"Grayness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hill stood a curious structure, actually small, but looming large in the grayness. The main body of the building was elevated upon posts, and was smaller at the bottom than where the spreading walls met the peaked roof. This roof spread out on both sides into broad verandas, and under these two wing-like shelters some three or four score of people were clustered in ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... exact antithesis of all that, but you are threatening to fade into its grayness—and to deaden all the glow that was on the palette with which ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... his head, he found himself again on the edge of that shallow pool in the marshes where fate had overtaken him. The brown retriever was sitting on his haunches close by, regarding him amicably. The man was fastening one end of the tether to a stake at the water's edge, and from the east a grayness touched with chill pink was ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the sun shone through the misty grayness, bathing the road before them, and lighting up the bare hedges on either side until it really seemed that spring had come, that the fresh morning air was certainly full of the scent of primroses and violets, and the sweet earthy smell of moss. The birds evidently thought so too, for they came fluttering ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... careful way out of the rocks, then hurried down the slope. In the grayness Joan saw the dark shape of a cabin and it resembled the one Kells had built. It disappeared. Presently when Jim led her into a road she felt sure that this cabin had been the one where she had been a prisoner for so long. They hurried down the road and entered the camp. There were no lights. The ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... wool. There are places in the textile world where a mixture of cotton and wool is highly advantageous, but in ingrain carpeting, where the sympathetic fibre of the wool holds fast to its adopted colour, and the less tenacious cotton allows it to drift easily away, the result is a rusty grayness of colour which shames the whole fabric. This grayness of aspect cannot be overcome in the carpet except by re-dyeing, and even then the improvement may be transitory, so an experienced maker of rugs lets the half-cotton ingrain ...
— How to make rugs • Candace Wheeler
... incidentally to tell some things about a friend of mine that was never so merry as I was, though a thousand times wiser; and never so blithe as I was, though a thousand times the better man. For it seems to me now, in this cool grim grayness of my present way, with the cloisters for my kingdom and the nimbused frescoes on the walls for my old-time ballads and romances, as if my life that was so sunburnt and wine-sweetened and woman-kissed, my ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... tradition of a fall far off in the river. She had never seen one, but Zoe had stamped its terrors deeply. Still down in the gloom itself she could see nothing but the slowly lightening sky overhead, the drowning stars, the rosy flush upon the dark old tips feathering against a dewy grayness that was like powdered light. But gradually she heard what conquered all necessity of seeing,—heard a continuous murmurous sound that filled all the air and grew to be a sullen roar. It seemed like the dread murmur ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... Bordeaux; but, putting Bordeaux aside, Nantes is quite architectural. The view up and down the quays has the cool, neutral tone of color that one finds so often in French water-side places, - the bright grayness which is the tone of French land- scape art. The whole city has rather a grand, or at least an eminently well-established air. During a day passed in it of course I had time to go to the Musee; the more so that I have a weakness for provincial museums, - a sentiment that depends but little ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... wall of fog, saw it loomed before me, plunged into it, raced through cold grayness, snow crunching beneath my boots. I recall emerging again into that misty valley ...
— Where the World is Quiet • Henry Kuttner
... change, without adventure. But the brilliant throng of kings and queens, of knights and ladies, of pilgrims and lovers, and all the make- believe people of storyland stood out all the brighter for the grayness of the background. And perhaps to the Prince in his quiet tower the storied people were more real than the living, who only now and again came to visit him. For the storied people were with him always, while ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... this forlorn plantation-house, through avenues of great live-oaks, with their hard, shining leaves, and their branches hung with a universal drapery of soft, long moss, like fringe-trees struck with grayness. Below, the sandy soil, scantly covered with coarse grass, bristles with sharp palmettoes and aloes; all the vegetation is stiff, shining, semi-tropical, with nothing soft or delicate in its texture. Numerous plantation-buildings totter around, ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... rode beside Bo, and for a long time they climbed steadily in silence. Helen knew when that dark hour before dawn had passed, and she welcomed an almost imperceptible lightening in the east. Then the stars paled. Gradually a grayness absorbed all but the larger stars. The great white morning star, wonderful as Helen had never seen it, lost its brilliance and life and seemed to ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... if to speak, and then caught himself. Again for a passing flash there came that mysterious change in him, a sudden dying out of the enthusiasm in his eyes, and a grayness in his face that came and went like a shadow of pain. In another moment he ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... rather as if, from a corner of the tomb behind, she saw the back parts of a resurrection and ascension—warmth, outshining, splendor; departure from the door of the tomb; exultant memory; tarnishing gold, red fading to russet; fainting of spirit, loneliness; deepening blue and green; pallor, grayness, coldness; out-creeping stars; further-reaching memory; the dawn of infinite hope and foresight; the assurance that under passion itself lay a better and holier mystery? Here was God's naughty child, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... in and out among barns lit up my ceiling for a moment, a rough country voice hailed another rough country voice somewhere outside, and the day slowly coughed and sneezed itself awake in the six-o'clock grayness. I heard Colin moving in the next room, and presently we were down-stairs, alertly hungry. Our hostess, with morning smile, asked if we would mind waiting breakfast for "the boarders." Meanwhile, we stepped out into the unfolding day, and the village that had been a mystery ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... of vitality from across her face. So was the tough fiber of her skin vanquished to almost a creaminess, and her hair, due perhaps to the warm water always on tap, had taken on a sheen, and even through its grayness grew out hardily and was well trained to fall in soft ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... that next day—a dull, steady downpour that slanted in upon a warm, south wind. Old Jerry was glad of the storm. The leaden grayness of the low-hanging clouds matched perfectly his own frame of mind, and the cold touch of the rain soothed his hot head, too, as it swept in under the buggy hood, and helped him to think a little better. There was ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... first slender forerunners of the mighty torrents were unforgettable, and individual. Long, ethereal, floating white feathers drooped from the heads of tremendous boulders that were gray with the glossy grayness of old silver. Cascades were everywhere; and the weaving of many diamond-skeins of water behind a dark foreground of motionless trees was like the ceaseless play of human thought behind inscrutable ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... sharply closing his book. He had changed—except for a palpable settling down of grayness—as little as Linda. For a while she had tried to bring about an improvement in his appearance, and he had met her expressed wish whenever he remembered it; but this was not often. In the morning a servant polished his shoes, brushed and ironed ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... bed of poppies flamed scarlet against the general sombreness, and gave a strange touch of colour to the common grayness. They seemed out of place in the busy farmyard. Everything else was there for use. Everybody hurried but the poppies; idlers of precious time, suggestive of slothful sleep, they held up their ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... emotional; she was intensely sensitive to her surroundings; the grayness of her present life was absolute destruction to such a nature ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... been so intense, that there had been no place for another thought. He had forgotten. The thought which meant the failure of happiness had been crowded out. "You are married," he repeated, and the old grayness shadowed again a universe ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... the cliff. In the dim grayness it seemed less yellow, less fluid. A membrane enclosed it. It was close to the car. Was it hunger that drove it, or cold rage for these puny opponents? The hollow eyes were glaring; a thick arm formed quickly to dart out ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... are the friendships; so brave and kind are the men I meet—so beautiful the whole world of the Singing Mouse, that when it is over, and in a chill I start up, I scarce can bear the shrinking in of the walls, and the grayness of the once red fire, and my gold turned to earthenware, and my pictures turned to splotches. In my hand everything I touch feels awkward. A pen—a pen—to talk of that? If one could use it while in the land of the Singing Mouse—then it might do. I think ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... her knee, as if she were hardly aware of what she was doing. In her blue eyes, so like George's, there was an agonizing terror and suspense. Her usually florid face was pale to the lips; and this pallor appeared to accentuate the dark, faintly lined shadows beneath her eyes and the grayness ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... him for the present and lay in a blessed gray oblivion. Deep down in him somewhere his resolution was weakening and strengthening, ebbing and flowing. The thing that perturbed him went on as steadily as his pulse, but he was almost unconscious of it. He was submerged in the vast impersonal grayness about him, and at intervals the sidelong roll of the boat measured off time like the ticking of a clock. He felt released from everything that troubled and perplexed him. It was as if he had tricked and outwitted torturing memories, had actually managed to get on board without them. He thought ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... also ticket-agent and general factotum—it was now empty and dull of light with its smeared window glasses between its interior and the dispirited grayness of the outer skies. The dust-covered papers and miscellany which cumbered the table long undisturbed, spoke of an idle office and of hours ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... strange-looking, long-barrelled rifle of a type a quarter of a century old. And Donald MacDonald, in the picture he made, was like his gun, old and gray and ghostly, as if he had risen out of some graveyard of the past to warm himself in the yellow splendour of the moon. But in the grayness and gauntness of him there was something that was mightier than the strength of youth. He was alert. In the crook of his arm there was caution. His eyes were as keen as the eyes of an animal. His shoulders spoke ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... than rude, whether she means it or not," she said to herself. "I do wish I had not been sick all day. I did want to see her first meeting with Mr. Kinsella. I know she had something to do with his premature grayness and the disappointment that Pierce hinted at. How coldly polite he is to her now. If a man like that had ever loved me and then could be so cold to me, I believe it would kill me," which shows that Molly was very sentimental and on ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... eyes and see it as I lay on the straw in a post-house stable. A square hole in the front of the grenier gave upon the landscape. Even respectable houses in that part of the country were then built with few or no windows; but delicious masses of grayness they were, roofed with ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... down the hill from his big, square house—its weather-beaten grayness matching the ledges on which it was propped. His beard and hair were the color of the ledges, too, and the seams in his hard face were like ledgerifts. His belted jacket was stone gray and it was buttoned over the torso of a man who was six feet tall—yes, a bit over ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... "The grayness of the dawn was illuminated by sheets of green and red flame and black oily clouds rolled along the valley toward the river like smoke from a ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... sleeves and full skirt, the sad last garments of Marie-Antoinette. Her nose was pinched, her chin sharp, the whole face nearly triangular, the eyes worn-out with weeping; but she now wore a touch of rouge which brightened their grayness. She took snuff, and each time that she did so she employed all the pretty precautions of the fashionable women of her early days; the details of this snuff-taking constituted a ceremony which could be explained by one ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... killing, but the call for protection, swiftly following our lead. Being civilized, we instinctively knew the way out of the jungle to human habitation. We approached the village which was still sleeping in the morning grayness, and behind us saw horny deer, leopards, and wild cats rushing after us. Then the boars came after us, dashing out of the jungle in terror. Vast clouds of blackness were rising from the horizon, and when the morning light grew more intense, I realized they were clouds of ...
— Kari the Elephant • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... the lock, and Bud went in, set down his suitcase, and closed the door after him. It was dark as a pocket in there, save where a square of grayness betrayed a window. Bud felt his way to the side of the car, groped to the robe rail, found a heavy, fringed robe, and curtained the window until he could see no thread of light anywhere; after which he ventured to use his flashlight until he ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... comparatively deliciously cool outside, the grayness before dawn a pleasant contrast to the tropical glare that was positively hurtful to the new-comer's eyes. Going to the corner of the veranda, she gazed away and away towards the now deep gray sea, lying like a bath of mist beyond ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... went over to the window. She pulled up a curtain and looked out upon the grayness of the street. The clouds were low, and a strong wind was blowing. Those who passed, bent to the wind. She was slightly above the level of the street, and nobody looked up at her. She might have been a ghost in the ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... destined to play another part of increasing importance in our national life as a kind of national shock-absorber as well. But its role is something more than this, surely. When life is drab, it takes away its grayness. When life is sad, it brings us solace. When life is dull, it brings us new inspiration. When we are a-weary, it brings us comfort ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... rascal gazed, however, a grayness came into his cheeks that, somehow, smote Captain Jack ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... something," he protested mildly. "Seems to me I most generly do, with Mr. McFarlane around." Then he smiled in his wintry fashion, which was quite powerless to add warmth to his curious aspect of grayness. "Guess he must ha' been born laffin'—p'raps," he added thoughtfully. "It's a dandy thing bein' born laffin'. I don't reckon I ever got that luck. It's more likely my moma got lost in a fog the day I was born. Can't ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... the vanished city for the last time, and as we turned back, a red flush poured from the west, and painted the Doric temples in pallid rose against the evanescent purple of the Apennines. Already a thin mist was rising from the meadows, and the temples hung pink in the misty grayness. ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram
... side of the embankment, at the brink of the river, she sat on a log, and impatiently pulled off the little cap she wore. The skies were gray, heavy, overcast, with an occasional wind-rift in the clouds that only revealed new depths of grayness behind; the tideless waters murmured a faint ripple against the logs and jutting beams of the breakwater, and were answered by the crescendo wail of the dried reeds on the other bank,—reeds that rustled and moaned among themselves for the ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... water was steadily seeping. In an instant he was on his feet and as he stood looking about him in bewilderment he heard the roar of the river and detected in the sound a threatening intonation that had not been there on the previous day. He hurried to the window and stared out into the grayness of the dawn. The scene that confronted him chilled his blood. The river had risen unbelievably during the night. Not only were the little bushes along the shore entirely submerged but many of the pines standing upon higher ground were also ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... muff against her mouth and looked at him over it. Her eyes were shining as though the moonlight had got into their misty grayness. She shook her head; then, as his face fell, ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... to Mr. Baker the same words, with an addenda. "Tell mother I died for my country. I thought I did for the best." Baker repeated this, saying at the same time "Booth, do I repeat it correctly." Booth nodded his head. By this time the grayness of dawn was approaching; moving figures inquisitively coming near were to be seen distinctly, and the cocks began to crow gutturally, though the barn was a hulk of blaze and ashes, sending toward the zenith a spiral line of dense smoke. The women became ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... is never exhausted, and is never completely understood. This knowledge comes later; and it is then that the Chapter of the Great Book of Human Nature, which deals with natives, engrosses his attention and, touching the grayness of his life, like the rising sun, turns it ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... enjoy them; I think they are beautiful. A lovely splash of color in the grayness of the city, a sincere expression of American life, so sincere that the critics who take their opinions from Europe never have been able to sneer us out ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... not yet — But up the stocky Pownal hills Some springy shrub, a scarlet gash on the grayness, Climbs, flaming, over the ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse |
