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More "Coal-black" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... glad 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. ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... out of college a thing of beauty in face and figure. Her tall straight well-trained body, her coal-black hair, her soft brown eyes, the air she had of being prepared for life's challenge caught and held the attention of men. There was in the girl something of her father's bigness and not a little of the secret blind desires of her mother. To an attentive household on the night of her arrival she announced ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... There is a coal-black Angel With a thick Afric lip, And he dwells (like the hunted and harried) In a swamp where the green frogs dip. But his face is against a City Which is over a bay of the sea, And he breathes with a breath that is blastment, And dooms by a ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... the morning when they were rising for their candlelight breakfast, the hotel man glancing from the window exclaimed, "Here he is now!" and Josh peered forth to see in the light of sunrise something he had often heard of, but never before seen, a coal-black Fox, a giant among his kind. How slick and elegant his glossy fur, how slim his legs, and what a monstrous bushy tail; and the other Foxes moved aside as the patrician rushed in impatient haste to seize the food thrown ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... 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 ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the brushwood with a native, and not able to see two yards in any direction, when emerging from the thick scrub, we came upon the torrent of 1859 within six feet of us, a huge, straggling, coal-black river, broken up into streams in our vicinity, but on the whole, presenting an iridescent uphill expanse a mile wide. We had reached one of the divergent streams to which it had been said after its downward course of 9000 feet, "Hitherto shalt ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... 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; ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... towards the house. Brett, too, gazed in silence. They saw a small, pale-faced, exceedingly handsome Italian—a young man, with coal-black eyes and a mass of shining black hair—scowling at them from within ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... drawn to a large black spot right between her shoulders. What could it be? Were my eyes deceiving me? But no, there it was, staring me in the face! Then my mind reverted to the faint down on her lip, the heavy eyebrows almost meeting over her coal-black eyes, her glossy black hair —I should have ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... 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 your hair ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... waiting for Chad when he came out on the porch, and she shook her curls and flashed her eyes in a way that almost alarmed him. Old Mammy dropped him a curtsey, for she had had her orders, and, behind her, Snowball, now a tall, fine-looking coal-black youth, grinned a welcome. The three girls were walking under the trees, with their arms mysteriously twined about one anther's waists, and the poetess walked down toward them with the three lads, Richard ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... first meeting after two years. I found him in the hospital—dying. Heaven can witness that I felt all my old love for him return then, but he was delirious, and never recognized me. And, Nathalie, his hair,—it had been coal-black, and he wore it very long,—he wouldn't let them cut it either; and as they knew no skill could save him, they let him have his way,—his hair was then as white as snow! God alone knows what that brain must have suffered to blanch hair which had been as black as the wing ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... 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
... and shook hands with great heartiness. The German was forty and a little fleshy, with a shiny bald head and a kindly face and deferential manner. Capt. Saltmarsh was sixty, tall, erect, powerfully built, with coal-black hair and whiskers, and he had a well tanned complexion, and a gait and countenance that were full of command, confidence and decision. His horny hands and wrists were covered with tattoo-marks, and when his lips parted, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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 river Sang ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... 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 some erratic movement. My horse's paces were, a tremendous trot, breaking sometimes ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... 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. ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... Eleanor. "No 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 ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... with his telescope valise, which contained his twelve Correspondence School lessons, "The Pale Avengers," a pair of handcuffs, his revolver, and three extra disguises, walked toward the Harburger House. He was already thoroughly disguised, wearing a coal-black beard and a red mustache and an iron-gray wig with long hair. Luckily he passed no one. With that disguise he would have drawn an immense crowd. Nothing like it had ever been seen on the streets of Derlingport—or elsewhere, ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... difficulty in buckling his belt after the good fare he had enjoyed, he set forth from the southern gate of the capital towards the unknown regions which lay beyond. The sweet Princess looked out of a turret window, and waved her coal-black hand, while tears coursed each other down her sable cheeks as she saw the Knight going away and leaving her all forlorn; for in her bright eyes not one of the neighbouring princes, nor any of her father's courtiers, could in any way be compared ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... her varied list with which we would find fault, but the crow,—well, having nothing to say in its favor, let us drop the subject. Parrots, paroquets, tiny indigo birds, pedorevas, and robins,—yes, these are all in harmony with mingled fragrance and sunshine, but the coal-black crow, with his bad habits and hoarse bird-profanity, bah! When these West Indian islands were first settled by Spanish emigrants, they were the home of myriads of birds of every tropical variety, but to-day the feathered beauties and merry songsters have been entirely ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... house fell under such a load of infamy that no one dared to sleep in it, until municipal improvement leveled the structure with the ground. And my father has often been told in the nursery how the devil's coach, drawn by six coal-black horses with fiery eyes, would drive at night into the West Bow, and belated people might see the dead Major ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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
... love 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
... grand. It is a sort of heroic poem; he looks like Sir Galahad, or Chivalry itself, going forth to conquer wrong and violence. His eager, worn face looks out from the helmet so calmly and so steadily, the flash of his armor, which gleams like real metal, the coal-black horse, which comes forward out of the landscape shaking his head-piece of blood-red plumes against the golden sunset sky and champing the golden bit, the grasp of the lance by the noble rider: well, painting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... said his guide, looking ominously back upon him; but Dick scorned to show the white feather, and on they went. They entered a very long range of stables; in every stall stood a coal-black horse; by every horse lay a knight in coal-black armour, with a drawn sword in his hand; but all were as silent, hoof and limb, as if they had been cut out of marble. A great number of torches lent a gloomy lustre to the hall, which, like those of ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... like any of them; and on top of it all he had some of the white man's dog in him, for on one side, in the thick of the mixed yellow-brown-red-and-dirty-white that was his prevailing colour, there was a spot of coal-black as big as a water-bucket. That was why we ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... twa sons on coal-black steeds, Himsel' upon a freckled gray, And they are on wi' Jamie Telfer, To Branksome Ha' to tak ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... Meanwhile Madame's 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 had ever ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... 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
... and swinging arms; a brisk and short-stepped postman; an apoplectic-looking, second-hand-clothes-man; an emaciated widow; a typical charwoman; two mechanics; the usual brutal-faced labourer; one of the idle rich in shiny hat, high collar, cutaway coat, prancing past on a coal-black horse; and ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... 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 ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... life, Premier of England, Lord Privy Seal, Earl Beaconsfield of Beaconsfield, Viscount Hughenden of Hughenden, sitting in his knightly stall, listening impassibly to the country parson's sermon. His head droops on his breast, but his coal-black inscrutable ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... one day when he was walking through a 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 ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... Achille; 'what a very pretty girl that is alongside you, Caper. Look at her; how nicely that costume fits her, the red boddice especially. Where, except in Italy, do you ever see such fine black eyes, and such a splendid head of coal-black hair? This way of having Italian nurses dressed in the Albano costume is very fine. That little boy ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... this project, and was about to indulge in one of his characteristic outbreaks, when there came an interruption which ended in a drama that put silver streaks among my coal-black locks! Some one came in where we were and called off the workmen, who went out with the others in great haste. Of course we followed at their heels. On reaching the principal cavern, we found a singular scene. Two natives, whom we had never ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... us. His head was down and his shoulders rounded, as he 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 ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... which he dipped an ordinary painting brush. This charged brush he rubbed backwards and forwards over the first lines of the writing and waited. Within a minute, before my astonished eyes, that faint, indistinguishable script turned coal-black, as black as though it had been written with the ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... Alida de Barberie was scarcely necessary to betray her mixed descent. From her Norman father, a Huguenot of the petite noblesse, she had inherited her raven hair, the large, brilliant coal-black eyes, in which wildness was singularly relieved by sweetness, a classical and faultless profile, and a form which was both taller and more flexible than commonly fell to the lot of the damsels of Holland. From her mother, la belle Barberie, as the maiden was often playfully termed, ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... who saw thee stand, As thou standest now, on thy Native Strand, With the wild wind ruffling thine uncomb'd hair, And thy nostril upturn'd to the od'rous air, Would not woo thee to pause till his skill might trace At leisure the lines of that eager face; The collarless neck and the coal-black paws And the bit grasp'd tight in the massive jaws; The delicate curve of the legs, that seem Too slight for their burden—and, O, the gleam Of that eye, so sombre and yet so gay! Still away, my lithe Arab, ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... later we were joined by a short, stout man whose olive face and coal-black hair proclaimed his Southern origin, though his speech was that of an educated Englishman. He shook hands eagerly with Sherlock Holmes, and his dark eyes sparkled with pleasure when he understood that the specialist was anxious ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... about 800 Hydah Indians, a very remarkable race of people. The most common type of the adult unmixed Hydah is about five feet, seven inches in height, thick-set, large-boned, with fairly regular broad features, coal-black hair and eyes, and a bronze complexion. They have generally—both men and women—finely developed breasts and fore-arms, caused by their almost daily use of the canoe paddle from infancy. A few have well-formed legs, though the greater number are defective in this respect, resulting from ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden
... others, upon following 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 ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... Death was a rare old fellow! He sate where no sun could shine; And he lifted his hand so yellow, And poured out his coal-black wine. ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... 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
... sighed deeply, and 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 more, ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... lives in the pension, too. I am told that he is typical of a certain kind of Pole. He is a turfman, with carefully brushed side-whiskers dyed coal-black, and hawk-like eyes. He wears check suits, and cravats with a little diamond horse-pin. His legs are bowed like a jockey's. He was the overseer of a big Polish estate and has made a fortune by cards and horses. His stable is famous. He has raced from Petrograd ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... for the fortress of Fiach O'Duda. Over the first high wall nimbly leaped the magic horse, and Sculloge called aloud on the Druid to come out and surrender his sword. Then came out a tall, dark man, with coal-black eyes and hair and melancholy visage, and made a furious sweep at Sculloge with the flaming blade. But the Druidic beast sprang back over the wall in the twinkling of an eye and rescued his rider, leaving, ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... was prettily imperturbable, that was all. There was an awkward silence. Then it was broken by a bounding step on the stairs, a wide-open fling of the door, and Enriquez pirouetted into the room: Enriquez, as of old, unchanged from the crown of his smooth, coal-black hair to the tips of his small, narrow Arabian feet; Enriquez, with his thin, curling mustache, his dancing eyes set in his immovable face, just as I had ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... may now send him, for their service, to Constantinople at half a day's warning; that Time has not yet been able to make a visible change in any part of him but the colour of his hair, from a fierce coal-black to that of a milder milk-white: When I have taken this liberty with him, methinks it cannot be taking a much greater if I at once should tell you that this person ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... in the spacious grounds of her suburban residence, a large number of East-Side children. On her rounds of hospitality she was impressed with one strikingly beautiful little girl. She could not have been more than nine years old, but her coal-black eyes flashed with intelligence. The hostess introduced herself and began ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... various kinds of red, such as rose-colour and jujubel-colour[FN202] and various kinds of green, such as grass-green and pistachio-green and olive and parrot's wing, and various kinds of black, such as coal-black and Kohl-black, and various shades of yellow, such as orange and lemon-colour," and went on to name to him the rest of the colours. Then said he, "O King of the age, all the dyers in thy city can not turn out of hand any one of these tincts, for they know not how ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... a knight in armour, and mounted on a coal-black charger, arrived at the principal hostelry in Ecija, and on his shield he bore for his coat of arms a white cat rampant, and, ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... hunter?—"It 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 ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... coal-black gusty night he fancied he heard yells from one or other of the remaining ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... Heyka [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, Which were pierced with the points of their shining spears. To honor Heyka, Wakwa lifts His fuming pipe from the Red-stone Quarry. [23] The warriors ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... the altar. But hark! ere the fateful vows are spoken there is a clatter of galloping hoofs, a manly form rushes in, hurls the groom insensible to the ground, snatches away the bride and before any can interfere, is off on a coal-black steed, his bride before him. Let him follow ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... Mussulman about thirty years old, with a thick, coal-black beard and passionate, irritable features, whose true character was very fairly reflected in his pair of flashing black eyes. His turban was drawn deep down over his temples, obliterating his eyebrows completely, which made him look more ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... spreads. They stare dully, but make no sound. As I crank the car there is a shrill screaming noise. . . . About thirty yards away I hear an explosion like a mine-blast, followed by a sudden belch of coal-black smoke. I stare at it in a dazed way. Then the doctor says: "Don't trouble to analyze your sensations. Better get off. You're only drawing ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... 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 ready to start, and ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... 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 rifles ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... fellow, who asked her to come to his wife who was too ill to mind her baby. Dame Goody didn't like the look of the old fellow, but business is business; so she popped on her things, and went down to him. And when she got down to him, he whisked her up on to a large coal-black horse with fiery eyes, that stood at the door; and soon they were going at a rare pace, Dame Goody holding on to the ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... the grass. For a little time Sylvia sat idly watching the great battle ships at firing-practice in the Bay. It was an afternoon of August; a light haze hung in the still air softening the distant promontories; and on the waveless sparkling sea the great ships, coal-black to the eye, circled about the targets, with now and then a roar of thunder and a puff of smoke, like some monstrous engines of heat—heat stifling and oppressive. By sheer contrast, Sylvia began to dream ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... the shade of Helen of Troy. You will wish for a description of Helen—at least of her dress. She appeared in a splendid robe of black-purple ... her hair, of a glorious golden hue, hung down to her knees—she had coal-black eyes, a lovely face, and a round head, her lips red as cherries, with a little mouth and a neck like a white swan, cheeks red as a rosebud, and ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... 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 ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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
... out, and as the crowd followed to see whither she went, she was seen to spring on a coal-black horse which stood unhitched before the door, and on it she rode at wild speed away toward the north-west, while a saddled but unridden mustang followed ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline
... dreams, Aasmund Olavsen Vinje's Long figure and spare, a contemplative genius; Thin and intense, with the color of gypsum, And a coal-black, preposterous beard, Henrik Ibsen. I, the youngest of the lot, had to wait for company Till a new litter came in, ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... with the clear moonbeams, I looked upon the face, and my heart gave a great leap of thankfulness. The face was perfectly fresh and recognisable. It was not the face of the old lady which I had feared to see, but that of a man with a coal-black beard, which ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... garrison town after severe duty in the field;—the graceful form of Gertrudis now flitted across the picture—her jetty hair braided over her pure white forehead, the light of her swimming "eye, that mocked her coal-black veil," flashing from under the mantilla. Her father, with his portly figure and good-humoured countenance, was beside her. They smiled at Ignacio, and seemed to beckon to him. So life-like was the illusion of his fancy, he could almost have sprung forward to join them. But again ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... description that I have given of this, the foremost hound. There was another of this gang who put himself very forward, and who was very insolent to some of my friends. Such a looking creature I had scarcely ever seen in human form; he had coal-black, straight hair, hanging down a sallow-looking face, that had met with very rough usage from the ravages of the small-pox. In fact, his face resembled a piece of cold, dirty, honey combed tripe, and had very little more expression in it; and the whole was completed by two heavy, dark ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... borders of black look like ostentation, and are in undoubted bad taste. No doubt all these things are proper enough in their way, but a narrow border of black tells the story of loss as well as an inch of coal-black gloom. The fashion of wearing handkerchiefs which are made with a two-inch square of white cambric and a four-inch border of black may well be deprecated. A gay young widow at Washington was once seen dancing at a reception, a few months after the death of her soldier husband, with ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... peep, but as they found no gap, they climbed up the board fence and hung dangling and looking over. Yonder, on the other side, was hell, and before its gate a crowd of little devils were just running about. They were coal-black, and had horns on their heads and long tails behind. One of them chanced to look up and noticed the angels, and immediately begged imploringly that they would let them into Heaven for a little while; they would behave quite nice and properly. This moved the angels to pity, and because they ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... behind the redoubt of Cheverino, which stood two cannon-shots from our encampment. The moon was large and red, as is common at her rising; but that night she seemed to me of extraordinary size. For an instant the redoubt stood out coal-black against the glittering disk. It resembled the cone of a volcano at ...
— How The Redoubt Was Taken - 1896 • Prosper Merimee
... those that have made themselves visible differ as much in personal appearance as in the character of their cries. The "friendly Banshee" is a young and beautiful female spirit, with pale face, regular, well-formed features, hair sometimes coal-black, sometimes golden; eyes blue, brown, or black. Her long, white drapery falls below her feet as she floats in the air, chanting her weird warning, lifting her hands as if in pitying tenderness bestowing ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... stern-looking man, dressed all in black, still young, with a cold and impassive face, the extreme pallor of which was heightened by his close-cut, coal-black hair, and his ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... punctuated by dots of yellow light that came from hanging brass lamps, whose smoke in the course of centuries had covered everything with soot that it was nobody's business to remove. So it looked like a coal-black pantheon, and in the darkness you could hardly see the forms of long-robed men who were mumbling ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... 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 fighter, but is apt to be ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... sprinkling of russet-brown Indian camels; and, lest the female element be neglected, a company of flighty "nitties," very full of their own importance. The native drivers were of as many shades as the camels they led, from the pale brown of the town-bred Egyptian to the coal-black Nubian or Donglawi. Twenty-five thousand camels carrying water! The first relays were filing stolidly into the nullah in the early hours of the morning after the battle, as though their business were the most ordinary ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... Learned Divine, what occasion in the World had I to say, Methinks he would look more Venerable if he were not so fair a man? I remember the Company smiled. I have seen the Gentleman since, and he is Coal-Black. I have Intimations every Day in my Life that no Body believes me, yet I am never the better. I was saying something the other Day to an old Friend at Will's Coffee-house, and he made me no manner of Answer; but told me, that an Acquaintance of Tully the Orator having two or three times together ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... To the sleep of my 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 ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... 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 came ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 was ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... it possibly be? The marionette opened an eye, but quickly shut it again when he saw a number of coal-black faces turned ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini
... perfume which came from its flowers gladdened the broad heaven above, and the earth and sea around it. Eagerly Persephone stretched out her hand to take this splendid prize, when the earth opened, and a chariot stood before her, drawn by four coal-black horses; and in the chariot there was a man with a dark and solemn face, which looked as though he could never smile, and as though he had never been happy. In a moment he got out of his chariot, seized ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... difficulty in deciding upon his steed, which was a coal-black mustang, lithe and willowy, and apparently of a good disposition, although that was necessarily a matter of conjecture, for the present. There were no saddles upon any of the horses, and nothing but the rudest kind of bridle, consisting of a thong of twisted bull's hide, and reaching away to some ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... lace; another was dressed in pale yellow silk; one or two had splendid turbans; and all wore a profusion of ornaments. The men were in snow white pantaloons, with gay coloured linen jackets. One of these, a youth of coal-black comeliness, was preaching with the most violent gesticulations, frequently springing high from the ground, and clapping his hands over his head. Could our missionary societies have heard the trash he uttered, by way of an address to the Deity, they might perhaps have doubted whether ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... where rapid currents running over shallows stir continually the sediments or where the fresh water of a great river is carried far from the land, that the presence of silt is to be observed. The beautiful phenomenon of the coal-black sea is familiar to every yachtsman who has sailed to ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... keys swung from 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 ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... to see her, esteeming her rather to be an heavenly than an earthly creature. This lady appeared before them in a most rich gown of purple velvet, costly embroidered; her hair hanging down loose, as fair as the beaten gold, and of such length that it reached down to her hams; having most amorous coal-black eyes; a sweet and pleasant round face, with lips as red as any cherry; her cheeks of a rose colour, her mouth small; her neck white like a swan, tall and slender of personage; in sum, there was no imperfect place in her. She looked round about her with a rolling hawk's ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... their sleds and following them, Russ and Rose and Laddie and Vi went back to where they had left Mr. White standing. There he was, very fine and brave-looking with his tall silk hat on his head, his coal-black eyes glistening in the sun, and his row of black buttons ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope
... 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 time of ...
— The Story of Red Feather - A Tale of the American Frontier • Edward S. (Edward Sylvester) Ellis
... wrinkles in his leathery face were hard set as if from pain. His coal-black hair, streaked with gray and hanging loose over his shoulders, looked as if it had not been combed ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... 'Jore-e Blur-re,' as he keeps telling you his name is, trig in his glossy black long-tailed coat, his vest with reddish side facings, white trousers, and light-brown shoes and stockings. A knowing glance has he in the ruby-red eyes that sparkle in his coal-black head, while inside that little ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... we have a Hanover before us. "I am now got into the region of beauty," writes Mary Wortley, from Hanover in 1716; "all the women have literally rosy cheeks, snowy foreheads and necks, jet eyebrows, to which may generally be added coal-black hair. These perfections never leave them to the day of their death, and have a very fine effect by candlelight; but I could wish they were handsome with a little variety. They resemble one another ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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. But it, the face in ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... trusted that my small stock of similar garments would last out our time on the island. All the luggage I was allowed to take was in a traveling bag and a gunny-sack, obligingly donated by the cook. Speaking of cooks, I found we had one of our own along, a coal-black negro with grizzled wool, an unctuous voice, and the manners of an old-school family retainer. So far as I know, his name was Cookie. I suppose he had received another once from his sponsors in baptism, but if so, it was buried ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... called the Arab again, and another horse appeared and ranged itself by the first. In size and shape it was the same, but the colour was coal-black and the star upon its forehead white. Also the eye ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... 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 Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... up to the animal, and the instant he seized the bridle to mount, it was evident to horsemen that he 'knew his business.' He had the animal in hand at once. No sooner was he in the saddle than the coal-black steed began to prance and whirl and dance as if he was proud of his burden. But the President sat as unconcerned and fixed to the saddle as if he and the horse were one. The test of endurance soon came. McClellan, with ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... circle from his breast and spread it out upon the ground, as far as it would reach, then he drew a figure with white chalk at each of the four corners, like interlaced triangles, and taking the vinculum of the heavenly creature, or the signet of the sun-angel, which was written with the blood of a coal-black raven upon virgin parchment, out of the hand of the Duke, hung it upon a new dagger, which no man had ever used, and fixed the same in the circle towards ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... 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 ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... Bonnie Glenogie's the flower o' them a'; Wi' his milk-white steed and his coal-black e'e: Glenogie, dear mither, ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... his coal-black ringlets and moustache, crouched, as it were, to look into the eyes of the short, thick-set, red-faced prisoner with rumpled ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... things, 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 ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... their silk attire. Here a group of men and women are enjoying a 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 skullcaps, ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... had reached a wharf, just above a lock. There an empty barge, painted with a red and yellow cabin hood, but with a long, coal-black hold, was lying moored. A man, lean and grimy, was sitting on a box against the cabin-side by the door, smoking, and nursing a baby that was wrapped in a drab shawl, and looking into the glow of evening. A woman bustled out, sent a pail dashing into the ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... the wicked boys!" He became afraid that the girl would have to die without being baptized, and in his anger cried, "I wish the boys were all turned into ravens." Hardly was the word spoken before he heard a whirring of wings over his head in the air, looked up and saw seven coal-black ravens flying away. The parents could not recall the curse, and however sad they were at the loss of their seven sons, they still to some extent comforted themselves with their dear little daughter, who soon grew strong and every day became more beautiful. For a long time she did not know ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... mansion, where Grandma Effingham and Clarissa bade welcome to old friends and young ones, to stately gentlemen in small clothes and powdered queues, with a fine selection of British officers, beginning with Sir Henry Clinton, who arrived in great state and descended from his sleigh, with its coal-black horses, accompanied by his aides, for the English commander liked to conciliate the Tories of New York, and, as he was then making secret preparations to accompany an expedition to South Carolina, thought best to appear in public even ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... part of the throat and neck, partially obscured by an inner covering of the finest lace; over the uppermost vest was worn a sort of mantle, or coat of rich fur. A small but magnificent turban was carelessly placed on her head, from under which flowed a profusion of coal-black tresses, which Cleopatra might have envied. The taste and splendour of the Eastern dress corresponded with the complexion of the lady's face, which was brunette, of a shade so dark as might almost ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... The dog rose slowly to his haunches, and sat there looking at me. His apple-green bow had wandered to the side of his neck, and one ear was turned back. Yet notwithstanding the fact that his appearance was so far grotesque, I felt no inclinations whatever towards mirth. His coal-black eyes were fixed upon me steadfastly, his tiny wrinkled face seemed like the shrivelled and age-worn caricature of some Eastern magician. He showed no signs of pleasure or of welcome at my coming, nor did he share any of the bewilderment with which I gazed ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... dawn fell upon the Union left flank and rear like a 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 ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... afternoons when we strayed or sat about at will in them. The first day we were somewhat molested by the instruction of our patriotic Granadan guide, who had a whopper-jaw and grayish blue eyes, but coal-black hair for all his other blondness. He smoked incessant cigarettes, and he showed us especially the pavilion of Charles the Fifth, whom, after that use of all English-speaking Spanish guides, he called Charley Fift. It appeared that the great emperor used this pavilion ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... Sail how thou canst, have wind and tide thy friend, This hand, fast wound about thy coal-black hair, Shall, whiles thy head is warm and new cut off, Write in the dust this sentence with thy blood, 'Wind-changing Warwick ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... curves, and the break in the foliage overhead admits a great flood of moonlight. I recognize the "thing" at once; it's not a man, it's nothing human, it's the picture I know so well and dread so much, the portrait of Horace Wimpole, that hangs in the main hall—and it's mounted on a coal-black horse with wildly flying mane and foaming mouth. On and on they come, thud, thud, thud! The man is not dressed as a rider, but is wearing the costume in the picture—i.e. that of a macaroni! A nut! More fit for a lady's seminary than a fine, ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... afterwards troubled himself to fight and drive out the fever that threatened to destroy me, unless from a feeling of humanity and compassion for my pitiable condition, I could not imagine; yet there had been—or so I fancied—a fierce, shifty gleam in his coal-black eyes during the few brief minutes that he had bent over me as I lay there in my bunk, that seemed to reveal cruelty and treachery, rather than pity and good-will. Let me describe the man. Standing there beside my bunk, he had conveyed ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... 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 through her long ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... had made a late start. In spite of the powerful political influence which the Cuban seemed to wield, his departure had been fraught with suspicion. The Military Governor, a gigantic coal-black negro, had at first refused to grant permission for Polliovo to visit the Citadel; the Commandant of Marines had given him a warning which ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... 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, ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... is but a fancy conjured up by later reflection on that meeting and its consequences. I only know that as I bowed and left her, the vision that I bore away was not of the gleaming gems, the yellow face, the white hair, or waving fan, but of two coal-black and impenetrable eyes. ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was a short, squat, clean-shaven but hairy dark man, with coal-black hair sweeping round a big forehead, a determined face and large, indignant brown eyes. The Liverpool clergyman was of middle height, very thin, with snow-white hair, dark eyes and eyebrows, and a young almost boyish face, with straight, small features, ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... 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 as ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... Jim. "She's about twenty years of age, I should say, with a dash of the gypsy in her, for she has coal-black hair ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... manager and wife, and the most beloved of Deaneville matrons, was in the bare, odorous hallway. She was clad in faded blue denim overalls, and a floating transparent kimono of some cheap stuff. Her coal-black hair was rigidly puffed and pinned, and ornamented with two coquettish red roses, and her thin cheeks ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... glass, got into bed, full of exciting hopes and delightful anxieties concerning the success of the great experiment he was trying. He could not sleep for several hours. He dreamed a rapturous dream—that he bowed to a gentleman with coal-black hair, whom he fancied he had seen before—and suddenly discovered that he was only looking at himself in a glass!!—This awoke him. Up he jumped—sprang to his little glass breathlessly—but ah! merciful Heavens! he almost ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... 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 arm-pits, and their ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... different mosquito, one with spotted wings, and in examining it he was interested to note certain oval or round nodules on the outer walls of the stomach. On closer examinations he found that each of these nodules contained a few granules of the coal-black melanin of malarial fever. Further studies and experiments showed that these particular cells could always be found in the walls of the stomach of this particular species of mosquito a few days after it had bitten a malarial patient. ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... begin at once. He cut a big square piece of white fanned deerskin, and upon this he marked the little squares with coal-black. Then the three of them went to work with their sharp hunting knives, carving out the wooden figures. The results were crude, but they had enough shape for identification, and then Paul began to teach the ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... name. She might have been sixty-five or seventy years of age, to judge by the wrinkles on her face and the white of her eyebrows, though her hair was hidden under a gaudy and dirty cotton plaid handkerchief and her tall form seemed little bowed by age. Two coal-black eyes, showing no diminution of their natural fire, gleamed from under those white eyebrows; and on the portions of the cheeks yet left smooth enough to show the texture of the skin, there were deep gashes that had once been the tattooing of her barbarian youth and beauty. ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... Coal-black pearls occur in one of the pinnas, the interior of which is sooty, shot with iridescent purple, and since the pearl, whether produced by oyster, mussel, pinna, or window-shell, is generally more brilliant than the containing shell, that of the black pinna, with ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... of the groves. The matin bells resound melodiously through the pure bright air, announcing the hour of devotion. The muleteer halts his burdened animals before the chapel, thrusts his staff through his belt behind, and enters with hat in hand, smoothing his coal-black hair, to hear a mass, and to put up a prayer for a prosperous wayfaring across the sierra. And now steals forth on fairy foot the gentle Senora, in trim basquina, with restless fan in hand, and dark eye flashing from beneath the gracefully folded mantilla; she ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... Cappuccini. Signor Vozzi! How many travellers in the South recall with infinite pleasure their host's tall commanding figure, his snowy drooping whiskers, the sun-shade that was rarely out of his hand, his old-fashioned courteous manners, and his famous family of cats, whereof the coal-black Nerone was the prime favourite, a feline monster almost as tyrannical as his Imperial namesake of evil reputation. Signor Vozzi's striking personality, the sable fur of agate-eyed Nerone, the eternal sunshine, and the wide all-embracing views over sea and land, are somehow ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... destitute of 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 ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... page 240, is as follows: "We can sometimes plainly see the proximate cause of the transmission of ornaments to the males alone; for a pea-hen with the long tail of the male bird would be badly fitted to sit on her eggs, and a coal-black female capercailzie would be far more conspicuous on her nest, and more exposed to danger, than in her present modest attire." The passages in Edition I. (pages 89, 101) do not directly bear on the question of protection.) If you will look at page 240 of the fourth edition of the "Origin" you ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... in a dark, claret-coloured livery, mounted on a splendid coal-black mare, nearly thorough-bred, but with more bone and substance about her than you generally see in them sort, and as clean on her pins as an unbroke colt. Sir John ain't got such a horse in his stables, nor Mr. ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... fields were walks for rage and fear: This howling like a head of hungry wolves,[338] That, scudding as a herd of frighted deer: When dust, arising like a coal-black fog, From friend divided friend, join'd foe to foe, Yet neither those nor these could either know; Till here and there, through large wide-mouthed wounds, Proud life, even in the glory of his heat Losing possession, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... sound commonsense, but the reverse of the sensational entertainment Betty had half expected, and her eyes wandered from the preacher to his congregation. There were all shades of Afro-American colour and all degrees of prosperity represented. Coal-black women were there, attired in deep and expensive mourning. "Yellow girls" wore smart little tailor costumes. Three young girls, evidently of the lower middle class of coloured society, for they were ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... attire. Here a group of men and women are enjoying a 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, ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... 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 ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... who followed her was very different. Tall and very dark, she was clothed quite simply in grey; her hair was wonderful, although it was at present hidden to some extent by her hat, but its coal-black darkness had something intent, almost luminous, about it, so that, paradoxically, its very blackness held hidden lights and colours. But it was her manner that Harry especially noticed. She followed her mother with a strange upright carriage of ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... 