"Coal-black" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of newspapers, that I have but to draw upon the descriptions given by my brethren of the press, in order to fill what would otherwise be an inevitable gap in the present article. By one, for instance, I am said to have "coal-black hair and flashing black eyes"; by another, that same hair is said to be "snow-white"; while a third describes it as "iron-gray, and rolled back in a large wave." On one occasion, as I am informed, I had "a commanding and Cassandra-like presence"; elsewhere, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... Indians still more ugly than the negroes. Their complexion is a light bronze, stunted in stature, well-knit, and about the middle size. They have broad and somewhat compressed features, and thick, coal-black hair, hanging straight down, which the women sometimes wear in plaits fastened to the back of the head, and sometimes falling down loose about them. Their forehead is broad and low, the nose somewhat flattened, the ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... the good Saint said this when the little old woman went straight up the chimney, and came out at the top changed into a red-headed woodpecker with coal-black feathers. ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... men except one or two old professors were ever allowed inside Waterloo House. And if a prince on a coal-black horse, as handsome and as rich as a prince in a fairy tale, had come riding up to the front door, and begged for my hand on bended knee, I would have said 'No, thank you' if by saying 'Yes, please,' I must have lost this wonderful thing ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... is Rudy." The young girls said this also, but they did not say: "Beware of Rudy!" No, not even the grave mothers, for he nodded to them quite as amicably as to the young girls. He was so bold and gay, his cheeks were brown, his teeth fresh and white and his coal-black eyes glittered; he was a handsome young fellow and but twenty years old. The icy water did not sting him when he swam, he could turn around in it like a fish; he could climb as did no one, and he was as firm on the rocky walls as a snail—for he had good sinews and muscles that ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... time that I had this hoary old tarantula, I had another smaller, coal-black fellow who went into a perfect ecstasy of anger and ferocity every time any one came near him. He would stand on his hind legs and paw wildly with fore legs and palpi, and lunge forward fiercely at my inquisitive pencil. I found him ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... few weeks Todd had had the house to himself. Coal-black Aunt Jemima, with her knotted pig-tails, capacious bosom, and unconfined waist, forty years his senior and ten shades darker in color, it is true, looked after the pots and pans, to say nothing of a particular ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... one at the right hand ascends to the small hamlet of Big Bone Lick, there is an interesting picture beneath the way-post: a girl in a blue calico gown, her face deep hidden in her red sunbonnet, sits upon a chestnut mount, with a laden market-basket before her; while by her side, astride a coal-black pony, which fretfully paws to be on his way, is a roughly dressed youth, his face shaded by a broad slouched hat of the cowboy order. They have evidently met there by appointment, and are so earnestly conversing—she with ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... and on the pillows of the adjoining bed lay the fair head of Dubova who was still fast asleep. All was exactly the same as usual; only the crumpled dress flung carelessly across a chair told its tale. The flush on her face at waking soon gave place to an ashen pallor that was heightened by her coal-black eyebrows. With the awful clearness of an overwrought brain she rehearsed her experiences of the last few hours. She saw herself walking through silent streets at sunrise and hostile windows seemed watching her, while the few persons she met turned round to look at her. On she went in ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... as if a battering-ram had been let swing past me at many layers of stretched gauze, I beheld, through a tattered deep hole in the fog, a roaring vision of flames, borne down and springing up again; a dance of purple gleams on the strip of unveiled water, and three coal-black figures in the light. ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... reveal before me On rose-beds Lycus, the young lad, with eyes And hair coal-black, with rosy garlands bound, And Sappho of the honeyed smile, the pure, A muse among the muses, and the mother Of a strange modesty. Love moved ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... was going to the House of Parliament, and Palace Yard was thronged with people, and we sat round one of the Bridgewater House windows to see the show. At about one the royal carriages set out—such lovely cream-colored horses, with blue and silver trappings; such splendid, shining, coal-black ones, with coral-colored trappings. The equipages looked like some enchanted present in a fairy story. The king—God bless him!—cannot, I should think, have been much annoyed by the clamorous greetings of his people. I'm afraid that ominous, sullen ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... turn his head or his eyes when a coal-black stallion, guided only by the pressure of its rider's knees, came to a stand directly beneath him in the shadow of the wall, having scrambled and slithered, jumping like a deer, climbing like a goat down the rock-strewn road which leads to the village from the great house at ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... trifling difficulty had he known who this was who had come softly up the stair and was now standing, irresolute, smiling, wondering, at the open door. She was a remarkably pretty, even handsome young lady, whose pale, clear, olive complexion and coal-black hair bespoke her Southern birth; while there was an eager and yet timid look in her lustrous, soft black eyes, and something about the mobile, half-parted mouth that seemed to say she hardly knew whether to cry or laugh over this meeting ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... they recount to one another in low voices the ancient legends of dead and gone heroes,—and listening to the yell of the storm-wind round their huts, they still fancy they hear the wild war-cries of the Valkyries rushing past air full gallop on their coal-black steeds, with their long hair floating ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... in front of me, O Amir." So he fared on before him a little, and presently they looked, and, behold, horsemen were making to Zuhayr's succour, and they numbered twelve thousand riders led by Sahl bin Ka'ab bestriding a coal-black steed. He charged upon Amir, who fled from him, then upon Al-Abbas, who said, "O Amir, hold fast to my horse and guard my back." The page did as he bade him, whereupon Al-Abbas cried out at the folk and falling upon ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... I asked suddenly, interrupting him, for I saw that the rock above the nameless ship was pierced with tunnels leading down to the shafts, and that forty or fifty coal-black fellows were shooting the stuff into ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... before the lonely place my tongue refused to shout "Ave Maria," but I clapped my perspiring hands, and soon had the satisfaction of hearing footsteps within. Visions of shade and of meat and drink and rest floated before my eyes when I saw the door opened. A coal-black face peeped out, which, in a cracked, broken voice, I addressed, asking the privilege to dismount. Horror of horrors, I had not even been answered ere the door was shut again in my face! Get down without permission I dare not. The house was ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... but a short time after this that, happening to enter the office somewhat unexpectedly one evening, I discovered Gottlieb in animated conversation with a stockily built man of about forty years of age, whose coal-black hair—by far his most conspicuous feature—had been suffered to grow quite long and was parted evenly in the middle, so that it gave him somewhat the appearance of the hooded seal that was then on exhibition at P. T. Barnum's museum. He had a good-humored face, jet-black eyes, ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... Scouts, is a thick-set, sinewy man, rather short than tall. He is of an absolute sooty blackness. Hair and moustache coal-black, and complexion so scorched and swarthy that at a little distance you might almost take him for a nigger. There is about his face a look of unmistakable determination amounting to ferocity in moments of excitement. He looks and is a born ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... not an ill-tempered girl, but the sight of those gay city people annoyed her, and when, at she sang the Jubilate Deo, she saw the soft blue orbs of the blonde and the coal-black eyes of the brunette, turning wonderingly toward her, she was conscious of returning their glance with as much of scorn as it was possible for her to show. Anna tried to ask forgiveness for that feeling in the prayers which followed; but, when the services were over, and she saw a little ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... on the tunics. These shields are cut from the hides of oxen, and it is easy to imagine what a splendid sight was presented by a Zulu impi twenty thousand strong, divided into several regiments, one with snow-white shields and tall cranes' feathers on their heads, one with coal-black shields and black plumes, and others with red and mottled shields, and bands of fur upon their foreheads. In their war with the English many of the Zulus were armed with muzzle-loading guns and ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... zeal to deal a blow for his country, with an extremity of valour which he would hardly have displayed had Jules and Henri been free to defend themselves, one youth, possessed of coal-black, flashing eyes, of raven locks, and of pallid and bloated features, darted in between the two constables and struck a blow at Jules which, if it had taken effect, would most decidedly have damaged ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... it should never be said That he mourned for a lover, though fifty had fled; Yet his heart all the while was so burnt and distrest, That it turned all the feathers coal-black on his breast. The birds they all marvelled, but still he denied, And wore a black cap his deep blushes to hide; So that is the reason himself and his kin Wear hoods with the lappets quite under ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... the exit of the tunnel, their situation would be just as bad as ever. Ramon would, of course, lose no time in following them up, either by a spare boat, which he might have had concealed in the vaulted chamber, or else on his fast, coal-black horse which he might ride across the rocky range, far above ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... in outward aspect. The face, strong and rugged, the large mouth, the broad lined brow, and vigorous coal-black hair, bore no resemblance, except for that fugitive yet vigorous something which we call "family likeness," to either his father or mother—still less to the brother so near to him in age. But the Celtic trace is there, though derived, I have sometimes thought, ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sunset and dawn the bandage had partly slipped off, and hemorrhage had begun. The blood had run down on his neck and shoulders, coagulating and stiffening as it flowed, until it had formed a large, red, spongy mass around his neck and on his naked back between the shoulder-blades. This, with the coal-black hair, the chalky face partly buried in mud, and the distorted, agonized attitude of the half-nude body, made one of the most ghastly pictures I had ever seen. There was already a stench of decomposition ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... unconsciously; and was rewarded by a flash of recognition from the coal-black, beady, evil eyes ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd; On burnished hooves his war-horse trode; From underneath his helmet flow'd His coal-black curls as on he rode, As he rode down to Camelot. From the bank and from the river He flash'd into the crystal mirror, "Tirra lirra," by ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... going to bother with your fish? Get out of the way, I say!" And the man, who sat astride of a coal-black horse, shook his hand threateningly. He was dressed in the uniform of a surgeon in the Confederate Army, and his ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... apples. He literally seemed to glow with health. He was like a strange flame. His hands were slender, the fingers long and extraordinarily supple. His lips were redder even than his cheeks, and made one, strangely enough, think of vampires. His eyes were coal-black, fathomless, piercing. ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks
... teens was Curlie. Slender, dark, with coal-black eyes, with curls of the same hue clinging tightly to his well-shaped head, he had the strong profile and the smooth tapering fingers that might belong to an artist, a pickpocket or ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... Mr. Oliver's own infant children. The boy, creeping about day after day in the hot light, was as repugnant an object as the lizards in the neighboring swamp, and promised to be of as little use to his master. He was of the lowest negro type, from which only field-hands can be made,—coal-black, with protruding heels, the ape-jaw, blubber-lips constantly open, the sightless eyes closed, and the head thrown far back on the shoulders, lying on the back, in fact, a habit which he still retains, and which adds to the imbecile character of the face. Until ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... hidden flattery, which seemed like adoration, in every word he spoke, every tone of his voice, every glance of his coal-black eyes, that seemed in some way to atone for the long, gray, monotonous days that had weighed so ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... small hotel in Godalming, and there had supper, for it was yet early, and the American girl had dropped a hint that we should not go near Frenbury till past midnight. As we sat at table in a private room, I saw that she was exceedingly handsome, with a pair of coal-black eyes and a shrewd, alert expression, but her American accent was not always pronounced. Indeed, when she liked, she could ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... soon, she was complaining anew: if there were any difference between Czerny and Bertini, Haydn and Dussek, some one might "slick up" and tell her what it was. Off the subject of her own gifts, she was a lively, affable girl, with china-blue eyes, pale flaxen hair, and coal-black eyebrows; and both young men got on well with her, in the usual superficial way. For Maurice Guest, she had the additional attraction, that he had once seen her in the street with the object ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... up, children, with somethin' into your head, Concernin' a han'some daughter, that's lyin' still an' dead, All scorched into coal-black cinders—perhaps you may not weep, But I rather think it'll happen you'll wish ...
— Farm Ballads • Will Carleton
... street of Liverpool, a navvy said of him: "That must be a king!" On another occasion Sydney Smith exclaimed: "Good heavens, he is a small cathedral by himself!" He was nearly six feet tall. He had a massive head, a broad, deep brow, and great, coal-black eyes, which once seen could never ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... buttons, an embroidered shirt-bosom with gold studs, and a dark navy-blue broadcloth coat, with standing collar and anchor gilt buttons. His head-gear was simply a white chip hat, with a very narrow brim and a fluttering red ribbon; but beneath it his coal-black hair behind was chopped as close as could be, leaving a single long and well-oiled ringlet on each side, which curled like snakes around a pair of large gold rings pendent from his ears. His complexion was dark, bilious, and swarthy, with a thin, sharp nose, and a million ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... to find shelter, the ladies entered the house, where they were met by two young women, unmistakably the daughters of the host. Their sparkling eyes and coal-black hair, their round faces and regular features, were like his; and they were only less swarthy, from being less exposed to the sun. Their dress was in fashion, but commonly worn by the peasant women—the jacket and petticoat—but smarter, and of more costly stuffs than usual. Their feet, ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... dismay, of warning, broke from the spectators, some of whom sprang forward to separate the pair. But there was something so awful in the expression of Hazon's countenance, in the glare of the coal-black eyes, in the drawn-in brows and livid horror of fiendish wrath, that even they stopped short. It was, as they said afterwards, as though they had looked into the blasting countenance of ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... and set the steel of the spear on the new ashen shaft, and took the hammer and smote the nail in, and laid the weapon on a round pebble that was thereby, and clenched the nail on the other side. Then he looked about, and saw that the other damsel had brought him his coal-black war-horse ready saddled and bridled; then he did on his armour, and girt his sword to his side and leapt into the saddle, and took his new-shafted spear in hand and shook the rein. But none of all those damsels durst say a word to him or ask him whither he went, for ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... spoke, he took out of his pocket a small parcel from which he drew a lock of coal-black hair, which he spread ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... always there; and an agreeable, unpretending gentleman he was. His complexion was very dark and his hair and beard as black as a raven. He was always in motion, mounted on one of his three superb stallions, one of which was coal-black, another a chestnut sorrel, and the third white. On our first trip we had a lively cannonade, and the white horse in our team, still bearing the stains of blood from the Kernstown carnage, reared and plunged furiously during the firing. The Federal skirmish line was about a mile off, ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... long lines of myriads of scimitars offered a barrier of naked steel against the crusading host, which had come to rescue the Holy Sepulchre. I saw in the van of the Christian array, a knight locked in complete black steel, and enveloped in all the magnificent panoply of war. His charger was coal-black, compact, and of gigantic proportions. The harnessings were of cloth of gold, which swept the ground,—the bridle was sprinkled with stars and jewels,—and pendant from the bridle-rein were fringes of the most precious stones. ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... Hie thee, my basso, [134] fast to Persia; Tell him thy lord, the Turkish emperor, Dread lord of Afric, Europe, and Asia, Great king and conqueror of Graecia, The ocean, Terrene, and the Coal-black sea, The high and highest monarch of the world, Wills and commands, (for say not I entreat,) Not [135] once to set his foot in [136] Africa, Or spread [137] his colours in Graecia, Lest he incur the fury of my wrath: Tell him I am content to take a truce, Because I hear he bears ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... the white Silk hen by the Spanish cock: all were coal-black, and all plainly showed their parentage in having blackish combs and bones; none inherited the so-called silky feathers, and the non- inheritance of this character has been observed by others. The hens never varied in their plumage. As the young cocks grew old, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... money than I had told Fred, and when he said he was thirsty, offered to send for drink, thinking my liberality would make amends for my impotence. Gin and ale was got; then I began to feel as if I could do it. "She's got a coal-black cunt," said Fred, and I seemed to fancy his woman; then he said to mine, "What colour is yours?" and began to lift her clothes; "let's change and have them together," and we went at once into the back room, whither the two girls had gone. One was piddling, Fred pulled her up from the pot, ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... yards long, growing less and less distinct as it receded, showing that the miserable creature had been in the clearing for several days, dragging itself slowly, and doubtless with infinite suffering, toward the water, which it had thus far failed to reach. Its coal-black coat, "watered" with the characteristic markings of the panther, also in black, was dull and staring, the result of neglect, and probably also of suffering; its tongue, dry and parched, lolled out of its open jaws, which were lightly fringed with froth; and its half-closed eyes were ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... muslin dress of the day before had been exchanged for something more appropriate to the warmth of her poetry—a tawdry flame-coloured satin, in which her "too, too solid" frame was tightly sheathed. Her coal-black hair, tragically wild, looked as though no comb had been near it for a month, and the gloves drawn half-way up the bare arms hardly remembered they ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... beneath the trees on the cliffside in attitudes of supreme awe or growing uneasiness, according to their kind: for among them were numbered Spaniard and Briton, creole and mulatto, Carib and octoroon, with coal-black negroes enough to outnumber all the rest—and it was upon these last that profound awe ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... limb, forming a series of indurated pigmented cords and nodules (Fig. 104). Lastly, the dissemination may be universal throughout the body, and this usually occurs at a comparatively early stage. The secondary growths are deeply pigmented, being usually of a coal-black colour, and melanin pigment may be present in the urine. When recurrence takes place in or near the scar left by the operation, the cancer ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... some coal-black natives shouted joyously as they stood by the shore of Lake Nyasa, and saw across the blue waters what a European would have taken for water-spouts, or pillars ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... procession, like a river of gold and purple and precious stones flowing between banks of pure white. Ten and ten, a thousand lords of Babylon marched in stately throng, and in their midst rode Belshazzar the king, high upon his coal-black steed, crowned with the great tiara of white linen and gold and jewels, the golden sceptre of the kingdom in his right hand. And after the lords and the king came a long procession of litters borne by stalwart slaves, wherein reclined the fairest women ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... and to have been in his youth a reckless and evil liver. Some even believed him to have committed some great crime; but none rightly knew his history, and his present sanctity and power and holiness were never doubted. A single look into that stern, worn, powerful face, with the coal-black eyes gleaming in their deep sockets, was enough to convince the onlooker that the man was intensely, even terribly in earnest. His was the leading spirit in that small and austere community, and he began at once to exercise a strong influence upon each of the three ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... placed one of his portraits on an asphalte floor and against a coal-black background, the whole apparently representing a dressy woman in an inferno of ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... left, a breathing form Sat wedged against me, soft and warm; The vulture-beaked and dark-browned face Betrays the mould of Abraham's race; That coal-black hair—and bistred hue— Ah, cursed, unbelieving Jew! I started, shuddering to the right, ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... my left a breathing form Wedged up against me, close and warm; The beak that crowned the bistred face Betrayed the mould of Abraham's race,— That coal-black hair, that smoke-brown hue,— Ah, cursed, unbelieving Jew I started, shuddering, to the right, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... ashamed er yo'se'f, suh? I is. I's 'shamed you's my son! En de holy accorjun angel he's 'shamed er wut you has done; En he's tuk it down up yander in coal-black, blood-red letters— "One water-million stoled by ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... the bird. The egg is about as large as a duck's egg, but longer and tapering more sharply at one end. For the rest the description is an excellent one. The wings of the bird are of great length and strength, giving to it wonderful speed and power of flight. The colour is coal-black. Flinders saw more of the sooty-petrel on his subsequent voyage round Tasmania; and it will be convenient to quote here the passage in which he refers to the prodigious numbers in which the birds were seen. It may be ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... of the strangest livid tint, and the features were absolutely devoid of any expression. An instant later the mystery was explained. Holmes, with a laugh, passed his hand behind the child's ear, a mask peeled off from her countenance, and there was a little coal-black negress with all her white teeth flashing in amusement at our amazed faces. I burst out laughing out of sympathy with her merriment, but Grant Munro stood staring, with his hand clutching ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... shoulder to waist; a Circassian, called Hoolia, in a gorgeous rida of red silk and gold brocade; a Frenchwoman, called Josephine, with embroidered red slippers and black stockings; and a Jewess, called Sol, with a band of silk handkerchiefs tied round her forehead above her coal-black curls, with her fingers pricked out with henna and her eyes ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... Heyoka[22] the braves are dressed With crowns from the bark of the white-birch trees, And new skin leggins that reach the knees; With robes of the bison and swarthy bear, And eagle-plumes in their coal-black hair, And marvelous rings in their tawny ears That were pierced with the points of their shining spears. To honor Heyoka Wakawa lifts His fuming pipe from the Red-stone Quarry.[23] The warriors follow. The white cloud drifts From the ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... was a great dog, thirty inches high at the shoulder; broad-chested, with straight, sinewy legs; and covered with thick, wavy, cream-coloured hair from the tips of his short ears to the end of his bushy tail—all except the left side of his face. That was black from ear to nose—coal-black; and in the centre of this storm-cloud ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... They held their breath and waited. The conversation which had started harmlessly enough had become a duel. The grim shadow of tragedy seemed suddenly to have stalked in amongst them. Hassen sprang to his feet, livid, his coal-black eyes on fire. Reist was facing him, his head thrown back, passionate, contemptuous, bitter. With a swift, threatening gesture he threw out ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... sitting in cafes, was, I discovered, known as "Valentine of the Beautiful Eyes," for I recognised her one night on the stage of a music-hall in the Boulevard de Clichy, where she was evidently a great favourite. She was young—not more than twenty, I think—with wonderful big coal-black eyes, a wealth of dark hair worn with a bandeau, and a face that was ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... clothes, when she flees before his kisses. Even the stars and planets sympathize with human beings, and live in constant intercourse with them and their affairs. Stars become messengers; a proud maiden boasts to be more beautiful than the sun; the sun takes it ill, and is advised to burn her coal-black in revenge. The moon hides herself in the clouds when the great Tzar dies. One of the most interesting Servian tale, called "The Heritage," is the fruit of the moon and the morning star's gossiping with each other. It ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... on Saladin, a high-spirited, fleet, and good-tempered pony of coal-black color. Melville, who claimed the steed as his own special property, had given him his Arabian name because he fancied there were many points of resemblance between him and the winged coursers of the East, made famous as long ago as the ...
— The Story of Red Feather - A Tale of the American Frontier • Edward S. (Edward Sylvester) Ellis
... flapping away the flies with bunches of feathers. Nomahanna, who appeared at the utmost not more than forty years old, was exactly six feet two inches high, and rather more than two ells in circumference. She wore an old-fashioned European dress of blue silk; her coal-black hair was neatly plaited, at the top of a head as round as a ball; her flat nose and thick projecting lips were certainly not very handsome, yet was her countenance on the whole prepossessing and agreeable. On seeing me, she laid down the ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... when a messenger, whom Lord Mar had sent out for the purpose, returned on full speed with information that the regent was passing the Carron. At these tidings the animated old earl called out his retinue, mounted his coal-black steed, and ordered a sumptuous charger to be caparisoned with housings wrought in gold by the hands of Lady Mar and her ladies. The horse was intended to meet Wallace and to bring him into the city. Edwin led it forward. In the rear of the Earls Mar and Badenoch ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... which, if perfected on the lines of beauty suggested by some of the nobler specimens of the nobler tribes, she might look like Brigit Mead. The girl had a clean-cutness of feature, a thin compactness of build, a stag-like carriage of her small head that, together with her almost bronze skin and coal-black hair, gave her an air remarkably and arrestingly un-English. The picture in the Luxembourg gallery, a typically French, subtle, secretive face, gives the expression of her face and the strange gleam in the long eyes. ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... cat were held sacred to Freya in heathen times, these creatures were supposed to have demoniacal attributes, and to this day witches are always depicted with coal-black ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... head that crowned it. The lady's complexion was almost swarthy, and the dark down on her upper lip was almost a moustache. She had a large, firm, masculine mouth and jaw; prominent, piercing, resolute brown eyes; and thick, coal-black hair, growing unusually low down on her forehead. Her expression—bright, frank, and intelligent—appeared, while she was silent, to be altogether wanting in those feminine attractions of gentleness and pliability, without which the beauty of the handsomest ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... in size," said he, pointing to the lads. "Let us see which can bear off the palm for strength." He called out a few words in Spanish to the young mulatto, who raised his dark head—curled over with shiny rings of coal-black hair—and showed a gleaming row of white teeth as he turned his smiling face ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... personally report his success to Khadija. That lady, a wealthy widow of forty years, and the mother of three children, was highly pleased at Mohammed's story. As she listened to the proof of his business ability and fondly scanned his large, nobly formed head, his curling coal-black hair, his piercing eyes, and his comely form, it naturally occurred to her that this vigorous and handsome young fellow would make an excellent successor to her deceased husband. She had her way and they were married. ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... round her sturdy legs until they looked as shapeless as telegraph posts. Her scant, red calico skirt met her leggings at the knee; and her red mantle, of Navajo weave, fell back from her head, but wrapped closely her waist and arms, and then dropped long ends down the front of her dress. Her coal-black hair, heavy and shining, was combed smoothly back from her forehead and fastened in a chongo behind. Her brown face was handsomer than that of most Indian maidens, being longer in proportion to its width than is the pueblo type, the cheek bones less prominent, the forehead broader, ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... San Lazzaro, with the neat red buildings of the Armenian convent. The last oleander blossoms shine rosy pink above its walls against the pure blue sky as we glide into the little harbour. Boats piled with coal-black grapes block the landing-place, for the Padri are gathering their vintage from the Lido, and their presses run with new wine. Eustace and I have not come to revive memories of Byron—that curious patron saint of the Armenian colony—or to inspect the printing-press, which ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... the direction of his extended finger, could only stare at what they saw. Seated in the body of the Wireless and holding George's rifle, which had been incautiously left aboard while they ate breakfast, was a big coal-black negro, whom they could easily guess must be the ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... black woman and a red-haired man; the little monsters are as black as the mother, and have RED wool—you never saw so diabolical an appearance. Some of the coloured people are very pretty; for example, a coal-black girl of seventeen, and my washerwoman, who is brown. They are wonderfully slender and agile, and quite old hard-working women have waists you could span. They never grow thick and square, ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... marble in the halls of the Vatican. One day as I was wandering through these apartments, the rumour ran through them that the Pope was going out to take an airing. I immediately ran down to the piazza, where I found a rather shabby coach with red wheels, to which were yoked four coal-black horses, with a very fat coachman on the box, in antique livery, and two postilions astride the horses, waiting for Pius. Some half-dozen of the guardia nobile, mounted on black horses, were in attendance; and, loitering at the bottom of the stairs, were the stately forms of ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... porches and casements shone With gold and ivory and elephant-bone.... Just then from the doorway, as fat as shotes, Came the cake-walk princes in their long red coats, Canes with a brilliant lacquer shine, And tall silk hats that were red as wine. And they pranced with their butterfly partners there, Coal-black maidens with pearls in their hair, Knee-skirts trimmed with the jassamine sweet, And bells on their ankles and ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... friend of Mark's. She expected him to be no ordinary man, and she was not mistaken. Berrand was much older than Mark. He looked about forty. He was thin, sallow, eager in manner, with shining eyes—almost toad-like—a yellowish-white complexion, and coal-black hair. His vivacity was un-English, yet at the back of his nature there lay surely a stagnant reservoir of melancholy. He was a pessimist, full of ardour. He revelled, intellectually, in the sorrows and in the evils ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... decency and propriety, are not cleanly. The women bathe their hands once a day, but any other washing is unknown. They never wash their clothes, and wear the same by day and night. I am afraid to speculate on the condition of their wealth of coal-black hair. They may be said to be very dirty—as dirty fully as masses of our people at home. Their houses swarm with fleas, but they are not worse in this respect than the Japanese yadoyas. The mountain villages have, however, the appearance of extreme cleanliness, ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... He was a coal-black poodle, with half of his right ear gone, and absurd little thick moustaches at the end of his nose; he was shaved in the shamlion fashion, which is considered, for some mysterious reason, to improve a poodle, but the barber had left sundry little tufts of hair, which ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... a gentleman of very different exterior. Tall, thick, ungainly, with a very heavy, stupid face, coarse hands, outrageous lower extremities. A mass of coal-black hair seemed to weigh down his head. His attire was un-English, and, one might suspect, had been manufactured in some lonely cottage away in the remote Swiss valley which had till lately been the poor fellow's home. Dr. Tootle never kept his foreign masters long. His plan was to get ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... by the cow, which proclaimed her pangs more clearly: now there was work to do, and the conversation could not be continued. All went well, and finally there was a handsome calf, coal-black with a white star, such as neither had ever seen; it was decided to raise it. Uli was twice as active and attentive as usual, and the little calf he treated quite gently, almost tenderly, and regarded ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... and with sad hearts, bidding her good-by, they walked along the golden strand. When they had gone what seemed to them a long way, they began to feel weary; and just then they saw coming towards them a little man in a red jacket leading a coal-black steed. ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... morning an elegant carriage, drawn by a pair of coal-black horses in silver-mounted harness, drove to the humble home of the Richardsons in Hughes street, and the colored driver presented a note from Mrs. Mencke, saying that Violet was to return home at once; that she had an important engagement and could ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... little girl, Dark-eyed and pale, with long seaweed-like hair, Who haunts that room, and, gazing o'er the deep, Calls it her mother, with a childish glee, Because she knew no other." "This," said she, "Was not a child, but woman almost old, Whose coal-black hair had partly turned to grey, With sorrow and with madness; and she dwelt, Not in that room high on the cliff, but down, Low down within the margin of spring tides." And then she told me all she knew of her, As we drove onward ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... and Mrs. Cullen appeared as a mingled streak crossing the room from one door to the other. She was followed by a boy with a coal-black nose and between his feet, as he entered, there appeared a big long, black, horrible snake, with frantic legs springing from what appeared to be its head; and it further fulfilled Mrs. Cullen's description by making a fizzin' noise. Accompanying the snake, and still faithfully ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... aristocratic objections they at first interposed against his reception. "Mus' be somebody bigger dan common nigger preacher; wudn't cotch Miss Frankone spoken wid 'um if 'um warn't," says Dad Timothy's Jane, who is Uncle Absalom's wife, and, in addition to having six coal-black children, as fat and sleek as beavers, is the wise woman of the cabins, around whom all the old veteran mammies gather for explanations upon most important subjects. In this instance she is surrounded by six or seven grave worthies, whose comical faces add great piquancy ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... host (who had just split open the shinbone of a deer, and offered him the raw marrow, but without success), and, going towards La Roche, regarded the baby in question. It was a remarkably fine child, seemingly about ten months old, with a round, rosy, oily face, coal-black hair, and large, round, coal-black eyes, with which it returned the stare of the two men with interest. But that which amused the visitors most was a lump of fat or blubber, with a skewer thrust through ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... looked long enough where this wise old raven came flying; he was, and remained, alone. And without troubling about anything or uttering a sound, he sped on his strong coal-black wings through the dense rain-mist, steering ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... peering round the embonpoint of the man next him. The procession now scarcely moved, and there was a space between the last elephant and the great coal-black horse that followed—a wide, solemn space, that invited you to realize that this was the finest sight you had ever seen in your life. He was indeed a splendid, terrifying creature. As Rufus Cosgrave said ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... into gutters of mud to irrigate. They do it pretty much the same way up the Nile. The cottages have low mud walls, and are thatched with dried palm leaves and scraps of corrugated iron, and the naked children, with their coal-black mops of hair, play about in the dust with the hens, and seem to have a good time. They are chubby and jolly, and don't quarrel so much, or speak so harshly as school board children in our Bonnie Lowlands. Here and there are quaint little temples, stone built, under the palms between the patches of ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... the fourth cellar and see what was there, but he dared not, for dear life's sake. But at the end of the third week he was so curious that he could resist no longer. He opened the fourth door and went down the steps into the cellar, and there was a magnificent coal-black horse chained to a manger, and the manger was filled with red-hot coals. At the horse's tail ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... walked about in the shallows, and sometimes bellowed and fought all night. Troops of monkeys, "with very long tails stuck up straight like swords all over their backs," came down to drink. Herds of elephants and of fierce, coal-black buffaloes eyed the boat threateningly from the banks, while giraffes, looking like steeples, nibbled the tops of trees. At Khartoum the sight of flocks of English sparrows had gladdened Gordon's heart. Now he saw storks and geese preparing ...
— The Story of General Gordon • Jeanie Lang
... cold luncheon; there a small party of Memons are discussing affairs over their 'bidis' while on all sides are children playing with the paper toys, rattles and tin wheels which the hawkers offer at such seasons of merry-making. Coal-black Africans, ruddy Pathans and yellow Bukharans squat on the open turf to the west of the Victoria and Albert Museum; Mughals in long loose coats and white arch-fronted turbans wander about smoking cigars and chatting volubly, while Bombay Memons in gold turbans or gold-brocade ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... the score. What they were like depended on what she had just been reading. If fairy-tales, then it was a blond-haired prince who came to her on bended knee to kiss her hand and beg her to fly with him upon his coal-black steed to his castle. If she had been dipping into some forbidden novel like Lady Agatha's Career, then the fond suppliant was a haughty duke whom she spurned at first, but graciously accepted afterward. Through many a day-dream, slender lads and swarthy ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... brow in sunlight glowed; On burnished hooves his war-horse trode; From underneath his helmet flowed His coal-black curls as on he rode, As he rode down to Camelot. From the bank and from the river He flashed{12} into the crystal mirror, "Tirra lirra," by the river{13} ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... mile square of it was ringed and streaked and striped with a thousand branching streams of liquid and gorgeously brilliant fire! It looked like a colossal railroad map of the State of Massachusetts done in chain lightning on a midnight sky. Imagine it—imagine a coal-black sky shivered into a tangled net-work of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... who in Molly's lifetime shall be an official of the great railroad; and when in the course of time he is turned a sturdy boy of seven, with coal-black eyes and a round cropped head, she would place the book in his hands for purposes of learning. But detecting the fear of Michael as he smokes in the evening with eyes on the shelf, that the mysterious volume ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... was a little boy, but he suffered me to walk with him in his garden sloping down to the Wye, near a pleasaunce of the Vicars Choral, reciting sometimes the poems of Traherne, which he had in manuscript, but, for the most part, demonstrating his progress in the art of growing a coal-black rose. This was the true work of his life, and nearly forty years ago he could show blooms whose copper and crimson tints were very near to utter darkness. I believe that his ideal was never attained in absolute perfection; ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... are not a pure race, and even among the few I came across variations so considerable occurred as to puzzle one in tracing their origin. They invariably possess luxuriant coal-black hair, which never attains more than a moderate length. It is not coarse in texture, but is usually so dirty that it appears coarser than it really is. They have very little hair on their bodies except in the ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... it," said the captain; and she gave him a hand so cold that it chilled his own. "Now I will go talk to Maka and Cheditafa," he said. "Of course, we understand that it may be of no advantage to have this coal-black heathen act as officiating clergyman, but it can do no harm, and we must take the chances. I have a good deal to do, and no time to lose if I am to get away on the flood-tide this afternoon. Will it suit you if I get everything ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... swampy moss, Where tadpoles grew to frogs, for leagues begirt My solitary path. Nor sight nor sound Of moving life, except a grey curlew— As shrieking tumbled on the timid bird, Aye glancing backward with its coal-black eye, Even as by imp invisible pursued— Was seen or heard; the last low level rays Of sunset, gilded with a blood-red glow That melancholy moor, with its grey stones And stagnant water-pools. Aye floundering on, And on, I stray'd, finding no pathway, save The runlet of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... senor, proudly, and with a fiery flash in his coal-black eyes. "A man by the name of Hernando Cortes really conquered Mexico, without much help from the King of Spain. The king made a great deal of him for it, at first. He made him a marquis, which was a great ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... favour with the cook (and it means hot coffee, dry socks, and other little comforts being in favour with the cook) we had chiefly to thank Dennis. Our coal-black comrade loved jokes much, but his own dignity just a little more; and the instinctive courtesy which was as natural to Dennis as the flow of his fun, made him ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... road, sir.' Nature's poor wild scholar paid that tribute to the regimental sectarian. Enough for proud philosophy to have done the thing demonstrably right, Gower's look at his Madge and the world said. That 'European rose of the coal-black order,' as one of his numerous pictures of her painted the girl, was a torch in a cavern for dusky redness at her cheeks. Her responses beneath the book Mr. Woodseer held open had flashed a distant scene through Lord Fleetwood. Quaint to notice was her reverence for the husband ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... some of the dark somberness of face that had impressed Shefford. He had a noble head, in poise like that of an eagle, a bold, clean-cut profile, and stern, close-shut lips. His eyes were the most striking and attractive feature about him; they were coal-black and piercing; the intent look out of them seemed to come from ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... who were all neatly clothed, and kept in admirable discipline. Among these was the Abyssinian boy, "Amam," who had lately received his freedom. He was a pretty little lad, and his brown complexion looked quite light in comparison with his coal-black comrades. The Abyssinian blood showed in strong contrast to the negro type around him, and he was far superior in intelligence to any ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... the White Dynasty, but not the family. From that pair of snow-white cats had sprung three coal-black kittens, a mystery the solution of which I leave to others. Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables" were then all the rage, and the names of the characters in the novel were in every one's mouth. The two little male cats were called Enjolras ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... is very great. Such ringleaders as exist in the confusion are a GROUP OF STUDENTS, the chief of whom, conspicuous because unadorned, is an athletic, hatless young man with a projecting underjaw, and heavy coal-black moustache, who seems with the swing of his huge arms and shoulders to sway the currents of motion. When the first surge of noise and movement subsides, he calls out: "To him, boys! Chair the hero!" THE STUDENTS rush at the impassive MORE, swing ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... name was Ruth Glenn. She was a strange-looking girl; very tall and thin, with a pale, greenish cast of complexion; coal-black eyes, very much sunken in her head; hair as black as her eyes, and colorless lips. When she smiled, which was very seldom, she displayed a fine set of teeth, her only redeeming feature. Her manners were as strange as her appearance. When she spoke, which was only when ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... thunderbolt out of a clear sky, rolling up the Army of the Tennessee in great confusion. The brave and talented McPherson was killed early in the action, Logan succeeding. "McPherson and revenge," he cried, as upon his coal-black steed he careered from post to post of danger, inspiring his men and restoring order. The veterans soon recovered from their surprise. The Union lines were completely re-established, and by night Hood's army was driven back into the city, having sacrificed probably 10,000 ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... chiefly directed towards his neighbor, the ruffler, in whom he recognized a famous impostor of the day, with whose history he was sufficiently well acquainted to be able at once to identify the individual. We have before stated, that a magnificent coal-black beard decorated the chin of this worthy; but this was not all—his costume was in perfect keeping with his beard, and consisted of a very theatrical-looking tunic, upon the breast of which was embroidered, in golden wire, the Maltese cross; while over his shoulders were thrown the folds of an ample ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... coal-black Trigona (Trigona carbonaria), from eastern Australia, Mr. F. Smith, of the British Museum, found from four hundred to five hundred dead workers, but no females. The combs were arranged precisely similar to those of the common wasp. The number of honey-pots which were placed ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... how the shining sands, Like silver, glisten, and gleam, and glow; How the sea-gulls whirl, in their joyous bands, O'er the shoals where the breakers come and go! The coal-black driftwood, gleaming wet, Relic of by-gone vessel stout, With its clinging shells, seems a bar of jet, Studded with pearls, when ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... distinguished in appearance, Mr. Greatorex would have stood in no danger of being overlooked, even if he had not those twinkling jewel-like eyes, and two strands of coal-black hair trained across his large bumpy cranium, from the left ear to the right, and ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... I dreaming of...?" "That was the best of your dreams so far," said the gloom, with a full glance of its coal-black eyes. "May it soon come true! But light your lamp now—it is dark ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... from heaven? He turned, and saw standing beside him a tall, thin, audacious-looking young man, with coal-black moustaches, magnificent eyes, and an air that ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... bank. Half a dozen wolfish dogs were standing ready to breakfast as soon as the slaughtering was over. A Cossack officer in a picturesque costume stood on the bank near the boat. He wore an embroidered coat of sheepskin, the wool inside, a shaggy cap of coal-black wool, and a pair of fur-topped boots. All his garments were new and well fitting, and contrasted greatly with the greasy and long used coats of the Cossacks on the boat. Sheepskin garments can look more repulsive ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... mission; and whether or not she was the absolutely peerless beauty her father had vaunted, he at once decided that she was lovely enough to grace Hechnahoul, or any other, Castle. Black eyes and a mass of coal-black hair, an ivory pale skin, small well-chiselled features, and that distinctively American plumpness of contour—these marked her face; while as for her figure, it was the envy of her women friends and the distraction of ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... appearance as its leaves are stirred by the wind. The Rozzolo a vento is an ambitious plant, which grows beyond its strength, snaps short upon its overburdened stalk, and is borne away by any zephyr, however light. Large crops of oats are already cut; and oxen of the Barbary breed, brown and coal-black, are already dragging the simple aboriginal plough over the land. Some of these fine cattle (to whom we are strangers, as they are to us) stood gazing at us in the plain, their white horns glancing in the sun; others, recumbent and ruminating, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... never looked upon a fairer sight, Of all the things that are to see beneath the sky, Than yonder mole of brown, that nestles on his face, Midmost the rosy cheek, beneath the coal-black eye. ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... blushes on thy cheek? Doth thy trembling bosom tell thee, He hath come thy love to seek! Fleet thy Arab, but behind thee He is rushing like a gale; One foot on his coal-black's shoulders, And the other ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... troop of more than two hundred horsemen mounted on pure white Nicaean horses, whose bridles and saddle-cloths were covered with bells and bosses, feathers, fringes, and embroidery. Their leader rode a powerful coal-black charger, which even the strong will and hand of his rider could not always curb, though in the end his enormous strength proved him the man to tame even this fiery animal. This rider, beneath whose weight the powerful steed trembled and panted, wore a vesture of scarlet and white, thickly ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... for Zora, nothing more was seen of Prince Reginald. She watched the windows day after day, hoping to see him ride by on his coal-black steed; but he never came. Then she grew crosser than ever, and the frown on her brow ploughed deeper still. She dreamed every night of horrible goblins and ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... sharp-cut lips, stamped with a strangely mingled expression of strength and sensuality. Put the feature about her which instantly fixed Hypatia's attention, and from which she could not in spite of herself withdraw it, was the dry, glittering, coal-black eye which glared out from underneath the gray fringe of her swarthy brows, between black locks covered with gold coins. Hypatia could look at nothing but those eyes; and she reddened, and grew all but unphilosophically ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... Death was a rare old fellow, He sat where no sun could shine, And he lifted his hand so yellow, And pour'd out his coal-black wine. ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... more and more. He looks at that wretched dwelling,—he glances aside at Mr. Williams, that coal-black Christian, of sad and resigned demeanor, waiting ruefully to see the roof torn off,—the only roof that had afforded shelter to the perishing outcast. Mr. Frisbie is not one of the "soft kind," but he feels the prick of conscience ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... eyes, round, tumid, rosy cheeks, and flowing beard. Foremost among the Spanish grandees, and close to Philip, stood the famous favorite, Ruy Gomez, or as he was familiarly called "Re y Gomez" (King and Gomez), a man of meridional aspect, with coal-black hair and beard, gleaming eyes, a face pallid with intense application, and slender but handsome figure; while in immediate attendance upon the emperor, was the immortal ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... yet could tell nothing of that descent. All he could point out was that the mare was chestnut-brown, and when not in harness was kept close within the confines of the corral, while here was a colt of a dark-fawn color which would develop with maturity into coal-black. And there was not a single black horse in the mountains for miles and miles around. Nor was the colt ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... ice, perhaps? Down into the cold, coal-black water? And then, in the spring, to float up to the surface, all horrible and unrecognizable, with ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... stylish-looking plumed riding-hat. There was a side-saddle and a most elegant bridle; indeed, the whole equipment would not have disgraced Rotten Row. But, the horse! My courage had to be "screwed to the sticking point" before I could mount him. He was a very fine animal—a magnificent coal-black charger sixteen hands high, with a most determined will of his own, not broken for the saddle. Mr. Forrest rode a splendid bay, which seldom went over six consecutive yards of ground without performing ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... put every ounce of energy that he possessed on to the pedals. He was flying like a racer. Suddenly he raised his bearded face, saw us close to him, and pulled up, springing from his machine. That coal-black beard was in singular contrast to eyes were as bright as if he had a fever. He stared at us and at the dog-cart. Then a look of amazement ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and he seemed to pause as in doubt;—when, made aware of this parley, King Harold Hardrada, on his coal-black steed, with his helm all shining with gold, rode from the lines, and ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... chromatic sort of a morning when the canvas of the sailing-boats stands out startlingly white against the drizzly sky and the smoke from the stacks of the steamers takes on an accented coal-black, and, drooping, trails low in a murky wake. Rather a dull setting at this early hour; but not sufficiently dull to check the vivacity of ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... only twenty-seven, he has been for a number of years a correo, or mail-rider, and a guide for travelling parties. His olive complexion is made still darker by exposure to the sun and wind, and his coal-black eyes shine with Southern heat and fire. He has one of those rare mouths which are born with a broad smile in each corner, and which seem to laugh even in the midst of grief. We had not been two hours together, before I knew his history from beginning to end. He had already been married eight ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... negro troops under arms for the first time—the most of the organization of colored soldiers having been, done since our capture. It was startling at first to see a stalwart, coal-black negro stalking along with a Sergeant's chevrons on his arm, or to gaze on a regimental line of dusky faces on dress parade, but we soon got used to it. The first strong peculiarity of the negro soldier that impressed itself, upon us was ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... question was frequent to the helmsman, "How does she carry her helm?" varied sometimes to, "What sort of helm does she carry?" Now we had among our green midshipmen one from the West, tall, angular, swarthy, with a coal-black eye which had a trick of cocking up and out, giving a queer, perplexed, yet defiant cast to his countenance; moreover, he stuttered a little, not from imperfection of organs, but from nervous excitability. We had also a lieutenant ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... And their noble words and actions, Made at length a league against them, To molest them and destroy them. Hiawatha, wise and wary, Often said to Chibiabos, 10 "O my brother! do not leave me, Lest the Evil Spirits harm you!" Chibiabos, young and heedless, Laughing shook his coal-black tresses, Answered ever sweet and childlike, 15 "Do not fear for me, O brother! Harm and evil come not near me!" Once when Peboan, the Winter, Roofed with ice the Big-Sea-Water, When the snow-flakes, whirling downward, 20 Hissed among the withered oak-leaves, Changed the pine-trees ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... in this wilderness had no searching eye to fear and seemed destined for the service of no living creature. Grey and brown granite cliffs and ridges rose on both sides of the path, and in the sand which covered it lay heaps of small bits of red porphyry and coal-black stones that seemed as if they had been broken by the blows of a hammer and resembled the dross from which metal had been melted. Greenish masses of rock, most peculiar in form, surrounded the narrow, cliff ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... paused while fresh tea was brought by a coal-black woman slave, whose colour was accentuated by the scarlet rida upon her head, and the broad silver anklets about her feet. When she had retired and we were left alone once ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... whatever, but the bear glanced up with reddening eyes and a surly wagging of his head. It was all a slight matter, too slight to catch the eye or the uncomprehending thoughts of the audience. But a grave, well-dressed man, with copper-colored face, high cheek-bones and straight, coal-black hair, who sat close to the front, turned to a companion ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... nights the dream that shows The image of things to come, That I may behold the fate of my tribe, And the fate of the Indian race; And count the scalps from Mahas torn, And the prisoners brought from Pawnee lands, And the beads from the town of the Rock[C]; And number the coal-black horses, The Ricara Braves shall steal From the men who wear the cross, That shines like the cold, pale moon"[D]. ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... known to him of the cloven hoof; The small square windows are full in view Which the midnight hags went sailing through, On their well-trained broomsticks mounted high, Seen like shadows against the sky; Crossing the track of owls and bats, Hugging before them their coal-black cats. ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... overdressed for a granddaughter of Fletcher's; in her smooth white hands, with their finely polished nails; in her pale, repressed face, which he called plain while admitting that it might become interesting; in her shapely head even with its heavy cable of coal-black hair. ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... that she was watching me day and night. Occasionally, when she thought I was looking down, I caught the vivid gaze of her coal-black eyes looking across at me ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... the shower had ceased, the sky became clear, and on looking at the tree, they beheld it completely leafless. Then the birds descended upon the tree. And the song of the birds was far sweeter than any strain they had ever heard before. Then they beheld a knight, on a coal-black horse, clothed in sating coming rapidly towards them. Kay met him and encountered him, and it was not long before Kay was overthrown. The knight withdrew, and Arthur and his host ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... marvel when you hear her tale, Oh! had you known her in her softer hour, Marked her black eye that mocks her coal-black veil, Heard her light, lively tones in Lady's bower, Seen her long locks that foil the painter's power, Her fairy form, with more than female grace, Scarce would you deem that Saragoza's tower Beheld her smile ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... distractingly pretty, with a beauty that is short-lived with the people of her race. The afternoon sun shone down fiercely on her waving coal-black locks, and brought a rich colour to her nut-brown cheek; she had one little flimsy, ragged garment, neither long, broad, nor thick, which hung about her picturesquely; and, with her soft, dark, sleepy eyes, the rows of little white teeth behind her laughing red ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin |
