"Ashen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... An ashen pallor spread over father's countenance, the letter dropped from his hand and he would have fallen if mother had not caught him in her arms. She grabbed the evil message, slipping it into the bosom of her gown, where it could ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... figure appeared upon the scene—a dwarfish mulatto, with a large head, bushy hair, and having the broad forehead and high nose of the European, with the thick lips and heavy jaws of the African; with an ashen gray complexion, and a penetrating, keen and sly expression of the eyes. With this strange combination of features he had also the European intellect with the African utterance. He was a very gifted original, whose singularities of genius and character ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... dark I could see nothing. And there, in the dim twilight of that seance room, I beheld one of the most ghastly, most truly terrifying faces I have ever seen. It was white and drawn, and almost shiny in its glossy, ashen hue. The eyes were wide open and staring—fixed. The head and face were encircled in white; and altogether the face was one of the most appalling I have ever beheld, and it would have required a great deal of fortitude, for the moment, ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... bull-terrier was thrust out between the door and the woman's skirts. As they turned away Patsy's teeth were chattering; the chill and wet had crept into her bones and blood, turning her lips blue and her cheeks ashen; even the cutting wind failed to ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... as yonder, thy mistress, at height of her mutable glories, Wise from the magical East, comes like a sorceress pale. Ah, she comes, she arises—impassive, emotionless, bloodless, Wasted and ashen of cheek, zoning her ruins with pearl. Once she was warm, she was joyous, desire in her pulses abounding: Surely thou lovedst her well, then, in her conquering youth! Surely not all unimpassioned, at sound of thy rough serenading, She from the balconied night unto her melodist ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... for the thick white mist. A spectral boat, with a sail like a gray moth's wing, slipped past her. The shadow at the helm was whistling for the wind, and the sound came strange and shrill through the filmy, ashen morning. The mist began to lift. A few moments now, and the river would lie dazzlingly bare between the red and yellow forests. She turned her boat shorewards, and presently forced it beneath the bronze-leafed, drooping boughs of a ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... complexion turned almost to an ashen grey, but only for a moment. The whole night she lay awake, listening to her husband, who lay breathing heavily by her side; but the next morning found her sitting by her window, as calm and bright as ever. Many of her friends, as she had expected, ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... considered more nearly so now than then, when a high forehead and well-sleeked hair were almost necessities of life. Her low brow—truly Greek in its straightness and the crisp ripple of her hair around it—was not in favour at that time. The hair, which was of a dull ashen brown, was strained back tightly and confined by a round comb. Her eyebrows, too straight for the period and too thick, nearly met above the short, tip-tilted nose, freckled as a plover's egg, and that at a time when ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... mobile, the mouth heart-shaped and representing perfectly certain portraits of the Regency. Often they have fair hair, and you cannot take three turns in the Prado without meeting eight blonds of all shades, from the ashen blond to the most vehement red, the red of the beard of Charles V. It is a mistake to think there are no blonds in Spain. Blue eyes abound there, but they are not so ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... above his waist in the middle of the slushy spot, which was nothing less than a treacherous bog. He was struggling desperately to free himself, and his face was ashen-gray with terror. ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... met, and no creature will ever know the agony of terror that he tasted of before the end came. She saw his face sink in and turn ashen grey while the cold sweat ran from every pore. He was awake, but fear paralysed him, he could ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... said Orca, unconsciously echoing Baldy Perk, "saw anything like it!" The commodore's chunky little gunman was ashen-faced. The circle of Star men standing around him hardly looked happier. Most of them were staring down at the empty lower section of a suit of space armor which appeared to have been separated with a neat diagonal ...
— Lion Loose • James H. Schmitz
... her pulse and her head. The flesh under his hand was cold as marble; the pulse—if there was any—was not perceptible. Dale examined the back of her head, where it had struck the chair. He got up, his face ashen and convulsed with horror. ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... He staggered across the shop, fell against the wall, and then sank down upon the floor. Mrs. Sharp sprang toward him, not with any humane intention, we are sorry to say; but, ere she had grasped the boy's arm, and given him the purposed jerk, the sight of his ashen, lifeless face prevented the outrage. Exhausted nature could bear nothing more, and protected herself in a temporary suspension of her power. Henry had fainted, and it was well that it was so. The fact was a stronger argument in his favor than any external exhibition of suffering ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... uncompromising. His long strides carried him swiftly out of sight, but it was many minutes before she turned her eyes, which were smarting a little, from the point where he was lost in the crowd. The room looked ashen to her as she brought her mind back to it, and somehow things had ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... his speech, and slow His musing step; and slow his hand to wrath; A massive hand, but soft, that many a time Had succoured man and woman, child and beast, And yet could fiercely grasp the sword. At times As mightily it clutched his ashen goad When like an eagle on him swooped some thought: Then stood he as in dream, his pallid front Brightening like eastern sea-cliffs when a moon Unrisen is near its rising. Round the bay Meantime, as twilight deepened, many a fire Up-sprang, and horns were ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... still. She was nineteen—twenty. She changed by slow degrees from the frightened little rabbit that had fled to Miss Toland for refuge to an observant, dignified young woman who was quietly sure of herself and her work. The rumpled ashen glory that had been her hair was transformed into the soft thick braids that now marked Miss Page's head apart from those of the other girls of her day. The round arms were guiltless of bracelets; Julia wore her severe blue uniform, untouched by any ornament; ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... Lady Elliston's eyes before that stricken, ashen face; she looked away, murmuring: "I wanted to tell you, when we were alone. It might have come as such an ugly shock, if you were unprepared. But, now, there is no danger anymore. And you will come ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... experimenters besides the author have tried in vain a host of expedients in the hope of finding some way to improve the color of diamond. About the only noticeable alteration that the author has been able to bring about was upon a brown diamond, the color of which was made somewhat lighter and more ashen by heating it in a current of hydrogen gas to a low ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... of Cyndyllan was like the ice of winter, like the fire of spring; the horses of Geraint are ruddy ones, with the assault of spotted eagles, of black eagles, of red eagles, of white eagles; an onset in battle is like the roaring of the wind against the ashen spears. These poets are the poets of 'tumults, shouting, swords, and men in battle-array.' The sound of battle is heard in them; they are 'where the ravens screamed over blood'; they are among 'crimsoned ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... Hugh Ritson and the flyman had returned to the bar. The phantom of a smile lurked about the flyman's mouth. Hugh Ritson's face was ashen, and ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... locked the door, and flung himself into his chair, the little book open before him. The ashen ring had widened until his whole face was like that of the dead. Not a muscle of his rigid face stirred as with desperate eyes he read on and on. Only the faint rustle of the leaves as he turned the pages, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... seen, for he whipped up his horse unmercifully. As he flashed past me, I was struck by the ashen grey that had stolen over his features. His face was drawn, his nostrils ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... that chased each other through the chambers, And up and down the stair, And rioted among the ashen embers, And left their frolic ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... a great flow of words and quick utterance; a good skald too; but still for the most part he kept himself well in hand; his hair was dark brown, with crisp curly locks; he had good eyes; his features were sharp, and his face ashen pale, his nose turned up and his front teeth stuck out, and his mouth was very ugly. Still he was the most ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... not, surely, our dapper little visitor of yesterday! A majestic beard of ashen gray fell in patriarchal locks almost to his knees. Upon his head he wore a high cap of some dark fur; upon his feet embroidered slippers; and round his waist a glittering belt patterned with hieroglyphics. A long woollen robe of chocolate and orange fell about him in heavy folds, and swept behind ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... the fire, watching the violet ashen bit of burnt-out paper, the cause, the stupid cause of ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... landscape. There was no one in sight. This was one of the waste places of the world. Larralde seemed to remember the Eye that seeth even there, and crossed himself as he slipped from the saddle to the ground. He was shaking all over. His face was ashen, for it is a terrible thing to kill a man and be left ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... remained motionless, spellbound. Amid the general excitement, Mrs. LaGrange sat as though turned to stone, her hands clasped so tightly that the jewels cut deeply into the delicate flesh, every vestige of color fled from her face, her lips ashen, her eyes fixed upon the witness, yet seemingly seeing nothing. Gradually, as she became conscious of her surroundings and of the curious glances cast in her direction, she partially recovered herself, though her eyes never left the ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... office of clothing the face of creation with green and blue; with both which, as with black and grey, it enters into innumerable compounds and accordances, changing its name as either hue prevails, into green, gray, ashen, slate, &c. Thus the olive hues of foliage are called green, and the purple hues of clouds are called gray, &c.; but such terms are general only, and unequal to the ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... cast forward, the hand not clenched but stricken. Behind her a blue curtain hangs straight from iron rods set on either side of the bed. Above the curtain a lamp is burning dimly, blighted by the pallor of the dawn. A dead, faint sky—the faint ashen sky which precedes the first rose tint; the circular window is filled with it, and the paling blue of the sky's colour contrasts with the deep blue of the bed's curtain, on which the Virgin's red ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... enough, the passenger who seemed most nervous and terrified was the stalwart Colonel Braddon, who had boasted most noisily of what he would do in case the stage were attacked. He nervously felt in his pockets for his money, his face pale and ashen, and said, imploringly: "Spare my life, gentlemen; I will give you all ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... upon one side of my nose and struck an attitude of interrogation while putting these questions. The Minister's face turned to an ashen hue, and then the blood came coursing back like lava to the Crater's surface, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various
... like her husband, was a woman of about forty, worn out before her time, with ashen face, pale eyes, thin faded hair, and a weak mouth which already lacked many teeth. A large family had been too much for her; and, moreover, she ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... as blind as a number who were much younger. But her skin was full of fine as well as deep wrinkles, and of an ashen hue. I gave a little sugar and some crackers to many ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... an hour later he found his chief bowed forward on his desk, his head resting upon his hands. As the door closed the older man raised his eyes, and the change in his face caused Covington to stop in surprise. The usual color was replaced by a dull, ashen gray, the lines had deepened, and the general aspect was that of a ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... must have been of the ideal type of the time. All the portraits and images that Mme. du Barry has left of herself, in marble, engraving, or on canvas, show a mignonne perfection of body and face. Her hair was long, silky, of an ashen blonde, and was dressed like the hair of a child; her brows and lashes were brown, her nose small and finely cut. "It was a complexion which the century compared to a roseleaf fallen into milk. It was a neck which was like the neck of an antique statue...." In her were victorious youth, life, ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... neighbouring farmers; and on her bare white arm, with its upturned sleeve, she carried a small split basket half filled with persimmons. She was of an almost pure Saxon type—tall, broad-shouldered, deep-bosomed, with a skin the colour of new milk, and soft ashen hair parted smoothly over her ears and coiled in a large, loose knot at the back of her head. As he reached her she smiled faintly and a little brown mole at the corner of her mouth played charmingly up and down. After the first minute, Gay found himself ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... away from the log fire at the sound of Bambi's footsteps running down the stairs. The soft gray gown clung to her, and floated behind her, its ashen monotone making her face more vivid than ever. Her cheeks were pink, and her eyes looked gray-green in the shadowy room, with the deep, shining fire of opals. Both hands went ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... an hour from the time the matron had left her until she returned; but when she did so, she cried out in alarm, for Bernardine's face was of an ashen pallor, her dark eyes were like coals of fire, and her hands were cold as death. The matron went up to her in great alarm, and gently touched ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... and at his age of sixty-three, I could not see that he was less alert and vigorous than he was when I first knew him in Cambridge. He had the same brisk, light step, and though his beard was well whitened and his auburn hair had grown ashen through the red, his face had the freshness and his eyes the clearness of a young man's. I suppose the novelty of his life kept him from thinking about his years; or perhaps in contact with those great, insenescent Englishmen, he could not ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... set his teeth hard, as Dale scraped away the snow and found almost directly a narrow crack which ran parallel with the crevasse, but so slight that there was just room to force down the stout ashen staff which formed the handle of the ice-axe, the top of it and about a foot of the staff standing ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... rose to his feet. He took the bottle of whisky under his arm. His face was still ashen, but his tone was steady. He gripped ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... are bare and ashen, And bend on me without a beam. Since love is held the master-passion, Its loss must be the pain supreme— And grinning Fate has wrecked my dream. But pardon, dear departed Guest, I will not rant, I will not rail; ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... they were ashen and sober; The leaves they were crisped and sere— The leaves they were withering and sere; It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year; It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, In the misty mid region of Weir— ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... and breathing peacefully. Love-birds, nestling shoulder to shoulder, with their heads tucked under their wings and all their feathers puffed out, so that they looked like globes of malachite; English bullfinches, with ashen-colored backs, in which their black heads were buried, and corselets of a rosy down; Java sparrows, fat and sleek and cleanly; troupials, so glossy and splendid in plumage that they looked as if they were dressed in the celebrated armor ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... for Ruth and Alice to ask their father what had happened. One look at his ashen face when he came home ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... tooth comb, An ashen broom, A candlestick and hatchet, A coverlid Striped down with red, A bag of rags to ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... steps the autumn day In azure cloak and gown of ashen grey Over the level country that ...
— The Inn of Dreams • Olive Custance
... before her in that eloquent, linked attitude, and over her features there passed that helpless, trapped expression of guilt discovered and brought to bay, which, once seen, can never be forgotten. The blood ebbed from her face, leaving it ashen white, except for two fixed spots of colour on either cheek; her fingers relaxed their hold, and the fragments of paper fluttered downward to the floor. There ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... trembling, white-clad girl the great, black vulture stalked. The revelers fell away from him on either side as he approached. Carmen turned again and watched him come. Her face was ashen. "God is ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... fiery red: in size it was rather small than large; and the coat, which was remarkably smooth, as white as the falling flakes. It placed itself directly in my path, and showing its teeth, and bristling its coat, appeared determined to prevent my progress. I had an ashen stick in my hand, with which I threatened it; this, however, only served to increase its fury; it rushed upon me, and I had the utmost difficulty to preserve ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... majority. Whatever the regular troops spared was devoured by bands of marauders who overran almost every barony in the island. For the arming was now universal. No man dared to present himself at mass without some weapon, a pike, a long knife called a skean, or, at the very least, a strong ashen stake, pointed and hardened in the fire. The very women were exhorted by their spiritual directors to carry skeans. Every smith, every carpenter, every cutler, was at constant work on guns and blades. It was scarcely possible to ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... said, and held on. It was now that I learned the nature of Nero's diversion when he was an angler in the Lake of Darkness. The loch really did deserve the term "grim"; the water here was black, the sky was ashen, the long green reeds closed cold about me, and beyond them there was trout that I could not deal with. For when he tired of running, which was soon, he was as far away as ever. Draw him through the forest of reeds I could not. At last I did ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... sky the howitzers no longer explode, The cannoneers rest next to their guns. The infantry pitch tents now, And the pale moon slowly rises. On yellow fields in red trousers, the French are ablaze, Ashen pale from death and powder. Among them German medics squat. The day becomes grayer, its sun redder. Field kitchens steam. Towns are put to the torch. Broken carts stand at roadsides. Panting cyclists, hot and tanned, loiter At a scorched wooden fence. And orderlies ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... welling from a shothole in his broad, burly chest and the seal of death already settling on his ashen brow, he was scowling up into the half-compassionate, half-contemptuous faces about him. Here lay the "Capitan Americano" of whom the Tagal soldiers had been boasting for a month—a deserter from the army of the United States, a commissioned officer in the ranks of Aguinaldo, shot ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... of staring eyes. He does not dwell long upon this, however; in his pride and anger he sees a nearer enemy. The horsemen have taken position near the gate, where they sit motionless as burlesque statues, their long ashen spears, iron-tipped, in rest, their wretched nags standing blindfolded, with trembling knees, and necks like dromedaries, not dreaming of their near fate. The bull rushes, with a snort, at the nearest one. The picador holds firmly, planting his spear-point in the shoulder of the brute. ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... one cloudless winter morn My Katie to this life was born? Ah, folly! long hath fled the hour When love to sight gave keener power, And lovers looked for special boons In brighter flowers and larger moons. But wave the foliage as it may, And let the sky be ashen gray, Thus much at least a manly youth May hold—and yet not blush—as truth: If near that blessed spot of earth Which saw the cherished maiden's birth No softer dews than usual rise, And life there keeps its wonted guise, Yet not the less that spot may ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... upon the plains, and they sprang up in lilies and roses,—flashed upon the waters, and they flowed to spheral melody,—swept through the forests, and they, too, trembled into song. And though now the warmth has faded out, though the ruddy tints and amber clearness have paled to ashen hues, though the murmuring melodies are dead, and forest, vale, and hill look hard and angular in the sharp air, you know that it is not death. The fire is unquenched beneath. You go your way not disconsolate. There ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... light! Evanescent and tender, It glows ruby-red where 'twas now ashen-grey; And purple and scarlet and gold in its splendour— Behold, 'tis that marvel, the birth ...
— Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other Verses • A. B. Paterson
... sprang away like a mad thing, dodged him, avoided him, then leapt suddenly upon a chair and snatched a rapier from a group of swords arranged in a circle upon the wall. The light fell full upon her ashen face and eyes of horror. She ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... the Enemy tempted her!—too long; for ere Miss Wimple, quick as she was to take the alarm, could turn and lead her away, Madeline's vigilant, fierce glance had caught sight of him, (alack! Philip Withers!) and, ashen-pale, with parted lips and suspended breath, and wide, blazing eyes, she stood, rooted there, and stared at him. But Miss Wimple dragged her away just in time,—no, he had not seen her,—and for a brief space the two women stood together, near the bed, in the corner farthest ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... more on the threshold of the room. Armand, with wide-opened eyes, gazed on him in wonder. The whole appearance of the man had changed. He looked ten years older, with lank, dishevelled hair hanging matted over a moist forehead, the cheeks ashen-white, the full lips bloodless and hanging, flabby and parted, displaying both rows of yellow teeth that shook against each other. The whole figure looked bowed, as ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... His ashen face with the light upon it was still boyish despite the stamp of torment that it bore. Through all the furnace of his degradation his youth yet clung to him like an impalpable veil that no suffering could ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... was one that I could not have pictured in even my wildest flights of fancy. Bryce was slumped forward in his chair, his big head sunk on his chest. All the color had fled from his face, leaving it ashen pale. The kind eyes that used to sparkle so were glazed now in death, and squinted up at me through the tangled mat of his eyebrows. The whiteness of his immaculate shirt-front was defiled for the first and last time by the big blood stain that showed how his life had ebbed away. ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... but, instead of riding away at once, stood for some minutes by the gate watching the two men. They were kneeling by Gandara, one opening his clothes to look for the wound, the other holding a flaring candle over his ashen, corpse-like face. ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... from Cecropia came warlike Butes, son of brave Teleon, and Phalerus of the ashen spear. Alcon his father sent him forth; yet no other sons had he to care for his old age and livelihood. But him, his well-beloved and only son, he sent forth that amid bold heroes he might shine conspicuous. But Theseus, who surpassed all the sons of Erechtheus, an unseen bond kept beneath the ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... of the wild fanatic was terrible to look upon. Charles Stevens, bold as he was, gazing on him in the full light of day, could not repress a shudder. His thin, cadaverous face, smooth shaven and of an ashen hue, was upturned to heaven, and those great, awful eyes seemed gazing on things unlawful for man to see. The long right arm was raised toward the sky, and again that deep voice ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... Miss Cursiter. Tall, academic and austere; a keen eagle head crowned with a mass of iron-grey hair; grey-black eyes burning under a brow of ashen grey; an intelligence fervent with fire of the enthusiast, cold with the renunciant's frost. Such was Miss Cursiter. She was in splendid force to-day, grappling like an athlete with her enormous theme—"The Educational Advantages ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... terrible disease, saw one day an article in a Hungarian paper which, in brutal and derisive tones, spoke of the Archduke's expectations of future government as laid aside, and gloated openly, with malicious delight, over the probable event. The Archduke, who while reading the article had turned ashen grey with rage and indignation, remained silent for a moment and then made the following characteristic remark: "Now I must get better. I shall live from now only for my health. I must get better in order to show them ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... end set it vibrating. That was enough: they turned as if panic-stricken and rushed back to the body of the herd. I was almost afraid to look at Jacklin. He could scarcely speak, but he rode over to me, ashen with rage, and kept repeating, "Well, ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... through all things, that lifts the burden of life. But for thee I should have passed away, unknowing the glory of manhood. I am a man—a man rejoicing in his strength! O my starved youth! why did I not behold thee earlier?" Tears of self-pity rolled down his ashen cheek. "O my love! my love! my lost youth! Give me back my youth, O God! Who am I, to save? A man; yea, a man, glorying in manhood. Ah! happy are they who lead the common fate of men, happy in love, in home, in children; woe for those who would climb, who would torture and deny themselves, who ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... mellow cadence scarcely dying before another stroke renewed it. The sexton was Simeon Pease, a little red-headed man, a hunchback, abnormally strong. Suddenly he rose in amazement. His face looked ashen. ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... to the opening at the front of the wagon and called at the top of his voice. Only the shrieking of the wind answered him. A dozen times he cried out, then paused to strike a somewhat damp match and light a smoky lantern hanging to the front ashen bow of the turn-out's covering. Holding the light over his head he peered forth into the inky darkness ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill
... as if she thought she might be struck dead. She took the letter and kneeled, ashen pale, to burn it. When 'twas done, her mistress pointed to ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... woes. Wherefore, since here no more dwells love, I fly To seek my home in other lands. For why Should Lilith wait since Adam's empty state More dear he holds than Lilith desolate?" But answer soft made Adam at the word, For faint his dying love, yet coldly stirred Its ashen cerements: "Nay, love, our home Within these garden walls lies safe. Wouldst roam Without? Sweet peace, by loss, wilt thou restore One little loss, or miss it evermore?" "In goodly Eden, Adam, safely bide, But I, for peace, nor love, nor life," she cried, "Submit to thee. Unto our Lord ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... upon hope could well enable me to bear. I was happiest, therefore, when I was out of the presence of her to be near whom was all for which my life was worth having; and when we sat down at the long and bare table, with the thoughtful and ashen-cowled company, sad as I was, it was an opiate sadness—a suspension from self-mastery, under torture which others took to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... familiar vision to him. Then he remained immovable for a long time, gazing out to sea, with the little book crunched to a shapeless mass in his huge fist. When at last he turned to ascend the cliff again, his face was ashen pale, and his step was that of an old man. He trudged heavily across the common and along the road inland, five or six miles, till he reached the town, inquired for a certain auberge, entered the kitchen, and ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... every second. And unresisting she submitted, for she was beyond resistance now, beyond tears even. From between wet lashes her great eyes gazed into his with a look of deadly, piteous affright; her lips were parted, her cheeks ashen, and her mind was dimly striving to formulate a prayer to the Holy Mother, the natural protectress of all ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... suddenly projected into the companionship of his two daughters. One, as he had said, was light, but a different fairness from Mrs. Condon's—richly thick, like honey; while Judith, the elder, who must have been twenty, was dark in skin, in everything but her eyes, which were a contrasting ashen-violet. She spoke at once of ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... his running, as the gods appointed of yore, Two the nights of his sleeping alone in the place of gore: The drunken slumber of frenzy twice he drank to the lees, On the sacred stones of the High-place under the sacred trees; With a lamp at his ashen head he lay in the place of the feast, And the sacred leaves of the banyan rustled around the priest. Last, when the stated even fell upon terrace and tree, And the shade of the lofty island lay leagues away to sea, And all the valleys ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fresh young sprouts rising from the bed of winter's death. Over the wide waste the March wind drove furiously, with blessing in the guise of chastisement, while, far above, the grey-blue clouds whirled fast across a steely sky, till the ashen moon gazed coldly on the waning day, as one by one the stars flashed overhead, the clouds rolled down into the pink and silver west, and the song of the wind became only a murmur in the leafless willows ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... elevator-boy, had kicked, and they were just between hay and grass, as you might say. He showed Lemuel into a grandiose parlour or drawing-room, enormously draped and upholstered, and furnished in a composite application of yellow jute and red plush to the ashen easy-chairs and sofa. A folding-bed in the figure of a chiffonier attempted to occupy the whole side of the ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... goes on to define more exactly as a people of a colour something between black and ashen hue, whom the Portuguese once plundered and enslaved but now trade with peacefully enough. "For the Prince will not allow any wrong-doing, being only eager that they should submit themselves to the law of Christ. For at present they are in a doubt whether ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... left the trader's face, and his olive skin was ashen. "Next time," he moaned, "next time, Santa Maria, they will be in force and they—they will take the very horse from ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... the light of day declineth, And a swift angel through the sky Kindleth God's tapers clear, With ashen staff the lamplighter Passeth along the darkling streets To light our ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare
... When Harold beheld her, his cheeks grew ashen pale. All through the service his reading at times faltered and his eyes were lowered. Once, too, during the epistle for the day, which chanced to be the sixth Sunday after Epiphany, the plain words of St. John seemed to attract ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... draw it forth, press it against myself, speak soft words of affection to it, caress and kiss it, fix my mind on it as if it were a living presence. Often the grey light of dawn would put its ashen hand across my sunken cheeks before dead-heavy, exhausted ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... Hampton could distinguish the faint ticking of the watch in his pocket, the hiss of the breath between the giant's clinched teeth. Twice the fellow tried to utter something, his lips shaking as with the palsy, his ashen face the picture of terror. No wretch dragged shrieking to the scaffold could have formed a more pitiful sight, but there was no mercy in the eyes ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... his hand down to turn an ashen branch into the heart of the fire. As he did a drop from the roasting Dragon-heart fell upon his hand. The drop burnt into him. He put his hand to his mouth to ease the smart, and his tongue tasted the burning ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... waved his sword, and standing near, Where furious Ajax plied his ashen spear, Full on the lance a stroke so justly sped, That the broad falchion lopp'd its brazen head; His pointless spear the warrior shakes in vain; The brazen head falls sounding on the plain. Great Ajax saw, and own'd the hand divine; Confessing Jove, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... to a whisper, thrilled with excitement. There, a few yards away from them, ashen grey against the silver-grey of a dead tree, was a great bird. To Hilda's excited fancy, it seemed the spirit of the place, changed by some wizardry into bird form, crouching there amid the ruins of the forest where once it had flitted ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... is now in his sixty-eighth year, having been born in Durham in 1717. He lived to the age of nearly eighty- eight, and one who remembered him In his latest years says: "He rises to my mind the very ideal of age and decrepitude—a small, emaciated old man, very lame, his ashen and withered features surmounted sometimes by a cap, and sometimes by a small wig— always quiet and gentle in his manner." Such a condition as is here described is still, however, in the future for him. He is still vigorous ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... some way for the deficiency of his musical performance. If plainness of dress indicates powers of song, as it usually does, the ph[oe]be ought to be unrivaled in musical ability, for surely that ashen-gray suit is the superlative of plainness; and that form, likewise, would hardly pass for a "perfect figure" of a bird. The seasonableness of his coming, however, and his civil, neighborly ways, shall make up for all ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... His face was ashen, and his jowls sagged. "My God, it's happening all over Ullr! Why, it's the ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... Philippina's face turned ashen pale; she gritted her teeth. "Your father, he's loafing around somewhere in the country," replied Philippina, and blew out one of the candles that had burned down and was ready to set the twig on fire. "He's done with women, it seems, but you can't tell. He strums the music box and smears ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... Debendra Babu became ashen pale, but he soon regained self-possession. Turning on Abdullah he shouted:—"How dare you say that I gave you any ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... his heart it grew ashen and sober As the leaves that were crisped and sere,— As the leaves that were ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... soon recovered, and the old hard, cruel, sinister look returned. Neranya's black hair and beard had grown long, and they added to the natural ferocity of his aspect. His eyes blazed upon the rajah with a terrible light, his lips parted, and he gasped for breath; his face was ashen with rage and despair, and his thin, distended ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... up that cheer; for the combined efforts of the men who rowed the laden craft, and the tugging of two boats' crews of men straining with all their might at their stout ashen blades, had the required effect. We were indeed in motion, and going ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... to speak for a moment. Her face became almost ashen. Then it brightened. Alarm went from her eyes and she ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... and dropped upon her lap. The spell of this incomparable sorcerer was upon her imagination; the sluggish, lurid tarn of Usher; the pale, gigantic water lilies, nodding their ghastly, everlasting heads over the dreary Zaire; the shrouding shadow of Helusion; the ashen skies, and sere, crisped leaves in the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir, hard by the dim lake of Auber—all lay with grim distinctness before her; and from the red bars of the grate the wild, lustrous, appalling eyes of Ligeia looked out ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... down with them. If they looked down from above Ukleevo looked beautiful and peaceful with its willow-trees, its white church, and its little river, and the only blot on the picture was the roof of the factories, painted for the sake of cheapness a gloomy ashen grey. On the slope on the further side they could see the rye—some in stacks and sheaves here and there as though strewn about by the storm, and some freshly cut lying in swathes; the oats, too, were ripe and glistened now in the sun like mother-of-pearl. It was harvest-time. To-day ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... surveyed the littered premises with some curiosity. He was a tall, gray-haired man, with a long, impassive face of peculiar ashen color. He had lost his left hand somewhere above the wrist and in place of it wore a metal hook. With this he gestured stiffly in the direction of a girl who had followed him ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... expected return. Her time had come; nothing could save her. He would regain consciousness, just as the captain had said, and would open those awful hollow eyes and would look at her, and then that dreadful mouth, with its thin, ashen lips, would speak to her, and she could deny nothing. Trusting to her luck—something which had never failed her—she had continued in her determination to keep everything from Max. Now it would all come as a shock to him, ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... with tears, her stout defender sent: And from her own pure self no joy dissembling, Wraps round her ample robe with happy trembling. Sometimes, when the good Knight his rest would take, It is reflected, clearly, in a lake, With the young ashen boughs, 'gainst which it rests, And th' half seen mossiness of linnets' nests. Ah! shall I ever tell its cruelty, When the fire flashes from a warrior's eye, And his tremendous hand is grasping it, ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... Ryan, "it won't last a month! We'll put them out of business if it does. They'll weaken, Mr. Barwig, you'll see! They'll weaken all right." The ashen appearance of Von Barwig's face, the abject despair he saw depicted there aroused the man's sympathy. "It won't be long, Mr. Barwig," he repeated in a softened voice. "I know it's hard, but what are we to do? If we don't stand ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... He looked anxiously at the Weasel's ashen face. "The Wolf stabbed him. We have got to get ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... did not pass here?" asked the stranger, and as he turned his head the dried pollen was loosened from the cat-tails and drifted in an ashen dust to ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... in a sunken road on two sides of a valley that was perpendicular to the enemy's front. We now began to get a few wounded; one man with ashen face came charging to the rear with shell shock. He shook all over, foamed at the mouth, could not speak. I put him under a tent and he acted as ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... wearied with the accumulation of a little learning, it knew what work meant, and did not work except when compelled. Caius walked upon the red road bordered by fir hedges and weeds, amongst which blue and yellow asters were beginning to blow, and the ashen seeds of the flame-flower were seen, for its flame was blown out. Caius was walking for the sake of walking and in pure idleness, but when he came near Farmer Day's land he had no thought of passing it without pausing to rest his eyes for a time upon the familiar details ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... insect that has been feigning death cautiously unrolls itself and starts into action—in each seed the great miracle of life begins. Each awakens as from a sleep, as from pretended death. It starts, it moves, it bursts its ashen woody shell, it takes two opposite courses, the white, fibril-tapered root hurrying away from the sun; the tiny stem, bearing its lance-like leaves, ascending graceful, brave ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... midnight sunset, powdered the grayest grass with gold and flushed the few tall trees up to the last fingers of their foliage. Behind them the night was black and cavernous; and one could only trace faintly the ashen horizon beyond the dark and magic Wilton Woods. As I went, a workman on a bicycle shot a rood past me; then staggered from his machine and shouted to me to tell him where the fire was. I answered that I was going to see, but thought it was the cottages by the wood-yard. ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... Sanin, and he shook one of Polozov's hands; arrayed in tight kid-gloves of an ashen-grey colour, they hung as lifeless as before beside his barrel-shaped legs. 'Have you been here long? Where have you come from? ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... his life; perhaps he had lived as nobly as his place and knowledge would permit—they could not tell. Probably they each estimated what they knew of his life from a different standpoint. The face was as ashen as the grey hair about it, as the grey clothes the body wore. They stood and looked at it—those three, who were bound to each other by no tie except such as the accident of time and place had wrought. The dog, who understood ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... soaked into him. He saw the horror of the City Road, he realized the ghastly cold sordidness of the tram-car in which he sat. Cold, stark, ashen sterility had him surrounded. Where then was the luminous, wonderful world he belonged to by rights? How did he come to be thrown on this refuse-heap ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... expected to see that ashen grey upon her cheek, which is the nearest approach to pallor that her race can know, he was disappointed. She neither changed color nor moved, but a gleam of horrible intelligence came into her eyes, and as her lips closed, a ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... small boy whose one ambition was to have people grow ashen and tremble at the mention of his name," McKnight jibed. But they were serious enough, both of them, under it all, and when they had told me what they planned, ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... adolescence, was a real resurrection of emotions which had been stifled by these years at Haverton House following upon the paralyzing grief of his mother's death. Had he been in contact during that time with an influence like the Vicar of Meade Cantorum, he would probably have escaped those ashen years, but as Mr. Ogilvie pointed out to him, he would also never have received such evidence of God's loving kindness as was shown to him ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... on his independent own and appeared in lonely spots at unexpected times—with apparently no definite object in life—like a grey kangaroo bothered by a new wire fence, but unsuspicious of the presence of humans. He wore a grey suit, rode, or mostly led, an ashen-grey horse; the grass was long and grey, so he was seldom spotted until he was well within the horizon and bearing leisurely down on a party of sub-contractors, ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... one possible chance for her in the future, was the chance of Geoffrey's death. Horrible as it was to him, he had been possessed by that one idea—go where he might, do what he might, struggle as he might to force his thoughts in other directions. He looked round the broad ashen path on which the race was to be run, conscious that he had a secret interest in it which it was unutterably repugnant to him to feel. He tried to resume the conversation with his friend, and to lead it to other topics. The effort was useless. In despite ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... countenance Blurrs 'twixt glance and second glance; When the tattered smokes forerun Ashen 'neath a silvered sun; When the curtain of the haze Shuts upon our helpless ways— Hear the Channel Fleet at ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling |
