"Grimness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would have followed out those plans," Pierce said with a touch of grimness. "As you pointed out, they are attractive. But I changed him. I won't give you personality dynamics, but if you want a list of changes—He's married to Sheila Wesley, that's one change. And instead of going home nights he roisters around in bars and restaurants, talking to everybody, listening ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... that he really did lay fast and firm the road to fame. His wife's sharp tongue, and the gnawings of his own dyspepsia, were lived down with true Scottish grimness. It was here that he wrote some of his most penetrating and sympathetic essays, which were published by the leading reviews of England and Scotland. Here, too, he began to teach his countrymen the value ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... think it has been particularly easy for either of us," said Hawtrey, with a trace of grimness. "Anyway, it seems that I'm only distressing you." He smiled wryly. "It's naturally not what I had expected to do. I'll come back when I feel ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... neighbourhood), and to which it owed its appellation of the Black. There are no windows, no apertures, and to-day no battlements nor roofs. These accessories were removed by Henry III., so that, in spite of its grimness and blackness, the place has not even the interest of looking like a prison; it being, as I suppose, the essence of a prison not to be open to the sky. The only features of the enormous structure are the blank, sombre ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... foot hard down upon the old serpent, as if his very soul depended upon it, feeling him squirm mightily, and doubting whether the fight were half over yet, and how the victory might turn! And, with all this fierceness, this grimness, this unutterable horror, there should still be something high, tender, and holy in Michael's eyes, and around his mouth. But the battle never was such a child's play as Guido's dapper Archangel seems ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... wouldn't, but I've made it a rule never to let strange hands touch that rifle," said the strange man, and there was a grimness about ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... who had been moving to Bishop's assistance, stood instantly arrested. Chap-fallen, with much of his high colour suddenly departed, the Deputy-Governor was swaying on unsteady legs. Peter Blood considered him with a grimness ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... the old fireplace in the principal room of the little cottage; for he has bought back the rocky farm of his father, and has retained and restored the little old home. "I was born in this room. It was bedroom and kitchen. It was poverty." And his voice sank with a kind of grimness into silence. ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... he turned round, the air of grimness was perceptible again. He held out the glass to Nick. "I think I'll go," ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... explanation of the tears with a murmured sound of somewhat enigmatic intonation. Her thin dark face settled into a repose that had a little grimness in it. She began putting the flowers into a vase that stood between the reproduction of a Giotto Madonna and a Japanese devil-hunt, both results of the study of art taken up during the past winter by her mother's favorite woman's club. Mrs. Emery watched the process in ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... handsome livery who, touching smart hat to his shabby master, brought the vehicle to a halt, into which we mounted forthwith and away we drove. Soon before us rose stately parapet, battlement and turret above the green of trees ancient like itself, a mighty structure, its frowning grimness softened by years. Diana viewed massive wall and tower with eyes of delighted wonder, then suddenly turned to clasp the hand of the slender, ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... a very silent meal that morning, quite oppressively silent; Erica felt like a child in disgrace. Every now and then the grimness of it appealed to her sense of the ludicrous, and she felt inclined to scream or do something desperate just to see what would happen. At length the dreary repast came to an end, and she had just taken up ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... up, leaving Bous-Bous in a prayerful attitude, his paws raised devoutly towards the heavens. When he saw that it was the priest who had addressed him his face changed, hardened to grimness, and his ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... only spot of greenery about the place. Five tall poplars grew in a row about a hundred yards from the front windows; these, strange to say, Mr. Whitelaw had suffered to remain. They served to add a little extra gloom to the settled grimness of the place, and perhaps harmonised ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... a strike," Mrs. Cudahy agreed, with quiet grimness, and under her breath she added heavily, "Sure ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... only, but by constant speeches, full at once of grimness and humor, did Cato struggle against the degeneracy of his time[45]. He concluded his period of office with a self-laudatory harangue, and assumed the title Censorius, while his statue was placed in the temple of ...
— Cato Maior de Senectute • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... grim and sour to be any one's companion. But no man doubted his honesty, and those who had no call to fear him entertained a certain respect for him, even though they could not like the man. In addition to his grimness he had a stingingly bitter tongue. He was not a fluent speaker; but most of his words had an edge to them, and he dealt not at all in compliments, never going beyond a curt nod by way of response to another man's "Good day!" When, with the punctiliousness of the perfectly disciplined man, he saluted ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... again at the corners of Blount's steady gray eyes, but this time it was shot through with a faint suggestion of the Blount grimness. ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... by the window, from which could be seen a piece of waste ground overgrown with grass and weeds, and shaded by some great plane and elm trees. There was nothing particularly fascinating in the outlook, which partook of the usual grimness of a London atmosphere; but the young green of the budding trees spoke, in spite of the blackness of their branches, of spring and spring's delight; and there was a brightness in the tints of the tangled grass which gave a restful satisfaction to the eye. ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... droves to football matches, and did not care a rap if it rained. The prevailing wind was sarcastic. To come here from London was to come from atmospheric blue-greys to ashen-greys, from smoke and soft smut to grime and black grimness. ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... dark face, its grimness not lessened by flecks and bars of court-plaster; across the apathy of physical exhaustion his black eyes ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... S. Smythe went to look over "—— House," in the neighbourhood of Blythswood Square, Glasgow, the only thing about the house he did not like was the bathroom—it struck him as excessively grim. The secret of the grimness did not lie, he thought, in any one particular feature—in the tall, gaunt geyser, for example (though there was always something in the look of a geyser when it was old and dilapidated, as was the case with this one, that repelled him), or in the dark drying-cupboard, or in the narrow, ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... which, as Pescara, he told his rival that there should be "music" was almost comical in its effect of terror: it drove the listener across the line of tragical tension and made him hysterical with the grimness of a deadly humour. His swift defiance to Lord Lovell, as Sir Giles, and indeed the whole mighty and terrible action with which he carried that scene—from "What, are you pale?" down to the grisly and horrid viper pretence and ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... which he answered, and the words and the grimness of his face, impressed Hamilton somehow with a new and keener sense of the ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... There was that same grimness—there is no other word—in the faces of almost all the people Veronica now met, as the road wound higher and then descended through Oliveto, the first of the mountain villages. There was in them all the look of men and women who know that the struggle is hopeless, but who will not, or cannot, die ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... Nap said. He spoke quietly, but she was aware of a certain grimness in his speech. "I shouldn't worry if I were you. It won't help you any. Is there anyone else ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... does it," I quoted to myself, with a certain grimness of resolution, when my spirits began ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... various other small things out of the parlour—things he had not the heart to destroy—all belonging to his youth—and placed them there. As he looked at them, a sudden thought seemed to strike him, and a wave of emotion passed over his face, softening its hardness for an instant. But the grimness came back. He made a quick movement back to Lady Bridget's room; and when, after a minute or two, he came out again, he was carrying a curious object which he had taken out of the deep drawer beneath her hanging wardrobe. It was a dry piece ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... cringed back in fright. Stumpy concealed his uneasiness, yet his eyes searched Dolores's face questingly. None truly believed in the queen's magic powers; yet none was bold enough to openly avow his unbelief; and the added grimness of the storm, assisted by the unearthliness of that howl of anguish, brought the four godless pirates to ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... having the sky for a top and the sea for a bottom, which enclosed the cove to the extent of more than a semicircle, he could see the vertical face curving round on each side of him. He looked far down the facade, and realized more thoroughly how it threatened him. Grimness was in every feature, and to its very bowels ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... put on her berry cap and pulled it over at a rakish angle. She had spent a very profitable afternoon laughing at herself. At first the laughter had been a little too grim, but before long the grimness had disappeared and only a good-natured ridicule was left. It is good to be able to laugh at yourself once in a while, but Janet was glad that the ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill
... before he took to sculpture. As a goldsmith he is said to have surpassed all his contemporaries, and his mastery over this art influenced his style in general. What we chiefly notice, however, in his choice of subjects is a frenzy of murderous enthusiasm, a grimness of imagination, rare among Italian artists. The picture in the Uffizzi of "Hercules and Antaeus" and the well-known engraving of naked men fighting a series of savage duels in a wood, might be chosen as emphatic illustrations of his favourite motives. ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... flowers, sometimes with delicate sprays of white blossoms. This forest is beyond all my expectations of tropical luxuriance and beauty, and it is a thing of another world to the forest of the Upper Calabar, which, beautiful as it is, is a sad dowdy to this. There you certainly get a great sense of grimness and vastness; here you have an equal grimness and vastness with the addition of superb colour. This forest is a Cleopatra to which Calabar is but a Quaker. Not only does this forest depend on flowers for its ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... the weather in which Tuscan landscape looks its loveliest. Those immense expanses of grey undulating uplands need the luminousness of watery sunshine, the colour added by cloud-shadows, and the pearly softness of rising vapours, to rob them of a certain awful grimness. The main street of Montepulciano goes straight uphill for a considerable distance between brown palaces; then mounts by a staircase-zigzag under huge impending masses of masonry; until it ends in a piazza. On the ascent, at intervals, ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... pitfalls after you get there," said Mrs. Nat with a grimness born of experience. "Don't look for too much. It isn't human nature to be perfect. Besides, it ain't religious. If this good old earth of ours was just one little mite better none of us would be hankering ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... for one of 'em," replied Mrs. Pember with some grimness, but with her eyes averted from Mellony's ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... over the landscape in silence. In the evening sunlight his form looked more dense, dark, and real than ever before. His features were set hard in grimness. ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... leads him on to versify his own experience in the form of a mediaeval idyll, and so give himself away, is true to life. But my final impression of Mr. HERBERT'S book—he will perhaps think I am taking him too seriously—is that his many gifts and notably his humour, whose gaiety I prefer to its grimness, are here exercised on a rather ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various
... side must have seen the whole thing, jumped on his bicycle and brought in the account before they went to press. They make no imputation on the lady—simply state the facts. Quite enough," he added with impersonal grimness; "I think he's done for ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... had," Foster replied with a touch of grimness. "For all that, I delivered the packet and got ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... said Mrs. Gilligan, with a grimness that left no room for doubt. "And I'm not given to ...
— Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance - The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners • Janet D. Wheeler
... the makeup of Major Bliss. He intended to suppress this outbreak in a manner that would tend to discourage any such ebullitions in the future. Consequently, he made his dispositions with grimness and determination. His plan was simple, his orders being to "rush 'em and give 'em hell." His greatest regret was that the interests of discipline should make such a step necessary, since he was sure that a majority of the ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... compass. The rolling brown waves on which you see a horse a mile and a half off impress one strangely, and at noon the sky darkened up for another storm, the mountains swept down in blackness to the Plains, and the higher peaks took on a ghastly grimness horrid to behold. It was first very cold, then very hot, and finally settled down to a fierce east-windy cold, difficult to endure. It was free and breezy, however, and my horse was companionable. Sometimes herds of cattle were browsing on the sun-cured grass, then herds of horses. ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... not without grimness, "step in, if you feel so sure of her," and he helped Maimie ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... least surprised," Mary assented, as she finished buttoning her gloves. She smiled, but there was a hint of grimness in the bending of her lips. That grimness remained, as she glanced at the clock, then went toward the door of the room, speaking ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... base of Emily not to say a word about it," said John, smiling with as much grimness as utter want of practice, together with the natural cast of his ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... day's work, a thing not to talk about but to do. But my frequent meetings with British soldiers, naval men, members of the flying contingent and the army medical service, revealed under the surface of each man's quiet manner a grimness, a red heat of patriotism, a determination to fight fair but to fight to ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... freely now; yet there was some grimness in a colloquy that she had with her daughter after Bertram Jay had departed. Before this happened Mrs. Vesey's card, scrawled over in pencil and referring to the morrow's luncheon, was ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... Was there ever a more sombre scene than was presented by that waste of tumbling waves, stretching to the horizon, arched over by a clouded sky? It grew clearer, more distinct, yet remained the same dead expanse of restless water, on which they tossed helplessly and alone. Nothing broke the grimness of it, not even a bird in the air, or a leaping fish; complete desolation met the eye in every direction, a threatening, menacing dreariness amid which each approaching swell seemed about to sweep them to destruction. The wind increased slightly with the dawn, buffeting the ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... and was startled by the set grimness of his face and the thunderous lowering of the black smudge of eyebrow. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... usward sent him, To West-Dane warriors, I ween, for to render 'Gainst Grendel's grimness gracious assistance: I shall give to the good one gift-gems for courage. 15 Hasten to bid them hither to speed them,[2] To see assembled this circle of kinsmen; Tell them expressly they're welcome in sooth to The men of the Danes." To the door of ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... the policy of an insignificant score, and Brant listened to his patient, practical response of facts and logic, clothed in simple but sinewy English, up to the inevitable climax of humorous illustration, which the young brigadier could now see was necessary to relieve the grimness of his refusal. For the first time Brant felt the courage to address him, and resolved to wait until the deputation retired. As they left the gallery he lingered in the ante-room for the President to appear. ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... grimness that appears in the face of persecutors, Satan can tell how to lessen, and make to dwindle in our apprehensions, those truths unto which our hearts have joined themselves afore, and to which Christ our Lord has commanded us to stand. So that they shall now appear but little, small, inconsiderable ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... shot on the spot. No cornered rat could have been more abjectly afraid. His nerve had oozed away the more for the grimness of the man who stood before him—a man with such a wound as that who was still the ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... won't get no 'Paches," snorted Hopalong, peering intently through a hole in the shack. The more they squabbled the better they liked it,—controversies had become so common that they were merely a habit; and they served to take the grimness out ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... the atmosphere that surrounded the Circle L seemed to be filled with a strange depression. There had come a cold grimness into Blackburn's face, a sullenness had appeared in the eyes of the three men who had survived the fight on the plains; they were moody, irritable, impatient. One of them, a slender, lithe man named Sloan, voiced to Blackburn one day ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... either gathered no suggestion from its grimness, or did not know the name Garnache uttered, ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... masks, of grotesque visages; mouths distorted into impossible grins, eyes leering and goggling, noses extravagant. I sketched a caricature of Medusa, the anguished features and snaky locks travestied with satiric grimness. You remember a story which illustrates this scoffing habit: how the Roman Ambassador, whose Greek left something to be desired, excited the uproarious derision of the assembled Tarentines—with results ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... blooming on the fence. It showed also the mob that had gathered—a gathering as quiet as a congregation at prayer. But in the silence was the danger—the determination to act that choked back speech—the grimness of the justice that walks at night—the triumph of a lawless rage ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... with all his grimness and despair, looking forth from the white balls that were only partially covered with the dark lids—showing his power in the cold hands whose unyielding grasp had closed in the struggle with him. Setting his seal on brow and lips, ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... Incipient grimness vanished out of Renouard's aspect and his voice, while he hesitated as if reflecting seriously before he changed his ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... eyes you take all in; nothing escapes you; you have cast off care for the day. How pleasant and cheerful everything and everyone looks! Even the cocks and hens, scratching by the road-side, have a friendly air. The turnpike-man relaxes, in favour of your 'pink,' his usual grimness. A tramping woman, with one child at her back and two running beside her, asks charity; you suspect she is an impostor, but she looks cold and pitiful; you give her a shilling, and the next day you don't regret your foolish benevolence. To your mind the well-cultivated land looks ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... great, the glory of the ninth, great as a prince, and greater as a scholar, seen in the evening twilight of an age in which the clergy could not read;—if justice were done to all such, we might find something, even in these dark and rugged times, if not to soften the grimness of the portrait, at least to give greater distinctness ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... hotel we dismissed the man (and the horses), who remarked with a certain grimness, in Italian, "Buon arrivato," and we staggered into a meal which our eight-hour fast and torture had rendered ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... mysteries unholy for men to know. The beauty of the island is unveiled as diminishing distance shows you in distincter shape its lovely peaks, but it keeps its secret as you sail by, and, darkly inviolable, seems to fold itself together in a stony, inaccessible grimness. It would not surprise you if, as you came near seeking for an opening in the reef, it vanished suddenly from your view, and nothing met your gaze but the ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... a canny Scotchman with a new child a year. Yes, my certie," offered Nanny, with an acrid grimness. Mrs. Muir's hands clasped strongly as they lay on the ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... clew to a possible escape from the grimness of the planet's dissolution has been followed up with careful search. The discovery of radioactivity seemed to promise endlessly extended life to our sun, but Sir E. Rutherford, before the Royal Astronomical Society, ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... lines on each side of his short shaven upper lip. His skin had an unheathly pallor, like that of one who works late and has little fresh air. The mouth, always obstinate, was now moulded into a settled grimness. The ploughs of war had made deep furrows ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... pleasing to me; for Elzevir spoke as if he meant them, and I had got to like him a little in spite of all his grimness; and beside that, was sorry for his grief over his son. I was so moved by what he said, that for a moment I was for jumping up and calling out to him that I lay here and liked him well, but then thought better of it, and so ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... I stand once more before the home of the long-suffering, much-laboring, loud-complaining Heraclitus of his time, whose very smile had a grimness in it more ominous than his scowl. Poor man! Dyspeptic on a diet of oatmeal porridge; kept wide awake by crowing cocks; drummed out of his wits by long-continued piano-pounding; sharp of speech, I fear, to his high-strung wife, who gave him back ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... the country changed suddenly, and we found the landlord's promise in some part fulfilled. Rich meadow-slopes were broken by solitary trees arranged in Nature's happiest style, and grey precipices of Jurane grimness and perpendicularity encroached upon the woods and grass. We were coming near the source of the Loue, M. Paget said, which it would be necessary for us to visit. He told us that we must leave the carriage at an auberge on the roadside, and walk to the neighbouring village of ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... hadn't had enough to eat," she observed. "You used to be almost thick but now you are a thing of terrifying grimness. You look like a monk. I wonder why ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... simple yet authoritative way of giving orders for what he wanted done. He had eyes which were of an almost startling blueness in his sunburned face: a peculiarity that made strangers look twice at him sometimes. If his features hardened into a certain cynical grimness when he thought about things that really mattered, his smile for things that didn't ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... sicken and fain would turn aside in disgust. But go where one will, the ghastly, quivering, wretched picture is always before us in all its filth and splendid misery. The reeking horrors of the battle-fields, the disgusting details of the army imprisoned in the defile of the battle-axe, the grimness of the sacrifices to the blood-thirsty god, Moloch, the wretchedness of Hamilcar's slaves are presented with every ghastly detail, with every degrading trick of expression. Picture after picture of misery and foulness arises and pursues us as the grim witches pursued ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... call for a final climax. The ex-valet cleared his throat. And it was to his ex-valet that Tabs listened; he had forgotten the General. It was as though the grimness of reality had interrupted a piece of play-acting. There was less heat in Braithwaite's voice now and more reproach. "You said nothing about caste in those days, when you hurried us to the shambles. You promised us—— What was it that you ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... The grimness, the subtle blend of merciless derision and reproach in which it was uttered completely escaped her. She cried out at the new name. For her in that moment time and the world stood still. Her peril ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... had hardened into grimness, and in his eyes there was the light of a fierce purpose. The sight of him comforted me, in ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... two other Scandinavian countries, has made her pavilion characteristic of her own national architecture. Though not in any sense a reproduction, the building finds its motive in Hamlet's Castle of Kronberg at Elsinore. The architect has softened the grimness and bulk of the ancient fortress into a pleasing building, that has the spirit of the gray land by the German Ocean, and the solid character of the Danes. The dim past appears in the great gravestones on the grounds, copies of monuments on ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... which was altogether unexpected, and this was his extraordinary likeness to my late father. A slight resemblance to Carlyle may be seen in my own profile, but had he been with my father, the pair might have passed for twins; and in iron-grey grimness and the never-to-be-convinced expression of the ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... mountain peaks, above the clouds, and almost out of sight of the solid earth. But still the earth-born monster kept its hold, and was borne upward, along with the creature of light and air. Bellerophon, meanwhile turning about, found himself face to face with the ugly grimness of the Chimaera's visage, and could only avoid being scorched to death, or bitten right in twain, by holding up his shield. Over the upper edge of the shield, he looked sternly into the savage eyes of ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... lifted himself in sudden grimness, sat up from between the barber's massaging hands, which still held their pose like some sort of brace, turned a threatening look into the road. If half his face was sufficient to raise the declaration from Taterleg that the man was uglier than he, all of it surely proclaimed him the ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... poetry that any woman has given to English literature. Her novel Wuthering Heights stands alone as a monument of intensity owing nothing to tradition, nothing to the achievement of earlier writers. It was a thing apart, passionate, unforgettable, haunting in its grimness, its grey melancholy. Among women writers Emily Bronte has a sure and certain place for all time. As a poet or maker of verse Charlotte Bronte is undistinguished, but there are passages of pure poetry of great magnificence in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... visible: it is tucked and folded in by the rising thrust of the jaw. It is this which gives him the "grim" aspect which every reader of the papers hears about. He is grim, there's no doubt about it, with the grimness of a man going through a tough ordeal. "I can see him all right," squeaked little John Fisher, "but he doesn't see me." The first two rows of seats at the right of the aisle were crammed with generals, two-star and three-star. From our lowly station we could see a grand panorama ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... of returning grimness in Dick's voice. Robin made an ingratiating movement, leaning his rough head against ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... and water, made certain of his bearings and went on. It was a gamble, but a gamble his life had always been, and a fair gamble, an even break, is all that men like Alan Howard ask. He realized with a full measure of grimness that never until now had he placed a wager like this one; he was betting heavily and he knew not against what odds that at the end of twenty ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... a loss what to say, decided to say nothing. The sight of John, discreetly gazing at the roof of the chicken house, the grimness of Grandfather's face, the discomfort of the choking smoke, urged a dignified retreat. She turned abruptly and left them, overwhelmed at the exhibition furnished by Mr. McBride, confounded at his sudden leap into activity after years of serene floating ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... humanity, and many more—here I am writing this nearly a thousand miles north of my Philadelphia starting-point (by way of Montreal and Quebec) in the midst of regions that go to a further extreme of grimness, wildness of beauty, and a sort of still and pagan scaredness, while yet Christian, inhabitable, and partially fertile, than perhaps any other on earth. The weather remains perfect; some might call it a little cool, but I wear my old gray overcoat and find it just ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... defiant, but just at the last they wavered, and Catherine saw by the moonlight that her face grew ghastly under its grimness, and she saw the slender young figure sway as if it ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... grim, but Mrs. Carbuncle quite understood that to persons situated in great difficulty things might be grim. A certain amount of grimness must be endured. And she knew, too, that Lucinda was not a girl to be driven without showing something of an intractable spirit in harness. Mrs. Carbuncle had undertaken the driving of Lucinda, and had been not altogether unsuccessful. The thing so necessary to be done ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... accorded well with his terrible fame. He was of middle height, with broad and prominent shoulders, and hair as white as snow. His face, tanned to a dark brown by constant exposure, was stern, and yet sad, with fierce, bloodshot eyes set far back in his head, and the grimness of his countenance was enhanced by the two projecting teeth which stuck out from his lower jaw like ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... he noted the green and white paint and the trimmings of the verandahs with which Ashton had endeavored to give a bungalow effect to the shack-like structure. But as he swung up the steps into the front verandah, the grimness of his look increased and the humor vanished. His heavy tread through the weather vestibule announced his entrance into the office. He took no pains to ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... do him justice, did not interrupt. He listened with an expression that varied between grimness and weariness. When Joe ended he picked up a telephone. He talked briefly. Joe felt a reluctant sort of approval. Major Holt was not a man one could ever feel very close to, and the work he was in charge of was not likely to make him popular, but he did think straight—and fast. He didn't ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... his interlocutors Swedenborgize. Be they who they may, to this complexion must they come at last. This Charon ferries them all over in his boat; kings, counselors, cavaliers, doctors, Sir Isaac Newton, Sir Hans Sloane, King George II., Mahomet, or whosoever, and all gather one grimness of hue and style. Only when Cicero comes by, our gentle seer sticks a little at saying he talked with Cicero, and, with a touch of human relenting, remarks, "one whom it was given me to believe was Cicero;" and when the soi disant Roman opens his mouth, Rome and eloquence ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... That does not mean that I won't, though!' he added defiantly. To his surprise Harold suddenly released his hand. There was a grimness in ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... his gaze slowly softened to a smile compound both of humor and grimness. He was a man to appreciate a piquant situation, none the less because it was at his expense. The spark that gleamed in his bold eye held some spice ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... fool—prize-winner among idiots! He had nothing to say—he could say nothing. Nor was it the presence of a third person which prevented him. Perhaps, rather, something in Patsy's eye, and, though that he would not acknowledge, a lurking grimness in the smile about the ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... same person," said Gwen. She followed the doctor into his parlour, and accepted the seat he offered. He stood facing her, not relaxing his expression, which worked out as a sort of mild grimness, tempered by a tune which his thumbs in the armpits of his waistcoat enabled him to play on its top-pockets. It was a slow tune. Gwen continued:—"But her ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... to extract philosophy of life from any dramatist. Yet Webster so often returns to dark and doleful meditations, that we may fairly class him among constitutional pessimists. Men, according to the grimness of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... took one of them down long enough to put his inkstand and mucilage-bottle out of Fulkerson's way. After many years' experiment of a mustache and whiskers, he now wore his grizzled beard full, but cropped close; it gave him a certain grimness, corrected by ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... turn at its corners that hinted at a vein of humour lying hid somewhere. The hint was well-sustained, for underneath all his sternness and severity the doctor concealed a playful humour, that at times came to the surface, and gratefully relieved his ordinary grimness. ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... the Doctor with terrible grimness, "I have a study—and I have a cane. I can convince you of both facts, if you wish it. If you insult me again by this brazen buffoonery, I will! Be off to your dormitory, sir, before you provoke me to punish you. ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... there was too much leisure here now. Their mirth had a hollow sound. In older times, explorers of the frozen Polar zones had to cope with inactivity, loneliness and despair. But at least they were on their native world. The grimness of the Moon was eating into the courage of Grantline's men. An unreality here. A weirdness. These fantastic crags. The deadly silence. The nights, almost two weeks of Earth time in length, congealed ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... again, but lightly, for the sun came in through the deep, unshaded window and fell on his face and on the rushes that covered the floor. And in his sleep the grimness was gone, and the pride. And his mouth, which was sad, contended with ...
— The Truce of God • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... articles in the curriculum of scrubbers, renovators, and purifiers are needed. The walls want mundifying, so does the ceiling, so do the floors; the Ten Commandments need improving; the Apostles' Creed isn't plain enough; the spirit of a time worn grimness requires ostracising from the place. All is substantial; but there is an ancient unwashed dulness about the general establishment, which needs transforming into cleanness and brightness. The pews are high, and on the average they will hold six persons each. Seven might ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... grimness of his fate lay here—that it was by his best qualities that he was betrayed. If he had been hard and mercenary, like some of those who preyed upon him, there might have been hope. But he was generous and free-hearted, ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... he had longed for all his life. "Well, you better be thinking how you'll get out of the scrape you're in," he advised, with a little of Bill Wilson's grimness. "I'm afraid I'm to blame, in a way; and yet, if I hadn't mixed into the fight, you'd be dead by now. Maybe that would have been just as well, seeing how things have turned out," ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... he whispered, and felt his lips stiff. In the grimness of that instant he relaxed his hold ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... the saloon. He had paid dearly for his stubbornness and would continue to pay to the end of his days. Billy Evans had swung around and was fighting the saloon now with a grimness that was terrible in one so easy-going and ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... moment Monck spoke again, deliberately, emotionlessly, with a hint of grimness. "By the way, Tommy, I've a piece of news for you. That letter I had from my brother this, evening contained news of an urgent business matter which only I can deal with. It has come at a rather unfortunate moment as Barnes, ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... conditions? pay him back His ransom? 'easy '—that were easy—nay— No money-lover he! What said the King? 'I pray you do not go to Normandy.' And fate hath blown me hither, bound me too With bitter obligation to the Count— Have I not fought it out? What did he mean? There lodged a gleaming grimness in his eyes, Gave his shorn smile the lie. The walls oppress me, And yon huge keep that hinders half the heaven. Free air! free field! [Moves to go out. A ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... dragging at his moustache with a lean weak hand. "I don't think you would have cared for its DENOUEMENT," he said with sudden grimness. ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... ought to talk to Bill Belllounds," declared Mrs. Andrews with a grimness that boded ill for ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... find I am," replied the other with some grimness. "But I know the game. Well, let's get down to cases. What do you want to do with ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... pent-up feelings of the guests found an outlet in long-drawn breaths and indignant but unconvincing murmurs that "they'd rather starve," which did not prevent all attention focusing upon Prentiss, whose face wore a forbidding grimness from which all semblance of friendliness ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... turned from the window at the rustle of my dress, and the grimness of his square-set jaws, warning me of a coming struggle, relaxed into a look of perplexity. Men have so little insight; he could not see that, as I sank, still smiling, into a chair, my breath came in gasps that almost choked me. After a moment's silence ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... sullen majesty of arched glooms and granite deeps opening into granite deeps beyond range of vision, and mountains of masonry with seas of labor in turmoil at their base, and monumental spaces displaying the grimness of ordered power slow-gathering through centuries. Of beauty there was nothing to make appeal to him between those endless cliffs of stone which walled out the sunrise and the sunset, the sky and the wind. All that which draws us to great ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... of a man's personal characteristics must contain some estimate of his aesthetic sense. This was not very strongly developed in Sydney Smith. He admired the beauties of a smiling landscape, such as he saw in the Vale of Taunton, and hated grimness and barrenness such as he remembered at Harrogate. "I thought it the most heaven-forgotten country under the sun when I saw it; there were only nine mangy fir-trees there, and even they all leaned away from it." He enjoyed ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... In British Columbia and the Yukon the ration was one salmon; up here on the Athabasca one wild goose or three big whitefish; on the Arctic foreshore two fish and three pounds of reindeer meat. This was the scheduled fare, but the grimness of the joke appears in the fact that each man had to run his breakfast to earth before ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... pleasure; light blue eyes that shone with straightforwardness and that on this occasion were somewhat pensive with anxiety; thin, ascetic lips that could smile in the most confidential manner or close tightly with grimness and fixed purpose. He was a man who was at the same time shy and determined, elusive and definite, but if there was one note in his bearing that predominated all others, it was a solemn and quiet sincerity. He seemed utterly without ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... together on the ice two men, apparently several days in the water, and with the usual look of drowned people of good condition—glassy and of fixed expression, as if in the moment of death a consenting grimness had stolen into their countenances, neither ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... has been found in Petain. As to the truth of all this I do not pretend to know. I did not see Joffre, but all that I have read of Joffre suggests that Petain is of his sort, the same quiet, silent man, with a certain coldness of the North, a grimness of manner that ...
— They Shall Not Pass • Frank H. Simonds
... circumscribed range. Their vistas were of the future and empire-wide. The fire that had wakened in them with the pronunciamento, "Above me there shall be no one," lingered and the smile which hovered on the lips held a certain grimness in its curve. It was not a reassuring smile for such interests as ran counter to his own. A passing reporter who fancied himself wise in the lore of the Street, halted to observe, and muttered to himself, "Ursus Major wearing his fighting face! ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... its camp at Tioga Point. All the fever and excitement of the swift foray had passed, and the inevitable reaction had set in. The men were haggard, weary, sombre, and harassed. There was no elation after success either among officers or privates; only a sullen grimness, the sullenness of repletion after an orgy—the grimness of disgust for an unwelcome duty only ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... questioning eyes. Last night this very road had been a pale silver thread winding from the mountain crests into a world of dreams. To-day it was but a trail across the range. "Where are the snows of yester year?" he quoted, with a certain early-morning grimness. At heart he was half inclined to believe Judith responsible for the vanished world; Judith, Judith—he was riding away from her as fast as his horse could gallop, and yet his thoughts perversely lingered about the ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... there spoke the piece of an old cord. "I was made in a place of doom, and doomed men made my fibres, working without hope. Therefore there came a grimness into my heart, so that I never let anything go free when once I was set to bind it. Many a thing have I bound relentlessly for months and years; for I used to come coiling into warehouses where the great boxes lay all open to the air, and one of them would be suddenly closed up, and ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... Vaudois as I saw them were at no age a merry folk. In the fields they toiled silently; in the cafes, where they were sufficiently noisy over their new wine, they talked without laughter, and without the shrugs and gestures that enliven conversation among other Latin peoples. They had a hard-favored grimness and taciturnity that with their mountain scenery reminded me of New England now and again, and gave me the bewildered sense of having dropped down in some little anterior America. But there was one thing that marked a great ...
— A Little Swiss Sojourn • W. D. Howells
... I said, with a grimness which probably escaped her. "But how did Mrs. Harman know that I was ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... things that do not really matter are men?" he asked with a humour in which there was a touch of grimness. ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... should offer offensive matter of comment, he took his way towards the dreary little den, which, filled with old top-boots, driving-whips, garden-implements, and fishing-tackle, was known as 'the lord's study,' but whose sole literary ornament was a shelf of antiquated almanacs. There was a strange grimness about his father's aspect which struck young Kearney as he crossed the threshold. His face wore the peculiar sardonic expression of one who had not only hit upon an expedient, but achieved a surprise, as he held an open letter in one hand and motioned ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... they saw was barely two hundred yards from the one patch of woodland visible from the ship. Cochrane said with some grimness. ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... grimness showed in the woman's face, making it sternly heroic as the face of Medea or ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... in the village on the road to Economy was the Harricutt's. It was built of gray cement blocks that the elder had taken for a bad debt, and had neither vine nor blossom to soften its grimness. Its windows were supplied with green holland shades, and its front door-yard was efficiently manned with plum trees and a peach, while the back yard was given over to vegetables. Elder Harricutt walked to Economy every day to his office in the Economy ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... times. Busching (our Geographical friend) had gone with him, as Excellency's Chaplain, in this Russian Journey; which is a memorable one to Busching; and still presents vividly, through his Book, those haggard Baltic Coasts in midwinter, to readers who have business there. Such a journey for grimness of outlook, upon pine-tufts and frozen sand; for cold (the Count's very tobacco-pipe freezing in his mouth), for hardship, for bad lodging, and extremity of dirt in the unfreezable kinds, as seldom was. They met, one day on the road, a Lord Hyndford, English Ambassador just returning ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... to the rod; Made meek as a mother whose bosom-beats bound with the bliss-bringing bulk of a balm-breathing baby, As they grope through the grave-yard of creeds, under skies growing green at a groan for the grimness of God. Blank is the book of his bounty beholden of old, and its binding is blacker than bluer: Out of blue into black is the scheme of the skies, and their dews are the wine of the bloodshed of things: Till the darkling desire of delight shall be free as a fawn ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... good many things I don't," said Charlie, whose grimness had evidently relaxed a little at the lad's display of mettle. Meanwhile, my temper was beginning to rise on behalf of ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... passer-by. The mouth was difficult to read and full of contradictions; the lips were full and red, and you would declare them the lips of a sensualist but for the line of stern, almost grim, determination in which they met; and yet, somewhere behind that grimness, there appeared to lurk a haunting whimsicality; a smile seemed ever to impend, but whether sweet or bitter none could have told until it broke. The eyes were as remarkable; wide-set and slow-moving, as becomes the eyes of an observant man, they were of an almost greenish color, and so level ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... unslung his carbine. Putting spurs to the horses, the whole line rode past saluting our Stars and Stripes with a "Vive L'Amerique." Bringing up the rear two cassocked priests served to give this pageantry a touch of prophetic grimness. ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... Bud's voice had a grimness in it that spelled trouble for the lady laid out in a faint "She can be his ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... bookbinder; but the situation did not suit him. His master appears to have been an austere and passionate man, and Faraday was to the last degree sensitive. All his life he continued so. He suffered at times from dejection; and a certain grimness, too, pervaded his moods. 'At present,' he writes to Abbott, 'I am as serious as you can be, and would not scruple to speak a truth to any human being, whatever repugnance it might give rise to. Being in this state of mind, I should have refrained from writing to you, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... these things. He had a hope that Massachusetts might be so wrought upon as to choose Nicolls for her governor and Carr for her major-general, but in this, as in the pious hope of a return of the Puritans to the Church of England, he reckoned without a knowledge of the grimness of the ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... tied, neither side having scored, the time keeper warned the rival teams that only three minutes remained for play. His warning served to cause a tightening of muscles and a grimness of countenance in a last final effort to put over a score and avert a tied score. The huge crowd prayed fervently for a score—a touchdown—a safety—a goal from ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... in some measure obscured from the popular view the grimness of his task. Like the true Briton that he is, he considered it part of his duty to make light of his difficulties. But the holding of Mafeking was stern work. The Boers themselves never dreamed the defence would be seriously ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... huge coal depots. On the right-hand side—that next to the canal—there are also a few provision stores. In the daytime there is no noisier nor livelier place than this same Quai; but nothing could be more gloomy at night-time when the shops are closed, when the few gas-lamps only increase the grimness of the shadows, and when the only sound that breaks the silence is the rippling of the water as its smooth surface is ruffled by some boatman propelling ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... who rides benignant before the Roman Capitol, be finer: but I was not thinking of that; I only found myself staring at the triumphant captain as if he had an oracle on his lips. The western light shines into all his grimness at that hour and makes it wonderfully personal. But he continued to look far over my head, at the red immersion of another day—he had seen so many go down into the lagoon through the centuries—and if he were thinking of battles and stratagems they were of a different quality from any ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... do little more than roll along. All of us have, at one time or another, experienced in nightmares, the agony of attempting to fly from some pursuing phantom, when our limbs refuse to serve us. This, I fancy, is much what a fox suffers, only his pains are intensified by the grimness of stern reality. If he stops, he loses his life, therefore he rolls, and flounders, and creeps along when every movement has become a fresh torture. The cock, quail, dove, bull, ram, or fish, on the other hand, fights because it is his nature to do so, ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... of the hunting season a stranger might perhaps have been seen there once in six months, and this was that once. The British bull-dog growled in his countenance—very likely pleasantness itself to those he knew, grimness itself to others. The sunlight fell full into the barn, the great doors wide open; there were sacks on the other side of the door piled up inside, a heap of grain, and two men turning the winches of a winnowing machine. New hats, but old faces. Could his great-great-grandfather ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... moment to reflect upon the grimness of her situation. The sound of approaching footsteps shaped her fears of capture into renewed action. ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... face wore a certain look of grimness. He bent without words and lifted the shrinking figure in ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... was the happier for it. He even fancied that her mirth at such times had an undue nervousness; that her pluck—which was undoubted—had something of the defiance of despair, and that her persistence often had the grimness of duty rather than the thoughtlessness of pure amusement. What was she trying to do?—what was she trying to UNDO or forget? Her married life was apparently happy and even congenial. Her young husband was clever, complaisant, yet honestly devoted ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... long time afore I'm wanted!" exclaimed Miss Lavender, with assumed grimness, as she obeyed the call. "I s'pose you thought there was no watch needed, and both ends o' the path open to all the world. Well—what am I to do?—move mountains like a grain o' mustard seed (or however it runs), dip out th' ocean with a pint-pot, or ketch ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... and the muscles of her square, almost masculine jaw hardened ominously as she looked the intruder up and down. Then a flicker of contempt modified the grimness of her countenance. She took three steps forward, pausing on the other side of the desk, her back to ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... indescribably dry, monotonous tone—a tone without vibration or inflection—you felt as if a graven image of some bad spirit were addressing you. But it was all a figment of fancy, a matter of surface. Miss Mann's goblin grimness scarcely went deeper than the angel sweetness of hundreds of beauties. She was a perfectly honest, conscientious woman, who had performed duties in her day from whose severe anguish many a human Peri, gazelle-eyed, silken-tressed, and silver-tongued, would ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... meaning if possible to get from him some hint of his intentions; but the grimness of his answer, though it only confirmed ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... it without saying good-bye, in answer to Madame Beattie's oblique nod over her shoulder and the farewell wave of her hand. For an instant Anne felt like slipping the bolt lest her adversary should return, but she reflected, with a grimness new to her gentle nature, that if Madame Beattie did return her own two hands were ready. She stood a moment, listening, and when the carriage wheels rolled away down the drive, she went to the big closet under the stairs and caught at her own coat and hat. ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... stand with all the immovable strength of some solid rock on which the waves of rebellion or invasion would have dashed and broken. It is easy to believe the saying of Lambarde, in his Perambulation of Kent, that "from time to time it had a part in almost every tragedie". But the grimness of its grey walls is relieved by a green mantle of clinging ivy, and though it can no longer be said of the Castle that it is "bathed, though in ruins, with a flush of flowers", the beautiful single pink grows wild ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... means in a direct line between Kensington and the City, yet morning and evening, as sure as the clock pointed to half-past nine and to quarter to six, Tom would stride through the old-fashioned square and past the grim house, whose grimness was softened to his eyes through its association with the bright dream of his life. It was but the momentary glance of a sweet face at the upper window and a single wave of a white hand, but it sent him on with a fresh heart and courage, and it ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, 'Come and find out.' This one was almost featureless, as if still in the making, with an aspect of monotonous grimness. The edge of a colossal jungle, so dark-green as to be almost black, fringed with white surf, ran straight, like a ruled line, far, far away along a blue sea whose glitter was blurred by a creeping mist. The sun was fierce, the land seemed to glisten and drip with steam. ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad |
