... said, humbly, and when he reached the edge of the camp he turned and looked after her, and there was a shadow on his swarthy face. ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... the most Southern of Southerners. The planter despises poverty, but what is his contempt of a poor white man compared to that of his slave for such wretchedness? What indeed is the negro but an intensified Creole? His very color reflects that of his swarthy lord. The planter is tanned, but the negro is 'black and tanned,'—tanned always on the face, and not unfrequently on ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Night, the swarthy Night, he alone may be your spouse; His harem wide, his harem wide, ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... swarthy singer sat down to the instrument and struck a ringing chord. He had a pure and infinitely powerful tenor voice, clear as crystal, loud as a clarion, strong, rich, and rippling. He sang a love-song he had composed himself. He called it 'The Homage of King Pan to the Princess.' It was voluptuous ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... 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 ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... instead of that bloom of youth, that regularity of feature, that amiable joyousness of countenance, which he had ever been accustomed to meet and to love in his former companions, he recoiled in horror from the swarthy complexions, the sad visages, and the haggard features of his present ones. They spoke to him in a harsh and guttural accent. He would have fled from their advances; but then he was in the belly of a whale! When he had become a little used to their tones ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... always went by the name of "Double B," when, in allusion to the Bark in his family name, he was not called the "Little Tanner," or "Tanner" alone; Harry Smith, being a swarthy, dark-haired fellow, was "Blacksmith;" and I, Nathaniel Herrick, was dubbed the first day "Poet"—I, who had never made a line in my life— and later on, as I ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... low in stature, but plump and well shaped, with short necks, swarthy faces, black eyes and long black hair. They are a branch of the Esquimauan family, but differ greatly from the Eskimo of the mainland in language, habits, disposition and mental ability. They were good fighters until they were cowed by the treatment ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... spirits of the poor whigs so completely cowed, that they were fairly knocked under to the civil and military yoke of the British, who, I ask again, will believe, that in this desperate state of things, one little, swarthy, French-phizzed Carolinian, with only thirty of his ragged countrymen, issuing out of the swamps, should have dared to turn his horse's head towards this ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... wot of; a sailor sang while he hung in the ratlines and tossed down the salt-stained shrouds. The afternoon waned: the man at the wheel struck two bells—it was the delectable dog-watch. Down went the swarthy sun into his tent of clouds; the waves were of amber; the fervid sky was flushed; it looked as though something splendid were about to happen up there, and that it could hardly keep the secret much longer. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... fair kitchen garden, showing signs of care and attention. The houses near are all one-storied, log-built, and plastered with mud inside and out. There are also several birch-bark wigwams, full of smoke and swarthy children; the owners squatting at their low doors, or, with their dirty blankets wrapped more tightly round them, leaning on the fence to stare ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... another man—a small thin man with sleek black hair and a swarthy Jewish face, who moved with a catlike deftness, making ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... born at the castle of Motte-Broon, near Rennes, in a family which could reckon two ancestors amongst Godfrey de Bouillon's comrades in the first crusade, Bertrand du Guesclin, "the ugliest child from Rennes to Dinan," says a contemporary chronicle, flat-nosed and swarthy, thick-set, broad-shouldered, big-headed, a bad fellow, a regular wretch, according to his own mother's words, given to violence, always striking or being struck, whom his tutor abandoned without having been able to teach him to read. At sixteen ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... swarthy world-old young man with the fashionable concave torso, and alarmingly convex bone-rimmed glasses. Through them his darkly luminous gaze glowed upon Terry. To escape their warmth she sent her own gaze past him to encounter the arctic stare of the large blonde person who had been included so lamely ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... 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 ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... horseman appearing suddenly among the cottonwoods that belted with a scattering grove the garden and the spring. The horseman was Lanpher, manager of the 88 ranch. He was followed by another rider, a lean, swarthy individual with a smooth-shaven, saturnine face. Racey knew the latter by sight and reputation. The man was one Skeel and rejoiced in the nick-name of "Alicran." The furtive scorpion whose sting is death ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... not of sufficient weight to reach the ship. We were not long at a loss, for the cook appeared, grim and smiling, with a tolerable-sized coal exposed to view and approbation, between his thumb and forefinger. Side by side, like a fair-haired youth with his swarthy bride, the coal and potato were placed; and P——, poising for the second time the precious parcel, rolled up his shirt-sleeve, and, throwing himself well back, hurled, with all the elegance of a Parthian, coal, potato, and parcel toward the Norwegian captain's head. But, horror! the potato and coal ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross |
