"Jet-black" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the rainbow had a place in her costume for the occasion: The bodice was of light blue silk; the skirt orange; encircling her small waist was a green sash; while her jet-black hair was fastened with a crimson ribbon. Diamonds flashed from the earrings in her ears as well as from the rings on her fingers. All in all, it was scarcely to be wondered at that her charms stirred to the very depths the fierce passion ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... her feet, She lying on her couch alone, Across the purple coverlet, The maiden's jet-black hair has grown, On either side her tranced form Forth streaming from a braid of pearl: The slumbrous light is rich and warm, And moves not on the ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... diameter. The edge of the whirl was represented by a broad belt of gleaming spray; but no particle of this slipped into the mouth of the terrific funnel, whose interior, as far as the eye could fathom it, was a smooth, shining, and jet-black wall of water, inclined to the horizon at an angle of some forty-five degrees, speeding dizzily round and round with a swaying and sweltering motion, and sending forth to the winds an appalling voice, half shriek, half roar, such as not even the mighty cataract of Niagara ever lifts ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... had to stop presently when they met a caravan of camels, which had long since ceased to be a novelty to the tourists. They were driven, the officer said, by the real Bedouins of the desert, and by men of all shades of color, from jet-black to pale copper hue. The donkeys were not a strange sight; but when a couple of ostriches passed along the street, the visitors were all eyes. They were seven feet high; and they could capture a fly, if they would take ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... elfin couriers brought the news at dusk That Lion-Heart, while wandering home thro' Europe, In jet-black armour, like an errant knight, Despite the great red cross upon his shield, Was captured by some wicked prince and thrust Into a dungeon. Only a song, they say, Can break those prison-bars. There is a minstrel That loves his King. If he should ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... beside the palanquin, its silk curtain in his hand; his chin sunk, with its long, jet-black beard, on his chest; the outer hand grasping the black wand, on which he leaned; his eyes were lowered, as before, to the ground; his face looked absolutely lifeless. Indeed, I never saw face or figure so moveless, except in death. The first question ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... human species, buyers and vendors, there were black, brown and fair; from the fairest skin, with light blue eyes, and flaxen hair, to the jet-black "Day and Martin" of Ethiopia; from the loveliest form of Nature's mould, to the disgusting squaw, whose flaccid mammae hung like inverted bottles to her girdle, or are extended over her shoulder to give nourishment to the ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... basket containing cooked prawns, lobsters or other temptation to the gourmand. Her dress, though it is midsummer, is warm and snug, particularly about the head and neck, as a protection against the winds of ocean; and her stout legs are encased in jet-black woollen stockings (visible below her short check petticoat), while her feet are shod with huge brogans whose inch-thick soles are heavily plated with iron. She lives ten miles from Tenby, walks to and fro always, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... not enter that land, it would immediately assert its dominion over him if he left it. At length she persuaded him to promise that he would return to his country for one day only, and then come back to dwell with her for ever. She accordingly gave him a beautiful jet-black horse, from whose back he was on no account to alight, or at all events not to allow the bridle to fall from his hand; and in parting she gifted him with wisdom and knowledge far surpassing that of men. Mounting the steed, ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... a pleasant sort of a fool, Roque," said Gomez Arias, as he leisurely twirled round his curling jet-black mustachios, and with much complacency eyed his fine figure in ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... and arms appeared incessantly to present to their owner the insoluble problem—What is to be done with us? Her face was still thin and sallow, although it was redeemed by its magnificent eyes and wealth of lustrous, jet-black hair. As to her hair, to tell the truth, she managed its luxuriant folds in a manner as little ornamental as possible. She would never consent to allow it to be dressed, affirming that it would drive her mad to sit still so long, and it was accordingly tricked up with more ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... pace unwittingly, under the prick of those emotions which otherwise were in such excellent control. I can see him now, continually waiting for us on the brow of some glistening ice-slope, leaning on his alpenstock and looking back, jet-black by contrast between the blinding hues of ice ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... limbs and graceful, arched necks. The ponies moved with exactly the same steps, and shook their manes and swished their tails at exactly the same time. Behind the prince and the High Ki were King Terribus, riding his great white charger, and Wul-Takim on a stout horse of jet-black color. The two ancient Ki and Nerle, being of lesser rank than the ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum
... just the faintest suspicion of a smile hovering about her lips. Before she could answer, if she had intended to do so, there was a quick clatter of hoofs on the hard road ahead, and next instant an elegant buggy, whose slender jet-black polished spokes flashed and twinkled in the sunlight, came dashing past the wagon. On seeing the two walking together the driver hauled up his team with a suddenness that was evidently not relished by the spirited dappled span ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... without showing signs of the conflict. Peter had changed physically as well as spiritually. His face had paled to an ivory tone, the features had a cameo sharpness and purity of outline; cheeks and chin were covered with a heavy, jet-black beard,—as if his countenance were in morning for its lost boyishness. And out of this thin, quiet, black-haired, black-bearded face looked a pair of golden eyes of an almost intolerable clarity. Don Pedro Mrs. Hemingway called him laughingly, and El Conquistador. Secretly, she ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... for she "harked back" to her wild ancestry; "Jerry," a large roan-colored slut, the quickest of all my dogs on her feet, and so affectionate that her overtures of joy had often sent me sprawling on my back; "Jack," a jet-black, gentle-natured dog, more like a retriever, that always ran next the sledge, and never looked back but everlastingly pulled straight ahead, running always with his nose ...
— Adrift on an Ice-Pan • Wilfred T. Grenfell
... if you should sometimes, as I hope you often may, fall in with a soft downy south-west breeze, a clear deep-blue sky over head, gemmed full with little stars, and fringed about, down into the watery round, by a broad border of jet-black cloud, against which each curling wave appears to break, and the goodly ship seems as though delving through a lake of quick-silver—when the track of the swift porpoises show like long furrows of dazzling ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... blues and greens, breasts which glowed like mirrored suns,—orange overlaid upon blinding yellow,—and at every flick of the tail a trenchant flash of intense scarlet. All these colors set in frames of jet-black plumage, and suddenly hurled through blue sky and green foliage, made the hillside a brilliant ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... them. The garb of the newcomer somewhat resembled that of a forester; but his arms and lower limbs were destitute of covering, and appeared singularly muscular, while his skin was swarthy as that of a gipsy. His jet-black hair hung in elf-locks ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... garden gate emerged Basilio, grown fat and sleek, with an elderly hairless face, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and his jet-black, coarse hair plastered down smoothly. Stooping carefully behind an ornamental clump of bushes, he put down with precaution a small child he had been carrying on his shoulder—his own and Leonarda's last born. The pouting, spoiled Camerista ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... the light that streamed from her feet, she advanced into the bog. As the summer wind stirs one tussock after another, so she stepped onward between the slimy ponds and deadly quagmires. Now she reached a jet-black pool, and all too late she saw the stars shining in its depths. Her foot tripped and all she could do was to snatch at an overhanging branch of a snag as she fell forward. To this she clung, but, fast as she gripped it, faster still some tendrils from the bough whipped ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... of the principal guides, and a man of importance therefore, now stood forward. He was probably about forty-five years of age; had a plain, olive-coloured countenance, surrounded by a mass of long jet-black hair, which he inherited, along with a pair of dark, piercing eyes, from his Indian mother; and a robust, heavy, yet active frame, which bore a strong resemblance to what his Canadian father's had been many years before. His arms, in particular, were of herculean ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... unable yet to save herself, Carver came to the brink of the flood, which alone was between them; and then he stroked his jet-black beard, and waited for Lorna to begin. Very likely, he thought that she would thank him for his kindness to her. But she was now recovering the power of her nimble limbs; and ready to be off like hope, and ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... and in private life he was almost excessively so—a fact which had been noted at an early date by the keen-eyed authorities of his University, the discovery leading to his tearing himself away from Alma Mater by request with some suddenness. He was a long, slender youth, with green eyes, jet-black hair, and a passionate fondness for the sound of his ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... creature almost transparent, an effect as uniform as the radiance of a precious stone. Its little, innocent-looking, three-toed foot, or three and a half toed—how unreptilian it looks through my pocket glass! A baby's hand is not more so. Its throbbing throat, its close-shut mouth, its jet-black eyes with a glint of gold above them—only a close view of ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... sounds betokening the return of the riders. She placed it on her head, and behold! the cheeks had no more than their own roseate tinting, and she was beginning to hope Arthur would be pleased, when she became aware of certain dark eyes and a handsome face set in jet-black hair, presenting itself over her shoulder in ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the air Ten thousand bright blades, and as many eyes Of flame flashed terribly. Then Rupert stay'd His hot hand in amazement, And all his blood-stain'd chivalry grew pale: The hunters, chang'd to quarry, fled amain, I saw the prince's jet-black, favourite barb Thrown on her haunches; then away, away, Her speed did bear him safe. Then there came one, A grisly man, with head all bare and grey, That shouted, "Smite and scatter, spare not, ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... arms, and put his hand over the rose on her heart, that had ceased to beat. Suddenly it seemed to him that his hand had been stung, and he drew it away quickly, his eyes on the golden rose. And where she had left it just incomplete at his coming, he saw a jet-black speck. A light broke over him swiftly, and one by one he broke the strands at the rose's heart, and under it revealed a small black snake; and as the rose had been done from her own gold locks, so ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... seen before, and nobody suspicioned was there till they hearn him give that kind of snort, and they seen him standun' right in front of the mourners' bench under Elder Grove's pulpit. He was in his bare head, and he had a suit of long, glossy, jet-black hair hengun down back of his ears clean to his shoulders. He was kind of pale like, and sad-lookun', and he had a Roman nose some like yourn, and eyes like two coals, just black fire, kind of. He was putty ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... and left of her as though she were slightly alarmed. Her face was beautiful in the truest sense of the world; it did not at all match with the shabby, faded clothes which she wore. She had large deep-violet eyes, jet-black hair, and a sweet, fresh complexion. Her expression was bewitching, and when she smiled a dimple came in ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... this man? Jimmie Dale was studying the other's chin, the lips, the white, even teeth, the jet-black hair. Some day the tables might be turned. Could he recognise again this cool, imperturbable ruffian who so callously threatened him ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... the rich deep colour that nature had bestowed on the Indian beauty, the tell-tale blood deepened on her cheeks, until the blush gave new animation and intelligence to her jet-black eyes. Raising a finger in an attitude of warning, she dropped her voice, already so soft and sweet, nearly to a whisper, as she ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... trial for any man. Now and then some independent young lady, who had reasons of her own for preferring rosy complexions, turn-up noses, and "runaway" chins, might quarrel with the Major's fine Roman profile and jet-black moustache and hair; but—there was no denying it—he was, even at forty, a remarkably handsome man; one of the old school of Chesterfield perfection, ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... superstitions. Pelee, the terrific goddess of the volcanoes Mount Eoa and Mount Kea, was supposed to guard all the passes to the extensive valleys lying round their base. There are legends of her having chased with streams of fire several impious adventurers. Near Hilo, a jet-black cliff is shown, with the vitreous torrent apparently pouring over into the sea: just as it cooled after one of ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... Pye Stairs a boat was waiting. He dismounted and, giving his horse over to the orderly, stepped on board and was rowed swiftly out towards the harbour, where the lights of the squadron flickered and its great hulls brooded over the jet-black water. As the boat crossed under the tilted stern and high, flaming lanterns of Rear-Admiral Rooke's ship, the Foresight, the sentry on deck sang out ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the smoking jacket and the slippers and the uncovered thatch of jet-black hair, that this man must be Holman Sommers; when he saw Elfigo Apodaca there, seated and talking earnestly with him, as he could tell by the gestures with which they elaborated their speech; when he saw Helen May ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... to her own room, for each Flower Girl had a room to herself in the great house. She brushed back her jet-black hair; she tidied her little blouse as well as she could, and even tied a crimson ribbon on one side of her hair; and then, feeling that she looked at least a little bewitching, and that Ardshiel mattered nothing at all to her, and that ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... a beautiful creature, sir, the finest dog I ever set eyes on. Like a setter in the make of him, but no setter that ever I saw could match him for size or looks. His coat was jet-black, as glossy as the skin of a thoroughbred, with just one streak of white showing down the breast, and his eyes—well, they were the very humanest, sir, that ever I see looking out of a ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... laughed. They knew that Jack Walthall wasn't at all lamblike in his disposition. He was tall and strong and handsome, with pale classic features, jet-black curling hair, and beautiful white hands that never knew what labor was. He was something of a dandy in Hillsborough, but in a large, manly, generous way. With his perfect manners, stately and stiff, or genial and engaging, ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... their mother, Gomer, came in. She was a beautiful woman, dressed in the latest fashions of the wealthy Samarians. Her robes were long and flowing. A veil, woven of golden threads and imported from Assyria, set off her jet-black hair. Her arms and fingers were adorned with jewel-studded bracelets and rings. She was accompanied by ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... is in many respects the very opposite of the Malay, and it has hitherto been very imperfectly described. The colour of the body is a deep sooty-brown or black, sometimes approaching, but never quite equalling, the jet-black of some negro races. It varies in tint, however, more than that of the Malay, and is sometimes a dusky-brown. The hair is very peculiar, being harsh, dry, and frizzly, growing in little tufts or curls, which in youth are very short and compact, but afterwards ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... came often to see her when the day's work was over; and Shenac, the youngest, who was her father's favourite, and who could take liberties that none of the others could have done at her age, came at other times. She was older than our Shenac by a year or so; but she was little and merry, and her jet-black hair was cut close to her head like a child's, so she seemed much younger. She could not come too often. She was equally welcome to the grave, quiet Hamish and the boyish Dan, and more welcome to Shenac than to either. For she never hindered work, but helped it rather. ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... the sons of their father's prime, inherited all his grandeur of form and beauty of countenance, his taste for high literature, along with a certain energy of mind that came to them, by some unknown law of nature, from their father's mother. From her Daniel derived his jet-black hair and eyes, and his complexion of burnt gunpowder; though all the rest of the children except one were remarkable for fairness of complexion, and had sandy hair. Ezekiel, who was considered the handsomest man in the United States, had a skin of singular fairness, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... this bow for me," said Joshua, who was a very polite little boy with jet-black hair. "And he scraped the arrows and found ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... off a bee that had blundered against her apron, and looked at me again—a brown woman, lean and strongly made, with jet-black eyes set deep and glistening ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a better description than the speaker knows. The Oxford M.A. gown, worn over a cassock, is the Benedictine habit modified by time and place; the spare, thin figure suggests asceticism; the beautifully chiselled, sharply-pointed features, the close-shaved face, the tawny skin, the jet-black hair, remind us vaguely of something by Velasquez or Murillo, or of Ary Scheffer's picture of St. Augustine. And the interest aroused by sight is intensified by sound. The vibrant voice strikes like an electric shock. The exquisite, almost over-refined, articulation seems ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... board a coppered and copper-fastened brig, and taking passage for Bremen! And who could be going to Bremen? No one but foreigners, doubtless; men of dark complexions and jet-black whiskers, who talked French. ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... flashing chariot, moved the "Six Princes," the heads of the great clans of the Achaemenians, then two hundred led desert horses, in splendid trappings, and then—after a long interval, that the host might cast no dust upon its lord, rode a single horseman on a jet-black steed, Artabanus—the king's uncle and vizier. ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... black with many a crack, All black and bare, I ween; Jet-black and bare, save where with rust, Of mouldy damps and charnel crust, They were patched with purple ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... spring, and when he did so the unclosing revealed the face of a young girl—a fair young girl in her early youth—not more than eighteen summers could have scattered their roses over her, when that beautiful impression was taken. A ripe southern face, with masses of jet-black hair, and dark brilliant eyes. There was a dewy crimson on her lips, and her cheeks were red as damask roses. A bright, happy face, upon ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... possessions as thou hast this day? Dost thou not know that the shower to-day has left in my dominions neither man nor beast alive that was exposed to it?' And thereupon, behold, a Knight on a black horse appeared, clothed in jet-black velvet, and with a tabard of black linen about him. And we charged each other, and, as the onset was furious, it was not long before I was overthrown. Then the Knight passed the shaft of his lance through the bridle rein of my horse, and rode off with ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... iron-grey!" said one, "Oh, stuff!" Another cried at most a buff! "In tint below, in hue above, 'Tis little deeper than a Dove! In fact, looked at in a strong light, 'Tis scarce distinguishable from white!" "White!" yelled a third, with rage half throttled, "With jet-black streaks 'tis thickly mottled. If not pure Raven, all must own No Magpie hath a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various
... more than a mile in diameter. The edge of the whirl was represented by a broad belt of gleaming spray; but no particle of this slipped into the mouth of the terrific funnel, whose interior, as far as the eye could fathom it, was a smooth, shining and jet-black wall of water, inclined to the horizon at an angle of some forty-five degrees, speeding dizzily round and round with a swaying and sweltering motion, and sending forth to the wind an appalling voice, half-shriek, half-roar, such as not ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... fellow, full six feet high, with black hair, and jet-black silky whiskers, meeting under his chin;—the men said he dyed them, and the women declared he did not. I am inclined, myself, to think he must have done so, they were so very black. He had an eye like a hawk, ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... dawn. Without awaiting a full return of light, the travellers proceeded on their way, and had gone something over a hundred yards when Ayrault, who was marching second, suddenly grasped Bearwarden, who was in front, and pointed to a jet-black mass straight ahead, and about thirty yards from a pool of warm water, from which a cloud of vapour arose. The top of the head was about seven feet high, and the length of the body exceeded thirty feet. The six legs looked as strong as steel cables, ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... panted, shaking her jet-black noddle at him—"here's a parcel o' gor-crows for discussin' help to a Christian marn! What! a score o' wiselings, and not one to hit oot the means and ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... whom he takes to be Turks or Egyptians, which they are; others, also of Oriental aspect, in red caps with blue silk tassels—the fez. In short, he sees sailors of all nations and colours, from the blonde-complexioned Swede and Norwegian to the almost jet-black negro ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... eyes. He bowed to his master and left the room by an archway covered with heavy draperies. The next moment these curtains were violently pushed aside, and a dreadful sea creature swam into the hall. It had a body much like that of a crab, only more round and of a jet-black color. Its eyes were bright yellow balls set on the ends of two horns that stuck out of its head. They were cruel-looking eyes, too, and seemed able to see every person in the room at the same time. The legs of the Yell-Maker, ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... and smooth in accordance with the laws of antique beauty, was massed jet-black hair divided and plaited into a multitude of fine tresses which fell on either shoulder. Twenty golden pins stuck into the tresses, like flowers in a ball head-dress, studded with brilliant points the thick dark ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... John Jacob Astor, the richest man in all the unevarsal United States of America? The man that owns all the brown and white bears, silver-gray and jet-black foxes, sables, otters, stone martins, ground squirrels, and every created critter that has a fur jacket, away up about the North Pole, and lets them wear them, for furs don't keep well, moths are death on 'em, and too many at a time glut the market; so he lets them run till he wants them, and then ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... head, with jet-black hair And eyes grey-blue, You felt when'er he lookt you fair That he must be true; And when he smil'd his dear and shy way Sidelong his mouth, I always thought the sun fell my way And ...
— The Village Wife's Lament • Maurice Hewlett
... nervousness, and when he has burst forth with a particularly successful cataract of expression, it assumes a curl of triumphant scorn that would be worthy of Mephistopheles. A thick, heavy mass of jet-black ringlets falls over his left cheek almost to his collarless stock, while on the right temple it is parted and put away with the smooth carefulness of a girl's, and shines most unctuously with "thy incomparable oil, Macassar."' Willis was always interested ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... oppressive nature. I saw few whites in the streets at this hour. There were a great many Indians lying by the door-steps, having disposed of their baskets, besoms, and raspberries, by the sale of which they make a scanty livelihood. The men, with their jet-black hair, rich complexions, and dark liquid brown eyes, were almost invariably handsome; and the women, whose beauty departs before they are twenty, were something in the "Meg ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... are more or less felted round with rich brown fibrous, almost wool-like roots; inside the leaves fine twigs and stems of herbaceous plants, all of a uniform brown tint, are wound round and round, apparently to keep the leaves in their places interiorly, and then the cavity is lined with jet-black horsehair-like vegetable fibres. What these are I do not know, but they are precisely like horsehair to look at, only they are comparatively brittle. The contrast of colour between the jet-black lining and the rich brown of the lip of the saucer, ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... had stood as the symbol of the North in the glorious days of Ancient Egypt. The wings were of emeralds tipped with rubies; gold were the claws and gold the Symbol of Life they held; the body and tail were a mass of precious stones; and the eye of some jet-black stone, unknown ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... then, large and strong, laughing often, tossing her, she remembered, to the ceiling, his beard jet-black and his eyebrows bushy and overhanging. Once that vigour, afterwards this horror. She shook away from her last vision of him but it returned again and again, hanging about her over her shoulder like an ill-omened messenger. And all the life between seemed to be suddenly wiped away ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... sighted the Pedras Negras: these are huge travelled rocks of basalt, jet-black, breaking with a conchoidal fracture, and showing debris like onion-coats about their base. The aspect was fantastic, resembling nothing so much as skulls 10 to 15 feet high. They are doubtless the produce of the upper slopes, which by slow degrees ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... in which even the poorest parents are so proud to clothe their offspring. They love colour; and ribbons of many hues are lavished on the frocks and tunics. One of my London moments was when I first saw, in Whitechapel High Street, a little Jewess, with masses of jet-black hair, dressed in vermilion and white. I wonder, by the way, why it is that the children of the genteel quarters of London, such as Kensington Gardens, have no hair, or at any rate, only skimpy little twigs of it, while the children of the East are loaded with ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... the theory would put all these cases lightly aside, to cite that of the male cow-bird practising antics before the female and drawing a wide circle of melody round her; or that of the jet-black, automaton-like, dancing tyrant-bird; and concerning this species he would probably say that the plain-plumaged female went about unseen, critically watching the dancing of different males, to discover the most excellent performer according to the traditional ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... with a long white stripe lengthwise on each side. Back and sides finely waved with black and gray. Breast and belly pure white. Feathers under the tail jet-black. Long inner feathers of the wing striped lengthwise with velvet-black and silver-gray. Mirror on the wing glittering purple or violet, framed ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... faultless twentieth-century attire. He was nearly two inches over six feet, but he was so exquisitely proportioned that he looked less than his height. His skin was fair and smooth, but tanned to an olive-brown. His forehead was of medium height, straight and square, with jet-black brows drawn almost straight across it above a pair of rather soft, dreamy eyes that were blue or black according to the mood of their possessor. His nose was strong and slightly curved, with delicately sensitive nostrils. A dark glossy moustache and beard trimmed a la Tsar, partly ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... clubbed hair, too, loosened by the violent motion, had fallen backward, and in two thick plaits, slightly dishevelled, rested upon the croup of the horse. A young Indian's might have been equally as long, but his tresses would have been jet-black and coarse-grained, whereas those under my eyes were soft, silky, and nut-brown. Neither the style of riding—a la Duchesse de Berri—nor the manlike costume of manga and hat, were averse to the idea that the rider was a woman. Both the style and costume are common to the rancheras ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... that appealed to one more eloquently than his words. Never had I seen any man whose appearance equalled that of this Italian martyr who died as an assassin. His features were almost faultless, whilst his jet-black hair set off the lustrous pallor of his complexion with extraordinary effectiveness. Attired in fashionable evening dress, his hands encased in white kid gloves, and a smile, gentle rather than pathetic, ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... morning when he came to rouse me—his face as white as his gown; his golden hair long, and so fleecy that it would stand all about his head; his mouth arched like the Indian's bow; his great blue eyes bordered with dark brows and lashed with jet-black hairs a half-inch long. That picture, Esther, I fear no painter can get. I marvel why I do ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... though Time had no power to enter that land, it would immediately assert its dominion over him if he left it. At length she persuaded him to promise that he would return to his country for only one day, and then come back to dwell with her for ever; and she gave him a jet-black horse of surpassing beauty, from whose back she charged him on no account to alight, or at all events not to allow the bridle to fall from his hand. She farther endued him with wisdom and knowledge far surpassing that of men. Having mounted his fairy steed, he soon found himself ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... who saw as through a mist Madame Leonore moving with her mature nonchalant grace, setting before us wine and glasses with a faint swish of her ample black skirt. Under the elaborate structure of black hair her jet-black eyes sparkled like good-humoured stars and even I could see that she was tremendously excited at having this lawless wanderer Dominic within her reach and as it were in her power. Presently she sat ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... excited all that vanity in Bob so peculiar to the negro, and by which he prides himself in the prime value of his person. There he sits-Marston's faithful friend, contemplating his silence with a steady gaze, and then, giving his jet-black face a double degree of seriousness, shrugs his shoulders, significantly nods his head, and intimates that it will soon be time to retire, by commencing to ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... pavement. The boat was run ashore, under his directions, on a spit of sand between the pitch; and when she ceased bumping up and down in the muddy surf, we scrambled out into a world exactly the hue of its inhabitants—of every shade, from jet-black to copper-brown. The pebbles on the shore were pitch. A tide-pool close by was enclosed in pitch: a four-eyes was swimming about in it, staring up at us; and when we hunted him, tried to escape, not by diving, but by jumping on shore on the pitch, and scrambling off between ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... a full and complete drawing in charcoal of the subject before me, not in outline, but in strong darks, jet-black, many of them—a finished drawing really, in charcoal, which could be signed and framed. This is then "fixed" by a spray of alcohol and gum shellac, thrown by means of a common perfume atomizer, the whole apparatus costing ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith
... least six feet high, with raven hair, and a complexion sallow as the sear leaf. Look at his figure, then mark the absence of a single wrinkle, and you judge him for a youth. Observe again: look at the emaciated face; note the jet-black eye, deeply-sunken, and void of all fire and life; the crushed, the vacant, and forlorn expression; the aquiline nose, prominent as an eagle's, from which the parchment skin is drawn as rigidly as though it were a dead man's skin, bloodless and inert. The wear and tear, the buffeting and misery ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... full of entrancing possibilities. One can always tell what the blossom will be from the bud. In her case, all the essentials of beauty were in evidence: dark, lustrous velvety eyes; dazzling teeth—not one missing; jet-black hair—and such a wealth of it, almost to her shoulders; a slender figure, small hands and feet; neat, well-turned ankles and wrists, and rounded plump arms above ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... his side, the white layer had crackled and broken under his boots. It was very cold. And then he had heard a bird's shriek, that sounded like a hungry croak. The housemaid thought it was an owl—pooh, what did she know about it? It was a raven, the hungry beggar in the jet-black coat, like ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... suddenly a glimmering, shimmering little oriental figure of satin and silver and haunting sandalwood—a veritable little incandescent rainbow of spangled moonlight and flaming scarlet and dark purple shadows. Great, heavy, jet-black curls caught back from her small piquant face by a blazing rhinestone fillet,—cheeks just a tiny bit over-tinted with rouge and excitement,—big, red-brown eyes packed full of high lights like a startled fawn's,—bold in the utter security of her masquerade, yet scared almost to death ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... was, in white, flowing garments, very similar to those worn by penitents, her head wholly undefended from cold or rain even by a veil; her long, luxuriant, jet-black hair, in which as yet, despite of care and woe, no silver thread had mingled, falling round her from her noble brow, which shone forth from its shade white as snow, and displaying that most perfect face, which anguish had only chiselled into paler, purer marble; it could not rob it of its ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... with the wings of a super-bat, or jet-black super-construction; most likely one of the spores of the ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... handsome man, about forty years of age, with a jet-black beard, glossy with fresh dye, and with fine brilliant eyes, painted with the powder of antimony. He wore on his head an immense turban of white muslin, whilst a hirkeh, or Arab cloak, with broad stripes of white and brown alternately, was thrown over his shoulders. Although his ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... crony Dow Padgett, the liveryman, who came out of the widow's door, leading by the hand the blushing and bridling Susie. It was a startling apparition of the Southwestern dandy of the period—light hair drenched with bear's oil, blue eyes and jet-black moustache, an enormous paste brooch in his bosom, a waistcoat and trowsers that shrieked in discordant tones, and very small and elegant varnished boots. The gamblers and bagmen of the Mississippi River are the best-shod men in ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... a tall man, with white hair, but with eyebrows and moustache of jet-black. His eyes were brilliant but sharp, and he moved with the ease ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... very pretty picture, the little jet-black mare, and the mistress with her scarlet paragon bodice, even if the latter was entirely too pronounced for the taste of the great majority of the inhabitants, young and old, ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... inside of the house offered no less a welcome. Drawn up in the wide hall, under the direct command of old Alec, the head butler, were the house servants;—mulatto maids in caps, snuff-colored second butlers in livery, jet-black mammies in new bandannas and white aprons—all in a flutter of excitement, and each one determined to get the first glimpse of Marse Harry's young lady, no ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... upon its shining surface, in the jet-black ink that old Anita made from the berries of a certain bush which grew at the foot of the cliffs across the Valley, were ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... forward part of the boat, and a fifth sat beside the motor. In the bright moonlight, Captain Brooks could see that all the men wore black masks. He also saw that all were armed, and that from the staff at the stern of the boat floated a jet-black flag on which was painted in white the skull and cross-bones that have always been the insignia of pirates. Even as he looked one of the men in the motor-boat raised his arm: Uncle Jerry saw a flash of fire, and another pane of glass at his ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... subulata; two species of Porites (This Porites has somewhat the habit of P. clavaria, but the branches are not knobbed at their ends. When alive it is of a yellow colour, but after having been washed in fresh water and placed to dry, a jet-black slimy substance exuded from the entire surface, so that the specimen now appears as if it had been dipped in ink.) with cylindrical branches, one of which forms circular clumps, with the exterior branches only alive; and lastly, a coral something like an Explanaria, but with stars ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin
... Josiah were brothers. Lemuel was thirty-five, and might be called a jet-black. He was uncommonly stout, with a head indicative of determination of purpose, just suited to an Underground Rail Road passenger. He fled from James R. Lewis, "a tall, stout man, very wealthy and close." Lemuel ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... and scorn as darkened her face, and flashed in her jet-black eyes, I could not have thought compressible even into that face. The scar made by the hammer was, as usual in this excited state of her features, strongly marked. When the throbbing I had seen before, came into it as I looked ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... plant is poisonous. Certainly one that claims the potato, tomato, and eggplant among its kin has no right to be dangerous. The BLACK, GARDEN, or DEADLY NIGHTSHADE, also called MOREL (S. nigrum), bears jet-black berries that are alleged to be fatal. Nevertheless, female bumblebees, to which its white flowers are specially adapted, visit them to draw out pollen from the chinks of the anthers with their jaws, just as they do in the case of the wild, sensitive plant, and with no more ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... applies to the "lower animals" as well as to men. Moslems in Central Africa apply Kohl not to the thickness of the eyelid but upon both outer lids, fixing it with some greasy substance. The peculiar Egyptian (and Syrian) eye with its thick fringes of jet-black lashes, looking like lines of black drawn with soot, easily suggests the simile. In England I have seen the same appearance amongst miners fresh from ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... never seen this mild black cat before, and I fancy no one had ever seen her three roly-poly, jet-black kits. Such a confiding puss I never met, for when I started back, surprised, Mrs. Bunch merely looked at me with an insinuating purr, and began to pick at my carpet, as ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... the Nusairiyeh women, "when young, they are handsome, often fair, with light hair and jet-black eyes; or the rarer beauty of fair eyes and coal-black hair ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... "Topsy," and I only wish you could see her when she is in one of her tantrums, which she has at frequent intervals. With her flashing black eyes, straight, jet-black hair, square, squat shoulders, she looks the very embodiment of the Evil One. She is twelve, but shows neither ability nor desire to learn. Her habits are disgusting, and unless closely watched she will be found filling her pockets with the contents ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... anger, his jet-black eyes flashed, and his white hair seemed to bristle with rage. He paced the floor for a few moments, and then turning to Jefferson, who had not moved, he said ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... more time to observe the face of the woman before him. Her head, resting on an old coat, turned slightly to one side, was partly covered by a wealth of jet-black hair, forming a striking contrast to the face which was so very white. It was a face of considerable beauty, though lines of care were plainly visible. She seemed but a girl lying there, and as Douglas looked at her ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... wagged it, so to speak, doggedly. In consequence of this animal's thieving propensities, which led him to be constantly poking into every hole and corner of the ship in search of something to steal, he was named Poker. Poker had three jet-black spots in his white visage—one was the point of his nose, the other two were ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne |
