"Grey-headed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to look towards a different quarter. Among the courtiers of Elizabeth had lately appeared a new favourite, young, noble, wealthy, accomplished, eloquent brave, generous, aspiring; a favourite who had obtained from the grey-headed Queen such marks of regard as she had scarce vouchsafed to Leicester in the season of the passions; who was at once the ornament of the palace and the idol of the city. who was the common patron of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... for the helmet on the tower, the ancient signal of hospitality to the traveller, or for the grey-headed porter to conduct him to the hall of entertainment. Instead of the disinterested usher of the old times, he is attended by a valet to receive the fees of admittance.' Pennant's ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... will I satisfy him, and show him My salvation. We have seen a grey-headed libertine, and we have missed from among the clean-hearted and the faithful some brave young life that was giving itself vigorously to the holy service. But perhaps we have had the grace not to challenge the utter faithfulness of God. The measure of life is not written on a registrar's certificates ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth
... money, and power, and fame, we may cling only to God, and have one only wish as we draw near our end.—'From my youth up hast thou taught me, Oh God, and hitherto I have declared thy wondrous works. Now also that I am old and grey-headed, Oh Lord, forsake me not, till I have showed thy goodness to this generation, and thy power to those who are ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... traveller in passing through the lanes near here recalls some beliefs of a past generation: 'The faint chimes of St Mary's in distant Ottery are playing their Christmas greeting over many a mile of moorland. We are passing the old "cob" walls and grey-headed barns of a substantial farmstead. The cocks will crow here all the night before Christmas Day, according to the beautiful legend of the county, ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... be, Aziel bent towards her to reply, when suddenly round a bend in the path but a few paces from them came a body of soldiers and attendants, headed by a man clad in a white robe and walking with a staff. This man was grey-headed and keen-eyed, thin in face and ascetic in appearance, with a brow of power and a bearing of dignity. At the sight of the pair he halted, looking at them in ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... reason,—ghastly sage! For surely man, at such an age, Should part from life as from a feast, Returning decent thanks, at least, To Him who spread the various cheer, And unrepining take his bier; For shun it long no creature can. Repinest thou, grey-headed man? See younger mortals rushing by To meet their death without a sigh— Death full of triumph and of fame, But in its terrors still the same.— But, ah! my words are thrown away! Those most like Death ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... The lumbering, middle-aged, grey-headed hero of it, in obedience to the whim of a moment, gets out of a night train at the great central junction of the whole railway system of England. A drenching rain-storm and a windy platform, darkness and solitude are, to begin with, the agreeable surroundings ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... go forth in the strength of the Lord God, and make mention of His righteousness only. Thou, O God, hast taught me from my youth up until now. Therefore will I tell of Thy wondrous works. Forsake me not, O Lord, in my old age, when I am grey-headed, till I have shewn Thy strength unto this generation; and Thy power unto those that are yet ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... Grey-headed Shepherd, thou hast spoken well; Small difference lies between thy creed and mine; This beast not unobserv'd by Nature fell, His death was ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... it,—a mere specimen of the middle ages put on a bit of velvet carpet to be shown, which, but for its size, might as well be on the museum shelf at once, under cover. But, on the Continent, the links are unbroken between the past and present, and in such use as they can serve for, the grey-headed wrecks are suffered to stay with men; while, in unbroken line, the generations of spared buildings are seen succeeding each in its place. And thus in its largeness, in its permitted evidence of slow decline, in its poverty, in its absence of all pretence, of all show ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... these two hours," said a grey-headed gentleman, speaking without taking his eyes off the newspaper. "There is a ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... there was a slow, heavy step heard approaching the rick; an exclamation in Gaelic followed; and then a rough hard hand grasped Walter by the naked heel. He started up, and found himself confronted by an old, grey-headed man, the inmate of a cottage, which, hidden in the neighbouring ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... old grey-headed statesman, who had contrived, by shifting and trimming, to maintain his post at the steerage through all the changes of course which the vessel had held for thirty years, "I thought Sir William would hae verified the auld Scottish saying, 'As soon comes the lamb's skin to ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... he referred to the heroic man condemned to death and lying wounded in a Virginia prison; and concluded with an outburst of spiritual triumph like that in Goethe's tragedy of Egmont. "They have brave men in Virginia: it was not an old, grey-headed man entering Harper's Ferry that they were afraid of, it was the John Brown in every man's own conscience that ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... Hudson's Bay Company pessimist, or to the grey-headed sage, the greatest disturbers of this Eden were two Englishmen, Messrs. Buckingham and Coldwell, who, in 1859, entered Red River Colony, and established that organ for good or evil, the newspaper. This first paper was called ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... by a snow-white cap, somewhat pointed at the top, which hardly concealed her grizzled hair. She was both exhibiting and admiring in dumb show the telescope so lately in the possession of our friend Robin; while Ned Purcell, a little dumpy, grey-headed mariner, who had heretofore been considered the owner of the best glass in Greenwich, was advancing, glass in hand, to decide which was really the best without farther parley. As Robin was obliged to sing ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... it is a conceited, headstrong young train. It will not be guided or advised. The traffic superintendent wants it to go to St. Petersburg or to Paris. The old grey-headed station-master argues with it, and tries to persuade it to go to Constantinople, or even to Jerusalem if it likes that better—urges it to, at all events, make up its mind where it is going—warns it of the danger to young ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... their aghast and righteous souls have wrenched the ship from such a fiendish man! They were bent on profitable cruises, the profit to be counted down in dollars from the mint. He was intent on an audacious, immitigable, and supernatural revenge. Here, then, was this grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing with curses a Job's whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals —morally enfeebled also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or right-mindedness in Starbuck, the invulnerable ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... me that a good deal of kissing and embracing went on. One old grey-headed gentleman was constantly walking up to the cabinet and being embraced by a white figure, whose arms we could just see, thrown round his neck, in the dim light. (I note that the light here was much less than with Mrs Stoddart ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... Egypt, designing to settle a colony of Grecians there, he resolved to build a large and populous city, and give it his own name. In order to which, after he had measured and staked out the ground with the advice of the best architects, he chanced one night in his sleep to see a wonderful vision; a grey-headed old man, of a venerable aspect, appeared to stand by him, and pronounce ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... a native boy to travel with us and look after the luggage, as it is difficult to do without one in India. All servants are called "boys" here, even if they are grey-headed; our man is probably about five-and-twenty. He is called Ramaswamy, and has a chocolate-coloured moon-face with big round eyes; I think he is intelligent though he looks stupid. He is dressed in spotless white, his garments consisting ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... the beach fishing, and being alone, he feared they might come ashore and attack him: He said, that these people were very dark-coloured, but not black; that the man and woman appeared to be very old, being both grey-headed; that the hair of the man's head was bushy, and his beard long and rough; that the woman's hair was cropped short, and both of them were stark naked. Mr Monkhouse the surgeon, and one of the men, who were with another party near the watering-place, also strayed from their companions, and as ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... round-headed yellow flowers that grew between it and the farmhouse. Among the flowers the white butterflies hovered and on the old kraal mounds three white kids gambolled, and at the door of one of the huts an old grey-headed Kaffer-woman sat on the ground mending her mats. A balmy, restful peacefulness seemed to reign everywhere. Even the old hen seemed well satisfied. She scratched among the stones and called to her chickens when she found a treasure; and all the while tucked to herself ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... a holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean, The children walking two and two, in red, and blue, and green: Grey-headed beadles walked before, with wands as white as snow, Till into the high dome of Paul's they like Thames ...
— Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience • William Blake
... forcibly reminded Mr. Hall of ancient Romans. Some of them wore large silver crosses, medals, and other trinkets, on their backs and breasts; and a few had bandeaus, ornamented with feathers. Dr. Aaron, a grey-headed Mohawk, had touched his cheeks and forehead with a few spots of vermilion, in honour of Sunday: he wore a surplice, and preached at considerable length; but his delivery was ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... was more than likely that Emily and I were to have some knowledge and consciousness of this will of yours; and yet the vicissitudes of life and the surprises of death ought to place them almost outside our thoughts of probability, I hope to see you some day as grey-headed as your father was. I hope it indeed! it may well be the case, and I not be here ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... was not altogether disconnected with physical force.[23] From the west came similar stories of violence and trickery. In the West Riding of Halton, the Tories were said to have delayed voting, which seemed to be setting against them, by various stratagems, including the swearing in of old grey-headed men as of 21 years of age, and among the accusations made by the defeated candidate was one that certain deputy returning officers had allowed seven women to vote for the sitting member.[24] On the whole ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... declaim against wickedness and fleshy lusts. Mark his libidinous eye, as he follows that painted strumpet to her filthy den. There's hypocrisy. Then turn your eyes toward a sister city, and mark that grey-headed, sanctimonious editor, who every week solemnly prates of honesty, sobriety, and their kindred virtues. 'What an excellent man he is,' exclaim the whole tribe of fat, tea-drinking old women in mob-caps, raising their pious eyes and snuffy noses to ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... heard it, her grey-headed figure straightened, and clasping her two hands above her head, she panted ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... great pity has desthroyed her raison, poor darlin'," muttered a grey-headed old prisoner named Terry; "lave her alone. We'll take the babe from her by ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... his native Border dourness that had caused him to stick to it; but at any rate he did stick to it—though, like most sailors, he growled, and even swore sometimes, that he hated the life. And now, in the winter of 1784-5, here he was in Kelso, stout, weather-beaten, grey-headed, over fifty, living within earshot of the deep voice of flooded Tweed roaring and fretting over the barrier with which the devil, at bidding of Michael Scott the Wizard, long syne dammed its course. Many a time when the captain's ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... the hands of my God than into the hands of my enemies. My danger was so great that I forgot the danger of others; besides, sir, I knew my comrades were soldiers, and feared death as little as I do." My answer pleased the fine grey-headed general, and he gave me a recommendation to the chancellor Bestuchef ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... World, he seldom changes his Servants; and as he is beloved by all about him, his Servants never care for leaving him; by this means his Domesticks are all in Years, and grown old with their Master. You would take his Valet de Chambre for his Brother, his Butler is grey-headed, his Groom is one of the gravest Men that I have ever seen, and his Coachman has the Looks of a Privy-Counsellor. You see the Goodness of the Master even in the old House-dog, and in a grey Pad that is kept in the Stable with great Care and Tenderness out of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the highroad, one was grey-headed and clean-shaven, and wore a German peaked cap, the other young and tall, with a beard and a Polish cap. A two-horse vehicle was drawn up a ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... went to church; the priest was reading from Holy Scripture, and so he needs must listen. Now there were certain words there which pleased him not. "To say such words to me!" thought he, "words that I can never forget, though I grow grey-headed." After service the Tsar went home, and bade them send the priest to him. The priest came. "How durst thou read such and such passages to me?" said the Tsar.—"They were written to be read," replied the priest.—"Written, indeed! And wouldst ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... cleared the Irish coast, a sullen, grey-headed old wave of the Atlantic climbed leisurely over her straight bows, and sat down on the steam-capstan used for hauling up the anchor. Now the capstan and the engine that drove it had been newly painted red and green; besides which, nobody likes ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... be formed, and turbulent passions restrained, so that when manhood and old age come, the mind be not enervated by the follies and vices of youth, but, supported and strengthened by the Divine Being, be enabled to say, "O God, thou hast taught me from my youth, and now when I am old and grey-headed, O God, thou wilt not ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... across the eyes, right in the eyes! He was crying, he felt choking, his tears were streaming. One of the men gave him a cut with the whip across the face, he did not feel it. Wringing his hands and screaming, he rushed up to the grey-headed old man with the grey beard, who was shaking his head in disapproval. One woman seized him by the hand and would have taken him away, but he tore himself from her and ran back to the mare. She was almost at the last gasp, but ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Master Harry," said another, a grey-headed old fisherman. "Here's you, son of the biggest owner here in Carn Du, a young chap as can swim like a seal, and yet never had the pluck to take ...
— A Terrible Coward • George Manville Fenn
... leading off the main street to the water's edge, and terminating in steps where as a rule the watermen wait to take off passengers to the Packets. A lamp-post stands in the middle of it, and by the base of this the preachers—a grey-headed man and two women in ugly bonnets— were already assembled, with but a foot or two dividing them from the crowd. Close behind the lamp-post stood a knot of men conversing together one of whom stepped forward for a word with the grey-headed ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... Mr. Sabin did not neglect his luncheon, nor was he ever for a moment unmindful of the grey-headed princess who chatted away by his side with all the vivacity of her race and sex. But ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "do you call yourself a man, to war with children and old grey-headed men? You must not, shall not, touch these two. You have wreaked your vengeance upon the white men; be content— let ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... lifesize portrait of the reigning Tsar were thrown wide open, and amid the breathless silence of all assembled, the grey-headed President of the Imperial Council, Grand Duke Michael, entered the hall. Two other members of the Imperial house, the Grand Dukes Vladimir Alexandrovitch and Alexis Alexandrovitch, brothers of the ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... A grey-headed and feeble old man was standing near the grave, leaning with his two hands on a staff, and with his head depressed. He wept aloud, when the clergyman mentioned Amelia's name, as he prayed, and gave thanks to God. He then stooped down, and taking a little earth in his hand, said, ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... ganging. So then the sea-weary their wide shields set down, Their war-rounds the mighty, against the hall's wall. Then bow'd they to bench, and rang there the byrnies, The war-weed of warriors, and up-stood the spears, The war-gear of the sea-folk all gather'd together. The ash-holt grey-headed; that host of the iron 330 With weapons was worshipful. There then a proud chief Of those lads of the battle speer'd after their line: Whence ferry ye then the shields golden-faced, The grey sarks therewith, and the helms all bevisor'd, ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous
... with surprise, the old cheat saluted the forty grey-headed men round the fire: Devout adorers of fire, said he, this is a happy day for us! ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... long-bearded, grey-headed supermen, beings possessed of the rounded eyes of happy children, descending from the hills, and decking the earth, and sowing it with sheerly kaleidoscopic treasures, and coating the tops of the mountains with massive ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... always curious. The little fellowship became resentfully self-conscious.... Old wounds reopened; forgotten infirmities lifted up their heads. The three great sailors remembered that they were deaf. The little engineer noticed his trailing leg. The lean, grey-headed joiner thought of the wife who had left him: his fellow recalled the cries of a dying child. Anthony minded Miss French. Only the two old carters were spared the ordeal, their labour keeping them busy under the cover of the woods. Winchester himself ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... age, but as I was not so elderly, I took it "cum grano salis." He was a charming old gentleman, the perfect beau ideal of the true old style of Turk, but few specimens of which remain; all that he had said was spoken in sincerity, and I resolved to collect as much information as possible from the grey-headed authorities before I should commence the expedition. I was deeply impressed with one fact, that until I could dispense with an interpreter it would be impossible to succeed, therefore I determined to learn ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... in whom the country has placed its trust?" muttered a grey-headed old gentleman, who, while apparently absorbed in his newspaper, had been listening to the ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... was grey-headed, and a privileged friend. "My dear," he said, "I was just giving it you. However, the object-lesson was going on; the subject being Quadrupeds, which Miss Mary very properly explained to be 'things with four ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... the world is a limited place, bounded by actual crystal walls, and a material firmament; it is like a painted toy, like that map or system of the world, held, as a great target or shield, in the hands of the grey-headed father of all things, in one of the earlier frescoes of the Campo Santo at Pisa. How different from this childish dream is our own conception of nature, with its unlimited space, its innumerable suns, and the earth but a mote in the beam; how different ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... of the lake? Who ever heard of such a thing? Why, if one started when a mere boy to walk to the other end of the lake, he would be an old grey-headed man before he got there," declared one of the natives. Livingstone knew that he had opened up a great waterway to the interior of Africa, but the slave trade in these parts was terrible, gangs being employed in carrying the ivory from countries to the north ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... he had heard. Consternation was depicted on the countenance of all, and a wordy colloquy ensued as to what would become of their dear young mistress, and whether they would be discharged to make room for others whom the new Baronet might choose to appoint. The grey-headed old Butler had been at Vellenaux since he was a lad of fourteen, and had known Colonel Effingham, who had frequently, prior to leaving the service, visited his old companion-in-arms, Sir Jasper Coleman, at his favorite residence, felt much concerned that ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... bosom as in yours; so that when I would persuade you to come with me to the same Saviour, and to walk the rest of your life 'led by the Spirit of God,' I am not persuading you to anything beyond your years. I am not like a grey-headed grandfather,—then you might answer all I say by telling me that you are a boy. No; I am almost as much a boy as you are; as fond of happiness and of life as you are; as fond of scampering over the hills, and seeing all that is to ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... forth; and turning round, Olinthus beheld, by the light of the lamp, an old grey-headed man sitting on the floor, and supporting in his lap the head of one of the dead. The features of the dead man were firmly and rigidly locked in the last sleep; but over the lip there played a fierce smile—not the Christian's smile of hope, but the dark sneer of hatred and defiance. ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... of Attinghausen. A Gothic Hall, decorated with escutcheons and helmets. The Baron, a grey-headed man, eighty- five years old, tall and of a commanding mien, clad in a furred pelisse, and leaning on a staff tipped with chamois horn. Kuoni and six hinds standing round him with rakes and scythes. Ulrich of Rudenz enters in the ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... deep lines in the forehead; and last of all, you will do vulgar things, that will make my mouth get into the 'don't' shape, which is so ugly, you know; and, by and by, when I look at myself in the glass, I shall find myself turned into a grey-headed old woman, and I shall say, 'Sissy gave me those wrinkles between my eyes, I always had to frown at her so;' and then, 'Those ugly lines by my mouth came when Lottie vexed me so.' What a funny thing it will be to have to remember you in that way ...
— My Young Days • Anonymous
... for, and tried to help, drift out of one's sight and ken. I have no touch of the feeling which they say was characteristic of Jowett—and indeed is amply evidenced by his correspondence—that once a man's tutor he was always his tutor, even though his pupil became grey-headed and a grandfather. One must do the best for the boys and look for no gratitude; it often comes, indeed, in rich measure, but the schoolmaster who ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... good chance of dat!" observed one of our captors, a grey-headed old negro with a facetious countenance, looking at the numerous ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... grey-headed stockbroker, "there disengages itself from the totality of the facts an impression, tolerably clear, that all goes very well on the ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... introduced to me as Mr. Lestrade, and who came three or four times in a single week. One morning a young girl called, fashionably dressed, and stayed for half an hour or more. The same afternoon brought a grey-headed, seedy visitor, looking like a Jew pedlar, who appeared to me to be much excited, and who was closely followed by a slip-shod elderly woman. On another occasion an old white-haired gentleman had an interview with my companion; and on another a railway porter in his velveteen uniform. ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... ancient still, and the grown people of Deerbrook telling their little ones all about the pestilence that swept the place at the end of the great scarcity, when they were children, you and yours, and perhaps I, may sit, a knot of grey-headed friends, and hear over again about those good old days of ours, as we ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... threw open the office door, and a moment later returned with a tall, grey-headed man, with closely cropped beard and gold-rimmed eyeglasses. He shook hands with Vine warmly, ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... certainly under a wise, just, and mild government, since you have no public grievances to complain of, nor any subject of contention but the perfections and imperfections of foreign music. I turned my head from them to an old grey-headed one, who was single on another leaf, and talking to himself. Being amused with his soliloquy, I put it down in writing, in hopes it will likewise amuse her to whom I am so much indebted for the ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... when Sir Henry Wilding's motor turned its back upon the outskirts of London, and it was a quarter past seven when it whirled up to the stables of Wilding Hall, and the baronet and his grey-headed, bespectacled and white-spatted companion alighted, having taken five hours and a quarter to make a journey which the trains which run daily between Liverpool Street and Darsham make ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... Hope was quite dead—but her work is often done by Despair. For a while there was confusion all round the pit-mouth, but with a white fixed face and glaring eyes, Lawrie Logan advanced to the very brink, with the rope bound in many firm folds around him, and immediately behind him stood his grey-headed father, unbonneted, just as he had risen from a prayer. "Is't my ain father that's gaun to help me to gang doun to bring up Willie's body? O! merciful God, what a judgment is this! Father—father—Oh! lie doun at some distance awa frae the sicht o' this place. ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... naturally looked with admiration upon Cato, observing that while they became enervated by pleasures and broke down under labours, he on the other hand seemed unaffected by either, and that too, not only while he was young and eager for fame: but even when he was an old grey-headed man, after he had been consul and had triumphed, he yet, like a victorious athlete, still kept himself in training, and never relaxed his severe discipline. He himself tells us that he never wore a garment worth more than a hundred drachmas, that when he ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... roars in concert—hand in hand they go in their fury and their force. Had they been called up but one week since, where would have been those who have now been, as it were, intrusted to my weak help? The father, the mother, the children, the infant at the breast, and I, the grey-headed old man,—all buried fathoms deep, awaiting our summons; but they were restrained by his will, and by his will we were saved. Will those timbers which bore us here so miraculously hold together till morning? I should think not. What are the iron bolts and fastenings of weak man, ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat
... other hand, our unit of perception were decreased a thousandfold, our length of life, based upon perception of events, would be no longer than 25-1/2 of our present days; if our life were actually reduced to that period (so as to regain our present units of perception) we should be old and grey-headed before the sun had risen for the twenty-fifth time since our birth. If our unit of perception, with our length of life, were again reduced a thousandfold, the whole of our life of seventy years would now only be equal to forty-three ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... with the 'rules of the estate' and with a notice to quit, the agent may have almost anything he demands, short of possession of the farm and the home of the tenant. The notice to quit is like a death warrant to the family. It makes every member of it tremble and agonise, from the grey-headed grandfather and grandmother, to the bright little children, who read the advent of some impending calamity in the gloomy countenances and bitter words of their parents. The passion for the possession of land is the chord on which the agent plays, and at his ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... affection with their brothers, sisters, and schoolfellows. Such things as these, their young minds may apprehend, feel, and apply, and thus be strengthened and benefitted, but scholastic subtelties, and controverted dogmas, such as the grey-headed are perpetually disputing about, surely should never be taught to infants by any one who has carefully considered the subject, and properly studied the nature of the ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... sight of him a second time. And Peredur went along the mountain, and on the other side of the mountain he beheld a castle in the valley, wherein was a river. And he went to the castle; and as he entered it, he saw a hall, and the door of the hall was open, and he went in. And there he saw a lame grey-headed man sitting on one side of the hall, with Gwalchmai beside him. And Peredur beheld his horse, which the black man had taken, in the same stall with that of Gwalchmai. And they were glad concerning Peredur. And he went and seated himself on the other side of ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... and the hopes of immortality, can be either unworthy of study, or, if rightly explained, uninteresting in the acquisition. In fact, on the principles I am about to advocate, I have seen the deepest interest manifested, from the small child to the grey-headed sire, from the mere novice to the statesman and philosopher, and all alike seemed to be edified and improved by the attention ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... Miss Campbell is easy to do for, and she has bonnie ladylike ways wi' her; but I'd like fine to see that grand, grey-headed auld gentleman laird o' the place. He'd bring a deal o' ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... grey-headed chaplain, took the Highlander affectionately by the second button of his tunic and gave it a pull. "Not much space here, eh? I think you're pretty ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... and of country amounted to something more than mere sentiment has been proved conclusively by the war, when the whole male population rose in arms against the invading foe. Touching, indeed, it was to behold boys of twelve and grey-headed men of seventy and eighty years shouldering their rifles and all fighting for one great ideal. When their homes were burned, families removed, and goods taken or destroyed, they exclaimed: "Let the British do whatever they please, let them strip us ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... glow of gold, the chaste sheen of silver, the dance and sparkle of light in multitudinous gems, arrested his attention as he one evening perambulated the streets of a great city. He beheld a jeweller's shop. The grey-headed, spectacled lapidary sat at a bench within, sedulously polishing a streaked pebble by the light of a small lamp. A sudden thought struck Otto; he entered the shop, and, presenting the ring to the jeweller, inquired in ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... million of sesterces in gold, ready at hand; until at last, at the time he was living in the town of Fundi, the province of Hispania Tarraconensis was offered him. After his arrival in the province, whilst he was sacrificing in a temple, a boy who attended with a censer, became all on a sudden grey-headed. This incident was regarded by some as a token of an approaching revolution in the government, and that an old man would succeed a young one: that is, that he would succeed Nero. And not long after, a thunderbolt falling into a lake in Cantabria [660], ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... Pandemonium broke loose. Grey-headed men threw their hats into the air; M.P.'s danced; lovely women shrieked; every Harrovian on the ground howled. For Caesar held the ball fast ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... at least." "Well then," said Taliesin, "I should not be worth a straw in the world at present. I am better where I am. Truth will never be had where there are many poets, nor fair dealing where there are many lawyers; no, nor health where there are many physicians." At this moment, a little grey-headed hobgoblin, who had heard that a living man was arrived, flung himself at my feet, weeping abundantly. "Dear me," said I, "what are you?" "One who is grievously wronged every day in the world," said he. "May ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... children, he or she may expect to become rich. If a childless spouse see in a dream children running round the fireside, there is reason to fear the little prattlers will never be there in reality. It is unlucky to dream that a girl has a beard, or that a boy is grey-headed. It is unlucky to dream of a minister, but it is not an evil sign for one to suppose he is worshipping in church. If you dream that a watch or clock falls or is broken, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... a pursuit, and that energies so unconquerable should have had no worthier field to strive in. Even when he had fumed away his last coin, and had nothing left in prospective to keep his old age from starvation, hope never forsook him. He still dreamed of ultimate success, and sat down a grey-headed man of eighty, to read over all the authors on the hermetic mysteries, from Geber to his own day, lest he should have misunderstood some process, which it was not yet too late to recommence. The alchymists say, that he succeeded at last, and discovered the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... with much black carved oak, she still had the dreamy sensation of returning to a life forgotten. The guests, however, were strangers. Mrs. Verdon, in a white silk gown embroidered with bunches of poppies, had never seemed less known. The grey-headed man with the rosy face was Mr. Danforth, and the two auburn-haired young ladies were ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... the grey-headed General in Public Meetings. For the first time on Saturday evening I got near to him in a more private way. And then it seemed to me like a picture, as when a grey warrior, a commander with snow-white beard and keen profile, stands upright ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... Grey-headed rocks rose everywhere close about the ship; overhead the seagulls cried and circled; no vegetation was visible on either shore, no houses, no abode of man—nothing but the lighthouses, then miles of deserted ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... Stuyvesant, and if my admiration of him has on this occasion transported my style beyond the sober gravity which becomes the philosophic recorder of historic events, I must plead as an apology that though a little grey-headed Dutchman, arrived almost at the down-hill of life, I still retain a lingering spark of that fire which kindles in the eye of youth when contemplating the virtues of ancient worthies. Blessed thrice, and nine times blessed be the good St. Nicholas, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... consider what I am now (a volume of diseases bound up together; a dry cinder, if I look for natural, for radical moisture; and yet a sponge, a bottle of overflowing Rheums, if I consider accidental; an aged child, a grey-headed infant, and but the ghost of mine own youth), when I consider what I shall be at last, by the hand of death, in my grave (first, but putrefaction, and, not so much as putrefaction; I shall not be able to send forth so much as ill air, not any air at all, but shall be all insipid, ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... identify them when at large as it is to see through a brick wall. Small wonder, then, that field naturalists fight rather shy of this family. Of the 110 species of warbler which exist in India, I propose to deal with only one, and that favoured bird is Hodgson's grey-headed flycatcher-warbler (Cryptolopha xanthoschista). My reasons for raising this particular species from among the vulgar herd of warblers are two. The first is that it is the commonest bird in our hill stations. The second is that it is ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... all things. Also she knew well that this would have been the desire of my dear father, who was killed in the Zulu war with his father, the Ralph Kenzie of the story, whom, by the way, I can remember as a handsome grey-headed man. For my father was a thorough Englishman, with nothing of the Boer about him, moreover he married an English lady, the daughter of a Natal colonist, and for these reasons he and his grandmother did ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it' (Matt 7:14). Yet some companions thou wilt have. David counted himself a companion of all them that love God's testimonies (Psa 119:63). All the godly, though grey-headed, will be thy companions; yea, and thou shalt have either one or more of the angels of God in heaven to attend on, and minister for ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... three men, who were sitting beside the fire, on blocks of stone which had been rolled from the beach. Two of them were young, and comparatively commonplace-looking persons; the third was a grey-headed old man, apparently of great muscular strength though long past his prime, and of a peculiarly sinister cast of countenance. A keg of spirits, which was placed end up in front of them, served as a table; there ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... I'm one of the family and he sort of had to. It is a duty. Besides, do you suppose it was very much fun sticking around that house, quiet as the grave, nothing going on, no one coming to see your father but old, grey-headed men and women forever ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... the stables, Preston sent a boy in search of "Darius." Darius, he told me, was the coachman, and chief in charge of the stable department. Darius came presently. He was a grey-headed, fine-looking, most respectable black man. He had driven my mother and my mother's mother; and being a trusted and important man on the place, and for other reasons, he had a manner and bearing that were a model of dignified propriety. Very grave "Uncle Darry" was; stately and ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... opened, and the Duke of St. James took his seat in the Edinburgh and York Mail. He had two companions: the first, because apparently the most important, was a hard-featured, grey-headed gentleman, with a somewhat supercilious look, and a mingled air of acuteness and conceit; the other was a humble-looking widow in her weeds, middle-aged, and sad. These persons had recently roused themselves from their nocturnal slumbers, and now, after their welcome meal ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... noses, and I was awfully shy of them because they were always whispering and giggling together. The master of the house usually sat in his study on a leather couch in front of the table with some grey-headed gentleman, usually a colleague from our office or some other department. I never saw more than two or three visitors there, always the same. They talked about the excise duty; about business in the senate, about salaries, about promotions, about His Excellency, and ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... evening passed, not long nor tediously to any of the party; and midnight was at hand; when there entered from the atrium a grey-headed slave bearing a tray covered with light refreshments—fresh herbs, endive and mallows sprinkled with snow, ripe figs, eggs and anchovies, dried grapes, and cakes of candied honey; while two boys of rare beauty followed, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... saw suggested that perhaps I was dead after all and had reached that hell which a certain class of earnest Christian promises to us as the reward of the failings that Nature and those who begat us have handed on to us as a birth doom. It was something unnatural, grey-headed, terrific—doubtless a devil come to torment me in the inquisition vaults of Hades. Yet I had known the like when I was alive. How had it been called? I remembered, "The-thing-that-never-should-have-been-born." Hark! It was speaking in that full ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... him to be employed in a diplomatic capacity by his own government." The following passage is, however, from "his more popular and wider honour"—his superstitious character,—whilst, as Mr. Tytler prettily observes, "his miracles and incantations are yet recorded beside the cottage fire, by many a grey-headed crone, and his fearful name still banishes the roses from the cheeks of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 492 - Vol. 17, No. 492. Saturday, June 4, 1831 • Various
... fixed for the throw-off, came and went, and still Poachers' Copse was not relieved of its busy intruders. Many a gentleman foxhunter glanced at his hunting-watch as the minutes passed, many a burly farmer jerked his horse impatiently; while the grey-headed huntsman cracked his long whip amongst his canine favourites and promised them they should soon be on the scent. The delay was caused by the non-arrival of the Master of ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... addressed a grey-headed man on his left. "Did I ever tell you, Mr.—, how I once enjoyed the hospitality of a Cornish village, through the simple accident of ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... all alone at the strangest hours, take a fiacre and drive away to the back of the Chartreux or to other remote spots. Alighting there, he would whistle, and a grey-headed old man would advance and give him a packet, or one would be thrown to him from a window, or he would pick up a box filled with despatches, hidden behind a post. I heard of these mysterious doings from people to whom ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... showed nothing but alarm and perplexity. She drew herself away from him. The chaperone, a little grey-headed woman with mobile features, leant forward to intervene. Her resolute bright eyes examined Denton. "What do you ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells |
