"Ashen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... small flax wheel of the housewife. Every woman had both wool wheel and flax wheel, the latter of all grades of beauty, from those made for the use of queens and ladies of high degree—royal for elaboration—to the modest ashen wheel, derived from a long line of industrious and careful foremothers, or copied by the clever Pilgrim fathers, from some adventurous wheel which had made the long voyage from civilized Holland to ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... with an undertaker. The black mummified corpse of the saint is stretched out in a glass coffin, clad in his mouldering canonicals, mitred, crosiered and gloved, glittering with votive jewels. It is an extraordinary mixture of death and life; the desiccated clay, the ashen rags, the hideous little black mask and skull, and the living, glowing, twinkling splendour of diamonds, emeralds and sapphires. The collection is really fine, and many great historic names are attached ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... Cressi was badly frightened. His wan, pinched face was ashen and he shivered wretchedly. Yet he strove to play the man, and his pitiful attempt at self-control roused something tender and protective in his captor. Laying a reassuring hand upon his shoulder, ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... Blurrs 'twixt glance and second glance; When the tattered smokes forerun Ashen 'neath a silvered sun; When the curtain of the haze Shuts upon our helpless ways— Hear the Channel Fleet at sea; Libera ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... wind-exposed, distorted tree, We are blown against forever by the curse Which breathes through Nature. Oh, the world is weak; The effluence of each is false to all; Add what we best conceive, we fail to speak! Wait, soul, until thine ashen garments fall, And then resume thy broken strains, and seek Fit ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... from whom I had expected a torrent of fierce abuse, stood looking at us both with an expression no written words could portray. His cheeks were ashen. His hands, which were crossed upon the knob of his cane, were shaking. Mr. Bundercombe extended his ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... A late Winter sunset shimmered in the west like some pale, transparent cloth of gold hung from the walls of heaven, but the kindly light lent no beauty to her face. Rosemary's eyes were grey and lustreless, her hair ashen, and almost without colour. Her features were irregular and her skin dull and lifeless. She had not even the indefinable freshness that is the divine right of youth. Her mouth drooped wistfully at the corners, and ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... the centre of the floor where the casket rested on trestles. From the chest of drawers two candles, the only light, played wanly over the still figure and the ashen face. So for the second time the living met the dead, and the law ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... attempt to go to bed; I was afraid they might be wanting me again. Toward four o'clock Sandy came to my library with word that the boy was asleep and that Percy had moved up a cot and would sleep in his room the rest of the night. Poor Sandy looked sort of ashen and haggard and done with life. As I looked at him, I thought about how desperately he worked to save others, and never saved himself, and about that dismal home of his, with never a touch of cheer, and the horrible tragedy in the background of his life. All the rancor I've been saving up seemed ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... the ravine soon hid us from the river, and we found ourselves in a melancholy world, without life and without any human significance. It was very easy to imagine one's self lost amid the drear ashen craters of the moon. We pushed on up the creek, kicking up clouds of alkali dust as we went. A creek of a burnt-out hell it was, to be sure. It seemed almost blasphemous to call this arid gully a creek. Boys swim in creeks, and fishes twinkle over the shallows where the sweet eager waters ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... me! Love! Love! 'tis Love that breathes through all things, that lifts the burden of life. But for thee I should have passed away, unknowing the glory of manhood. I am a man—a man rejoicing in his strength! O my starved youth! why did I not behold thee earlier?" Tears of self-pity rolled down his ashen cheek. "O my love! my love! my lost youth! Give me back my youth, O God! Who am I, to save? A man; yea, a man, glorying in manhood. Ah! happy are they who lead the common fate of men, happy in love, in home, in children; woe for those who would climb, who would torture and deny themselves, who would ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... art plump and heavy with all. If I had taken thee so, thou wouldst have wept anyway, perhaps; for 'tis thy nature to have thy own way. 'Twould be a cross to thy father could he see thee now. I doubt not 'twould turn the Scot's bull-scaring face to ashen hues, 'tis possible—" Katherine's soft rippling laugh interrupted her, and at its sound Janet leant and kissed the maid's pink-palmed hands as they lay upon the coverlet, and taking them within her own fondled ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... holy man bade his hearth-retainers take their weapons. Three hundred and eighteen wielders of the ashen spear he gathered, loyal-hearted men, of whom he knew that each would stoutly bear his linden shield to battle. And Abraham went out, and the three earls who had pledged their faith, together with a great company of their people. He would fain redeem his kinsman, Lot, from his distress. Brave ...
— Codex Junius 11 • Unknown
... being alarmed, shouted with laughter at his mishap, as Sanborn, cursing, prepared to climb back on to the Golden Eagle. But even as the oaths left his lips a change came over his face. It turned an ashen gray. ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... its mimic battle. Radio telephone messages winged over the horizon to the approaching Blue Fleet. The Black dreadnoughts hove to; launches with ashen-faced men in white manning them dropped overboard; a dozen destroyers rolled in the swells around a crumbled, charred egg-shell that but minutes before had been an omnipotent giant ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall
... proud Angus, be thy mate: Even in thy pitch of pride, Here in thy hold, thy vassals near— I tell thee, thou'rt defied! And if thou said'st, I am not peer To any lord in Scotland here, Lord Angus, thou hast lied!' On the Earl's cheek, a flush of rage O'ercame the ashen hue of age: Fierce he broke forth,—And dare'st thou then To beard the lion in his den, The Douglas in his hall? And hop'st thou thence unscathed to go?—Up drawbridge, grooms—what, Warder, ho! Let the portcullis fall.' Lord ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... his eyes moved to her. Without a word, and with a stricken look in her beautiful, ashen face, she turned, and went slowly toward the door. When she reached it, she steadied herself a second by pressing one fine hand against the dark wood, then she opened it ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... One, his face is ashen and his knees knock as he runs (A curious phenomenon quite rare in Number Ones); But on he rushed until he saw the tall brass-hatted Bloke, And, nervously saluting, incoherently he spoke:— "Boy Simpkins ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 1, 1919 • Various
... nothing. His round good-natured face had gone ashen pale, and his eyes were swimming with tears. He shrugged his shoulders and helped his comrade up the steps without speaking. On entering the ward they heard the banging of doors somewhere far away in the house and ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... fields were round every town, Garden airs went sweetly up, heaven smiled down; Till under leaden hail with flaming breath, Graves and ashen harvest were the keep ...
— Ballads of Peace in War • Michael Earls
... man, ashen of face, and with eyes wide open, had been staring at the nurse. But at the sound of his sister's voice he ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... eyes with a wild, feverish, sullen look in them that she had never seen there. His face was ashen white: his lips were like fire. He had not slept all night; but his passionate sobs had given way to delirious waking dreams and numb senseless trances, which had alternated one on another all through the ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... face held its ashen pallor, her eyes their hunted fear. But there was no relief to be found at the phone—a dead stillness, not even the whispering hum of the wires met her ear. "It's broken," she said to herself. "Or the girls have got frightened ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... Provost he uprose, And his lip was ashen white, But a flush was on his brow, And his eye was full of light. "Thou hast spoken, Randolph Murray, Like a soldier stout and true; Thou hast done a deed of daring Had been perilled but by few. ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... He grew ashen; and he took his hand out of his pockets and straightened himself from his slouchy lounging posture, and stood before her, his head in the air on his long neck like a young ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... of fine weather and bracing seas, the cloud of a lonely fate hung over the ship. Arthur alone was enthusiastic. Ledwith, feverish over slight success, because it roused the dormant appetite for complete success, and Honora, fed upon disappointment, feared that this expedition would prove ashen bread as usual; but the improvement in her father's health kept her cheerful. Doyle Grahame, always in high spirits, devoted his leisure to writing the book which was to bring him fame and much money. He described its motive and aim ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... any more than I know why so many colours formerly used in our services have been forgotten. Where are the colours of the ancient Paris use: saffron yellow, reserved for the festival of All Angels; salmon pink, sometimes worn instead of red; ashen grey, which took the place of violet; and bistre instead of black on ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... The houses made Kit think of those back at the Cove, with their spacious lawns and large restful homes of plenty. Mrs. Bellamy was filled with amusement when she heard the story of Kit's substitution of herself for the boy the Dean had asked for. She was a tall, slender woman with ashen gold hair and gray eyes, who seemed almost like an elder sister of Anne's. They occupied a suite of rooms near ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... course meant as a taunt; for the negro, who now perceived that there was a jaguar howling in the way that led to the hacienda, had given up all notion of proceeding in that direction. On the contrary, while his black face turned of an ashen-grey colour, he drew closer to his imperturbable companion—who had not even attempted to take hold of the carbine which lay on ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... finished the shreds of the ashen shaft and pressed to one side the stub of it. So with what tools she knew best she cut into the fabric of her own weaving, out of her own blood and bone; cut mayhap in steady snippings at her own heart, pulling and wrenching until the flesh, now growing purple, was raised above ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... Morris. 'What—what's that?' he cried, grasping the table. He was miserably conscious the next moment of his shrill tongue and ashen face. 'What do you mean—it will not be presented? Why am I to take care? What ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... died out of her cheek, leaving it cold and ashen; and her fingers worked nervously with the ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... receipt for my subscription to the"—But Miss Prince never finished the sentence, for when she had fairly taken the letter into her hand, the very touch of it seemed to send a tinge of ashen gray like some quick poison over her face. She stood still, looking at it, then flushed crimson, and sat down in the nearest chair, as if it were impossible to hold herself upright. The captain was uncertain what ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... lying on the hearth rug, his head propped up with pillows from the sofa; his face was an ashen pallor, and his eyes were closed. The doctor was kneeling beside him, pouring some liquid from a glass between his lips. A strong friendship had sprung up between the two men, and tears were running fast down the doctor's ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... heavy doors, and the next moment Heron stood once more on the threshold of the room. Armand, with wide-opened eyes, gazed on him in wonder. The whole appearance of the man had changed. He looked ten years older, with lank, dishevelled hair hanging matted over a moist forehead, the cheeks ashen-white, the full lips bloodless and hanging, flabby and parted, displaying both rows of yellow teeth that shook against each other. The whole figure looked bowed, as if shrunk ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... nigh; the waning Queen walks forth to rule the later night; Crownd with the sparkle of a Star, and throned on orb of ashen light: ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... little Billy had just had, he seemed to be pretty well off. He had swallowed some water, it was true, and his face was ashen white; but he could get up on his knees, and was ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... during the match which was to decide the lawn-tennis championship Eve and her bank clerk did not appear in the Casino grounds. Here were met all the happy people, in society and all the unhappy people—even Mrs. Burton's ashen face was noted among those present—but the reigning belle and her young man were not in the seats that they had occupied during the preceding days of the tournament; and people pointed out those empty seats to each other, and smiled and lifted ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... Debendra Babu became ashen pale, but he soon regained self-possession. Turning on Abdullah he shouted:—"How dare you say that I gave ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... mind. For of those cities of earthly men, which are situated under the sun and the starry heaven, sacred Ilion was most honoured by me in my heart, and Priam and the people of Priam skilled in the ashen spear. For there my altars never lacked a due banquet and libation, and savour; for this honour were ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... to you to be so empty and ashen grey that you wonder they care to live. But life to them, for all its disappointments, its weariness, its foiled efforts, its vanished hopes, its departed companions, is yet life, and most of them cling to it like a miser to his ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... back, his face ashen. One hand dived for his pistol-pocket, but before he could reach it T. B. was at his throat. That moment the Pole felt two arms gripping him, two steel bands they seemed, and likely to crush his arms into his very body. Then he went over ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... clutch, the old woman shook her, as if she had been a slender weed, and an ashen hue settled upon her wrinkled features, as she cried in ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... Tullahoma County was ashen in color when he emerged into the hall; and then it was only to look into the muzzle of a rifle, held steadily by old Bill. There ambled up to Bill's side, also, Jack, and between them they laid hold of the sheriff of the county and pushed him out of ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... went ashen. "Let me at a radio!" he roared. "I want to answer that man and see if he understands exactly what ...
— A Place in the Sun • C.H. Thames
... dusty galleries were silent avenues of machinery, endless raked out ashen furnaces testified to the revolutionary dislocation, but wherever there was work it was being done by slow-moving workers in blue canvas. The only people not in blue canvas were the overlookers of the work-places and the orange-clad ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... direction. Clymer, more startled than his demeanor indicated, wondered if she had overheard Rochester's ejaculations, but whatever action the banker contemplated in response to the lawyer's appeal was checked by a scream from the girl on his right. With ashen face and trembling finger she pointed to Turnbull's body which suddenly confronted her as ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... of silence, while the dark eyes of the dying man thirstily dwelt on the beauty of the flowers, and his dry, ashen lips seemed to drink in their perfumes as those athirst ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... fell on the blanket between them. In the warm rose glow now filling the tent, Doolga's face was ashen-coloured. Awe-struck and startled Silka gazed wide-eyed upon her. For an instant the two girls sat staring in silence into each other's eyes. So much alike they were that one face seemed the reflection of the other, only there was a bloom, a light, a sweetness on Silka's that ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... lone, ghostly midnight, he raves as he lies, With death's ashen pallidness dimming his eyes: He shouts the sharp war-cry,—he rallies his men,— He is on the red field of ...
— Beechenbrook - A Rhyme of the War • Margaret J. Preston
... fatal paper, he had restrained with impatience the desire to burst out into bitter laughter. But now there was something in the aspect of Plowden's collapse which seemed to forbid triumphant derision. He was taking his blow so like a gentleman,—ashen-pale and quivering, but clinging to a high-bred dignity of silence,—that the impulse to exhibit equally good manners possessed ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... them. The girl moved from the wall, and staggered to the table, leaning on it heavily. She was ashen. Her lips were gray. She heard them leave the house—heard the car start, and listened until the sound of it died away in the length of the street. Her strength failed. She sank to her knees. A moan of agony ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... edge of the bed and stared straight ahead of her. Margaret watched the light and life and youth die out of the face and a pitiful ashen pallor overspread it. ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... this calm seemed even more awe-inspiring than the snarls and cries of a while ago. Caius Nepos' sallow cheeks became still more ashen in colour as he cast a quick glance round the room, feeling perhaps for the first time to-day how completely he was at the mercy of a raving lunatic if the latter should turn against him. But the Caesar sat ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... incident occurred which has thrown a shadow over my life; and, ah me! how many and many a weary year has dragged by since then! Young, happy, and beloved I was in those long-departed days. They said that I was beautiful. The mirror now reflects a haggard old woman, with ashen lips and face of deadly pallor. But do not fancy that you are listening to a mere puling lament. It is not the flight of years that has brought me to be this wreck of my former self: had it been so I could have borne the loss cheerfully, patiently, as the common lot ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... still forms were on the ground. Holderness lay outstretched, a dark-red blot staining his gray shirt. Flinty-faced Mormons, ruthless now as they had once been mild, surrounded the rustlers. John Caldwell stood foremost, with ashen lips breaking ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... of words and quick utterance; a good skald too; but still for the most part he kept himself well in hand; his hair was dark brown, with crisp curly locks; he had good eyes; his features were sharp, and his face ashen pale, his nose turned up and his front teeth stuck out, and his mouth was very ugly. Still he was the most ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... so!" he sigh'd. "There the sun drops, behold!" And indeed, whilst he spoke all the purple and gold In the west had turn'd ashen, save one fading strip Of light that yet gleam'd from the dark nether lip Of a long reef of cloud; and o'er sullen ravines And ridges the raw damps were hanging white screens Of melancholy mist. "Nunc ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... with a million fowl, while the cattle waded along their edges after the rich sedge-grass, or wallowed in the mire through the hot summer's day. Here and there, too, upon the far horizon, rose a tall line of ashen trees, marking some island of firm rich soil. Here and there, too, as at Ramsey and Crowland, the huge ashes had disappeared before the axes of the monks, and a minster tower rose over the fen, amid orchards, gardens, cornfields, pastures, with here and there a tree left standing ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... And unresisting she submitted, for she was beyond resistance now, beyond tears even. From between wet lashes her great eyes gazed into his with a look of deadly, piteous affright; her lips were parted, her cheeks ashen, and her mind was dimly striving to formulate a prayer to the Holy Mother, the natural protectress of ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... and of her husband being one among the many poor sufferers, had burst upon his wife like the surging of an angry wave, overwhelming her with its force, and she sat with ashen cheeks and quivering lips, listening with bated breath for that which she knew must come, the while convulsively clasping in her arms their only child, their fair-haired Davie. But when at last she heard the measured ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... maintenance did cease. And now, being revived, where are any better to be found? Where any greater commodity to be raised by them? Only poles are accounted to be their greatest charge. But, sith men have learned of late to sow ashen kexes in ashyards by themselves, that inconvenience in short ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... less in majesty is the massive white fir, rising at times even to two hundred feet, his sometimes six-foot trunk conspicuously rough, dark brown in color, deeply furrowed with ashen gray. His pale yellow-green crown is mysteriously tinged with white. His limit of age is three ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... Earl's cheek the flush of rage O'ercame the ashen hue of age. Fierce he broke forth,—"And dar'st thou then To beard the lion in his den, The Douglas in his hall? And hop'st thou hence unscathed to go? No, by Saint Bride of Bothwell, no! Up drawbridge, grooms,—what, warder, ho! Let the portcullis fall." Lord Marmion ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... me! wae's me! wae's me!" cried Rose, covering her ashen-pale face with her hands and sinking ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... But the other had turned ashen. He quitted the Carian abruptly and shut himself in his chamber. It was good that he wore no sword. He might ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... and her heart got fitful. Annie slept beside her. Paul would go in in the early morning, when his sister got up. His mother was wasted and almost ashen in the morning with the morphia. Darker and darker grew her eyes, all pupil, with the torture. In the mornings the weariness and ache were too much to bear. Yet she could not—would ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... shoulders, bent himself for the stroke, and the boat sprung forward. The others rowed strongly and rapidly, the tough ashen blades springing like steel from the water, the heavy boat seeming to leap in successive bounds until they were fairly beyond the curving inshore current and clearing the placid, misty surface of the bay. Clarence did not speak, but bent abstractedly ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... slowly shoreward, with a curious limp, as he had entered Burrage's store. Creed's ashen lips moved stiffly, and his tongue ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... intent; every one was pale, but none so pale as Mr. Malthus. His eyes protruded; his head kept nodding involuntarily upon his spine; his hands found their way, one after the other, to his mouth, where they made clutches at his tremulous and ashen lips. It was plain that the honorary member enjoyed his membership ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in the cheer, but his tongue seemed fixed to the roof of his mouth. He stood clenching and unclenching his hands, his face an ashen gray ...
— Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis - Or, Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters" • H. Irving Hancock
... the unblemished blue white of the snow-choked fields and in awful proximity to these, Dead Line Peak flung its head against the cloudless heavens. Judith looked from the Peak to father and son as though deliberately appraising them. John, with ashen hair, with bloodshot eyes and the tell-tales lines from nose to lip corner, but handsome, dominating, choleric, with his reputation as a conqueror of women, as a subduer of horses, as a two-gun man. Douglas, with his thatch of gold blowing in the cold morning air, thin, awkward, ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... had stood a little way apart all this time, wiping his forehead with a big orange coloured silk handkerchief. That blow upon his shin must have been rather a sharp one, if it had brought that cold sweat out upon his ashen face. ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... awe began to gaze at the sleepers. Their bodies were ashen-hued, which in negroes indicates paleness. Some had their eyes closed, others half open; but these latter slept deeply, for their eyeballs were not susceptible to the light. The knees of some were swollen. All were frightfully ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... bewildered, in her mute amazement, was Marsa, her lips trembling, her face ashen, her eyes fixed upon the Prince, as she leaned against the marble of the mantelpiece to prevent herself from falling, but longing to throw herself on her knees before this man who had suddenly appeared, and who was ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... crawled to the opening at the front of the wagon and called at the top of his voice. Only the shrieking of the wind answered him. A dozen times he cried out, then paused to strike a somewhat damp match and light a smoky lantern hanging to the front ashen bow of the turn-out's covering. Holding the light over his head he peered forth into the inky darkness surrounding the ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill
... again! What must be, to the bereft and lonely Christian, the thought of being restored, and that for ever, to his long-absent Saviour? Jesus shall come again!—it is the Church's "blessed hope"—the day when her weeds and robes of ashen sorrow shall be laid for ever aside, and she shall "enter into the joy of her Lord?" It is His return, too, in a glorified manhood. That same Jesus shall SO come! Yes! "so come," in the very ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... picking flies with his whip from the horses' backs. He had a smooth countenance, deeply tanned, and pale, clear blue eyes. At his side sat a priest in black, a man past middle age, with ashen, embittered lips, and a narrowed, chilling gaze. They were silent, contemplative; but, from the seat behind them, flowed a constant, buoyant, youthful chatter. A girl with a shining mass of chestnut hair gathered loosely on a virgin neck was recounting the thrilling incidents ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Principal and the Matron of the school. Silas Peckham was a thorough Yankee, born on a windy part of the coast, and reared chiefly on salt-fish. Everybody knows the type of Yankee produced by this climate and diet: thin, as if he had been split and dried; with an ashen kind of complexion, like the tint of the food he is made of; and about as sharp, tough, juiceless, and biting to deal with as the other is to the taste. Silas Peckham kept a young ladies' school exactly as he would have kept a hundred head of cattle,—for the simple, unadorned purpose ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... turned ashen white under the tan. He stood bolt upright in front of the fire, stiff as a rod, staring ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... the bones and skeletons of those who once moved the springs of that minute yet gorgeous machine of luxury and of life! In the house of Diomed, in the subterranean vaults, twenty skeletons (one of a babe) were discovered in one spot by the door, covered by a fine ashen dust, that had evidently been wafted slowly through the apertures, until it had filled the whole space. There were jewels and coins, candelabra for unavailing light, and wine hardened in the amphorae for a prolongation of agonized life. The sand, consolidated by damps, had taken the ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... go back to my lean, ashen plains; My rivers that flash into foam; My ultimate valleys where solitude reigns; My trail from Fort Churchill to Nome. My forests packed full of mysterious gloom, My ice-fields agrind and aglare: The city is deadfalled with danger ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... of his hands as he fell wounded to the ground. Springing forward Kennedy wrenched it out of his relaxing grasp, and presented it full at the head of the other, who, half-stunned with the blow he had received from the heavy iron-shod point of the ashen alpenstock, was crouching for concealment in ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... she is out of it now!" I said at last, In a great relief of heart when the thing was done That had set my soul aghast, And nothing was left of the picture unsheathed from the past But the ashen ghost of the card ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... exposed his profile. Kirkwood was in no wise amazed to recognize Calendar—a badly frightened Calendar now, however, and hardly to be identified with the sleek, glib fellow who had interviewed Kirkwood in the afternoon. His flabby cheeks were ashen and trembling, and upon the back of his chair the fat white fingers were drumming incessantly an ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... man started; for an instant his full red lips seemed to become dry and ashen, the whites of his eyes were suffused and staring, as he met Paul's smiling face in the glass. But almost as quickly he recovered himself, and, with a polite but deprecating bow, said,—"For God sake, sah! I admit de sarkumstances is agin me, but de simple fack ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... real age, and appeared so small and so fragile that, like thistledown, she might almost be blown away. Nevertheless, she was anything but light, in either head or purse. Fuchsia was not pretty; indeed, to be honest, was barely good-looking. Her complexion was colourless, her thick hair a dull, ashen shade, her eyes, though remarkably lively, were much too small, her chin, on the other hand, was much too long. Beautifully marked brows, white teeth, and a fairy figure, were her assets; and, as she herself said, "she had plenty ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... was ashen. The whole horrible scene was rising up again before him. He covered his face with his hands. It was more distinct than ever. He saw the man's flushed face, heard his stream of abuse, felt the sting of his blow, the hot anger with which he had struck ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... who seemed most nervous and terrified was the stalwart Colonel Braddon, who had boasted most noisily of what he would do in case the stage were attacked. He nervously felt in his pockets for his money, his face pale and ashen, and said, imploringly: "Spare my life, gentlemen; I will ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... appearance of the two figures leaning over the balcony. But Royson had scarce time to note his main characteristics when he heard Mrs. Haxton utter a queer gasping sob. It seemed to him that she had only just succeeded in smothering a scream. Her cheeks suddenly became ashen gray, and her tightly compressed lips were bloodless. All her beauty fled, as the tints of a rose die under certain varieties of chemical light. Her eyes dilated in an alarming way, and lines not visible previously now puckered the ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... drought was on it; and when drifting thistle-plumes marked the noontide of the year, each yellow stalk had withered blades and an empty sheath. Everywhere a look of vague trouble lay upon the face of the mountains, and when the wind blew, the silver of the leaves showed ashen. Autumn ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... But it was on him who rode in the midst of this gallant party, eclipsing all his comrades as the glare of lightning seems to obscure all lesser luminaries, that the eyes of the gazing crowd were now fixed. He was completely armed at all points, except his head, and grasped in his hand an ashen lance; while a scarlet cloak, on which was depicted, in figures of gold tissue, the battle of the Centaurs with the Lapithae, flowed loose over his panoply, and was fastened in front with a clasp, representing Pallas sculptured in amber, and holding before her the Gorgon's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... With an ashen brow and quivering lip, I displayed before her our best assortment of table-cloths and napkins, pillow-casing and sheeting. Her mother accompanied her to give her the benefit of her experience; and kept telling her daughter to choose the best, and what and ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... yellow face, ashen now in its mortal agony, looked silently up at me—for three or four awful seconds; and ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... see them which ever way he looked over the trampled sward—figures huddled or outstretched in the moonlight, all motionless, ashen-faced. ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... the other hand, the pistol had been turned about, but head and hands were all shaking so violently that the introduction of the muzzle into the gaping mouth was hardly accomplished. Twice cup missed lip, and the steel went jabbing against the ashen cheek. The next moment gums drummed on the ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... older woman, who made, under the glimmering shadows of the oaks, a charming nocturne of elderly womanhood. The faint pink on her cheeks seemed enhanced by the pink seen dimly through the ashen shimmer of her gown; the creamy lace harmonized with her yellow-gray hair. She was in her own way as charming as ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... breathing quickened until it came in short and labored gasps. First a deeper color of red suffused her cheeks, then a crimson overspread her face and neck, which was soon followed by a paleness which marked her face with an ashen hue. How that poor heart was troubled! Now its violent beatings force the hot blood to face and hands and feet; then with the cruel news it takes into itself the torrid currents of blood, leaving ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... lash of whip; With gasping breath and ashen lip She strove to speak, but he was gone She kneeled and pressed her mouth upon The latch his hand had touched, the floor His foot had trod, and o'er and o'er She sobbed his name, as children moan A mother's ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... tell Of a gallant youth, who fought so well That his comrades asked: "Who is he, pray?" "The only son of the Widow Gray," Was the proud reply Of his Captain nigh. What ails the woman standing near? Her face has the ashen ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... the day, the darkness is grown deep. That Emperour, rich Charles, lies asleep; Dreams that he stands in the great pass of Size, In his two hands his ashen spear he sees; Guenes the count that spear from him doth seize, Brandishes it and twists it with such ease, That flown into the sky the flinders seem. Charles sleeps on nor wakens from ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... sunny nature what I could not make her by my craft as a teacher. And this, sir, I would tell you: there is one mischief I am loth to punish in my school, and that's the music that may be inopportune, even when it takes the poor form of a shrill with an ashen stick made by the performer during the ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... known! A voice cried out suddenly, 'Turn on the light!' It was the voice of my double. It seemed to awake, or to recall perhaps,—how can I say?—Henry Chichester. I was aware of a shock; it seemed strongly physical. I got up at once and turned the light on. Marcus Harding was before me, trembling, ashen. 'What is it? What has happened?' he said in a broken voice. I made no reply. He left me. I heard his step in ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... change, unusual as unwholesome, came over the bright blue of the sea. No longer did it reflect, as in a limpid mirror, the splendour of the sun, the sweet silvery glow of the moon, or the coruscating clusters of countless stars. Like the ashen-grey hue that bedims the countenance of the dying, a filmy greasy skin appeared to overspread the recent loveliness of the ocean surface. The sea was sick, stagnant, and foul, from its turbid waters arose a miasmatic ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... no creature will ever know the agony of terror that he tasted of before the end came. She saw his face sink in and turn ashen grey while the cold sweat ran from every pore. He was awake, but fear paralysed him, he could not speak ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... since he bought it for a song off the Indefatigable man-o'-war, though now she looked almost too smart to be the same boat. Sally had paid him to put in a couple of new strakes and plane out a brand-new set of oars in place of the old ashen ones, and had painted a new name beneath the old one on the sternboard, so that now she was the Indefatigable Woman for all the world to see. And that very evening Sally and five of her mates paddled her past the Quay on a trial spin, under the eyes ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... not take long in effecting; and in less than five minutes they had broken through that door which led into another room; but the first man who entered it fell from a crashing blow on the head from the ashen staff of Sir Francis Varney, who hurried and fled, closely pursued, until he came to another door, ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... their ashen battle-stained faces, were his boys. Tenderly they helped me carry his poor torn body to the shelter of a neighboring ravine. On the hillside we buried him, marking his grave with the Sign of Him who shall remember the ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... His face was ashen grey; his arms ached with the longing to return her embrace and hold her close to his heart, but he ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... did not pass here?" asked the stranger, and as he turned his head the dried pollen was loosened from the cat-tails and drifted in an ashen dust to the hearth. ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... for I was alarmed at the effect of my words. The young painter's face had become ashen pale, and the brush had fallen out of his shaking hand. The next moment a fierce, angry light had come ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... compassion that seized and shook you then As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men? Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back With dying eyes and lolling heads,—those ashen-grey Masks of the lad who once were keen and ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... Sheila with ashen lips, but a great light breaking in her eyes. "Dyck Calhoun did not kill Erris Boyne! Then ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... from his lattice above, and his eye chanced to turn that way at the moment of the meeting. He started as if struck with a sudden pang, and his cheek, always pale, became of an ashen hue. Long he gazed with labored breath upon the pair, as if unable to realize what he had seen; then, with a suppressed moan, he sank into a chair, and leaned his brow heavily upon his hand. Thus for half an hour he remained motionless; it was only after a second ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... were ashen and sober, The streets they were dirty and drear; It was night in the month of October, Of my most immemorial year. Like the skies, I was perfectly sober, As I stopped at the mansion of Shear,— At the Nightingale,—perfectly sober, And the ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... youth, blushing all over his pink face, so that it was noticeable even under the ashen glare of the arc lights on the avenue that ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... Again the ashen paddle was dipped in the clear current, but at the very moment of imparting the powerful impulse to it, the ranger checked himself with ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... and silent that they might have been two bronze statues but for the slow and measured rhythm of their breathing. Their faces, however, had a peculiar, ashen-grey colour, very different from the healthy brown of my companion's, and I observed, on, stooping my head, that only the whites of their eyes were visible, the balls being turned ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... councilled long With subtle witchcraft how to work him wrong; How to avenge their dead, and strike him where His pride was highest, and his fame most fair. Their hearts grew weak as women at his name: They dared no war-path since my Mohawk came With ashen bow, and flinten arrow-head To pierce their craven bodies; but their dead Must be avenged. Avenged? They dared not walk In day and meet his deadly tomahawk; They dared not face his fearless scalping knife; So—Niyoh![1]—then they thought of ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... upon the plains, and they sprang up in lilies and roses,—flashed upon the waters, and they flowed to spheral melody,—swept through the forests, and they, too, trembled into song. And though now the warmth has faded out, though the ruddy tints and amber clearness have paled to ashen hues, though the murmuring melodies are dead, and forest, vale, and hill look hard and angular in the sharp air, you know that it is not death. The fire is unquenched beneath. You go your way not disconsolate. There needs but the Victorious Voice. At the touch of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... as yonder, thy mistress, at height of her mutable glories, Wise from the magical East, comes like a sorceress pale. Ah, she comes, she arises—impassive, emotionless, bloodless, Wasted and ashen of cheek, zoning her ruins with pearl. Once she was warm, she was joyous, desire in her pulses abounding: Surely thou lovedst her well, then, in her conquering youth! Surely not all unimpassioned, at sound of thy rough serenading, She from the balconied night ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... John Arthur turned ashen pale and trembled violently. All eyes were turned upon the speaker, however, and his agitation was ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... not flush. On the contrary, it turned to an ashen grey, as he stood before her and leant for support on his stick. He was making inarticulate sounds in ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... is it, CHERIE?" said little Suzanne, now genuinely alarmed, for Marguerite's colour had become dull and ashen. "Are you ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... garish crowd, they might see each other again, might touch hands, might even have slight speech together, but not as now could heart speak to heart. They rose from the green bank, and as the sun set, as the moon came out, and the singing ceased, and the world grew ashen, they said what lovers say on the brink of absence, and at the last they ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... Miss Cursiter. Tall, academic and austere; a keen eagle head crowned with a mass of iron-grey hair; grey-black eyes burning under a brow of ashen grey; an intelligence fervent with fire of the enthusiast, cold with the renunciant's frost. Such was Miss Cursiter. She was in splendid force to-day, grappling like an athlete with her enormous theme—"The Educational Advantages of General Culture." She delivered her ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... had got down from the table and rushed round to his younger sister, who, white, and shaking like a leaf, took the child in her arms. Bernard had risen, ashen-faced, staring. "It isn't true!" he shouted savagely at his ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... came nearer, and its shape was more clearly marked, the boys discovered that only a single warrior sat within. He was in the stern, manipulating his long, ashen paddle with such rare skill that he seemed to pay no heed ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... said, impressively, "this ship was loaded with lime, tallow, and acids—acids above, lime and tallow down here. This stuff is neither; it is lime-soap. And, moreover, it had not been touched by acids." The doctor's ruddy face was ashen. ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... burdened and thirsty spirit, itself needing such supplies. And to the truest, happiest, most soul-sufficing companionship, there comes at last that dread hour which ends all sweet commerce of giving and receiving, and makes the rest of life, for some of us, one monotonous ashen-grey wilderness where no water is. These things make it impossible for us to find anywhere amongst men ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... left the trader's face, and his olive skin was ashen. "Next time," he moaned, "next time, Santa Maria, they will be in force and they—they will take the ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... in his stride, and swung round writhing, his face ashen. As a consequence he was jerked from his feet by the rope that attached him to the stirrup leather, and he was dragged helplessly a yard or two before the trooper reined in, cursing him foully, and striking him with ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... of what went on at that meeting. There is a dramatic story of Joe Morrill's sudden appearance, backed by a score of ruffians; of defiance and counter-defiance; of revolvers and "blood on the moonlight"; and of a corrupt deputy marshal cowering with ashen face before the awful denunciations of a bespectacled "tenderfoot"; but unhappily, the authenticity of the story is dubious. The meeting, so far as the cold eye of the historian can discern, was dramatic only in its implications and no more exciting than a sewing-circle. ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... the interloping baby, which now sat whimpering on the lawn in a disfavour as chilling as its previous popularity had been unwelcome. The Momebys glared at it as though it had wormed its way into their short-lived affections by heartless and unworthy pretences. Miss Gilpet's face took on an ashen tinge as she stared helplessly at the bunched-up figure that had been such a gladsome sight to her ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... are not very particular about their dress in this part of the country." And he paused, supposing she would observe him and escape; and, seeing that she still looked before her, stood and hummed aloud. Up she leaped at the sound. Her face was ashen; she looked this way and that, and her mouth gaped with the terror of her soul. But it was a strange thing that her eyes ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to—understand!" An ashen shade came over his face, but it passed quickly; his voice sounded brusk. "For months, since a fatal evening all light, brilliancy, beauty!—the convict has been trying to hold back the inevitable; but the net whose first meshes were then woven, has ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... strong red light, like an unnatural midnight sunset, powdered the grayest grass with gold and flushed the few tall trees up to the last fingers of their foliage. Behind them the night was black and cavernous; and one could only trace faintly the ashen horizon beyond the dark and magic Wilton Woods. As I went, a workman on a bicycle shot a rood past me; then staggered from his machine and shouted to me to tell him where the fire was. I answered that I was going to see, but thought it was the cottages ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... unmistakable mark of Cain upon his writhen brow! Before now she had seen him look pale and wild and haggard, and had known neither fear nor pity for him. But now! An exhumed corpse galvanized into a horrid semblance of life might look as he did—with just such sunken cheeks and ashen lips and frozen eyes; with just such a collapsed and shuddering form; yet, withal, could not have shown that terrific look of utter, incurable despair! His fingers, talon-like in their horny paleness and rigidity, clutched his breast, as if to tear some mortal anguish thence, and his ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... found that the eyes of her two companions were fixed not upon her but upon the door. She laid down her cards and turned her head. It was Jeanne who stood there, her hair tossed and blown by the wind, her face ashen white. ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... his oars, and the boat shot forward in silence. Nothing but the suppressed dip of the slender ashen blades, or the dull sighing of the wind through the tree-tops, broke the silence of the great solitude. Suddenly, as Leslie bent forward and gazed into the hunter's face, he saw him start and gaze anxiously at the ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis
... that passes away,— The world of men who lived years ago, And could not feel that their hearts' quick glow Would fade to such ashen lore to-day. ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... particle of shade, for the sun was directly above their heads. The beadle awaited them in the empty church; he hurried them toward a small chapel, asking them indignantly if they were not ashamed to mock at religion by coming so late. A priest came toward them with an ashen face, faint with hunger, preceded by a boy in a dirty surplice. He hurried through the service, gabbling the Latin phrases with sidelong glances at the bridal party. The bride and bridegroom knelt before the altar in considerable embarrassment, not knowing ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... solitude, no more to be touched until she was put into her coffin, Raven came in from his steady walk up and down before the house and went to Nan, where she sat by the window in the other front room. The strength had gone out of her. She sat up straight and strong, but her lips were ashen. As they confronted each other, each saw chiefly great weariness. Raven's face, Nan thought, was like a mask. It was grave, it was intent, but it did not really show that he felt anything beyond the general seriousness ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... shout of command. The girl flung herself into Pierce's arms; her father followed, landing in a heap amidships. Even as they jumped the skiff was torn away and hurried onward by the flood. Sam Kirby raised himself to his knees and turned his ashen face to Rouletta. ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... keeping of the Drink; for all damp Cellars are prejudicial to the Preservation of Beers and Ales, and sooner bring on the rotting of the Casks and Hoops than the dry ones; Insomuch that in a chalky Cellar near me, their Ashen broad Hoops have lasted above thirty Years. Besides, in such inclosed Cellars and temperate Air, the Beers and Ales ripen more kindly, are better digested and softned, and drink smoother: But when the Air is in a disproportion by the Cellars letting in Heats and Colds, the Drink will grow Stale ...
— The London and Country Brewer • Anonymous
... It was a new evening gown of the softest greens and shell-pinks, fit for a bride in her first season. To see the invalid, ashen-grey, stretching out her hand to finger it was almost more than George could stand. But Letty shook out the rustling thing, put on the skirt herself that Lady Tressady might see, and paraded up and down in it, praising every cut and turning with ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward |