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 ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... their green filigree in the bright sunshine; and through them glimpses were seen of the purple cliffs above, and, right in front, of the great cataract of Nant Gwynnant, a long snow-white line zigzagging down coal-black cliffs for many a hundred feet, and above it, depth beyond depth of purple shadow away into the very heart of Snowdon, up the long valley of Cwm-dyli, to the great amphitheatre of Clogwyn-y-Garnedd; while over all the cone of Snowdon rose, in perfect symmetry, between his attendant ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... is almost unrecognisable. His face is coal-black with powder: he has no hat, no epaulettes and only half a sword: rage, anguish, bitterness are in his husky voice as he adjures, entreats, calls to the demoralised army—and insults it, execrates it in turn. But nothing ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... name, and they sent for me. That was our first meeting after two years. I found him in the hospital—dying. Heaven can witness that I felt all my old love for him return then, but he was delirious, and never recognized me. And, Nathalie, his hair,—it had been coal-black, and he wore it very long,—he wouldn't let them cut it either; and as they knew no skill could save him, they let him have his way,—his hair was then as white as snow! God alone knows what that brain must have suffered to blanch hair which had been ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... decadent, and painfully nascent times, with their distresses, inarticulate gaspings, and 'impossibilities;' meeting a tall lifeguardsman in his snow-white trousers, or seeing those two statuesque lifeguardsmen, in their frowning bearskins, pipe-clayed buckskins, on their coal-black, sleek, fiery quadrupeds, riding sentry at the Horse-Guards—it strikes one with a kind of mournful interest, how, in such universal down-rushing and wrecked impotence of almost all old institutions, this oldest fighting institution is still so young! Fresh complexioned, firm-limbed, six feet ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... otherwise he might have deemed him dead, as his face was buried in his arms. A moment Keith hesitated; then he reached down and shook the sleeper, until he aroused sufficiently to look up. It was the face of a coal-black negro. An instant the fellow stared at the man towering over him, his thick lips parted, his eyes full of sudden terror. Then he sat up, with hands held before him as though ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... the haunt of thieves and beasts of prey by night. On this obscene spot, littered with skulls and dead men's bones, Canidia and her accomplice Sagana are again introduced, digging a pit with their nails, into which they pour the blood of a coal-black ewe, which they ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... much more of Eugene Schmitz. It was in fact the following day that he met Ruef and the violinist at Zinkand's. Schmitz was a man of imposing presence. He stood over six feet high; his curly coal-black hair and pointed beard, his dark, luminous eyes and a certain dash in his manner, gave him a glamor of old-world romance. In a red cap and ermine-trimmed robe, he might have been Richelieu, defying the throne. Or, otherwise clad, the ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... book in hand, we sometimes retreated from the mid-summer heat into an atmosphere of moist and murky coolness. There we found the Indian pipe, or ghost-flower—leaf, stem, and flower, all white as wax, turning to coal-black if long brought into light, or if pressed between the leaves ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... front, who climbed over the pile of bricks and in through the window to bring him water. When I visited him there one day, and, after giving the password, got behind the bolted door, I found him, the room, and everything else absolutely covered with soot, coal-black from roof to rafters. The password was "Letter!" yelled out loud at the foot of the stairs. That would always bring him out, in the belief that the government had finally sent him the long-due money. Barney was stubbornly defiant, he would stand by his guns ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... are long-visaged, and of a very unpleasant aspect, having no one graceful feature in their faces. Their hair is black, short and curled, like that of the negroes; and not long and lank like the common Indians. The colour of their skins, both of their faces and the rest of their body, is coal-black, like that of the negroes ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... 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
... lanterns, swing them up outside on the terrace. The medley of noises 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!" ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... 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, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... brain. She pushed her veil back from her face and leaned against the trunk of a tree; her brain was dizzy and her thoughts were confused; the very stars seemed dancing riotously in the blue sky above her, and the branches of the trees were whispering strange fancies. Suddenly a horseman, riding a coal-black charger, came cantering swiftly up the long avenue of trees. He saw the quiet figure standing leaning against ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... solitary cyclist was coming towards us. His head was down and his shoulders rounded, as he 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 came over ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to be daunted, and, taking from his father-in-law a black steed, he set out for the fortress of Fiach O'Duda. Over the first high wall nimbly leaped the magic horse, and Sculloge called aloud on the Druid to come out and surrender his sword. Then came out a tall, dark man, with coal-black eyes and hair and melancholy visage, and made a furious sweep at Sculloge with the flaming blade. But the Druidic beast sprang back over the wall in the twinkling of an eye and rescued his rider, ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... Spanish bullfight ring has over another, Dennis de Brian de Boru suddenly produced the remnants of a bag of cream puffs and, by means of three well-directed, squashing shots on the rear quarters of his coal-black steed, plunged ahead and won ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... men would very soon contrive to hire the 'contraband,' get him to working, and make something better of him than planterocracy ever did. At least, this is what Northern ship-captains and farmers contrive to do, in their way, with numbers of coal-black negroes, and we have no doubt that the soldier-planter will manage, 'somehow,' to get out a cotton-crop, even with the aid of hired negroes! Here, again, a bounty could be given to the wounded. Observe, we mean a bounty which shall, to as high a degree as is possible or expedient, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... birds from 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 ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... 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
... to Neptune, an oblation due, Another bull to bright Apollo slew; A milk-white ewe, the western winds to please And one coal-black, to calm the stormy seas. ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... fight," was her discreet rejoinder. Then leaning over the wheel, she advanced her snow-white head to the head of coal-black. "Better ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... looked fixedly towards the house. Brett, too, gazed in silence. They saw a small, pale-faced, exceedingly handsome Italian—a young man, with coal-black eyes and a mass of shining black hair—scowling at them from within ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... glittering green 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 ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... the night of death is aflare With a torch of back-blown fire, And the coal-black deeps of the quivering air Rend for ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... lady appeared before them in a most rich gown of purple velvet, costly embroidered; her hair hanging down loose, as fair as the beaten gold, and of such length that it reached down to her hams; having most amorous coal-black eyes; a sweet and pleasant round face, with lips as red as any cherry; her cheeks of a rose colour, her mouth small; her neck white like a swan, tall and slender of personage; in sum, there was no imperfect place in her. She ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... Christmas Eve without dancing is not to be thought of in Spain. So you go forth to find a group of Gipsy dancers who are always on hand to participate in this great festival; or you watch the graceful Spanish maiden in her fluffy skirts of lace, with her deep pointed bodice, a bright flower in her coal-black hair beside the tall comb, and her exquisitely shaped arms adorned with heavy bracelets. "Oh, what magnificent eyes! What exquisite long lashes!" you exclaim to yourself. See her poise an instant with the grace of a sylph, one slippered foot just ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... in some respects, served as a model to subsequent inquirers. This "Pygmie," Tyson tells us "was brought from Angola, in Africa; but was first taken a great deal higher up the country"; its hair "was of a coal-black colour and strait," and "when it went as a quadruped on all four, 'twas awkwardly; not placing the palm of the hand flat to the ground, but it walk'd upon its knuckles, as I observed it to do when ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... well-mannered girl," replied Jim. "She's about twenty years of age, I should say, with a dash of the gypsy in her, for she has coal-black hair and ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... was waiting in the small drawing-room which still retained some of its ancient splendour. Maria was a short, stumpy woman with a slight moustache and a wart on her chin, and was dressed in green satin, cut low to disclose her generous figure. About her stiff, coal-black hair was a heavy diamond bandeau. She was sitting on a settee, her feet hardly touching the ground, cleaning her nails with a little pocket-knife as the girl entered. Evidently this was her maid of honour, and ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... they come on cunning winds unheralded, in fair weather or bad, day or night, to the rich and to the poor, to the strong as to the weak. You may be robust to-day in a smiling country and to-morrow in a twist of agony, coal-black, writhing on the couch, every fine interest in life blotted out by a yellow film upon the eyes. A vital gash with a claymore confers a bloodier but a more comely and natural end. Thus the Gael abhors the very roads that lead to a plague-struck ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... occasionally seen; these appeared to consist of a jerkin and short velveteen pantaloons. I have said that the brim of the hat was broad, but broad as it was, it was insufficient to cover an immense bush of coal-black hair, which, thick and curly, projected on either side; over the left shoulder was flung a kind of satchel, and in the right hand was held a ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... the gold-embroidered robe which adorned Tora the fair. It suits not me. Kraka am I called in coal-black baize. I have ever herded goats on the stones by ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... on the evening appointed I was on the lake opposite the house, close in under the shore, making my way to the rendezvous. It was a coal-black night, for though the air was clear the stars were shining with little light, and the moon had not yet risen. With a premonition that I might be long away from food, I had brought some slabs of chocolate, ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... finds everywhere. A young man paid the price and held out his hand. The wise man took hold of the fingers, bent them back from the hand and pushed the cuff half way back to the elbow. He traced the course of the veins, ran his coal-black finger along each wrinkle of the palm, and all the time muttered to himself. Sometimes he nodded his head and gurgled approvingly. Again he hesitated and groaned feebly, as if the signs were sad. The young man had a scared look in ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... room, eating a dinner, which it seemed to them France in the flush of her prosperity need not have blushed to serve; for if it wanted a little in the last graces of art, it redeemed itself in abundance, variety, and wholesomeness. At the elbow of every famishing passenger stood a beneficent coal-black glossy fairy, in a white linen apron and jacket, serving him with that alacrity and kindliness and grace which make the negro waiter the master, not the slave of his calling, which disenthrall it of servility, and constitute him your eager host, not your menial, for ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... exclusion of thought of anything else. The first shell burst so close that I lost control of my machine for a moment. Three others followed, two in front, and one behind, which I believed had wrecked my tail. They burst with a terrific rending sound in clouds of coal-black smoke. A few days before I had been watching without emotion the bombardment of a German plane. I had seen it twisting and turning through the eclatements, and had heard the shells popping faintly, with a sound like the bursting of seed-pods ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... but the reverse of the sensational entertainment Betty had half expected, and her eyes wandered from the preacher to his congregation. There were all shades of Afro-American colour and all degrees of prosperity represented. Coal-black women were there, attired in deep and expensive mourning. "Yellow girls" wore smart little tailor costumes. Three young girls, evidently of the lower middle class of coloured society, for they were ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... feast of 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 Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... citizens' company of butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers, which would do no discredit to the regular army. Driving close after is a four-horse carriage with two of the king's ministers; and then, at a rapid pace, six coal-black horses in silver harness, with mounted postilions, drawing a long, slender, open carriage with one seat, in which ride the king and his brother, Prince Otto, come down the way, and are pulled up in front of the pavilion; while the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... of the day; and like us also, he must have had a very good horse to make that distance in that time. I glanced at his horse as the thought occurred to me, and saw that it was indeed a good horse. Coal-black, except for a white star on his forehead and one white stocking, he was powerfully built, and yet with such an easy stretch of limb as promised speed as well as endurance. I thought it a little strange that a country farmer should own a ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... my horse—a coal-black Arab stallion, as playful as a kitten and as mad—was in the nature of a public festival for all the neighbours. Sheytan was led down to the spring, where all the population gathered, the bravest throwing water over him with kerosene tins, ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... rising for their candlelight breakfast, the hotel man glancing from the window exclaimed, "Here he is now!" and Josh peered forth to see in the light of sunrise something he had often heard of, but never before seen, a coal-black Fox, a giant among his kind. How slick and elegant his glossy fur, how slim his legs, and what a monstrous bushy tail; and the other Foxes moved aside as the patrician rushed in impatient haste to seize the food thrown out ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... tragedy of Zillah's life. He was a short, stout, thick-set man, with bull neck, broad shoulders, deep chest, low brow, flat nose, square chin, and small black eyes, in which there lay a mingled expression of ferocity and cunning. His very swarthy complexion, heavy black beard, and thick, matted, coal-black hair, together with his black eyes, were sufficiently marked to make him worthy of the name of "Black Bill." Altogether, he looked like a perfect type of perfect ruffianism; and Obed involuntarily felt a cold ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... 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, ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... 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
... Albert chose a bird that closely resembled the one belonging to his sister. The bird with its beautiful yellow plumage, its clear, brilliant, coal-black eyes, afforded Albert much pleasure. Soon the bird became tame, flew upon Albert's outstretched finger and ate seeds from ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... 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 rifles of the ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... him; his mistress with difficulty held him in. She was one of those famous Roumanian beauties. Her features, the cut of her lips, her full chin could have stood as a model beside any antique statue. And then those sparkling eyes, that vividly red complexion, those coal-black eyebrows—they made an ideal beauty of her. And the picturesque Roumanian costume enhanced her charms. Her black hair, twisted into a double plait, was bound round with a flaming-red scarf, and on her head she wore a round hat, trimmed with pearls and garnished in front with a row of gold ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... no sooner touched the flower than the whole plant suffered a blight, its leaves turning coal-black as if by the ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... 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 not come for her ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... of coal-black ware is entirely smooth on the outside, and indicates an unusually well finished and symmetrical vessel. Another shows the impression of basket-work, in which a wide fillet or splint has served as the warp and a small twisted cord as the woof. One interesting feature of ...
— Illustrated Catalogue of a Portion of the Collections Made During the Field Season of 1881 • William H. Holmes
... coming, my Gryphon, my swell; Were it ever so laden with care, My heart would know him, and smell The grease in his coal-black hair." ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... stirrups to survey the herd. A light mist screened us and a deep growth of the leathery grass, common to marsh lands, half hid a multitude of broad, humped, furry backs, moving aimlessly in the valley. Coal-black noses poked through the green stalks sniffing the air suspiciously and the curved horns tossed broken stems off in ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... I saw coming towards me a figure which might have disturbed me very much had I been living in those days when—if there is any truth in legendary lore—the devil only needed half a pretext for forcing his society upon lonely travellers. This man—for man it was—had a face so overgrown with coal-black hair that very little could be seen of it excepting the eyes and nose. Beard, whiskers, and moustache were inseparably mixed up. What skin was visible through the matted jungle of hair was little less swarthy than a Hindu's. All the ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... countenance of the boy, it was difficult to believe that he knew any thing of so shocking a kind. I was introduced to the other, Mr Percy Marvale, and saw so much Italian, or perhaps gipsy, blood in his dark skin, and such a fierce expression in his coal-black eyes, that I was not so much surprised at his being implicated in the fearful deed. He looked just like one of the fellows on the stage who cut throats in a heroic fashion on the slightest provocation. But both were so free in their manner, and talked so pleasantly, that if it ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... more strangely and startlingly belied by the face and 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 ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... he didn't look like any of them; and on top of it all he had some of the white man's dog in him, for on one side, in the thick of the mixed yellow-brown-red-and-dirty-white that was his prevailing colour, there was a spot of coal-black as big as a water-bucket. That was why we ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... will not carry us this way or that without using some force."—"But," says she, "pray, where did you get this boat, as you call it?"—"O madam!" says I, "that is too long and fatal a story to begin upon now; this boat was made many thousand miles from hence, among a people coal-black, a quite different sort from us; and, when I first had it, I little thought of seeing this country; but I will make a faithful relation of all to you when we come home." Indeed, I began to wish heartily ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... half in dreams, Aasmund Olavsen Vinje's Long figure and spare, a contemplative genius; Thin and intense, with the color of gypsum, And a coal-black, preposterous beard, Henrik Ibsen. I, the youngest of the lot, had to wait for company Till a new litter came in, after ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... together with a predisposition to congestion of the liver. The other, compact, broad and sturdy of limb, seemed extremely full of sound organs functioning vigorously all the time in order to keep up the brilliance of his colouring, the light curl of his coal-black hair and the lustre of his eyes, which asserted themselves roundly in an open, manly face. Between two such organisms one would not have expected to find the slightest temperamental accord. But I have observed that profane men living ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... 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 added that, despite a century of slaughter ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... man, with coal-black hair and deep-set eyes and a scar across his swarth skin, smiled pleasantly ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... ten minutes he was brought downstairs. His appearance was most unprepossessing. He was very short, with a huge head and a remarkable shock of coal-black hair. Having hastily risen from bed, he had retained his pyjamas, but a long frock-coat hung nearly to his slippers, and in one hand he carried a pair of gloves, and in the other a huge eccentric ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... steel and copper; Seats himself upon the eagle, On his back between the wing-bones Thus addresses he his creature, Gives the bird of fire this order. Mighty eagle, bird of beauty, Fly thou whither I direct thee, To Tuoni's coal-black river, To the blue-depths of the Death-stream, Seize the mighty fish of Mana, Catch ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... living foliage upon the painted ceilings of Italian palaces bears no comparison with the beauteous proportions of extinct vegetable forms with which the galleries of these instructive coal-mines are overhung.... The effect is heightened by the contrast of the coal-black colour of these vegetables with the light groundwork of the rock to which they are attached"—for you must not forget that it is upon the roof of the mine that the impressions of the plants which have been turned into coal are found, not upon the coal itself, though even there ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... was one of his favourite companions. The only son of a great tragic actor, he possessed much of the genius of his late father, from whom he inherited, also, his finely-cut features, like some old ivory carving, his coal-black hair, and that sweet, humorous, yet sardonic smile that relieved, like a sparkle in dark waters, his somewhat ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... Indian lost 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
... 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 ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... thoughtless as bird on bough. One evening Hugo the Norman came, And, to shorten a weary tale, I fled that night (let me bear the blame) With Harold by down and dale. He had mounted me on a dappled steed, And another of coal-black hue He rode himself; and away at speed We fled ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... her grasp her whip and beat her slaves with a good will, but poor execution, was to smile self-reproachfully as at the antics of a sick child. Though it is true, for a woman who had no use of her legs, she displayed astonishing reach in her arms. Her face was a mass of puckers burnt through by coal-black eyes. Her mouth was so tucked and folded inward that she appeared to have swallowed her lips. In the daytime she wore a black silk cap tied under the chin, and a dimity short gown over a quilted petticoat. Tante-gra'mere ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... Herbless and verdureless; low 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... General, of whom men tell such romantic tales?" And the army would march in, and the guns would rattle and leap along the village street, and, last of all, you—you, the General, the fabled hero—you would enter, on your coal-black charger, your pale set face seamed by an interesting sabre-cut. And then—but every boy has rehearsed this familiar piece a score of times. You are magnanimous, in fine—that goes without saying; you have ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... Made at length a league against them, To molest them and destroy them. Hiawatha, wise and wary, Often said to Chibiabos, "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, "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, Hissed among the withered oak-leaves, Changed ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the King of Men with speed, And saddled straight his coal-black steed; Down the yawning steep he rode That leads to Hela's[2] drear abode. Him the Dog of Darkness spied; His shaggy throat he open'd wide, While from his jaws, with carnage fill'd, Foam and human gore distill'd: Hoarse he bays with hideous din, ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... while. Having always been fond of outdoor sports in his Kentucky home, he was, at least, no greenhorn. When he came to the new country where his father was interested with Frank's in mining ventures, Bob had brought his favorite Kentucky horse, a coal-black stallion known as "Domino," and which vied with Frank's native "Buckskin" ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... Everett, in his work on America, says: "While Greece and Rome were yet barbarous, we find the light of learning and improvement emanating from the continent of Africa, (supposed to be so degraded and accursed,) out of the midst of this very woolly-haired, flat-nosed, thick-lipped, coal-black race, which some persons are tempted to station at a pretty low intermediate point between men and monkeys. It is to Egypt, if to any nation, that we must look as the real antiqua mater of the ancient and modern refinement of Europe. The great lawgiver of the Jews was prepared ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... a wretched, shivering little figure that he left behind him,—a small girl, with coal-black hair escaping from the folds of a bright kerchief that was tied about it; with immense dark eyes, that seemed to light up her poor, pinched face and make it beautiful; with tattered dress and torn shoes, and with something clutched tightly beneath ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann
... spoke, he took out of his pocket a small parcel from which he drew a lock of coal-black hair, which he spread out ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... brother!" muttered Villena, anxiously. "Amen," said those around him; for all who had ever witnessed the wildest valour in that war, trembled as they recognised the dazzling robe and coal-black charger of Muza Ben Abil Gazan. Nor was that renowned infidel mated with an unworthy foe. "Pride of the tournament, and terror of the war," was the favourite title which the knights and ladies of Castile had bestowed ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... ship arrived at Pylos. The people of that town were all assembled on the shore, where they were sacrificing coal-black oxen to Poseidon. Some were burning fat upon the altar, and others were distributing food among those who were offering up the sacrifices, while ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... 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 ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... The first reference, Edition IV., page 240, is as follows: "We can sometimes plainly see the proximate cause of the transmission of ornaments to the males alone; for a pea-hen with the long tail of the male bird would be badly fitted to sit on her eggs, and a coal-black female capercailzie would be far more conspicuous on her nest, and more exposed to danger, than in her present modest attire." The passages in Edition I. (pages 89, 101) do not directly bear on ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... take the tourney's chance, And urge his coal-black charger on To an arbitrament by lance For lovely Alison; I mark the onset, see him hurl From broidered saddle to the dirt His rival, that ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... me to tell how fast I ran; how feverishly I haled poor Rosinante out of sleep, and pushed her down into the deeps of that coal-black stream; with what agility I clambered ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... Driscoll's 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 fighter, but is apt to be over headlong in action. His scouts ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... proceedings intently; it became quite silent now. The hour was growing late, the day had been overcast, and a damp chill that searched the marrow was settling as the short afternoon drew to a close. The prisoner's naked body showed very white beneath his shock of coal-black hair; his flesh seemed tender and the onlookers ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... guide awaiting him was a coal-black negro named Dionysio, who was of such huge stature that the other Cubans seemed pygmies beside him. He was armed only with a great machete, ground to exceeding sharpness, and he disdained to ride a horse, declaring that he could, on foot, cover a ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... road, by the railings of the square, a large crowd had collected, all staring at the house in eager expectation. As they caught sight of him they raised a cheer, which caused him to retreat in confusion, but not before he had seen a great golden chariot with six magnificent coal-black horses, and a suite of swarthy attendants in barbaric liveries, standing by the pavement below. "Whose carriage ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... began to canter forward, going briskly and swiftly side by side. Greased Lightning's coal-black eye was fixed upon Diana as she sat on Pole Star's back. Pole Star felt the feather-weight of the hot hand on his mane, the touch of the little feet somewhere near his neck. There was a magnetic current of sympathy between ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... said to me, "I don't like standing here in this slummocky crowd. I shall feel more at home among the gentlepeople." And then she went to where the carriages were drawn up, and near her there was a grand coach, a-blazing with lions and unicorns, and hauled by two coal-black horses. I hardly thought much of it then, and by degrees lost sight of her behind it. Presently the other carriages moved off, and I thought still to see her standing there. But no, she had vanished; and then I saw the grand coach ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... had to cut his way through the brush, and as he commenced to swing his sword, a whole city of crows and bats flew against him and knocked him to the ground. Sancho crossed himself and kept up his vigilance over his master to the last. Finally he saw him disappear in the coal-black depths, and then he called on all the saints he knew by name to protect the flower and cream of knight-errantry, the dare-devil of the earth, the heart of steel and ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the royal 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 ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... 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
... a tall Indian lad with a keen face and coal-black eyes and hair. Enoch knew him, for his people had camped for several years near the Harding place. But Jonas Harding had had that contempt for the red race which characterized many of the pioneer people and was the foundation for more ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... the king of men with speed, And saddled strait his coal-black steed: Down the yawning steep he rode, That leads to Hela's ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... 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 ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sitting on a settle drinking from a pot of ale, and nursing an instrument of the violin kind, which she was fondling as though it were a baby. She was quite young, not above eighteen years of age, slender, graceful—remarkably so, even for a Gypsy girl. Her hair, which was not so much coal-black as blue-black, was plaited in the old-fashioned Gypsy way, in little plaits that looked almost as close as plaited straw, and as it was of an unusually soft and fine texture for a Gypsy, the plaits gave it a lustre quite unlike that which unguents can give. As she sat there, ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... aspect, having not one graceful feature in their faces. Their hair is black, short, and curled like that of the negroes; and not long and lank like the common Indians. The colour of their skins, both of their faces and the rest of their body, is coal-black like that of the negroes of Guinea. They have no sort of clothes but a piece of the rind of a tree tied like a girdle about their waists, and a handful of long grass, or three or four small green boughs full of leaves thrust under their girdle to cover ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... it made a sharp image in his memory, a face he would have difficulty in forgetting. It was a long, chalk-white face, topped by a black fedora hat—a face garnished at the thin gray lips by a mustache, black and spikelike, resembling nothing more closely than the coal-black mustache affected by ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... 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 ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... our earthly god, Whose looks make this inferior world to quake, I here present thee with the crown of Fez, And with an host of Moors train'd to the war, [48] Whose coal-black faces make their foes retire, And quake for fear, as if infernal [49] Jove, Meaning to aid thee [50] in these [51] Turkish arms, Should pierce the black circumference of hell, With ugly Furies bearing fiery ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe
... Sated with vict'ry, to the town retire. This could he learn, and hither scatheless bring His tidings, high as Heav'n in all men's mouths Would be his praise, and ample his reward. For ev'ry captain of a ship should give A coal-black ewe, and at her foot a lamb, A prize beyond compare; and high should be His place at ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... companion to my liking. Although he is 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 ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... 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 issues ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... few 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 ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... of the first rank and condition; that any one of them (provided he likes them) may now send him, for their service, to Constantinople at half a day's warning; that Time has not yet been able to make a visible change in any part of him but the colour of his hair, from a fierce coal-black to that of a milder milk-white: When I have taken this liberty with him, methinks it cannot be taking a much greater if I at once should tell you that this ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... which they stood transfixed and staring when our boat swept within their range of vision, I conjectured that it was the first time in their lives that they had ever beheld such a sight. They were almost coal-black in colour, and inspection of them through the telescope showed them to be absolutely naked, wherefore I decided not to pay them a visit until some future occasion when Billy should not be with me, although, apart from their state of nudity, they impressed ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... on in the chamber of state, a very different, but not less remarkable, transformation was being wrought in Fatma's own private apartment, where she and several of her Algerine companions, assisted by a coal-black slave-girl, named Zooloo, converted innocent little Agnes ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... from those occasionally encountered in England and America, where, although swarthy and dark-skinned, they bear no comparison in that respect to these, whose skin is wellnigh black, and whose gleaming white teeth and brilliant, coal-black eyes stamp them plainly as alien to the race around them. Ragged, unwashed, happy gangs of vagabonds these stragglers appear, and regular droves of partially or wholly naked youngsters come racing after me, calling out "kreuzer! ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... 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 ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... a calf, An ox and a half, Forty good shillings and three. Is not that enough tocher For a shoemaker's daughter, A bonny sweet lass With a coal-black ee? ...
— The Only True Mother Goose Melodies - Without Addition or Abridgement • Munroe and Francis
... them to go, and end nowhere. I hate them. And I don't like the songs much better. Of course there was a lady wringing her hands—why do people in ballads wring their hands so much? I never saw anybody do it in my life—and a cavalier on a coal-black steed, and a silvery moon; what would become of the songwriters if there were no moon and no sea?—and "she sat and wailed," and he did something or other, I could not exactly hear what; and at last he, or she, or both of them (only that ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... 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 ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... mingled with the clear moonbeams, I looked upon the face, and my heart gave a great leap of thankfulness. The face was perfectly fresh and recognisable. It was not the face of the old lady which I had feared to see, but that of a man with a coal-black beard, which seemed ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... thick coal-black hair, and a pair of eyes that peeped at folk so oddly. One might almost have said that she was like the cormorants outside there, and she had never seen much else all her life. Nobody knew ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... any quarter as occasion might require. This corps, comprising the flower of his chivalry, was chiefly drawn from Alvarado's troop, greatly to the discontent of that captain. The governor himself rode a coal-black charger, and wore a rich surcoat of brocade over his mail, through which the habit and emblems of the knightly order of St. James, conferred on him just before his departure from Castile, were conspicuous.20 ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... 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 ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Tostig; 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, ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... it resumed its spirits and its song—recommenced its rivalry with the mavis; but, after every moulting, the new feathers were always of the same coal-black colour. The mavis evinced no corresponding feeling of attachment—neither, so far as I recollect, missing its companion, nor ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... spoke his prognathous jaw snapped to with a click-like sound, and in his eyes now coal-black were glints of fire. At the same instant there was a blinding flash, accompanied by a terrific crash, and the splinters of the flag-pole on the building opposite, which had been struck by a bolt, fell at ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... connection with another sarong that is thrown over her head as a veil, so that when she is abroad and meets one of the opposite sex she can, Moslem-like, draw it about her face in the form of a long, narrow slit, showing only her coal-black eyes and thinly ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... the sheriff's office, not more than thirty or forty feet distant, she saw a tall, well-built man standing beside the hitching rail that fringed the board sidewalk. He had evidently just dismounted, and he was standing at the head of a big, coal-black horse. He was in the act of hitching the animal, and his ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... a great parade, when Pasha was carefully groomed for the first time in months. There were bands playing and flags flying. Pasha, forgetful of his ill-treatment and prancing proudly at the head of a squadron of coal-black horses, passed in review before a big, bearded man wearing a slouch hat fantastically decorated with long plumes and sitting a great black horse in the midst of a little ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... Studied them with the closest scrutiny. Interesting under any circumstances, they were vastly more so at this time. What struck him in addition to the characteristics already named, were their frowsy eyebrows and glittering coal-black eyes. These were unusually large and protruding. The noses, instead of being broad and flat, like those of the native Africans, were Roman in shape. The mouths were wide, and, when they spoke, he observed that the teeth which were displayed were black, showing that a fashion prevailed ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... of riding side by side, were strung along in a line, with the leader several paces in advance and mounted on a rather large horse of a coal-black color. Directly behind him came one upon a bay, while a little further back rode another on a white steed. There could be no question that they were on their way ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... dragging their sleds and following them, Russ and Rose and Laddie and Vi went back to where they had left Mr. White standing. There he was, very fine and brave-looking with his tall silk hat on his head, his coal-black eyes glistening in the sun, and his row of ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope
... the game played, resulting in the favor of the "Cattymount." Another and another was played, and the tough won every time. Still the youth kept on, a quiet smile resting on his pleasant features, a twinkle in his coal-black eye. The youth, dear ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... ground. It had a north room and south room, with bedrooms attached; it had four chambers, two large and two small, above; and a kitchen, a tea-room, and wood-house in the rear. It was painted white without, with a coal-black border on the tops of the chimneys, and had blinds of Paris green. It had white walls and oak-grained doors and casings in the south room, and white walls, doors and casings in the north room. The north room was Fanny's, and the spare bed was ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... unfortunate smile on his face as he said so, which made Mountjoy Scarborough very angry. The two men were both handsome, two as handsome men as you shall see on a summer's day. Mountjoy was dark-visaged, with coal-black whiskers and mustaches, with sparkling, angry eyes, and every feature of his face well cut and finely formed; but there was absent from him all look of contentment or satisfaction. Harry was light-haired, with long, silken ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... 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 cats ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... you left me in charge this morning, not to imagine anything, but keep my thoughts on facts. I did pretty well until I put the pie in, and then an irresistible temptation came to me to imagine I was an enchanted princess shut up in a lonely tower with a handsome knight riding to my rescue on a coal-black steed. So that is how I came to forget the pie. I didn't know I starched the handkerchiefs. All the time I was ironing I was trying to think of a name for a new island Diana and I have discovered up the brook. It's the most ravishing spot, Marilla. There are two maple ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of infamy that no one dared to sleep in it, until municipal improvement leveled the structure with the ground. And my father has often been told in the nursery how the devil's coach, drawn by six coal-black horses with fiery eyes, would drive at night into the West Bow, and belated people might see the dead Major through ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... we need consider is that of the Primates. The male of the Lemur macaco is generally coal-black, whilst the female is brown. (29. Sclater, 'Proc. Zool. Soc.' 1866, p. i. The same fact has also been fully ascertained by MM. Pollen and van Dam. See, also, Dr. Gray in 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... him now with a swoop and a roar. He was in the thick of a mud-grey darkness, a bitter, blank darkness full of whirling wind-eddies and vast flurries of snow. He could not see more than a few feet before him. The stinging flakes blinded him; the coal-black night engulfed him. In that seething turmoil of the elements he was as ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
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