"Steely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the latter breed. He made no move; but the cords and veins in his muscular neck and hands swelled visibly, and his dark gray eyes took on a steely glint, as they bored steadily into Judd's glowering ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... snowing all the afternoon, and the shrubbery hung heavy and silent with heaped, clinging, feathery snow, dazzling white by contrast with the dark sustaining branches, and the yellow lamps flamed warmly amid the all-surrounding steely blue and glistening white. The damp pavements, where the snow had melted, were banded with gold and crimson from the reflected light of the lamps and the warning glare of car and ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... and away the train went, at no breakneck speed, down the wide valley of the Ouse, which, even on this cold December morning, looked pleasant and cheerful enough. For here and there the river caught a steely-blue light from the sky overhead; and the sunshine shone along the round chalk hills; and there were little patches of villages far away among the dusk of the leafless trees, where the church spire rising into the blue seemed to attract the wheeling of pigeons. To Nan it was all ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... above which rose her capable face on a straight neck. She wore a gray skirt and a waist of white, with a severely starched collar about her throat, and a black bow tie. Her straw hat was narrow of brim, banded with a black ribbon. Her steely eyes flashed from beneath the hat. Once before the twins had encountered her and her voice, and the results were blasting, though the occasion was happier. Indeed, the intention of Juliana had been wholly amiable, for it was at the ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... and at Rosoy we turn south towards Meaux, passing Vareddes to our left. The weather clears a little, and from the high ground we are able to see Meaux to the west, lying beside its great river, than which our children's children will greet no more famous name. The Marne winds, steely grey, through the white landscape, and we run down to it quickly. Soon we are making our way on foot through the dripping streets of Meaux to the old bridge, which the British broke down—one of three—on ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... jeweled crest of Edward amidst the cloud of battle there, and rushing forward, hand to hand engaged the king. Edward knew his adversary, not so much by his snow white plume as by the prowess of his arm. Twice did the heavy claymore of Wallace strike fire from the steely helmet of the monarch; but at the third stroke the glittering diadem fell in shivers to the ground; and the royal blood of Edward followed the blow. He reeled; and another stroke would have settled the freedom of Scotland forever, had not the strong arm of Frere de Briagny passed between ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... virgin's hands are too too weak, To penetrate the bulwark of my breast; My fingers, used to tune the amorous lute, Are not of force to hold this steely glaive. So I am left to wail my parents' death, Not able for to work my proper death. Ah, Locrine, honored for thy nobleness! Ah, Estrild, famous for thy constancy! Ill may they fare ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... mile behind, when a thick snowstorm came on. It did not last long, however, and they fought their way through it into a glimpse of sun. To Robert, healthy, powerful, and except at rare times, hopeful, it added to the pleasure of the journey to contend with the storm, and there was a certain steely indifference about Ericson that carried him through. They trudged on steadily for three hours along a good turnpike road, with great black masses of cloud sweeping across the sky, which now sent them a glimmer of sunlight, and now ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... diamond, jacinth, ruby, topaz, sapphire and gold. Every jewel-shape in leaf, spore, coral or plume, lying on a greenish crystalline ground, is fringed with a soft radiance of silver fire, and every point is tipped in minute ciliate flames of faint steely purple. It is spotted with soft velvety black wherever a shadow falls, that mingles and varies the wonderful display of color. It is brilliant, vivid, changeable with the interferences of light from the fluctuating ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... played with the tattered flags of the palms, leaving openings here and there that exposed the steely-white glare of the sky, and showed, far away to the northward, the denuded red ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... force, and again the squire's steely eyes shot upwards, regarding her piercingly. "You're quite right," he said briefly. "I won't stand it. I've stood too much already. Now, Vera, you behave yourself, and stop ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... at almost a snapping point, Henry moved on behind the fourth man. He was horribly afraid, he wanted to break from the line and run, it didn't matter where, any place to get away from that steady, steely light in front of him. He had seen three men step into it, glow for a second, and then disappear. A fourth man had placed ...
— Hellhounds of the Cosmos • Clifford Donald Simak
... enough to assimilate the foreign barbarians, instead of becoming assimilated by them. It was strong enough to wipe out every trace of Asian and Slavic taint. It was strong enough to keep intact the Latin idea against the steely shock of Asian hordes, the immense, crushing weight of Slave fatalism, the subtleties of ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... the bounding barb, Clad like his Chief in steely garb, For warding steel's appliance!— Methinks I hear the trumpet stir! 'Tis but the guard to Exeter, That bugles ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... The mighty duke yet never changed cheer, But grieved to see his friends lamenting stand; The leech prepared his cloths and cleansing gear, And with a belt his gown about him band, Now with his herbs the steely head to tear Out of the flesh he proved, now with his hand, Now with his hand, now with his instrument He shaked and plucked it, yet not forth ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... the down-trodden? Among those whose heritage of freedom you have torn from them? What do they call you—those whom you have forced into serfdom?" For a fleeting instant the girl caught the faintest flicker, a tiny twinkle of amusement, in the steely eyes. But, when the man answered, his ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... a savagery not difficult to subdue with an oak belaying pin in the fist of a bucko mate. But the hardness of this big, scar-faced man was of a different sort. You sensed, immediately you looked at him, that he possessed a steely armor of indifference that penetrated to his very heart. He was a real hard case, a proper nut, a fellow who simply did not care what happened. It was nothing he said or did, but his demeanor declared plainly he was utterly ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... over a torn sea, and the drift was swept so that the moon was obscured with every fresh gust. High overhead a clear, steely sky was flecked here and there with fleecy white, and, ever and again, the moon slipped her mantle of cloud from her rounded shoulder, and looked around her with large, calm glances. But there was an evil-looking sky away ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... forest, And you must have felt some doubt of your chance of winning out Of all perils when your need was at the sorest. Mortal sickness now and then, and the pranks of lesser men, Must have tried your iron health and steely temper. But, like SCIPIO of old, you 're as patient as you're bold, And you turn up tough and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, May 3, 1890. • Various
... had still new pageants, new sorceries wherewith to play upon the nerves of wonder. Across the hollow a great crag clothed in still leafless chestnut-trees reared itself against the lake. The innumerable lines of stem and branch, warm brown or steely gray, were drawn sharp on silver air, while at the very summit of the rock one superb tree with branching limbs, touched with intense black, sprang high above the rest, the proud plume or ensign of the wood. Through the trunks the blaze ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a second a queer steely light filled her blue eyes. David shrank from her glance, and followed the rest of the party down a flight of steps which led ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... to Scott's eyes; they shone with an almost steely gleam. "You needn't be afraid of that," he said quietly. "Now tell me, Dinah, for I want to know; how long have you known that you didn't want to ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... the Dartle's little waves that day! A steely silver, underlined with blue, And flashing where the round clouds, blown away, Let drop the yellow sunshine to gleam through And tip the edges of the waves with shifts And spots of whitest fire, hard like gems Cut from the midnight moon they were, and sharp As wind through leafless ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... "Look here, Steely, old man, I'm very sorry, but I'm afraid we won't be able to accommodate you any longer—to make you comfortable, I mean. You see, a sister of the missus is coming down on a visit for a month or two, and we ain't got anywhere to ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... two folks we care a pin about—either of us. You've got plenty to do with, and nothing to spend it on. I can't get myself out of their way by dying without going against what's Scripture and proper, but——" Her steely calm broke. She burst out in a screaming, hysterical voice: "You've just got to, Emma Hulett! You've just got to! If you don't I won't never go back to 'Niram's house! I'll lie in the ditch by the roadside till the poor-master comes to get me—and I'll tell ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... was ready for him. Dobigel's hand was a full three inches from Drake's thigh when a set of fingers grasped his wrist in a viselike hold. Steely fingers bit in, pressing nerves against bone. With a gasp, Dobigel opened his hand. A small, ...
— Heist Job on Thizar • Gordon Randall Garrett
... her hands, nervous at last, and her appealing eyes would have softened a gentler heart than that of the steely Carlos. ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... wave of crimson surged to her face in spite of herself. To hide her confusion she turned her head, and her eyes met those of Amalia, brilliant and steely, as they rested upon her. They looked at each other for an instant. The feline mouth of the Valencian was wreathed in a smile. Fernanda tried to respond by a similar one, but it was a failure. She turned again to the count, and talked of indifferent ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... weary night gave way to a gray and gloomy dawn. The tempest had not abated, and the sea thundered as furiously as ever. The wet and shivering women had gone back to their houses and their little ones; and as the cold, steely light of the coming day began to whiten in the east, Hagar made her way back to her kitchen, where she kindled a fire to warm her numb limbs. Never more, she thought,—rocking to and fro before the pleasant blaze,—could the old house be bright or cheerful. The sea ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... between his set teeth, and with a steely glitter in his eyes, "so this is the ingenious means by which you contrived to visit your paramour. We shall find a way to make both of you dearly repent your ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... any idea, Kirk, of the number of germs there are on the surface of the human body? It runs into billions. You"—she fixed him with her steely eye—"you are at the present moment ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... pillow—a shirt stuffed with spare clothing—was wet also, but the rain was no longer beating down on the canvas. The air inside the tent was pervaded by a foul, acrid stench. I threw the flap aside and looked out. The vast expanse of steely blue was dotted with glittering stars and on the eastern horizon it merged into a faint pallor. The air was deliciously fresh. We got up one by one, yawning, groaning and grumbling, and dressed and ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... of steely strength into liquid weakness had on Eustace Hignett the stunning effects which the absence of the last stair has on the returning reveller creeping up to bed in the dark. It was as though his spiritual foot had come down hard on empty space ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... contrast with the yellow rays from the candle against the wall. Elfride, timidly shrinking back, and nearest the entrance, received most of the light therefrom, whilst Stephen was entirely in candlelight, and to him the spot of outer sky visible above the steps was as a steely blue patch, ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... whisky before him, in a bay window at the end of the room, which looked out on the harbour. There was a maritime flavour about him which at once enlisted Mr. Chalk's sympathies and made him overlook the small, steely-grey eyes and large and somewhat ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... as death. Suddenly the door was thrown open, and they both looked up hastily. Selingman stood there, but Selingman transformed. All the colour seemed to have left his cheeks; his eyes were burning with a steely fire. He closed the door behind him and he shivered where he stood. Maraton ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... had had previous experience in similar situations remarked with melancholy that the steely eyed Amazon who commanded their destinies kept carefully out of reach of his foot. This was a pity since he was contemplating trying the effect of kicking her on the knee-cap, a proceeding which if performed adroitly ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... surrounded by dimples, and displaying teeth white, small, strong, but divided from each other. The expression of that smile would have been frank and candid to all who failed to notice that it was not in harmony with the brooding forehead and the steely eye; that it seemed to stand distinct from the rest of the face, like a feature that had learned its part. There was that physical power in the back of the head which belongs to men who make their way in life,—combative and destructive. All gladiators ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... God and Fatherland, For mother, and wife, and sire. Though thunders roar and lightnings flash, Oh! Southrons, never fear, Ye shall turn the bolt with the sabre's clash, And the shaft with the steely spear. ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... should never so trick him and twist him again. To that his mind was now fully made up. He would never let that cold eye hold him fixed as of yore by its steely glance. Once for all, Nevitt had proved his power too well. Guy would take good care he never subjected himself in future to that uncanny influence. One forgery was enough. ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... poor old prairie heart felt that way. I should have been happy, for I was going to a brand-new home—and it was one of those foot-hill late afternoons that make you think of the same old razor-blade muffled up in the same old panne-velvet, an evening of softness shot through with a steely sharpness. There was a Chinook arch of Irish point-lace still in the sky, very much like the one I had left behind me, and the sky itself was a canopy of robin-egg blue crepe de chine hemmed ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... accuracy of the flight. There were no flints in the neighborhood, or slaty rocks, which he could split into edged and pointed fragments. He tried hardening his points in the fire; but the results were not altogether satisfactory. He thought of tipping some of the shafts with thorns, or with the steely points of the old aloe leaves; but he could not, at the moment, devise such a method of fixing these formidable weapons in place as would not quite destroy their efficiency. Finally he made up his mind that the thing to use would ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... as was his wont,—of the bad road, and the snow-water oozing through his boots,—not knowing what he said. She did not care; he would not cheat himself: when he told her to-night what he meant to do, she heard it with a cold, passive disapproval,—with that steely look in her dark eyes that shut him out from her. "You are sincere, I see; but you are not true to yourself or to God": that was all she said. She would have said the same, if he had gone with her brother. It ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... steely mirror in the twilight a long line was visible, like a distressful note of exclamation or a pause in life. It was the topmast of the ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... habits of anatase crystals may be distinguished. The commoner occurs as simple acute double pyramids {111} (fig. 1) with an indigo-blue to black colour and steely lustre. Crystals of this kind are abundant at Le Bourg d'Oisans in Dauphine, where they are associated with rock-crystal, felspar and axinite in crevices in granite and mica-schist. Similar crystals, but of microscopic size, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... say that yo' love me as mich naa, mother, as when aw wor a little un?' asked the girl, her steely eyes moistening, and the firm line of her drawn ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... top of the spars of a vessel now over the high sand-hills; his body bent toward it; in his eyes shone a steely light. Their little boat drew closer to the near side of the island; the hillocks stood up higher; the tapering topmasts of the craft on the other side disappeared. The crabber's cockle-shell came to anchor in a ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... Justin, raising his head simply, with a steely gleam in his eyes that matched the other's, "when I try to cheat you or Lewiston or any man out of what has been put up on me, I'll give you leave to say what you please. At present I'll say ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... insects are the dark steely or iridescent greenish blue fossorial wasps or sand-wasps, Sphex and the allied genera. Many Longicorn beetles mimic these in colour, slender shape of body and limbs, rapid movements, and the readiness with which they take to flight. On Dec. 21, 1812, Burchell captured ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... All their attention and strength must go to the accomplishment of the mean act. The eye of the soul must be bent upon the finger-point, and the soul's force must fill all the invisible nerves that guide it, ten hours a day, that it may not err from its steely precision, and so soul and sight be worn away, and the whole human being be lost at last—a heap of sawdust, so far as its intellectual work in this world is concerned; saved only by its Heart, which ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... that there was no widow's cap on Mrs. Arles's hair, that it had refined away through various shades of lace till at last even the delicate cobweb on the back of the head was gone and the glossy locks lay bare, that the sables had become simply black gauze over a steely shine of silk, that the little Andalusian foot lay relieved on a white embroidered cushion, that its owner was glancing up and smiling at a gentleman who bent above her, and that that gentleman was Mr. St. George. When ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... American, who comprehends what America has to do, and means to help on with it, ought to choose to be born in New England, for the vitalized brain, finely-chorded nerves, steely self-control,—then to go West, for more live, muscular passion, succulent manhood, naked-handed grip of his work. But when he wants to die, by all means let him hunt out a town in the valley of Pennsylvania ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... with a boy's curiosity, but he did not take his eyes from me until I had dropped my own. After that I watched him keenly. He seemed almost too fair for a Mexican—a tall, spare-built man with black hair, and eyes so steely blue that they were almost black. Everywhere I saw him—at the corners of the little crowd and in the thick of it. He was an easy mark, for he towered above the rest, and, being slender, he seemed to worm his way quickly from place to place. At sight of him, Aunty Boone, who had been peering ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... so well) How still the legendary lay O'er poet's bosom holds its sway; How on the ancient minstrel strain Time lays his palsied hand in vain; And how our hearts at doughty deeds, By warriors wrought in steely weeds, Still throb for fear and pity's sake; As when the Champion of the Lake Enters Morgana's fated house, Or in the Chapel Perilous, Despising spells and demons' force, Holds converse with the unburied corse; ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... place to me, I argued that I had no right to object to their making in return a show of me. But such scrutiny is not comfortable, especially if one is seated in a narrow compartment, and the open-mouthed vis a vis gazes at one with steely bluish green unwinking eyes—somewhat red rimmed. Especially if such scrutiny is accompanied by free comments upon one's person, delivered in a voice so pitched as to convey the information to all the other occupants, and mayhap the engine ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... According to Nell and Mercedes, this plant was a happy exception to its desert neighbors, for it secreted water which had many times saved the lives of men. Last of the cacti to attract Gale, and the one to make him shiver, was a low plant, consisting of stem and many rounded protuberances of a frosty, steely white, and covered with long murderous spikes. From this plant the desert got its frosty glitter. It was as stiff, as unyielding as steel, and bore ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... the general by the chief of the department staff, who went on to say that he supposed it was a case of "Inter arma silent leges," the general's beard, which hid his mouth, was observed to twitch, and the wrinkles at the corner of his steely-blue eyes followed suit. It was a way of his when trying not to smile. Then Bright was heard to say that where the laws were silent, wise lawyers should he likewise, an epigram which long-legged Lieutenant Blake, of Camp McDowell, was delightedly ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... covered the lower slopes or the breast-plates had begun to tighten, a thunderstorm came up behind, rolling across the low hills and drowning any noise less than that of cannon. The first flash of the lightning showed the bare ribs of the ascent, thc hill-crest standing steely-blue against the black sky, the little falling lines of the rain, and, a few yards to their left flank, an Afghan watch-tower, two-storied, built of stone, and entered by a ladder from the upper story. The ladder was up, and a man with a rifle was leaning from the window. The darkness ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... taken off, and they were permitted once more to go on deck. Grey was the prevailing colour. The great seas, which seemed unable to recover from the wild turmoil into which they had been lashed, were of a cold greenish grey, flecked and tipped with white. The sky was steely grey with clouds that verged on black; and both were so mingled together that it seemed as if the little vessel were imbedded in the very heart of a drizzling, heaving, ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... while we still lingered off the coast of Sumatra for water and fresh vegetables. The land was low and black against the steely green of the sky, and a young moon like a silver thread shone in the west. Blodgett, the new man in our watch, was the centre of a little group on ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... and Mrs. Wetmore at dinner," said Beaton, attempting the recovery of something that he had lost through the girl's shining ease and steely sprightliness. She seemed to him so smooth and hard, with a repellent elasticity from which he was flung off. "I hope you're not working too ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... in the west. She could see out over the foothills, where twilight was settling gray on the crests, dark in the hollows. Cedar and pinyon trees lined the trail, and there were no more firs. At intervals huge drab-colored rocks loomed over her. The sky was clear and steely. A faint star twinkled. And lastly, close to her, she saw Stewart's face, once more dark and impassive, with the inscrutable eyes fixed on ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... it was immense! Immense!" he cried aloud, flinging his arms open. The sudden movement startled me as though I had seen him bare the secrets of his breast to the sunshine, to the brooding forests, to the steely sea. Below us the town reposed in easy curves upon the banks of a stream whose current seemed to sleep. "Immense!" he repeated for a third time, speaking in a ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... at me with his green-tinted eyes, as if he would read my innermost thoughts. Evidently his impression of me was not favourable, for a cynical smile curled his lips, and his eyes gleamed with a steely glitter. "One has to choose times, occasions, and proper circumstances, in order to tell such facts," he said. "I never speak ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... thousand pities your husband can't see 'ee now—you do look a real beauty!" said Izz Huett, regarding Tess as she stood on the threshold between the steely starlight without and the yellow candlelight within. Izz spoke with a magnanimous abandonment of herself to the situation; she could not be—no woman with a heart bigger than a hazel-nut could be—antagonistic ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... sparkled as if it had wished to set fire to all the old stubble of the heath. Above the hunter's head the black-cock feathers spread out like a plume, and their iridescence shifted from deep purple to steely blue. On the unshaded part of his face the burning sunshine glowed. But he did not open his eyes to look at the glory of ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... couple on the cliff became more and more indistinct, and the old grey tower seemed to melt away in the steely sky, and as it did so my feelings softened, for I felt I was bidding good-bye to it for ever. My love for Ruth began to exert its power, and although I felt bitter, the thought of going back to wreck her happiness ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... him from this boyish entanglement. Oh, my dear, I feel so relieved to know that my boy can have a wife from his own class—and still have it right up there—with Him, you know!" she concluded with an upward glance, as Nancy watched her with eyes grown strangely quiet, almost steely—watched her as one might watch an ant. She had the look of one whose will had been made suddenly to stand aside ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... mother's cry, appeared on the stairway. For a moment her eyes refused to grasp the scene before them; Conward cowering, terror-stricken; Dave fierce, steely, implacable, with his revolver lined on Conward's brain. Through some strange whim of her mind her thought in that instant flew back to the bottles on the posts of the Elden ranch, and Dave breaking five out of six on the gallop. Then, suddenly, she ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... happened to crane his neck nearer at the wrong moment. The American sent him flying with a vigorous elbow thrust. He shoved Bower aside with scant ceremony. Millicent Jaques met a steely glance that quelled the vengeful sparkle in her own eyes, and caused her to move quickly, lest, perchance, this pale-faced American should trample on her. Before Bower could recover his balance, for his hobnails caused him ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... sign of impatience. It is not true, and Brisbille annoys me with the hatred which he hurls at random, hit or miss; and all the more because he is himself visibly impressed by the approach of this man who is richer than the rest. The rebel opens his steely eye and relapses into silence, like the rest of us, as the big person ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... brace, his face was clear, even white, his eyes steely, and he never moved a muscle. When Jo thought it was funny, that he was loose in the pasture, and kicked up a little behind, father gave him a sharp cut with the whip and said: ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... frown blackened the outlaw's brow, his eyes became hard and steely, and raising his hand above ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... the hills rose about them, on either side and ahead. The gloomy woods on the vast slopes threw a marked shadow over the prospect. Ahead lay a wide vista of tremendous mountains, with their crowning, snow-bound peaks lost in a world of gray, fleecy cloud. In the heart of one distant rift lay the steely bed of a glacier, hoary with age and immovable as the very bedrocks of the mountains themselves. It sloped away into the distance, and lost itself in the heart of a mighty canyon. Even to these men on their trail of death, living, as they did, so adjacent to these mysterious wilds, the scene ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... they were both older and both in their prime. And the two did not speak to each other, but were silent with their thoughts. And when I looked up the sky was grey, and the two walked up the white castle-stairway, and she was full of indifference, yes full of hate in her steely eyes, and when I looked for the third time I saw also anger and hate in his glance, and his hair was grey like ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... The door was open and he could see inside. Sawdust covered the floor, and the tables and chairs were old and rickety. The men inside were the same as those he had seen on the street, tough-looking, hard, steely-eyed. Tom looked at the faded sign over the door. "That ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... softly through the solemn hush as, through gradations of fading glories along the lofty snows, night closed in. He would watch the black bear grubbing hog-fashion among the tall wild cabbage, while the little butter duck, paddling before its brood, set divergent lines creeping across the steely lake until the shadows of the ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... season of the year I pass through the valley, it is always filled from end to end with beauty, ever changing, perishing, ever renewing itself. In spring the copse is full of tender points of green, uncrumpling and uncurling. The hyacinths make a carpet of steely blue, the anemones weave their starred tapestry. In the summer, the grove hides its secret, dense with leaf, the heavy-seeded grass rises in the field, the tall flowering plants make airy mounds of colour; in autumn, the ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... place the reader at the early morning on the quay below the Rialto, when the market boats, full laden, float into groups of golden color, and let him watch the dashing of the water about their glittering steely heads, and under the shadows of the vine leaves, and show him the purple of the grapes and the figs, and the glowing of the scarlet gourds carried away in long streams upon the waves, and among them, the crimson fish baskets, plashing and sparkling, and flaming as the morning sun falls on ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... forceful, because he had loved and been loved, because they had been classmates but not equals. In the bitterness of his heart he had lain awake on countless nights praying—but not to his God—that the time would come when he could stand ascendant over this steely master. Only his unswerving loyalty to a duty once assumed kept him from crushing Bansemer with exposure years before. But Droom was not a traitor. He remained standing, lifting his eyes after a brief, shifting study of his ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... with a dark brownish or deep chestnut streak down the back; sides deeper fulvous; the haunches a steely grey, mixed with yellowish hairs; tail grey and very bushy, largely tipped with white; ears deep black on outside; cheeks and jowl greyish-white; moustaches black; legs chestnut in ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... THE SOMME FRONT, May 3l.—Somewhere in the tangle of smashed walls there was a steely jingle. At first the sound was hard to identify, so odd are acoustics in this which was once a little town. There were stub ends of walls here and there—bare, raw snags of walls sticking up—and now and then a rooftree tilted pathetically against a ruin, or a pile of dusty masonry that had been ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... Creole cuss! Take that for a treetur an' a cowart! Strip the skunk! He's got sumthin' steely under his shirt; I heerd the ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... acknowledge it—but she saw only cowardice written upon every line of the shrinking features! The patient blue eyes avoided her pitying glance. The sensitive mouth twitched as the boy listened to her oft-repeated laments. Janie had never seen those eyes grow steely and keen; she had never seen the lips draw into firm lines, or the slim form stiffen as the boy listened to the doings of the king's soldiers. When the neighbors came with thrilling tales of daring done by some loved one, Janie made some excuse for sending ...
— Then Marched the Brave • Harriet T. Comstock
... falling with the rhythm of his loping mount and yet firm in his seat, dominated that picture. His face was tanned to the color of the buckskin shirt he wore, and a vast experience, born of hardship and danger on desert and mountain, was in his eyes—eyes that were sometimes gray and sometimes steely blue. Just now they were as ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... Luther Barr's sharp features were not improved by a small growth of gray hair; of the kind known as a "goatee" that sprouted from his lower rip. For the rest of the boys noticed that Mr. Barr was gifted with a singularly gimlet-like pair of steely blue eyes that seemed to bore ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... steely glitter shone in the young captain's eyes. Firm, strong lines appeared about his mouth. All that part of the face showed white and pallid. Just a second or two later Hal Hastings also turned. Like a flash his lower jaw dropped, as though the ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... grain roll in successive undulations to the mighty Ganges, the sacred stream of the Hindoos. Innumerable villages, nestling amid groves of plantains and feathery rustling bamboos, send up their wreaths of pale grey smoke into the still warm air. At frequent intervals the steely blue of some lovely lake, where thousands of water-fowl disport themselves, reflects from its polished surface the sheen of the noonday sun. Great masses of mango wood shew a sombre outline at intervals, and here and there the towering chimney of an indigo factory pierces ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... A thousand steely points on every scale Form the bright terrors of his bristly male.— 165 So arm'd, immortal Moore uncharm'd the spell, And slew the wily dragon of the well.— Sudden with rage their injur'd bosoms burn, Retort the insult, or the wound return; Unwrong'd, as gentle as the breeze that ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... to say. Nora realized it too late. If she had only been able to hold her tongue, he might have relented, she thought. But at her words, his face hardened once more and the same steely glitter came into his eyes. "Now come ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... deeper into the breasts of the two lads than they knew. Their natures were in those early days rather like tinder, and in his angry flint and steely way, the old man had struck a spark into each, which lay there latent, waiting to be blown into a hot glow; and who should perform that office but ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... at Steadbolt with his riding whip, but the lash had caught round the pole-bar of the buggy, and he could not extricate it. Bridget tried to help him. He turned to her for an instant, a soft gleam of tenderness shining through the steely anger ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... boy than ever he had done in his life before. His lively little companion, clinging to his arm and chattering like a magpie, effectually drove away all grave thoughts. The sun shone brightly in the steely-blue sky; the frost had made the streets absolutely clean and dry. Walking, even in the most trodden places, was easy and pleasant, and everybody seemed ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the curious, there is a species of diluted Indian-hater, one whose heart proves not so steely as his brain. Soft enticements of domestic life too, often draw him from the ascetic trail; a monk who apostatizes to the world at times. Like a mariner, too, though much abroad, he may have a wife and ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... of those glances that intoxicate like wine. They were quite near the bridge now, all rosy under the setting sun. The river looked motionless and steely throughout its sinuous length. Reeds swayed and shivered on the banks, and some stakes, fixed in the clay of the river-bed to fasten nets, shook with the motion ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... hand went up to her fine head of auburn hair and a deep red rose from her cheeks to its roots. Her narrow lips became a mere slit in her face and her steely eyes flashed. ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... indeed, a magnificent specimen of man, No, rather, he is a man whose like I have never yet seen among the living. He is in the Belvedere, graven in marble, with the same slender, yet steely musculature, with the same face and the same waving curls. What makes him particularly beautiful is that he is beardless. If his hips were less narrow, one might take him for a woman in disguise. The curious expression about the mouth, the lion's lip which ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... turned toward the office he was conscious for the first time of a thick-set man with kindly eyes, now steely-hard, who followed his every motion. It was ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... a few minutes. Had there been a volcanic eruption? Were bits of it lying upon me and pinning me down? Would there be another upheaval in a moment; more steely-blue stars and another flight, and then—the end? If so, I wished it would come quickly and not leave me in suspense, and, oh! if only the horrible whirring noise at my ear would only stop for a minute. My head ached as though ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... an eavesdropping position, the situation was this: Bill Appleby, having carefully closed and locked the cash drawer, was braced with both arms extended against the counter, eyeing Macnooder with a look of steely negation that expressed a settled conviction to doubt instantly any statement whenever or however made. Macnooder's round capuchin body was drawn up in confidence and ease and the smile on his face was bland ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... down the snow; Leave all the road behind; Heed not the winds that steely blow, Heed not ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... still make play and wait for a better opening. It had seemed simple enough at a distance. Oh, my Irish wits, could they not help me now, when I needed help so sorely? He transfixed me with two sharp, steely eyes. "Come, come!" ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... for another two weeks, on into the best time of the year. For now came the nights of the first snapping frosts when the dome of the heavens was steely blue, and clear sparkling mornings, the woods aflame with scarlet and gold. And across the small field below the house, at sunset Roger would go down to the copse of birches there and find it filled with glints of light that took his glance far in among the slender, creamy stems of the trees, ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... the west! Against yon steely sky Lone Mountain rears its holy cross on high. About its base the meek-faced dead are laid To share the benediction of its shade. With crossed white hands, shut eyes and formal feet, Their nights are innocent, their days discreet. ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... the table, into each other's eyes,—hers radiant with a dangerous steely glitter, his eloquent with the intense admiration which kindled on the previous evening, now glowed more fervently from the contemplation of a beauty that to-day appeared tea-fold more irresistible. The ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... even leaner than when I had last seen him. I had no doubt that his ghastly wound had occasioned a tremendous loss of blood. His gaunt face was positively emaciated, but the steely gray eyes had lost nothing of their brightness. There was a good deal about Mr. Earl Dexter, the cracksman, that any ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... breath between his lips as if he were on the point of exhaustion. There were still a few tricks in his science, and these, he knew, were about his last cards. He backed into a corner, and Jean followed, his eyes flashing a steely light, his body growing more ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... were at last thrown open, and I was led into his presence, my confidence underwent a shock. His cold glance, that, roving over me, regarded me not as a man but an item, the steely glitter of his southern eyes, chilled me to the bone. The room was bare, the floor without carpet or covering. Some of the woodwork lay about, unfinished and in pieces. But the man—this man, needed no surroundings. His keen pale ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... him, her hands on her knees. Her gray eyes, warmed almost to blue by joy and tenderness, were steely as she faced him. ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... open-mouthed. The cruelty had gone from his face, the sharp, steely look from his eyes. He was grasping the desk with both hands, leaning forward, staring as one who ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... spoke, there was a sort of steely shriek in the street outside, and a small motor, driven at devilish speed, shot up to the door of the shop and stuck there. In the same flash of time a small man in a shiny top hat stood ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... metallic, and everything is made of the same horrible white metal. Nothing seems familiar; not only are the wonted forms and outlines vanished, and all their varied textures and materials and beautiful diversity of color gone also, but there is a steely immobility restraining everything which is so complete that it seems as if it were a shell ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... beauty either of warmth or serenity—at least it seemed so here in Turner Road. Above the torn and dingy strip of lace that shrouded the lower part of the window towered the black fronts of the high houses against the steely western sky. It was extraordinarily quiet. Now and then a footstep echoed and died suddenly as some passer-by crossed the end of the street; but there was no murmur of voices yet, or groups at the doors, as, no doubt, there would be when the news ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... is served, my guests," answered Masouda in tones that rang like the clash of metal, so steely were they. Whereon Wulf shook his head and followed her into the eating-room, which was now empty again as it had been on ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... into a gray, set smirk, and his eyes took on a steely glint. He knew when the naked, unadorned truth was spoken to him. Words came slowly to his lips, but he said: "You'll be glad to come to me for help some day—both ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland |
