"Iron-gray" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to light fires big enough for a Government department, amid a busy crowd, blowings of whistles, electric bells, gold pieces piled up till they fall over; it savours of miracle. I need to look at myself in the glass before I can believe it, to see in the mirror my iron-gray coat, trimmed with silver, my white tie, my usher's chain like the one I used to wear at the Faculty on the days when there were sittings. And to think that to work this transformation, to bring back to our ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... these men would pass by courtesy as a white. His hunting-shirt and leggings were of deer skin, well grimed and greasy, with leather fringes at the seams of leg and sleeve. For all the summer heat, he wore a cap fashioned of raccoon-skin with the fur on; and for this great cap his iron-gray hair, matted and unkempt, served as a fringe to keep the other tasselings in countenance. The hunting-shirt was belted at the waist, and in the belt was thrust a sheathless knife huge enough to serve a ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... of middle age, thick set, with rounded shoulders, deep chest, heavy neck, iron-gray hair close cut, gray whiskers cropped so as to show his strong jaw, blue eyes that expressed at once resolution ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... came into play presently. A pretty blush rose to her face. A tall man with a bronzed handsome face and iron-gray moustache had detached himself from the other riders, and was cantering towards the carriage that was now drawn up near the entrance: in another moment he had checked his horse ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... I should pick him out as the most prepossessing Malay that I have seen. He is an elderly man, with iron-gray hair, a high and prominent brow, large, prominent, dark, eyes, a well-formed nose, and a good mouth. The face is bright, kindly, and fairly intelligent. He is about the middle height. His dress became him well, ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... affairs of the Eastridge Banner. In front there is a piazza, and on this piazza sat Ned Temple. Changed? Well, yes, poor fellow! He is thin. I am so glad he is thin instead of fat; thinness is not nearly so disillusioning. His hair is iron-gray, but he is, after all, distinguished-looking, and his manners are entirely sophisticated. He shows at a glance, at a word, that he is a brilliant man, although he is stranded upon such a petty little editorial island. ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... said Mr. Arithmetic, a man dressed in iron-gray clothes, with a face which looked dry and hard as one of his own kettles, above which was a shock of iron-gray hair, which gave ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... for her. About the middle of the afternoon two gentlemen called for her father. One was quite as old, with a handsome white beard and iron-gray hair, very stylishly dressed. He wore a high-standing collar with points, and what was called a neckcloth of black silk with dark-blue brocaded figures running over it, and a handsome brocaded-velvet vest, double-breasted, the fashion of the times, ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... these I went to see Obed Chute. He was a tall, broad-shouldered, square-headed man, with iron-gray hair, and a face—well, it was one of those faces that make you feel that the owner can do any thing he chooses. On entering his private office I introduced myself, and began a long explanation. He interrupted me by shaking hands with ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... talking among themselves. The next instant, two men came up to us, making their way from the neighborhood of the door. The one was a keen-faced, elderly man, with iron-gray whiskers and clean-shaved chin; the other was my first acquaintance in the neighborhood, the young bricklayer. The elder addressed my husband, while the ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... him. But poor Turpentine, what of him? He tumbled clean over his head upon his back, and I want to confess in all candor that one of the most instructive and interesting "animal pictures" I have ever seen, including those done by Landseer, Rosa Bonheur, and Ernest Thompson Seton, was that little iron-gray, long-eared donkey lying on his back on the street and clawing the air with his hoofs. And he clawed fast, too—fairly sawed the air. For once in his life Turpentine, the snail paced, was in a hurry; for once he moved ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... figure that crept along the road that cheery May morning. It was tall and gaunt, and had been for thirty years or more. The long head, bald on top, covered behind with iron-gray hair, and in front with a short tangled growth that curled and kinked in every direction, was surmounted by an old-fashioned stove-pipe hat, worn and stained, but eminently impressive. An old-fashioned Henry Clay cloth coat, ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... Stepping softly, they peered around the pile of rocks and saw, lying in the mouth of the chasm, a man with a revolver gripped in his right hand. Blood stained his clothing and ran out over the rocks and sand. He was a tall man with a short, bushy, iron-gray beard covering his face. Tuttle and Ellhorn covered him with their revolvers and walked to his side. He put up a ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... gravel led through groves of beech and oak and pine to a grassy terrace under the castle walls. A servant in livery came to meet us at the door, and went to call his master. Presently a tall, handsome man, with black eyes and iron-gray hair and mustache, came down a path, ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... for some moments, his cloak, grasped with both hands, folded over his abdomen, his eyes fixed on the ground, his gold-rimmed spectacles slipping gently toward the point of his nose, his under-lip moist and projecting, and his iron-gray eyebrows gathered in a slight frown. He was a pious and holy man, of uncommon learning and of irreproachable clerical habits, a little past his sixtieth year, affable in his manners, courteous and kind, and greatly addicted to giving ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... a cushioned seat next to an oldish man with iron-gray hair through which the speed of their flight whipped and pulled. Hilary was bursting for real human conversation again; he grinned to himself at the excited astonishment of this impassive stranger if he should announce himself. How should ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner
... together in the middle of the room, both having their eyes fixed on the door, when the door opened and Mr. Ayrton appeared, having by his side a man with iron-gray hair ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... of the carriage and Patrick, entered the store. It was a dreary day of a dull season, and with comparatively little trouble she found herself in a quiet office on the third floor of the building. Its occupant, a tall, thin man with iron-gray hair, looked up at her approach, and a slight expression of wonder came into his eyes as they rested on his ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... really startled—the girls most was the figure that sat facing them, as they entered the van. It was that of an old, old crone, sitting on a stool, bent forward with her sharp chin resting on her clenched fists, and her elbows on her knees, while iron-gray elf-locks hung about her wrinkled, nut-brown face, half ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... She was gowned magnificently enough even to be conspicuous among that crowd of well-dressed women, and she wore a large picture hat, crowned by expensive plumes. Close behind was her escort, a middle-aged, stockily built man, with iron-gray hair, also immaculately dressed. As the couple passed, the people at the tables turned and whispered. When the newcomer drew nearer, Madison could see that she was very young, and he was struck ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... and eyebrows were iron-gray, and she had lost a front tooth, or she would still have been eminently handsome. She was tall and straight as a dart, and her noble port betrayed none of the weakness of age, only it was to be seen that her hands ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... should have been the faithless Ignacio, a grave and decorous figure was seated. His appearance was that of an elderly hidalgo, dressed in mourning, with mustaches of iron-gray carefully waxed and twisted round a pair of lantern-jaws. The monstrous hat and prodigious feather, the enormous ruff and exaggerated trunk-hose, contrasted with a frame shriveled and wizened, all belonged to a century previous. Yet Father Jose was not astonished. His adventurous ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... one of them, a thick-set, middle-aged man, with a good-humored expression and a four-days' growth of iron-gray beard on his face; "why did I leave home and home cooking to enlist in the army and then wander over the earth ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... strong face and the long iron-gray hair of Judge Maxwell; only a little while ago Joe had given him some apples which he had stopped to admire as he drove past Isom's orchard in his sagging, mud-splashed, old buggy. He was a good man; the ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... an inevitable gap in the present article. By one, for instance, I am said to have "coal-black hair and flashing black eyes"; by another, that same hair is said to be "snow-white"; while a third describes it as "iron-gray, and rolled back in a large wave." On one occasion, as I am informed, I had "a commanding and Cassandra-like presence"; elsewhere, I was "tall, slender, and engaging"; and occasionally I am merely of "middle ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... cadaverous creature sprang upon her with a savage yelp and would have caught her by the throat had not a heavy stick cracked its skull. A tall officer in the uniform of the United States navy raised his cap from iron-gray hair and looked at her with blue eyes as piercing as ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... sat and talked with Mrs. Viney. The fisherman's wife was a woman of fifty, with a dragging voice, a faint curiosity in her manner. Her iron-gray hair smoothed flat was tied in a little knot behind. Her husband, a good ten years older, had the vitality of a young man compared with his wife. He was grizzled and squat, with thick red face and powerful shoulders. His eyes twinkled ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... us, throwing his tail high in the air. He was so near that we had a perfect view of him, and, as may be supposed, had no desire to see him nearer. He was a disgusting creature, with a skin rough, hairy, and of an iron-gray color. This kind differs much from the sperm, in color and skin, and is said to be fiercer. We saw a few sperm whales; but most of the whales that come upon the coast are fin-backs and hump-backs, which are more ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... Keegan was a person of sufficient importance to warrant a paragraph quite to herself. She was a woman of middle age, with a wealth of curling, iron-gray hair, which she tucked away under a plain white cap. Her figure was large and grandly developed. She wore a blue print gown, carefully pinned back about her hips, thus disclosing her scarlet flannel petticoat; both garments ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... station, and in a way was a sort of father confessor to everybody in the place. A clean-shaven jolly old face with deep laughter wrinkles about the blue eyes, which twinkled through steel-bowed spectacles, bushy iron-gray hair and bristling eyebrows—that was about all one saw through the bars of the narrow delivery window. But so much kindly sympathy and neighborly interest and good advice and real concern were handed out with the daily ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... after some hesitation, the old gentleman with a queer expression took his seat in the "chair," and had his iron-gray head adjusted to the round black disks of the head-rest. Gram arranged his front lock with her comb, and said, "Now keep your eye on the little sock, Joseph, and look smilin';"—a superfluous piece of advice, as it proved, for he had already ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... generally soft, and can stand but little hardship. I refer particularly to those that have a white skin. Next to the white and cream, we have the iron-grey mule. This color generally indicates a hardy mule. We have now twelve teams of iron-gray mules in the park, which have been doing hard work every day since July, 1865; it is now January, 1866. Only one of these mules has become unfit for service, and that one was injured by being kicked by his mate. All our other ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley
... began this march as usual just at ruddy daybreak, and were not far advanced on the great prairie stretching before us like a vast and limitless ocean, when Blackwolf, who headed the force, reined in his dark iron-gray steed with a sudden jerk which sent him nearly upon his haunches. In an instant all was commotion. Arrows were drawn from their quivers, bow-strings tried and thrummed, lances poised, and every eye directed to the spot on which the chief fixed his earnest ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... at once, so that I had no time to take notice of anything except that he talked without an accent, was probably French only in name and that he wore clothes which were superfine. I never saw such a dresser for a man with iron-gray hair and fifty-five years to contend against in the youth-preserving business, which I calculated was one of his pleasures in life, if not his vocation. Nothing I figured on coming up-town happened except that I found ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... decided that I must take a drive in a Cape cart; so directly after breakfast a smart workman-like-looking vehicle, drawn by a pair of well-bred iron-gray cobs, dashes up under the portico. There are capital horses here, but they fetch a good price, and such a pair as these would easily find purchasers at one hundred and fifty pounds. The cart itself is very trim and smart, with a framework sort of head, which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... manager, sat in his private office in the works of the International Machine Company, chewing upon an unlighted cigar and occasionally running his fingers through his iron-gray hair as he compared and recompared two statements which lay upon the ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... sat before a blazing sea-coal fire, in his cozy study, in comfortable, after-dinner mood. He lay back in his cushioned and carved arm-chair, a florid, portly, urbane prelate, with iron-gray hair and patriarchal whiskers, a steaming glass of wine punch at his elbow, that day's paper open upon his lap, an overfed pussy purring at his knee, the genius of comfort personified in his own ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... responsibilities. A noted specialist in pulmonary troubles, Dr. Wilston Everett was well past middle age, and his tall, erect figure, massive frame and fine, leonine head, crowned by a mass of stubborn, iron-gray hair, made him a conspicuous figure everywhere. His expression, stern in repose, was that of a profound student; it was a face where lofty thoughts, humane feeling and every other noble attribute had left its ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... smile curled round the old roue's sensual mouth, radiating even to the verge of the forest of his iron-gray whiskers. ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... of five and forty or thereabouts. As he sat at the table, the light from a moderator lamp shining full on his bald head and glistening fringe of iron-gray hair that surrounded it—this baldness and the round outlines of his face made his head look very like a ball. His complexion was brick-red, a few wrinkles had gathered about his eyes, but he had the smooth, plump hands of a stout ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... bitter winter,—that season when, to the ecstatic amazement of a whole city-full of children, snow covered the streets ankle-deep,—there came a soft tap on the corridor-door of this pair of rooms. The lady opened it, and beheld a tall, lank, iron-gray man, a total stranger, standing behind—Monsieur George! Both men were weather-beaten, scarred, and tattered. Across 'Sieur George's crown, leaving a long, bare streak through his white hair, was the souvenir ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... gorgeous birds; and the charming Bay of Botofogo, which, spite of its name, is fragrant as the neighbouring Larangieros, or Valley of the Oranges; and the green Gloria Hill, surmounted by the belfries of the queenly Church of Nossa Senora de Gloria; and the iron-gray Benedictine convent near by; and the fine drive and promenade, Passeo Publico; and the massive arch-over-arch aqueduct, Arcos de Carico; and the Emperor's Palace; and the Empress's Gardens; and the fine Church de Candelaria; and the gilded throne on ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... him yet as he read it, slowly feeling his way through the rude, uneven writing, with my mother leaning over his shoulder and helping him, her rosy cheeks and dark tresses making strange contrast beside his pain-racked features and iron-gray hair. ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... lightest and most airy in the house. The doctor's life-size portrait in oil hung in that room, and seemed completely to dominate it. There was nothing unusual in the picture; the man was evidently rather good looking, about fifty years old, with iron-gray hair, a smooth-shaven face and dark, serious eyes. Something in the picture always drew and held my attention. The man's appearance became familiar to ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... the bed and, half pulling him behind her, groped her way to the side door of the ranch house and into the blackness of the night. Tied to a bush, by a hackamore, was an iron-gray colt, the fastest on the ranch. After that night's work he was known to be the fastest in that part of ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... notably handsome man, tall and broad, with regular, impassive features and blue eyes exactly the colour of Arthur's. Save that his back was slightly rounded and that his closely-cropped hair was iron-gray, he showed little mark of his sixty years. He seemed to me the very type of an English yeoman, not markedly intelligent outside his own speciality, and conservative to the point of fanaticism. When I thought of trying to persuade him to forsake ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... Altogether it was a fearful get-up, and, involuntarily, I looked about me expecting to see people stopping, a crowd forming. But no one appeared to notice the little old woman except myself, and as she drew near I discovered that she wore spectacles and a fringe of iron-gray hair around her face. Her eyes were piercingly bright and on her lips was etched a sardonic smile. Not quite knowing how to explain my rude stare, I was preparing to turn in another direction, when the stranger accosted me, and in the voice of a man: "Perhaps you don't know that I am Richard Wagner, ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... time-piece of buhl on the stone mantel chimed musically its story of the hour, and Sir Jasper Kingsland lifted his gloomy eyes for a moment at the sound. A tall, spare middle-aged man, handsome once—handsome still, some people said—with iron-gray hair and a proud, ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... clear notion of that sallow, wan face of his? I wish the Academie would give me leave to dub such faces the lunar type. It was like silver-gilt, with the gilt rubbed off. His hair was iron-gray, sleek, and carefully combed; his features might have been cast in bronze; Talleyrand himself was not more impassive than this money-lender. A pair of little eyes, yellow as a ferret's, and with scarce an eyelash to them, peered ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... colleague did not pray; Under the weight of his fourscore years He stood apart with the iron-gray Of his strong brows knitted to hide his tears; And a fair-faced woman of doubtful fame, Linking her own with his honored name, Subtle as sin, at his side withstood The felt reproach ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... and he ran up to the stately animal without a fear. Duke put back his ears and swished his tail as if displeased for a moment; but Ben looked straight in his eyes, gave a scientific stroke to the iron-gray nose, and uttered a chirrup which made the ears prick up as if ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... minutes later two men dressed in black passed near the window. One of them was tall, stately, and smiling; the other, slightly stooping, had iron-gray hair and a wrinkled brow. They were Morejne Calman and Abraham Ezofowich. Evidently they had not crossed the square, but passed along the back streets almost stealthily, as if to avoid being seen. Both disappeared in the entrance of ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... to be a man of fifty, inclined to corpulency, of medium height, with iron-gray hair; and, like all hard workers, he ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... to introduce the speaker of the evening whom all had come to hear. "The man who was just talking with me says he is really worth hearing. If he grows tiresome we will slip out. I wonder which one he is? He must be that man with the iron-gray ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... was dressed in a rough homespun garment. Her feet were clad in unbleached cotton stockings, also made at home; her little, iron-gray curls lay flat at each side of her hollow cheeks. She wore list slippers, very coarse and common in texture. Her whole appearance was the essence of the homely, the old-fashioned, ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... infallibly produce in me a new sensation, which will render all further ones impossible.... Well? What kinder thing could they do for me?.... Ay—but how do I know that they would do it? What possible proof is there that if a two-legged phantasm pokes a hard iron-gray phantasm in among my sensations, those sensations will be my last? Is the fact of my turning pale, and lying still, and being in a day or two converted into crows' flesh, any reason why I should not feel? And how do I know that would happen? It ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... answer, for her heart was breaking, but turned and went into her room. Burrell had an irresistible desire to tell Gale that he wanted his daughter for his wife; it would be an unwonted pleasure to startle this iron-gray old man and the shawled and shambling mummy of red, with the unwinking eyes that always reminded him of two ox-heart cherries; but he had given Necia his promise. So he descended to the exchange of ordinary topics, and inquired for news of ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... Lindsley the last time I saw him. I remember how he took me all over his claim and showed me the beauties of Lindsleyville, as he called it. His long iron-gray hair fluttered in the wind, and his face seemed like a wizard's, penetrating but unearthly. That was long before the great tide of immigrants had begun to find their way into this paradise through the highway of the Sauk Valley. Lindsleyville was ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... bull-fighters offered to leave the national sport and show us the House of Miranda, but it was the cathedral which was dominating our desire, as it everywhere dominates the vision, in Burgos and out of Burgos as far as the city can be seen. The iron-gray bulk, all flattered or fretted by Gothic art, rears itself from the clustering brown walls and roofs of the city, which it seems to gather into its mass below while it towers so far above them. We needed no ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... was a solicitor with a good deal of company business: a lean, trustworthy, worried-looking, neuralgic, clean-shaven man of fifty-three, with a hard mouth, a sharp nose, iron-gray hair, gray eyes, gold-framed glasses, and a small, circular baldness at the crown of his head. His name was Peter. He had had five children at irregular intervals, of whom Ann Veronica was the youngest, so that as a parent he came to her perhaps a little ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... Overhanging eyebrows of iron-gray were the first thing to arrest attention in Matthew Loring's face. They shadowed dark expressive eyes in a swarthy setting. His hair and mustache were of the same grey, and very bushy. He had the broad head ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... grasping the ironwork of the seat, staring at the driver, suddenly disarmed. The man on the seat was a grizzled, malformed creature of about fifty, with a deeply-wrinkled small face, burnt a dark tan, and almost covered with a tangle of short, crisp, iron-gray whiskers. The suggestion of a rough-haired terrier was so strong that Done expected the brute to bark at him. The small eyes in the protecting shade of tufted brows, like miniature overhanging horns, were keen and shrewd This extraordinary head was supported by a small ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... his deceptions and troubles, Thomas Roch's physical health, thanks to his vigorous constitution, was not particularly affected. A man of medium height, with a large head, high, wide forehead, strongly-cut features, iron-gray hair and moustache, eyes generally haggard, but which became piercing and imperious when illuminated by his dominant idea, thin lips closely compressed, as though to prevent the escape of a word that could betray ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... slowly rose the counsel for the prosecution. Mr. G—— was a tall thin man, of a grave and stern expression of countenance; his hair was of an iron-gray, and his piercing gray eye shone from under his shaggy eye-brows like a spark of fire. It was the only thing that looked like life about him; and when he first rose he began to speak in a slow, distinct, ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... developments. These were never to come. Bradford pined away an Belle Isle, and grew weaker, but no less reserved, each day. At length, one bitter cold night ended it all. He was found in the morning stone dead, with his iron-gray hair frozen fast to the ground, upon which he lay. Our mystery had to remain unsolved. There was nothing about his person to give any hint as ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... And now, quite desperate, she rushed through the house and out of the front-door, actually in search of a man! Just down the street she saw one. Had she been composed, she might have noticed the threadbare cleanliness of his dress, the odd cap that crowned his iron-gray locks, and the peculiar manner of his walk; for our little old maid had stumbled upon no less a person than Monsieur Jean Leclerc, the dancing-master of Dalton. Not that this accomplishment was much in vogue in the embryo city; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... before him, Joe did as he was directed, and there found two horses tethered side by side. Little wonder that his eyes gleamed with delight. One was jet-black; the other iron-gray and in every line the clean-limbed animals showed the thoroughbred. The black threw up his slim head and whinnied, with affection clearly shining in his soft, dark eyes ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... was the owner of the horse who spoke—a tall man with a noble face and long iron-gray hair. The crowd caught his mood, and as nobody wanted the old mare very much, and the owner would be the sole loser, nobody bid against him, and Chad's heart thumped when the auctioneer raised his ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... sat down behind his desk, a big man in a brown suit, natural iron-gray hair, a calm and administrative face, he began to realize that for the next twenty-four hours, at least, he would be in the spotlight. Well, he'd give a good account of himself. Demonstrate that he had an executive capacity beyond the needs of his present job. More than a mere ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... tall, solidly-built man with a kindly expression. He wore gray flannel trousers and a brown tweed jacket, which made an interesting color contrast with his iron-gray hair. His teeth were clenched so firmly on the bit of a calabash pipe with a meerschaum bowl that Malone wondered if he could ever get loose. Malone shut the door behind him, and Sir Lewis rose and ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... boots through which the toes could be seen peeping ruefully, were all the visible raiment of the body. The clothes lay in heavy swathes and folds over the miserable bag of bones that had once been a tall man. The peaked blue face was half hidden by a fell of iron-gray hair, and a grizzled beard hung over ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... exceedingly smart steam-launch, and a stout middle-aged gentleman, in a blue serge suit and yachting cap, advancing from it to greet them. They had only time to observe that he had a sanguine complexion, iron-gray whiskers, and a wide-open eye, before he raised the cap and, in a decidedly North British ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... reserves and fine intentions; and all the disturbing questions fled from Corinna's mind while she looked at him. Surely, she repeated to herself, with a triumphant emphasis, surely there was no truth in that old ugly gossip! The backward sweep of his iron-gray hair accentuated the height of his forehead, and produced at first sight an impression of intellectual superiority. His nose was long and slightly aquiline; his mouth firm and clear-cut, with thin lips that closed tightly; his chin ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... with iron-gray hair, and separated from his wife. His guardianly attention to Carol Lester set village and town gossip to talking.—Charlotte Dunning, Upon a ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... the years of his memory among these hills. A good man has gone away—and yet remains. In the comparatively short time I have been here I never came to know him well personally, though I saw him often in the country roads, a ruddy old gentleman with thick, coarse, iron-gray hair, somewhat stern of countenance, somewhat shabby of attire, sitting as erect as a trooper in his open buggy, one muscular hand resting on his knee, the other holding the reins of his familiar old ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... the street to the court-house. To Phil nothing was funnier than Alec Waterman in the throes of oratory. Waterman was big and burly, with a thunderous voice; and when he addressed a jury he roared and shook his iron-gray mane in a manner truly terrifying. In warm weather when the windows were open, he could be plainly heard in any part of the court-house square. When Phil reached the circuit court-room Judge Walters, with his feet on the judicial desk, was gazing at the ceiling, as was his habit when trials grew ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... was transformed. His face was terrible to see, with its narrow, burning eyes deep under the shaggy brows, its dark veins writhing snakelike on the temples and forehead, the projected mouth and chin, the hard lines of the jaws, the iron-gray gleam from all the features—he looked like an aged ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... young man rose up with the wrench in his hand, and looked for the first time into the gray-blue eyes under the bushy iron-gray brows. "The country is the same as it is on this ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... relict of Deacon Gurrey the dealer in hay and grain, was a pointed-nosed, simpering woman with iron-gray hair drawn so tight that it resembled a soiled handkerchief covering her head. But she was unexpectedly cheerful, and her dining-room, with its thin tablecloth on a long pine table, had the decency of ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... the window, near which the walk passed to the doorway, and stood leaning on the sill,—a tall, slender figure, stooping a little, with smooth, scholarly face, and thin iron-gray hair. His only noticeable feature was a pair of eyes whose expression and glow indicated an imaginative temperament. It was pleasant to observe the relieved restlessness in the look and manner of the two friends, as if at the mere being in each other's presence, though neither seemed in ...
— A Summer Evening's Dream - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... fifty-three—a little man of a reddened, weather-worn skin and a meditative, almost saddened, aspect. He had blue eyes, but his scanty iron-gray hair showed raven black in its shadows. The width and prominence of his cheek-bones dominated all one's recollections of his face. The long vertical upper-lip and irregular teeth made, in repose, an unshapely mouth; its smile, though, sweetened the whole countenance. He ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... mills a man named Stephen Blackpool had worked for years. He was sturdy and honest, but had a stooping frame, a knitted brow and iron-gray hair, for in his forty years he had known ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... sunlight slanted through the window, softening the iron-gray hair of the man who stood there. His shoulders almost blocked the window, for he had the body of a fighting man, one, moreover, in good condition. His short-clipped mustache rode with an air of dignity ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... moved, unless perchance you are the ghost of a mediaeval porker," Hankinson said, his calmness returning now that he had succeeded in plastering his iron-gray lock across the top of his otherwise bald head. "Of course, if you are a spook of that kind you want the earth, ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... Perona. Nareda's Minister of Internal Affairs. Spawn had mentioned him to me. A South American. A man in his fifties. Thin and darkly saturnine, with iron-gray hair, carefully plastered to cover his half-bald head. He sat listening to the President's harangue, twirling the upturned waxen ends of his artificially black mustache. A wave of perfume enveloped him. A ladies' ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... "Oh!" he cried, and beckoned for Mescal. She ran to him, and Piute, tying Black Bolly, hurried after. "Look! look!" cried Jack. He pointed to a ridge rising to the left of the yellow crags. On the bare summit stood a splendid stallion clearly silhouetted against the ruddy morning sky. He was an iron-gray, wild and proud, with long silver-white mane waving ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... up and down the long piazza in front of the house was Judge Merlin. He was a rather singular-looking man of about forty-five years of age. He was very tall, thin, and bony, with high aquiline features, dark complexion, and iron-gray hair, which he wore long and parted in the middle. He was habited in a loose jacket, vest, and trousers of brown linen, and wore a broad-brimmed straw hat on his head, and large slippers, down at the heel, on his feet. He carried in his hand a lighted pipe of common clay, and he walked with a slow, ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... to the contrary, this was an absolutely unfurnished house. As he reached the last stair he looked keenly at the man who held the lamp—a middle-aged man, loose-jointed and loosely dressed, with iron-gray hair and a scar upon his cheek. He spoke with a slightly foreign accent, and, with a bow, moved aside from the doorway ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... all right: Bernard J. Megrue, one of our biggest Western customers, president of a couple of railroads, and director in a lot of companies that's more or less close to the Corrugated Trust. He's a husk, Barney Megrue is—big and breezy, with crisp iron-gray hair, lively black eyes, and all the gentle ways of a ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... middle-aged lady happened to be nearer to me now than on either of the former occasions on which I had seen her. There was something in the expression of her eyes which seemed to be familiar to me. But the effort of my memory was not helped by what I observed in the other parts of her face. The iron-gray hair, the baggy lower eyelids, the fat cheeks, the coarse complexion, and the double chin, were features, and very disagreeable features, too, which I had never ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... "cow doctor," came to the door. He was an old man with iron-gray hair, and always wore steel-bowed spectacles; at least for twenty years nobody in the town could remember ever having seen him without them. It was the general opinion that he wore them during the night. Once when questioned on the subject, he laughingly said that he "couldn't see to ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... in getting the, afterwards famous, big, old, sore-backed mule. You may not remember him, but I do; and, notwithstanding his sore back, he made pretty good beef. I, with pins, needles, thread, a pocket-knife, a handkerchief, etc., succeeded in getting a very nice, round, three-year-old, iron-gray pony. ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... Bouchard, nature had meant him to be a wheel-horse. He had never had any hope of being chief of staff. Hawk-eyed, with a great beak nose and iron-gray hair, intensely and solemnly serious, lacking a sense of humor, he would have looked at home with his big, bony hands gripping a broadsword hilt and his lank body clothed in chain armor. He had a mastiff's devotion to ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... face onbeknown to me, for oh the hunted, haunted look he wore! He wuz a portly, handsome man when we see him last, with red cheeks, iron-gray hair and whiskers and tall, erect figger. Now he had the look of a man who had kep' stiddy company with Death, Disgrace, Agony and Fear—kep' company with 'em so long that he wuz a stranger to ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... as they struck the fence, a brisk, elderly gentleman, with iron-gray hair, and spectacles, and a queer twinkle in his eye as he glanced up at the mass of clouds piling up in the mountains, walked hurriedly down a narrow sheep-path through the leafless woods, and entered the sugar-camp. ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... anything supernatural about the terrific experience. "I am imagining everything," she told herself. She went on with her preparations; she went to the bureau to take down her hair. She looked in the glass and saw, instead of her softly parted waves of hair, harsh lines of iron-gray under the black borders of an old-fashioned head-dress. She saw instead of her smooth, broad forehead, a high one wrinkled with the intensest concentration of selfish reflections of a long life; she saw instead of her steady blue ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... iron-gray hair, but he wasn't old. You could tell that by the backs of his hands; they weren't wrinkled or crepy and the veins didn't protrude. And drunk or sober—though I never remembered seeing him in the latter condition—he ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... there, and sometimes listened, and sometimes chimed in. An uncommonly fine-looking old fellow he was, too. Although about sixty, his form was as erect as that of a young man, and his sinewy limbs gave signs of great strength. He sat in an easy-chair —his iron-gray hair clustering over his broad brow; his eyes keen, penetrating, but full of fun; his nose slightly curved, and his lips quivering into smiles; small whiskers of a vanished fashion on either cheek; and small hands—a right royal, good fellow—witty, intellectual, and ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... a man who, once seen, was not likely to be forgotten. He was not a handsome man. About fifty years of age, he was unusually stout; and, though his clothing was of expensive texture, it fitted him badly. On his upper lip was a heavy moustache, now iron-gray. His face was red, almost bloated. There were heavy pouches under his eyes that told of many hours of senseless, vicious dissipation. A small wart on the left side of the man's nose emphasized his lack of good looks. Though the face was large, the eyes were small, beady, and often full of ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... playing. On the evening of March 25, 1874, I went to this same old theatre of the Ambigu to see him play Feuillantin in Le Portier du Numero 15. The part is that of an old man, and the actor played it "in his habit as he lived," without artificial make-up or wig. His own long iron-gray hair floated on the air; the wrinkles in his old face were painted there by the hand of Time; his voice was cracked and broken, and his gait that of advanced age. I had formed the impression, beforehand, that Lemaitre was simply a tottering ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... corner turned. CASSOCK has dropped from the front, and JUDEX, an iron-gray, has the lead. But look! how they have thinned out! Down flat,—five,—six,—how many? They lie still enough! they will not get up again in this race, be very sure! And the rest of them, what a "tailing off"! Anybody can see who is going ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... Maxwell, K. C. M. G., member of the Cabinet, chief orator of the Liberal party, and understudy for the part of Premier, who, although a Scotchman by birth, was a typical Canadian—free, unaffected, honest and sincere. His bushy iron-gray hair, his keen gray eyes, his healthy florid color, and the well-trimmed black moustache, which gave his face an unusually youthful appearance for a man of his age, went with a fine stalwart physique and a general bodily conformation apparently in keeping with the ideas of ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... have been the faithless Ignacio, a grave and decorous figure was seated. His appearance was that of an elderly hidalgo, dressed in mourning, with moustaches of iron-gray carefully waxed and twisted around a pair of lantern-jaws. The monstrous hat and prodigious feather, the enormous ruff and exaggerated trunk-hose, contrasting with a frame shrivelled and wizened, all belonged to a century previous. Yet Father Jose was not astonished. His adventurous life ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... iron-gray dawn, while the troops were falling dimly and spectrally into line, and he was mounting his horse to be ready for orders, he remembered Gildersleeve's drunken tale concerning the commandant, and laughed aloud. But turning his ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... the editor leaned far back in his chair; He ran his hands through his iron-gray hair, And stole ten minutes from work to write A valentine to his ...
— When hearts are trumps • Thomas Winthrop Hall
... of everything but his hat, and carries the bicycle across the stream, while I am taken up behind the mirza. As the mirza's iron-gray gingerly enters the water, an interesting and instructive spectacle is afforded by a hundred or more Foorgians following the shining example of the classic figure carrying the bicycle, for the purpose of being on hand to see me start across ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... a hundred miles on their journey—when she determined to try and light out. The whole camp was fast asleep, for the Ingins was monstrous tired. She crawled out of the lodge where she'd been put with some old squaws, and going to where the ponies had been picketed, she took a little iron-gray she'd had her eye on, jumped on his back, with only the lariat for a bridle and without any saddle, not even a blanket, took her bearings from the north star, and cautiously moved out. She started on a walk, until ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... man by taking his arm—a fat little man, whose iron-gray hair and clever eyes were to be seen at the lintel of every doorway, and who mingled unceremoniously with the various groups which ...
— Domestic Peace • Honore de Balzac
... Carlyle, and Robert Browning,—the long room filled with plaster casts and studies, which was Mr. Browning's retreat,—and, dearest of all, the large drawing-room, where she always sat. It opens upon a balcony filled with plants, and looks out upon the old iron-gray church of Santa Felice. There was something about this room that seemed to make it a proper and especial haunt for poets. The dark shadows and subdued light gave it a dreamy look, which was enhanced ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... occupation of Leipzig, had sent him a piebald, that had died a short time ago; and the Elector, hearing of it, had sent Gellert from Dresden another—a chestnut—with golden bridle, blue velvet saddle, and gold-embroidered housings. Half the city had assembled when the groom, a man with iron-gray hair, brought the horse; and for several days it was to be seen at the stable; but Gellert dared not mount it, it was so young and high-spirited. The rustic now asked his son whether the Professor did not make money enough to procure a horse of his own, to which the son answered: ...
— Christian Gellert's Last Christmas - From "German Tales" Published by the American Publishers' Corporation • Berthold Auerbach
... Kaiser. They tell you proudly that he rode at their head when the City of Liege was taken by storm, and after seeing him you could never picture von Emmich bringing up the rear in a motor car, after the manner that more prudent Generals use. He has iron-gray hair and a bristly, close-cropped mustache to match, and a very florid complexion, and looks absolutely unlike the sleek individual whose photograph was published with his obituary notice in the London press while the forts of Liege were ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... thinking, perhaps, that it was I,—I, the Poet, who was the chief talker in the one-sided dialogue to which you have been listening. If so, you were mistaken. It was the old man in the spectacles with large round glasses and the iron-gray hair. He does a good deal of the talking at our table, and, to tell the truth, I rather like to hear him. He stirs me up, and finds me occupation in various ways, and especially, because he has good solid prejudices, that one can rub against, and so get up and let off a superficial ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... mouth and he squared himself away to orate some. But jest as he done so, the door opened and Old Daddy Withers stepped in. He had been gone so long I had plumb forgot him. Right behind him was a tall, spare feller, with black eyes and straight iron-gray hair. ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... said Betty Gallup from the doorway. She had removed her hat and coat and was revealed now as a woman approaching seventy, her iron-gray hair twisted into a "bob" so that it could be completely hidden when she had the hat on her head. "That don't ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper |
