"Lustreless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she stood on the veranda and watched Miss Webster drive away to market. The carriage and horses were unsurpassed in California. The coachman and footman were in livery. The heiress was attired in lustreless black silk elaborately trimmed with jet. A large hat covered with plumes was kept in place above her painted face and red wig by a heavily dotted veil—that crier of departed charms. She held a black lace parasol in one carefully ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... to tell about the plain, lustreless man whose one homely gift had fascinated him. The Doctor was entertained. The narrator sparkled and glowed as he told of Ristofalo's appearance, and reproduced ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... and he laid the debris before me. I could understand his regarding it as of small importance when I looked at it, for the metal was almost black, and the stones lustreless and dull. I rubbed one of them on my sleeve, however, and it glowed afterwards like a spark, in the dark hollow of my hand. The metal-work was in the form of a double ring, but it had been bent and twisted ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... night of insomnia I was awakened by the laughter and shouts of children. When I looked out I saw brooding above the hollow a still gray day, in whose light the woodlands of the park were all in sombre brown, and the trout stream between its sedgy banks glided dark and lustreless. ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... vacantly at the floor; with a lustreless and stupid smile. A spectacle of such deep degradation, of such abject hopelessness, of such a miserable downfall, that she put her hands before her face and turned away, lest he should see how ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... man was a little disturbed, and for a moment some slight sign of nervous excitement revealed itself in his lustreless eyes. ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... the face that was specially unattractive. It was a sallow, flat face, and the strange eyes did nothing to lighten it. They were dead, lustreless eyes. They had a coldness in them that reminded me of the icicle eyes of the crocodile, and, curiously, I associated that reptile's notions of fair warfare with Leith as I looked at him. That sullen face, with the eyes that would never brighten at a tale of daring, or dim from a story of ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... porcine brows he saw pictured sometimes in the rotogravure sections of the Sunday newspapers, those glorified proletarians babbling blandly to the nation the ideas of high school seniors! Little men with copy-book ambitions who by mediocrity had thought to emerge from mediocrity into the lustreless and unromantic heaven of a government by the people—and the best, the dozen shrewd men at the top, egotistic and cynical, were content to lead this choir of white ties and wire collar-buttons in a discordant and amazing ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... strange attention, as if he was listening to something far off in the distance; the pupils of his hollow, worn, lustreless eyes were pin-points. He stood on his feet rigid, quivering; then he held ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... rose to his feet and waved his hand toward the east. The dawn was breaking in angry scarlet and gold that spread like fire over half the visible horizon; the burning hotel shut out the remaining half with tall flames, which shouldered one another monotonously, and seemed lustreless against the pure radiance of the sky. Chill daylight showed in melting patches through the clouds of ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... origin. The cool, still, empty chambers in which indifferent collections are apt to be preserved, the red brick tiles, the diffused light, the musty odour, the mementos around you of dead fashions, the snuffy custodian in a black skull-cap, who pulls aside a faded curtain to show you the lustreless gem of the museum—these things have a mild historical quality, and the sallow canvases after all illustrate something. Many of those in the museum of Nantes illustrate the taste of a successful warrior, having been bequeathed to the ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... hours' walking I observed a singular deadening of the reflection of our lamps from the side walls. The marble, the schist, the limestone, and the sandstone were giving way to a dark and lustreless lining. At one moment, the tunnel becoming very narrow, ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... joyous. There was not a billiard table in the house. There was no conservatory nearer than the large old-fashioned greenhouse, which stood away by the kitchen garden and which seemed to belong exclusively to the gardener. The papers on the walls were dark and sombre. The mirrors were small and lustreless. The carpets were old and dingy. The windows did not open on to the terrace. The furniture was hardly ancient, but yet antiquated and uncomfortable. Throughout the house, and indeed throughout the estate, there was sufficient evidence of wealth; and there ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... of the others in that crowded place. But Manuela stuck to her colours nobly. She kept awake until her pretty black eyes became lustreless, until her pretty brown face became expressionless, until the effort to continue awake became hopeless. Then her little head fell back on the cushion of the chair, the little mouth opened, and the ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... the period of his trial without being familiar with it all. But when he came to explanations in his own defence she followed listlessly. Though she leaned back in her chair, and courteously stopped painting, while he talked so earnestly, the light in her eyes faded to a lustreless gleam, like that of the black pearl. His perception that her thoughts were wandering gave him a queer sensation of speaking into a medium in which his voice could not carry, cutting short his arguments, and bringing him to his conclusion more hurriedly than ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... foot, with his hair and whiskers hanging lank and dripping and a lustreless stare fixed upon the bottom boards, the Capataz of the Sulaco Cargadores resembled a drowned corpse come up from the bottom to idle away the sunset hour in a small boat. The excitement of his adventurous ride, the excitement of the return in time, of achievement, of success, ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... and the lake was without ripple. It lay like one of the metal mirrors that we sell the Indians, a lustreless gray sheet that threw back twisted pictures. I looked off at the east, and thought of the dull leagues that lay behind me, and the uncounted ones before, and I realized that the morning air was cold, ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... and uniformly coated with white fur. The skin is harsh, but not very hot, the temperature seldom above 100 deg. Fahr., varying causelessly, but usually higher towards evening than in the daytime. The nostrils are dry, the eyes lustreless, and the child sheds no tears. It is drowsy, and will sometimes want to be put to bed two or three times in a day; but it is restless, sleeps ill, grinds its teeth in sleep, lies with its eyes partially open, awakes with the slightest noise, or even starts up in alarm without ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... we were about to put on a show of some kind," he told himself, "and I am cast for a leading role." He watched as best he could from his bound position while a tall figure in robes of lustreless black ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... patient. Diana, I regret to say, behaved like the spoilt child she really was. She buried her head under the bedclothes, and at first utterly refused to submit to any examination. Miss Todd coaxed, wheedled, stormed, and finally pulled the clothes away by force and displayed the rash to the dark, lustreless eyes of Dr. Jinaradasa. He asked a few questions—which Diana answered sulkily—took her temperature, felt her pulse, and retired downstairs to talk over the case with Miss Todd, leaving a very cross and indignant patient behind him. Ten minutes ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... from the element of rhythm in melody. Strictly speaking, however, it is impossible to do so. The individuality of a melody is absolutely dependent on its rhythm, that is, on the relative time-value of its tones. Gurney has devoted some amusing pages to showing the trivial, dragging, lustreless tunes that result from ever so slight a change in the rhythm of noble themes, or even in the distribution of rhythmical elements within the bar. The reason for this is evident. The nature of melody in the sense of sequence consists in the varied answers to the demands of the ear as felt ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... autumn breeze Hath blown from its green stem! 'T is pale, 't is pale, But still unfaded, like the twilight veil That falleth after sunset; like a stream That bears the burden of a silver gleam Upon its waters; and is even so,— Chill, melancholy, lustreless, and low! ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart
... soft-handed depth subdues Drowned colour there, but black to hues, As death to living, decomposes— Red darkness of the heart of roses, Blue brilliant from dead starless skies, And gold that lies behind the eyes, The unknown unnameable sightless white That is the essential flame of night, Lustreless purple, hooded green, The myriad hues that lie ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... handling the ponies, but in spite of their efforts their animals were quite done up by February 12, as also was poor old Blossom. It would have been cruel to continue with them, they were so wasted, and even their eyes were dull and lustreless. Accordingly, Scott decided to send Bluecher, James Pigg, and Blossom back with Forde, Keohane, and myself. A reorganisation was made near the 79th parallel, and whilst the main party proceeded southward, Forde, Keohane, and I took our feeble ponies northward with the intention of getting ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... carefully scraped, and all cups rinsed out. To fill the pan with unscraped and unrinsed dishes, and pour half-warm water over the whole, is a method too often adopted; and the results are found in sticky dishes and lustreless silver. Put all china, silver, and glass in their places as soon as washed. Then take any tin or iron pans, wash, wipe with a dry towel, and put near the fire to dry thoroughly. A knitting-needle or skewer may be kept to dig out corners unreachable by dishcloth or towel, and if perfectly dried ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... withdrawing himself again from a muse over the records of victory. And then he bent a lustreless eye upon his own portrait, so sombre and gallant upon the wall, with the gold of the lace and epaulettes a ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... or vineyard green? There Cerberus howls, and o'er the Stygian flood The dark ship goes; while on the clouded shore With hollow cheek and tresses lustreless, Wanders the ghostly throng. O happier far Some white-haired sire, among his children dear, Beneath a lowly thatch! His sturdy son Shepherds the young rams; he, his gentle ewes; And oft at eve, his willing labor done, His careful wife his weary limbs will bathe From a full, steaming bowl. ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... distinguish a man, now waxing elderly, with few characteristics to attract careless observers, yet bearing in his whole aspect the handwriting of no common fate for such as have the skill to read it. He is meagre; his low and narrow forehead is deeply wrinkled; his eyes, small and lustreless, sometimes wander apprehensively about him, but oftener seem to look inward. He bends his head and moves with an indescribable obliquity of gait, as if unwilling to display his full front to the world. ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... toasting herring, that the unaccustomed silence had the effect of rousing the girl, and she glanced at the woman moving so noiselessly about the room. She was not yet past middle age, but had the coarsened look and furrowed skin of one whose lot in life had been hard; her hair was thin and lustreless, sprinkled with grey, and there was a faraway look of weary resignation in her dim blue eyes. Fan pitied her, and remembering that but for this poor woman's sympathy she would have been still out in the cold streets, with no prospect of a shelter for the night, she bent down her face ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... limited power a speck of dirt. The heart of one was a blob of mud, which gave off a most baleful vapour. This was the result of the house-cleaning of a common, edible rock oyster, and the pearl, dirty green and lustreless, merely a thin casket, for the noisome mud had not solidified. The care with which the impurity had been rendered innocuous demonstrated the correct ideas of the oyster on sanitation. No doubt the germ of the special form of ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... ubiquitous on the ranges, that sprang daily almost from beneath the pony's feet, were changing their winter's dress, were becoming darker; almost as though soiled by a muddy hand. Here and there on the high places the sparkling white was giving way to a dull, lustreless brown. Gradually, day by day, as though they were a pestilence, they expanded, augmented until they, and not the white, became the dominant tone. The sun was high in the sky now. At noontime the man's shadow was short, scarcely extended back of his pony's feet. Mid-afternoons, in the low places ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... substance. Its very garments, moreover, partook of the magical change, and shone with the gloss of novelty, and glistened with the skilfully embroidered gold that had long ago been rent away, and, half revealed among the smoke, a yellow visage bent its lustreless eyes on ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... childishness had come upon him. How often have I bent over him, vainly endeavoring to recall to his memory the scenes we had shared together: and how frequently, with an aching heart, have I gazed on his vacant and lustreless eye, while he has amused himself in clapping his hands and singing with a quavering voice a verse of a psalm." Alas! such are the consequences of long residences in America, and of old age even in uncles! Well, the point of this morality is, that ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in the orchard. She was to remember that it was a cloudy morning, and that mist-tatters trailed from the more distant trees. In the slaty twilight the garden's verdure was lustreless, the grass and foliage were uniformly sombre save where dewdrops showed like beryls. Nowhere in the orchard was there absolute shadow, nowhere a vista unblurred; in the east, half-way between horizon and zenith, two belts of coppery light flared against the gray sky like embers swaddled ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... substitute. It is the old story again. The new and clean is not so paintable, not so picturesque, as the tarnished and soiled. The worn blue of the cloak is softened by the dull gray of the threads beneath,—patches of various colors are often let into the jacket or breeches,—the hat is lustreless from age, and rusty as an old wall,—and the first vivid red of the waistcoat is toned by constant use to a purely pictorial hue. Besides, the true pifferaro wears his costume as if it belonged to him and had always been worn by him,—so that it has none of that got-up ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... very regular in its attendance on the baroness's days. Tunisians sojourning in Paris never failed to call upon the wife of the great banker, who was in favor at home, and old Colonel Brahim, the bey's charge d'affaires, with his drooping lips and his lustreless eyes, took his nap every Saturday in the corner of the ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... through or hanging in fragments, bedsteads tumbling down through the broken ceiling of the sitting-room, pictures askew on the tottering walls, household treasures a forlorn wreckage, hats still hanging on the hat-pegs, the table-cloth still laid, the fireplace lustreless with the ashes of ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... hero has been killed by his brothers, and they have carried off the Zhar-Ptitsa, and their victim's golden steed, and his betrothed princess—as long as he lies dead, the princess remains mute and mournful, the horse refuses to eat, the bird is silent, and its cage is lustreless. But as soon as he comes back to life, the princess regains her spirits, and the horse its appetite. The Zhar-Ptitsa recommences its magic song, and its cage flashes anew ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... glances of the latter a brilliancy which enhanced beauty, while it sharpened them into poignancy. But most of all were they in some way associated with the form of the unknown lady. She never appeared to him as the being on whom his destiny was suspended; but, sooner or later, her own comparatively lustreless orbs changed into those diamonds, which could fulminate scorn not less than they ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... turned her lustreless eyes on him and said, "Magdalen did not make me come this time. I have come myself. Do you think, is there any chance, Uncle John, that God will have mercy on me again, like He ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... Milburgh had heard the last words of his employer, his face did not betray the fact. His smile was set, and not only curved the lips but filled the large, lustreless eyes. Tarling gave him a rapid survey and drew his own conclusions. The man was a born lackey, plump of face, bald of head, and bent of shoulder, as though he lived in a perpetual ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... last as a prisoner; thin, haggard, sick unto death, with no sparkle in his lustreless eyes, no motion in his swollen joints, no pretty retort on his lips as of old, and with a sigh we turn from the ghastly sight to the pages of French history where we again read in detail the accounts of his life and death, and ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... and black, this lady. Tall, trim, clear, she looked cool in spite of the black winter skirt she wore, an effect helped somewhat, perhaps, by the crisp freshness of her white waist, with its masculine collar and slim black tie, and undoubtedly by the even and lustreless light ivory of her skin, against which the strong black eyebrows and undulated black hair were lined with attractive precision; but, most of all, that coolness was the emanation of her undisturbed and tranquil eyes. They were not phlegmatic: a continuing ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... of opinion that she had a female complaint, and prescribed warm compresses. In old days, when Laevsky loved her, Nadyezhda Fyodorovna's illness had excited his pity and terror; now he saw falsity even in her illness. Her yellow, sleepy face, her lustreless eyes, her apathetic expression, and the yawning that always followed her attacks of fever, and the fact that during them she lay under a shawl and looked more like a boy than a woman, and that it was close and stuffy in her room—all this, in ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the manner in which it was accomplished was entirely unknown to them; the fact was on record, but the cause lost. So now we know that those who to us are the ancients had a way of making diamonds and precious stones out of black and lustreless charcoal, a fact which approaches the incredible. Still, we do not doubt it, though we cannot imagine by what means it was ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... curly bracken, decked already in their autumn colour, the hue of an over-ripe grape, seemed interlacing in endless tangling crisscross before one's eyes; then suddenly again everything around was faintly bluish; the glaring tints died away instantaneously, the birch-trees stood all white and lustreless, white as fresh-fallen snow, before the cold rays of the winter sun have caressed it; and slily, stealthily there began drizzling and whispering through the wood the finest rain. The leaves on the birches were still almost all green, though perceptibly ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... this lustreless day," said Ned, "and those swallows pursuing their food up and down the lustreless sky. It all seems like a fairy-tale, this catching of the fish, you and I. The day so dim," he said, "so quiet and low, and ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... He wore a silver-grey dressing gown, trimmed with white swansdown, above which his ivory throat rose statuesque. The almond-shaped eyes, black as night, gleamed strangely beneath the low, smooth brow. The lank black hair appeared lustreless by comparison. His lips were very red. In his whole appearance there ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... dagger. She lifted up her veil slowly. What a sight presented itself to my startled eyes! I beheld before me an animated Corse. Her countenance was long and haggard; Her cheeks and lips were bloodless; The paleness of death was spread over her features, and her eyeballs fixed stedfastly upon me were lustreless and hollow. ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... towards the waves. The whole expanse Suddenly in the half-light of the dusk Glimmered and waned. The last rays of the sun Lit but the tops of trees and mountain-peaks With tarnished glory; and the water's sheen, Once blue and bright, grew lustreless, and soon A welter of red clouds alone betrayed The passing of the sun. The scattered isles Uprose, black-looming o'er the tranquil deeps, Where the reflected heavens wanly showed A lingering gleam. Already wood and hill Sank in obscurity. The river marge Seemed but ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... stench of rotting animals, the nightly miasms of bog and fen. His victims were not pierced, or crushed, or mangled, but their deaths were not less terrible, because more lingering. They seemed to wither and shrivel away; their eyes became at first very bright, and afterward lustreless; their skins grew hard and sallow; their lips faded to a dry whiteness; all the fluids of the body were consumed; and they crumbled to corruption before life had fairly gone ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... grayness of the whole immense surface, the wind furrows upon the faces of the waves, the great masses of foam, tossed about and waving, like matted white locks, give to the sea in a gale an appearance of hoary age, lustreless, dull, without gleams, as though it had ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... there are spots or blotches of pale, lustreless appearance either irregular or symmetric, scattered over the body. In the negro and other dark-skinned races a mottled appearance is seen. If the process goes to completion, the whole surface changes to ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... study her features, and as he did so he called to mind the face of the young girl whose heart he had won a quarter of a century before. Yes, she was beautiful still, even although her face was drawn and haggard and the hair which he remembered so well was lustreless. It needed but happiness to bring back all the winsomeness of her girlish days—happiness! Yes, he had loved her, and he had promised to cherish her. He knew he had taken her to wife as truly as if their marriage had been attended by all the pomp and ceremony ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... minutes later came a loud knocking on the door. Simons opened it quickly, admitting a most strange old gentleman—tall and ramshackle—who was buttoned up in a chess-board inverness; whose trousers frayed out over his lustreless boots like much-defiled lace; whose coat-sleeves, protruding from the cape of his inverness, sought to make amends for the dullness of his footwear. He wore a turned-down collar and a large, black French knot. His ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... Girl, on the contrary, was under eclipse. She was pale and lustreless from her disturbed night and early rising; and no opportunity offered to tell a melting tale. Nobody took any notice of ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... smart long seal-bordered coat, veils and gloves, small and elegant hats, even black-bordered handkerchiefs. She dressed herself soberly, yet not without that mournful thrill that fitness and becomingness lends to bereavement. When she went back to Annie's side Annie was in beautiful lengths of lustreless crape, too; they settled down to low, sad conversation, with a few of the privileged old friends. Chris was nowhere to be seen, but at about six o'clock Acton came in to show them a telegram from Leslie, flying homeward. Judge Lee was hurrying to them from Washington, and for a few ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... as if it might have been hammered at on an anvil without sustaining any injury. Forty years at least had elapsed since the Peruvian mines had been the death of Mr. Pipchin; but his relict still wore black bombazeen, of such a lustreless, deep, dead, sombre shade, that gas itself couldn't light her up after dark, and her presence was a quencher to any number of candles. She was generally spoken of as "a great manager" of children; and the secret ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... was Theo Marzials, poet and eccentric, and Charles Colnaghi, the hero of a hundred tea-fights, and young Brookfield, the comedian, and many another good fellow. My Lord of Dudley, the virtuoso, came there, leaning for support upon the arm of his fair young wife. Disraeli, with his lustreless eyes and face like some seamed Hebraic parchment, came also, and whispered behind his hand to the faithful Corry. And Walter Sickert spread the latest mot of 'the Master,' who, with monocle, cane and tilted hat, flashed ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... and groom were unhesitating, even firm. Her ladyship, I thought, had never appeared to better advantage than in the pearl-tinted lustreless going-away gown she had chosen. As always, she had finely known what to put ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... food, straining forward to a goal of safety, sick both in stomach and heart,—as if he had been rushing, like the maniac of the Gospel, through dry places, seeking rest and finding none. His hair, which should have been black, looked lustreless and bleached, and his skin seemed as if his blood had lost all colour and generosity, as if nothing but serum flowed in his veins. His eyes alone did not look bloodless; they were weary and extravasated, as from anxious watching. The young officer's compassion ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... his voice broke and he was unable to complete his sentence. In responsive inquiry, she turned from the window and looked up at him. The deep dejection of her attitude depicted her despondency and despair. The brown eyes, dull and lustreless, staring out of the drawn white face, expressed the hopeless wonderment the man had seen in the glazing orbs of a stricken deer. A great wave of pity welled up in him. How could he break this frozen composure and bring to the overwrought heart the healing blessing ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... to his feet with a fierce oath on his lips. His usually lustreless eyes were gleaming with something more than despair; there was the wild light of unmistakable relief in them. It was as if a horrid doubt had been scaled from the soul ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... he was out of earshot of his father, and there was no further conversation between them for the remainder of the forenoon. But go where he would, he felt that the dim, lustreless eyes of the old man were following him. And this time he was actually glad when ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... to run you through," said his friend gloomily. Indeed, the Doctor stood in instant fear of this catastrophe; for Captain Runacles' temper was a byword, and not even his customary dark flush looked so dangerous as the lustreless, sullen eyes now sunk in a face that was drawn and pinched and absolutely wax-like in colour. To the Doctor's astonishment, however, it was the little hunchback who now jumped up and whipped ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... eyes, invested it with that irresistible charm that occasionally renders ripe old age more attractive than flushing dimpled youth. Her hair, originally pale brown, was as snow-white as the tarlatan cap that now framed it in a crimped border; and her lustreless black dress was relieved at the neck and wrists by ruffles ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... he thought of the chicken that was roasting before the fire. His conversations about cooking, about cider, brandy and wine, the way of preparing certain dishes and of blending certain sauces were revealed to me at sight of his puffy red cheeks, his heavy lips and his lustreless eyes. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... able to wash, and that very morning, as he saw himself in a looking-glass at a shop-window, he had been deeply shocked at his own appearance. His face was white as a sheet, the fair hair matted and tangled, the eyes sunken and surrounded with a dark color, and dead and lustreless. No! he could not meet Wildney as a sick and ragged sailor-boy; perhaps even he might not be recognised if he did. He drew back, and hid himself till the merry-hearted pair had passed, and it was almost ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... this ruin; and she wished The Prince had found her in her ancient home; Then let her fancy flit across the past, And roam the goodly places that she knew; And last bethought her how she used to watch, Near that old home, a pool of golden carp; And one was patched and blurred and lustreless Among his burnished brethren of the pool; And half asleep she made comparison Of that and these to her own faded self And the gay court, and fell asleep again; And dreamt herself was such a faded form Among ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... Dull, yellow, heavy, lustreless— With less of radiance than the burnished tress, Crumpled on Beauty's forehead: cloddish, cold, Kneaded together with the common mold! Worn by sharp contact with the fretted edges Of ancient drifts, or prisoned in deep ledges; Hidden ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... laughed—and he had a vision of flashing white teeth, of a mouth breaking into pleasant curves, of dark mirth-lit eyes, lustreless no longer, provocative, inspiring. A vague impression as of something pleasant warmed his blood. It was a rare thing for him to be so stirred, but even then it was not sufficient to disturb the focus of ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the warrior rise, who sinks forever, although it may be into a bed of glory! And if the setting of the sun leave all here lustreless and dark and gloomy, although that must arise again to-morrow, what must the setting do of one who shall arise no more for ever; whose light of life was to one heart, what the sunbeam was to the streamlet, but which, unlike that sunbeam, shall ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... altogether destitute of fibrous structure, drying to earth-like masses which break with more or less difficulty, giving lustreless surfaces of fracture; sp. gr. 0.41 to 0.90, the full cubic foot weighing, accordingly, from ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... the scope of his gaze, levelled on the unfathomable distance, he observed that the fingers held a sheet of printed paper; and he remembered Florence. Instead of pressing his brow he unfolded the journal she had thrust upon him. As he began to read, his eye was lustreless, his gait slack and dreary; but soon his whole demeanour changed, it cannot be said for ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... and anxieties, and ambitions, and concerns that will rob her of the unchanging smile that made your lips fair for me. The tones that were always so sweet for me will be troubled at times; and your eyes that lighted up with radiance from heaven at the sight of me, will often be lustreless for her. And besides, as it is impossible to love you as I love you, you will never care for that woman as you have cared for me. She will never keep a constant watch over herself as I have done; she will never study your happiness at every moment with an intuition which has never failed me. ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... but though the light was softened, the apartment was by no means obscure. Ferdinand was sitting in an easy-chair, supported by pillows. A black handkerchief was just twined round his forehead, for his head had been shaved, except a few curls on the side and front, which looked stark and lustreless. He was so thin and pale, and his eyes and cheeks were so wan and hollow, that it was scarcely credible that in so short a space of time a man could have become such a wreck. When he saw Katherine he involuntarily ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... there before him—the mother of his children, of the sleeping ones, of the buried ones—the butterfly broken on the wheel of years: lustreless and useless now in ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... in, but did not speak. A swift spasm passed over her face, leaving it very stern, very fixed, as he had never seen it, as he had never thought of seeing it. An overwhelming suspense burned in the dark, lustreless eyes which met his own. ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... Bonaparte, and son of Hortense, was only known as the perpetrator of two very absurd attempts to overthrow the monarchy under Louis Philippe. But since the remains of the great emperor had been returned to France by England, and the splendors of the past placed in striking contrast with a dull, lustreless present, there had been a revival of Napoleonic memories and enthusiasm. Here was an opportunity to unite two powerful sentiments in one man—a Napoleon at the head of republican France would express the glory of the past and the ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... into it, and quite a large cairn was piled up in there. Notwithstanding all this, the birds were unhappy. They sat motionless on the same spot nearly all day. Their pretty, dark feather dresses became rough and lustreless, and their eyes were riveted with hopeless ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... Pagan was changed in bearing and countenance as well as in apparel. He stood more firm and upright; a dull, tawny hue overspread his face; his eyes, so sunken and lustreless in other days, were now distended and bright with the glare of insanity. It seemed as if his bodily powers had renewed their vigour, while his mental faculties had declined ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... noon can one appreciate the incomparable effects of palm-leaf shadows. The whole garden is permeated with light that streams down from some undiscoverable source, and its rigid trunks, painted in a warm, lustreless grey, are splashed with an infinity of keen lines of darker tint, since the sunshine, percolating through myriads of sharp leaves, etches a filigree pattern upon all that lies below. You look into endless depths of forest, but there is no change in decorative design; the identical sword-pattern ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... spring upon his foster-brother. Even as they looked, the fire went out in his eyes, spark by spark, until they were lustreless as ashes, and at last he put up his hand and wiped great drops from his forehead. "Never had you the keenness to father that judgment," he said in a strangely dull voice. "It must be that a god spoke through your mouth." Leaving them, he moved forward to the well and stood gazing into it, his fingers ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... rustled; the waving whips of alder and willow snapped no longer; the icicles no longer dropped a cold fruitage from barren branch and spray; and the roadside trees relapsed into stony quiet, so that the sound of horse's hoofs breaking through the thin, dull, lustreless films of ice that patched the furrowed road, might have been heard by the nearest ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... tall lithe girl, with that delicately transparent complexion often seen among the women of these mountains. Her lustreless black hair lay along her forehead without a ripple or a wave; there was something in the expression of her large eyes that suggested those of a deer,—something free, untamable, and yet gentle. "'Tain't no wonder ter me ez Clarsie is all tuk up with the wild ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... lay very unhappy in its tube one day alone, having tumbled out of an artist's color box and lying quite unnoticed for a year. "I am only Lampblack," he said to himself. "The master never looks at me: he says I am heavy, dull, lustreless, useless. I wish I could cake and dry up and die, as poor Flake-white did when he thought she turned yellow ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... to comply with the invitation; but, with a thrill of horror, he started back, as he listened to the death-rattle in the throat of the rebel, and saw his eyes fixed and lustreless in death. It was an awful scene to the inexperienced youth. Though he had seen hundreds fall in the battle of that day, death had not seemed so ghastly and horrible to him as now, when he stood face to face with the ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... then that the sheen of the purple glowed. If lustreless at home, it was royally red abroad. In a campaign that was little more than a triumphant promenade he doubled the empire. To the world of Caesar he added that of Alexander. Allies he turned into subjects, vassals into slaves. Armenia, Mesopotamia, Assyria, were added to ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... which directs the hours To dwell with Taurus from the North is borne, Such virtue rays from each enkindled horn, Rare beauty instantly all nature dowers; Nor this alone, which meets our sight, that flowers Richly the upland and the vale adorn, But Earth's cold womb, else lustreless and lorn, Is quick and warm with vivifying powers, Till herbs and fruits, like these I send, are rife. —So she, a sun amid her fellow fair, Shedding the rays of her bright eyes on me, Thoughts, acts, and words of love wakes into ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... the clerk hurried from the room and down the stone stairs at a break-neck speed, Turner sank back into his chair, with lustreless eyes fixed on space. ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... marvellous transition in a fairy-tale; the one was home, a place of use and daily custom; the other a hollow in the far-away past, an ancient cave of Time, full of withering history. Its windows being all to the north and long unopened, it was lustreless, dark, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... up as if to hasten after her, but checked herself and sank back into her chair. For a long time she sat motionless, in the blank dreary silence of profound grief, her eyes fixed upon vacancy, dry and lustreless. ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... you that I cannot interfere?" Still he kept that horrid position of his upon the chair, staring at her with his large, open, lustreless eyes. "Mr. Greenwood, I must ask you to leave me. As a gentleman you ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... never been seen by the visitors at Hilton House in any other costume than this lustreless velvet. Her age was between thirty and forty. She might once have had some pretensions to beauty; but her face was pinched and careworn, and there was a sharp, greedy look in the small eyes, whose colour was that neutral, ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon |
