"Complexion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the boys were silent for a time, for the decided and unexpected stand taken by Richard, the favorite of the school, altered the complexion of the whole affair. This silence was succeeded by a more unequivocal demonstration. One after another followed the example of Bailey, and deserted the bad cause, till Richard found himself no longer alone, but supported by at least thirty of the best fellows ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... violence which is in love, are daily found? for it not only inflames the younger sort, but it so far exaggerates some persons far gone in years as through the burning heat thereof, they are almost mad. Natural diseases are for the most part governed by the complexion of man and therefore invade some more fiercely, others more gently; but Love, without distinction of poor or rich, young or old, seizeth all, and having seized so blinds them as forgetting all rules of reason, they neither see nor ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... horses, he had risen to his feet and had moved over to his mount, which had been taking advantage of its master's slumbers to make a hearty feed on the grass that grew around. He was an active young fellow, of middle height, but powerful in build, and proud and sullen-looking in expression. His complexion, which may once have been fine, had been tanned by the sun till it was darker than his hair. One of his hands grasped his horse's halter. In the other he held a ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... to give up the quest and return home to his young wife was almost unendurable. His thoughts were ever with her, and the poem relates that even a drop of blood fallen on the snow reminded, him most vividly of the dazzling complexion of Conduiramour, and of her sorrow when ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... custom, were the absolute property of the chief. He was seated not very far away from me, and was certainly one of the most ferocious and repulsive-looking creatures I have ever come across,—even among the blacks. He was over six feet high, and of rather a lighter complexion than his fellows,—almost like a Malay. The top of his head receded in a very curious manner, whilst the mouth and lower part of the face generally protruded like an alligator's, and gave him a truly diabolical ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... went up from the men. At last a land had been reached where an interpreter was not needed for the woman. It put a different complexion on the day. Tired men straightened in their saddles and Ruy Sandoval laughed at the amaze on the face of Gonzalvo—that hardy soldier of many lands stared as ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... delivered myself of remarks. Well; yes, I let myself go, and let him "have it." The amazement of Halford; his contrition; the colour that spread over his countenance (you will remember how prettily he could blush with that complexion of his, delicate as a woman in his last days); these sufficiently told me that he had not the ghost of an idea of the perturbation that had been seething in me. It took him the rest of the week to cease regretting that he had been so unobservant, and never again during the remaining eight-and-twenty ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... her. She turned and recognised Mr. Jacomb. He had not been officiating; he was in ordinary clerical costume; and there was something in the primness of that costume that suited his appearance. For he was a singularly clean-looking man; his face smooth shaven; his complexion of the fairest white and pink; his hair yellow almost to whiteness; his eyes gray, clear, and kindly. For the rest, he was about six-and-thirty; of stoutish build; and he generally wore a pleasant and complacent smile, ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... experience of life, I should say that if you take a comfortable, elderly man who hasn't been near a college for about twenty years, who has been pretty liberally fed and dined ever since, who measures about fifty inches around the circumference, and has a complexion like a cranberry by candlelight, you will find that there is a degree of absolute certainty about what he thinks he knows that will put any young man to shame. I am specially convinced of this from the case of my ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... of mathematics and natural philosophy, were in every respect a contrast to M. Gosselin. The first named, a young priest of about seven and twenty, was, I believe, only half a Frenchman by descent. He had the bright rosy complexion of a young Englishwoman, with large eyes which had a melancholy candid look. He was the most extraordinary instance which can be conceived of suicide through mystical orthodoxy. He would certainly have made, if he had cared to do so, an accomplished ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... old age he was in the habit of taking long walks every morning for the sake of exercise, and delighted in feats of arms and jousting matches. 'He was tall, straight, and full of flesh, well proportioned, and excellently made in all his limbs. His complexion inclined somewhat to brown, but was coloured with sanguine and lively carnation. His eyes were black; in look and sharpness of light, they were vivid, piercing, and terrible. The outlines of his nose and all his ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... constitution, habitude, diathesis[obs3]; frame, fabric &c. 329; stamp, set, fit, mold, mould. mode, modality, schesis[obs3]; form &c. (shape) 240. tone, tenor, turn; trim, guise, fashion, light, complexion, style, character. V. be in a state, possess a state, enjoy a state, labor under a state &c. n.; be on a footing, do, fare; come to pass. Adj. conditional, modal, formal; structural, organic. Adv. conditionally &c. adj.; as the matter stands, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... her, these distressing dreams of Rachel's began to be varied by others of a pleasanter complexion, of which, although they were vivid enough, she could only remember upon waking that they had to do with Richard Darrien, the companion of her adventure in the river, of whom she had heard nothing for so many years. For aught she knew he might ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... your fancy that they neither shrink nor shiver when the snow is drifting over their little hillocks and the bitter blast howls against the door of the tomb. That gloomy thought will collect a gloomy multitude and throw its complexion over your wakeful hour. ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... His features betrayed it, for he frowned like a man who had committed a grave fault in a matter touching an important interest. His olive complexion changed, and his interrogator thought that his eye quailed before his own fixed look. But the emotion was transient, and shuddering, as if to shake off a weakness, his appearance became once more natural ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... The complexion of a day or of a lifetime may hang upon the commonest occurrence. A shoe here dropped from the foot of one of the horses; and the postilion, diving into the recesses of the diligence, and drawing forth a box with the requisite ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... that perfect health, clear skins, bright eyes—he looked at the women, and except for Miss Patty, there wasn't an honest complexion or a bright eye in the lot—keen appetites and joy of living all depended on rational and ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and scalloped flounces of white and graduated tints of green! With her pale, sodden complexion, she must have looked like an ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... at his glossy exterior conveyed the assurance that his morals were as immaculate as his complexion and his linen. Goodness exuded from his moist eye, his liquid voice, the warm damp pressure of his trustful hand. He had always struck me as one of the most uncomplicated organisms I had ever met. His ideas were as simple and inconsecutive ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... appearance, with some open tablets in his hand and his pen across his mouth. He was a very short man, with a respectable paunch, a very small head, quite bald, a keen blue eye, reddish but straight nose, and a very florid complexion. There was nothing vulgar about his appearance, although his figure was against him. His countenance was one of extreme frankness, mixed with considerable intelligence, and his whole manner gave you the idea of precision ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... his heart, iced his blood; for Myra Duquesne seemed a creature scarcely belonging to the world of humanity—seemed already half a spirit. The light in her sweet eyes was good to see; but her fragility, and a certain transparency of complexion, horrified him. ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... attractive, clothed sometimes by passion with a character of loveliness and energy, but saddened perpetually by the shadow upon them of the great things from which they shrink. His morality is all sympathy; and it is this sympathy, conveying into his work somewhat more than is usual of the true complexion of humanity, which makes him, visionary as he is, so forcible ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... known him had she met him in the spirit. And, indeed, it had been so always, and she had never dreamed of it. Although he had been faithful to his wife, the image of Evelina Adams in her youth, and that one love-look which she had given him, had never left his soul, but had given it a guise and complexion of which his ...
— Evelina's Garden • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... me in them is that the actual narrative concerning 'the woman taken in adultery' is entirely contained in the last nine of these verses: being preceded by two short paragraphs of an entirely different character and complexion. Let these ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... lighted by kerosene lamps and warmed by a roaring wood fire in an old-fashioned box stove, was attended by Carolyn Houghton, who was, as Jeff had said, a "jolly girl to know." Herself a blooming maid with black locks and carnation cheeks, Carolyn admired intensely Evelyn's auburn hair and fair complexion. ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... this war quite as much as anything the South may do. Moreover, this tariff disgusts England, very naturally. Where will England side when the break comes? And what will be the result when the South, plus England, fights these tariff makers over here? I have no doubt that you, sir, know the complexion of all these neighborhood families in these matters. I should be most happy if you could find it possible for me to meet your father and his neighbors, for in truth I am interested in these matters, merely as a student. And I have heard much of ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... novel-reader, Alice learned that "she had the face and form of an angel"; that "her eyes had a velvety softness that drew you like an enchanted lake"; that these same eyes were "starry in their lustrous beauty"; that she had "the complexion of a creole, or rather the healthy pallor of the high-born aristocracy of England"; that "her figure was willowy and swayed like a reed in the wind"; and all the other curious jargon of the novelette—the deadly enemy of simplicity and innocence. Then Alice grew proud and vain, ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... inn she is taken to the house of the procuress, divested of her home-spun garb, dressed in the gayest style of the day; and the tender native hue of her complexion incrusted with paint, and disguised by patches. She is then introduced to Colonel Chartres, and by artful flattery and liberal promises, becomes intoxicated with the dreams of imaginary greatness. A short time convinces her of how light a breath these promises were composed. Deserted by her keeper, ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... assure my readers that the circumstances in which I have introduced Adela Cathcart, are no more fair to her real character, than my lady readers would consider the effect of a lamp-shade of bottle-green true in its presentation of their complexion. ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... bloodless complexion, thin, sickly, irritable, gloomy, impatient, egotistic, tyrannical, heartless and infamous. He was a strange compound of revengeful morality, malicious forgiveness, ferocious charity, egotistic ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... and shall recommend by the strongest of all sanctions, that is, by public honors and rewards. He ought to be cautious how he recommends authors of mixed or ambiguous morality. He ought to be fearful of putting into the hands of youth writers indulgent to the peculiarities of their own complexion, lest they should teach the humors of the professor, rather than the principles of the science. He ought, above all, to be cautious in recommending any writer who has carried marks of a deranged understanding: for where there is ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of seventeen or eighteen to household duties, in addition to half a dozen excellent boys, who were all neatly clothed, and kept in admirable discipline. Among these was the Abyssinian boy, "Amam," who had lately received his freedom. He was a pretty little lad, and his brown complexion looked quite light in comparison with his coal-black comrades. The Abyssinian blood showed in strong contrast to the negro type around him, and he was far superior in intelligence to ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... sir, that is to say, under thirty. In stature about the same as the prisoner, and of the same complexion. What remained of his clothes ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... perfectly useless for you to try to differ with me about the war. NOBODY can differ with me about the war: you might as well differ from the Almighty about the orbit of the sun. I have got the war right; and to that complexion, you too must come at last, your nature not being a fundamentally ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... success when you have a man stand on the street corner and pass out cards telling girls to get clean. Every girl that is worth while is affronted by the insinuation." Acting upon this expert advice, we then got out a neatly printed card reading as follows: "For a clear complexion, sprightly step, and bounding vitality, visit the Center Market Baths, open from 6 A.M. to 9 P.M. daily." The board of managers shook their sage masculine heads and reluctantly gave permission to issue these appeals. ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... a set of features, or complexion, The tincture of a skin, that I admire: Beauty soon grows familiar to the lover, Fades in his eye, and palls upon the sense. The virtuous Marcia tow'rs above her sex: True, she is fair (Oh, how divinely fair!), But still the lovely maid improves her charms, With inward greatness, unaffected ...
— Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison
... country were sapped by long habits of indolence, and by a morbid plethora of enjoyment in every class. Courage, and the old fiery spirit of the people, had gone to wreck with the physical qualities which had sustained them. Even the faults of the public mind had given way under its new complexion of character; ambition and civil dissension were extinct. It was questionable whether a good hearty assault and battery, or a respectable knock-down blow, had been dealt by any man in London for one or two ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... startled at hearing her own name pronounced by a hoarse voice, and, looking up, she beheld a tall young man standing at the window. He had a somewhat gipsy look, having a dark olive complexion, and fine black eyes, though set strangely in his head, like those of Jennet and her mother, coal black hair, and very prominent features, of a sullen and almost savage cast. His figure was gaunt but very muscular, his arms being ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... response to the summons. She was a girl of possibly seventeen summers, several inches taller than her mother, possessing a beautiful complexion with large lustrous eyes. There was something fawnlike in her timidity as she gazed at those about the table. Dona Gregoria broke the news, informing her that the ranchero of Las Palomas had asked her hand in marriage for Enrique, one of his vaqueros. Did she love the man ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... than any other, had less legal learning than wit, yet in spite of his foppish dress he never lacked sufficient dignity to float the appearance of a learned judge. He was a handsome man, tall and well proportioned, with peculiarly brilliant eyes, a jet black moustache, light olive complexion, and a graceful carriage. Whenever in trouble Tweed could safely turn to him without disappointment. But the man upon whom the Boss most relied was Sweeny. He was a great manipulator of men, acquiring the cognomen of Peter ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... surprise induces us to state in passing that this young lady—niece, also poor relation and companion, to Mrs Stoutley—possessed three distinct aspects. When grave, she was plain,—not ugly, observe; a girl of nineteen, with a clear healthy complexion and nut-brown hair, cannot in any circumstances be ugly; no, she was merely plain when grave. When she smiled she was decidedly pretty, and when she laughed she was captivating—absolutely irresistible! She seldom laughed, occasionally ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... to see how, in his letter, he speaks over and over again of 'fear' as being a wise temper of mind for a Christian. As George Herbert has it, 'A sad, wise valour is the true complexion.' Thus the man that had been so confident in himself learned to say 'Be ready to give to every man that asketh you a reason for the hope that is in you, with ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... regarded with suspicion by the various religious bodies of the State, and their opposition, sometimes veiled, and sometimes open, proved embarrassing. It has been shown how this sentiment was met by a prevailing clerical complexion in the Faculty and an emphasis on daily chapel exercises which were maintained long after the practice of considering religious affiliations as one of the prime professorial requisites was abandoned. This ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... tongue. She was of diminutive size, so small that Dick Lomas, by no means a tall man, felt quite large by the side of her. Her figure was exquisite, and she had the smallest hands in the world. Her features were so good, regular and well-formed, her complexion so perfect, her agile grace so enchanting, that she did not seem a real person at all. She was too delicate for the hurly-burly of life, and it seemed improbable that she could be made of the ordinary clay from which human beings are manufactured. She had the artificial ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... of Bosinney's death altered the complexion of everything. There was no longer the same feeling that to lose a minute would be fatal, nor would he now risk communicating the fact of his wife's flight to anyone till ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... that you were never more beautiful and charming than just at this very time? Perhaps it is the mourning which is so becoming to your pink-and-white complexion and the somewhat subdued lustre of your golden hair. But why do I feed your vanity with such speeches? Because I think that our gracious lord, who for many a long day has not bestowed even the least side glance upon any of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... man of thirty, blond, aquiline-faced, with cold blue eyes and thin, tight lips, which pouted more readily than they smiled. His hair was the pale color of bleached hay, a legacy from his low born German mother, and his complexion was growing evenly florid from too much Madeira wine. We were not friends, and we ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... quickly—a short, narrow, meagre creature, flat-chested and square-shouldered, whose face was the hue of light-coloured clay, an almost corpse-like complexion. Her thin lips hissed out, "Ay, if thee takes thee money to the pothouse thee won't get bacon ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... had met a precious couple, a partnership even more queer than the Portuguese and the Chinaman. One of the two was Niclaus—you know. Why! the fellow with a Tartar moustache and a yellow complexion, like a Mongolian, only that his eyes were set straight and his face was not so flat. One couldn't tell what breed he was. A nondescript beggar. From a certain angle you would think a very bilious ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... came frequently to the Fort, and as is common, I believe, to all the aborigines were of a copper colour complexion, with black coarse hair. Whenever they dressed for any particular occasion, they anointed themselves all over with charcoal and grease, and painted their eyebrows, lips and forehead, or cheeks, with vermillion. Some had their noses perforated through the cartilage, in which was fixed part ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... ample white cravat and shirt-frill, taking his brandy-and-water so pleasantly with his good friend Tulliver, is Mr. Riley, a gentleman with a waxen complexion and fat hands, rather highly educated for an auctioneer and appraiser, but large-hearted enough to show a great deal of bonhomie toward simple country acquaintances of hospitable habits. Mr. Riley spoke of such acquaintances kindly as ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... expressed at the information supplied by Goat's Mother that I have not yet seen my fortieth birthday. "It is the white hair that makes her look so old," is the comment offered in explanation of my fair complexion. ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... was nothing spirit-like or even spirituelle in her aspect, save that an extremely transparent complexion was rendered positively dazzling by the keen air and the glow of exercise; and the face was much too full and blooming to suggest the shadowy ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... little of the principles for which they staked their lives;—who enlisted from the commonest motives of convenience, whim, pelf, adventure, and foray; and who repented, after their first misfortune, with the salt rheum in their eyes. I think that all "great uprisings" resolve to this complexion. With due reverence for my own ancestry, I think that they sometimes stooped from greatness to littleness. I must confess that certain admissions in my revolutionary textbook are much clearer, now that ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... Possibly, if we be not the thriftiest of householders, we feed the hens here in the yard, and then "shoo" them away, when they would fain take profligate dust-baths under the syringa, leaving unsightly hollows. But however, and with what complexion, our dooryards may face the later year, they begin it with purification. Here are they an unfailing index of the severer virtues; for, in Tiverton, there is no housewife who, in her spring cleaning, omits to set in order this outer pale of the temple. Long before the merry months are well ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... bright lamps of beauty, that command And threaten Love, and what yong Mayd dare crosse 'em? What a bold gravity, and yet inviting, Has this browne manly face! O Love, this only From this howre is Complexion: Lye there, Arcite, Thou art a changling to him, a meere Gipsey, And this the noble Bodie. I am sotted, Vtterly lost: My Virgins faith has fled me; For if my brother but even now had ask'd me Whether I lov'd, I had run mad ...
— The Two Noble Kinsmen • William Shakespeare and John Fletcher [Apocrypha]
... undeniable she suffers, and you must excuse her (at least) if we both prove bad correspondents. I am decidedly better, but I have been terribly cut up with business complications: one disagreeable, as threatening loss; one, of the most intolerable complexion, as involving me in dishonour. The burthen of consistent carelessness: I have lost much by it in the past; and for once (to my damnation) I have gained. I am sure you will sympathise. It is hard work to sleep; it is hard to be told you are a liar, and have to hold your peace, ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... seraphic locks that fell over her shoulders and down her neck in golden streams, nor that clear grey eye even, whose childish glance might perplex the gaze of manhood, nor that little aquiline nose, that gave a haughty expression to a countenance that had never yet dreamed of pride, nor that radiant complexion, that dazzled with its brilliancy, like some winged minister of Raffael or Correggio. The peasants that passed the lady and her daughter in their walks, and who blessed her as they passed, for all her grace ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... the red-brown hair and the wonderful complexion and the dissatisfied eyes?" he asked Miss Andrews later, and that lady answered with the frankness of a ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... be A constrain'd hyperbole, And the passion to proceed More from a mistress than a weed. Sooty retainer to the vine, Bacchus' black servant, negro fine; Sorcerer, thou mak'st us dote upon Thy begrimed complexion, And for thy pernicious sake, More and greater oaths to break Than reclaimed lovers take 'Gainst women: thou thy siege do'st lay Much too in the female way, While thou suck'st the lab'ring breath Faster than kisses or than death. Thou in such a cloud do'st bind us, That our worst foes cannot ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... he contemplated himself in the mirror and saw that he was unusually white—half a dozen small imperfections stood out against the morning pallor of his complexion, and overnight he had grown the faint stubble of a beard—the general effect, he fancied, was ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... handsome, with a beauty which owed a great deal to colour. Her hair was a rich auburn, her complexion of the delicate purity which sometimes goes with that coloured hair—"milk and roses," it used to be called. Her eyes were of china blue, and her lips rather full, but of the richest carmine. She was exquisitely dressed, her travelling costume evidently of Redfern's build, and one ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... to be about forty years of age, of good stature, well proportioned, and rather thin. His face was rather long, with a pleasant expression, and good eyes, and his complexion rather fairer than the other Indians. His hair was short, just covering his ears, and his scanty beard was thin, black, and well arranged. His person was very clean and delicate, as he bathed every evening; and his manners ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... them well formed.' Prior's Malone, p. 175. Mrs. Piozzi says:—'His stature was remarkably high, and his limbs exceedingly large; his features were strongly marked, and his countenance particularly rugged; though the original complexion had certainly been fair, a circumstance somewhat unusual; his sight was near, and otherwise imperfect; yet his eyes, though of a light-grey colour, were so wild, so piercing, and at times so fierce, that fear was, I believe, the first emotion in the hearts of all his ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... As he stood before me, I surveyed him; a well-formed gentleman, above the ordinary height, with pale complexion, set off by dark, penetrative eyes; a shapely head covered with long, heavy masses of straight dark hair. The impression his appearance conveyed to me was that of a person benevolent but apathetic; unhappy without the will or power to shake off ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... Browndown of course with that poor wretched disfigured brother of his. I have got over my terror of Nugent's hideous face. I am even beginning (though I never liked him, as you know) to pity him, with such a dreadful complexion as that. Don't let us talk about it! Don't let us talk at all! I want to go on ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... NAPOLEON together, somewhat out of breath. With careless suppleness she slides down on a couch and fans herself. Now that the candle-rays reach her they show her mellow complexion, her velvety eyes with long lashes, mouth with pointed corners and excessive mobility beneath its duvet, and curls of dark hair pressed down upon the temples ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... Children, Steaming over the Washtub, Milking the Cows, Carrying in Wood, Cooking for the Hands, and other Delsarte such as the Respected Farmer usually Frames Up for his Wife, she was as thin as a Rail and humped over in the Shoulders. She was Thirty, and looked Sixty. Her Complexion was like Parchment and her Voice had been worn to a Cackle. She was losing her Teeth, too, but Henry could not afford to pay Dentist Bills because he needed all his Money to buy more Poland Chinas and build other ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... to be some three or four years younger than he. He was a handsome young man with a rosy complexion, blond hair and light blue eyes, a straight, firm nose and prominent but almost beardless chin. He was perhaps a couple of inches taller than his companion, and though his figure was somewhat above medium height, he was so well proportioned, so admirably ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... found him seated in his usual place, hard at work on his catalogue. Except that he was yet thinner and paler than before, the only difference in his appearance was that his eyes were brighter and his complexion was clearer. ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... of what age or complexion so euer they be of, shulde take theyr naturall rest and slepe in the nyght: and to eschewe merydyall sleep. But and nede shall compell a man to slepe [a] after his meate: let hym make a pause, and than let hym stande ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... was slightly bent in the shoulders, and his hair was thickly sprinkled with grey; yet, his age could scarcely have exceeded fifty. His complexion, unlike my handsome uncle's, was very pale, and an early acquaintance with grief might be traced in the lines which ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... says Jane's biographer, "she was very attractive. Her figure was rather tall and slender, her step light and firm, and her whole appearance expressive of health and animation. In complexion, she was a clear brunette, with a rich colour; she had full round cheeks, with mouth and nose small and well formed; bright hazel eyes (it is a touch of the woman, then, when Emma is described as having the true hazel eye), and brown hair forming natural ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... enough: no hope to help you; But as you shake off one to take another: Nothing so certain as your anchors; who Do their best office if they can but stay you Where you'll be loath to be: besides, you know Prosperity's the very bond of love, Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare
... what an actress should be." "A thousand thanks for the photographs. I like the profile best. It is most Paolo Veronesish and gives the right notion of your Portia, although the color hardly suggests the golden gorgeousness of your dress and the blonde glory of the hair and complexion.... I hope you have seen the quiet little boxes at ——'s foolish article." (This refers to an article which attacked my Portia in Blackwood's Magazine.) "Of course, if —— found his ideal in —— he must dislike you in Portia, or in anything where it is a case ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... Quixote had read the inscription on the parchment he perceived clearly that it referred to the disenchantment of Dulcinea, and returning hearty thanks to Heaven that he had, with so little danger, achieved so grand an exploit as to restore to their former complexion the countenances of those venerable duennas, now no longer visible, he advanced towards the duke and duchess, who had not yet come to themselves, and taking the duke by the hand he said, "Be of good cheer, worthy sir, be of good cheer; it's nothing at all; the adventure ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... I am a sceptic as well as Helvetius, but of a more moderate complexion. There is no harm in telling mankind that there is not so much divinity in the Aeneid as they imagine; but, (Even if I thought so,) I would not preach that virtue and friendship are mere names, and resolvable into self-interest; because there are numbers that would remember ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... friend, or in later years in his own small but refined domestic circle, he was the most charming of guests, hosts or companions. A short and fragile, but well-proportioned frame; a shapely and compact head; a face beaming with intellectual light, with rare, almost feminine beauty of feature and complexion; a fascinating courtesy of manner; and a fulness, swiftness and elegance of silvery speech,—such was the irresistible "mortal mixture of earth's mould" that men named De Quincey. He possessed in a high degree what James ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... Coroner Whidden, softly joining the conversation to which he had been listening in his timorous, apologetic manner, "had chanced, in the course of his early sea-faring days, to form any ties of an unhappy complexion"— ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... with outstretched hands, which Bellamy raised for a moment to his lips. Then she turned toward the third person, who had also risen at the opening of the door—a short, somewhat thick-set man, with swarthy complexion, close-cropped black hair, ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... we've heard naught except that he was found murdered, here, early this morning. Of course, I concluded that it had been for the sake of his money—that he'd been pulling it out in some public-house or other, and had been followed. Dear me! that puts a different complexion on things. Now, what's the meaning of ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... all their bills before their faces; and, as not a single act was passed, in the phrase of the day this was called an addle Parliament.[B] Such unhappy proceedings indicated the fatal divisions of the succeeding reign. A meeting of a different complexion, once occurred in 1621, late in James's reign. The monopolies were then abolished. The king and the prince shed reciprocal tears in the house; and the prince wept when he brought an affectionate message of thanks from the Commons. The ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... this 'ere fowl, Mrs Brown, it's remarkably tender, it is; just suited to the tender lips of—dear me, Mrs Brown, how improvin' the mountain hair is to your complexion, if I may wenture to speak of improvin' that w'ich is ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... which the Russian ladies substitute for the curtsy, and which he justly regards as very becoming, the empress adding dignity and grace. He describes Orloff as an herculean figure, finely proportioned, with a cheerful eye, and, for a Russian, a good complexion: Potemkin as having stature and shoulders, but being ill limbed and of a most forbidding countenance. His examination of the Russian dockyards, naval armament, and general style of shipbuilding, was most exact; and he records in his notes his having seen, in the naval arsenals of Norway, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... just that kind of handsome, black, scowling looks that always seem to need a lot of black jet and crape to set them off—the kind of complexion that seems to be playing up for the widow's weeds from the very cradle. I have heard it said she was handsome, and so she may have been; and she took a deal of care of her face, always wearing a veil when there was a wind, and her hands to have gloves, if ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... Lariviere and M. Schmoll, member of the Academie des Inscriptions, caressed with her fan her smooth white shoulders. At the two semicircles, whereby the dinner-table was prolonged, were M. Montessuy, robust, with blue eyes and ruddy complexion; a young cousin, Madame Belleme de Saint-Nom, embarrassed by her long, thin arms; the painter Duviquet; M. Daniel Salomon; then Paul Vence and Garain the deputy; Belleme de Saint-Nom; an unknown senator; ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... alive with the chirp of many birds, brilliant sunshine and deep, dark shadow! But Carl stared most at the figure that came to greet them, a tall, broad man of dark complexion and wonderful, kindly eyes of piercing darkness. His hair and beard were snow-white and reached nearly to his waist, his attire buckskin, laced at the seams. But his slender, sensitive hands ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... person and, added to all these, exhibiting the elements of his future greatness."[1] Hazlitt, in "My First Acquaintance with Poets" (a paper that every student of Coleridge's life and poetry should read), describing him as he appeared on his visit to Hazlitt's father at Wem in 1798, says: "His complexion was at that time clear, and even bright. His forehead was broad and high, light as if built of ivory, with large projecting eyebrows, and his eyes rolling beneath them like a sea with darkened lustre.... His mouth was gross, voluptuous, open, eloquent; his chin good-humored ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... fill a parent's place towards their apprentices. They were part of the family; she took them with her to church, and looked scrupulously after them. Henriette Signol was a tall, fine-looking girl, with bold eyes, and long, thick, dark hair, and the pale, very fair complexion of girls in the South—white as a magnolia flower. For which reasons Henriette was one of the first on whom Cerizet cast his eyes; but Henriette came of "honest farmer folk," and only yielded at last to jealousy, to bad example, ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... in her hair and on her bosom, are clasped about her rounded waist and wrists, gleam like fireflies from the folds of her diaphanous skirts, and sparkle on her fingers. A provoking, beguiling Impertinence with great stage eyes encircled by blue rims, a small mouth painted ruby-red, a complexion of theatrical lilies and roses, and tiny, twinkling feet that beat out a measure to which Beauvayse's pulses have throbbed madly ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... tropic. They are a tribe of great extent and power, inhabiting detached fertile spots of land, where they find water and pasturage for their flocks, but are very ignorant of the commonest principles of agriculture. They are an extremely fine race of men, their complexion very dark, almost as black as that of the negroes. They have straight hair, which they wear in large quantities, aqueline noses, and large eyes. Their behaviour is haughty and insolent, speaking with fluency and energy, and appearing to have ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... lighted up her face marvellously. It was not a fair face. I misdoubt if it were ever such. Her hair is near white now; but though her complexion were good, and her eyes shining and dark grey, her features must have been alway something harsh and strong. 'Nothing at all, Senora,' then said I; 'for it is now three months sithence my coming, and yet had I never the honour to ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... Flora, deck'd with various flowers Like Phoebus, guardian of the hours: But whatever be my dress, Greater be my size or less, Swelling be my shape or small Like thyself I shine in all. Clouded if my face is seen, My complexion wan and green, Languid like a love-sick maid, Steel affords me present aid. Soon or late, my date is done, As my thread of life is spun; Yet to cut the fatal thread Oft revives my drooping head; Yet I perish ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... hair is turning gray, and his face that of a man far advanced in the fifties, if not past sixty. And a striking face it is—long and oval, with a straight nose and fine nostrils, a broad forehead, and a firm, resolute mouth. His complexion, though it bears traces of age, is clear, healthy, and deeply bronzed. Save for a heavy gray mustache, he is clean shaved; his dark, keenly observant eyes are overshadowed by black and all but straight ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... and the Kitchener took up two or three platters white as the whitest silver; and, turning over into each one a different kind of meat set them between the hands of the stranger who said to him, "Seat thee, O my son." And when his bidding was obeyed he added, "I see thee ailing and thy complexion is yellow exceedingly: what be this hath affected thee and what is thy disorder and what limb of thy limbs paineth thee and is it long since thou art in such case?" Now when the Cook heard this say he drew a sigh of regret ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... may generally resemble, no two persons can be entirely of the same mind and disposition, the same habits and pursuits, unless after the most intimate and early association; I say early, for it is in youth only the mind and disposition receive the complexion we would give them; it is then only that our habits are moulded or our pursuits directed as we please; as we advance in life they become fixed and unchangeable, and instead of our governing them, govern us. Is it not therefore ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... resounding aisle the procession marched slowly. Now I was nearer to the face, and perceived that it was lovely as some rich-hued flower. The large eyes were dark and soft as a deer's. The complexion, too, was somewhat dark, as though the sun had kissed it. The lips were red and curving, and about them played a little smile that was full of mystery as the eyes were full of thought and tenderness. The figure was delicate and rounded, but not so very tall. All these ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... felt the comely atmosphere of a charming and well-ordered home. Books lined the walls; a French window opened on to the lawn at the far end of the room; a large bowl of blue hyacinths, growing in a bed of pebbles, stood on the reading table. Mr. Kent was small, gray-haired, with a clear pink complexion ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... laughter from the crowd, and a rush for stones. Missiles fell about Nickie in a shower. Suddenly the situation had assumed a dangerous complexion. The crowd opened in a circle to get at the monster; ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... my shape & face are fled, And my revolted form bespeaks me dead, For fair, and shining age, has now put on A bloodless, funeral complexion. My skin's dry'd up, my nerves unpliant are, And my poor limbs my nails plow up and tear. My chearful eyes now with a constant spring Of tears bewail their own sad suffering; And those soft lids, that once secured my ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... to imagine Mr. Irwine looking round on this scene, in his ample white surplice that became him so well, with his powdered hair thrown back, his rich brown complexion, and his finely cut nostril and upper lip; for there was a certain virtue in that benignant yet keen countenance as there is in all human faces from which a generous soul beams out. And over all streamed the delicious ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot |
