"Uncombed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... two, though not more than midway between thirty and forty years old, was clad in a strange uncouth garb of the coarsest materials, and his lank long hair hung matted and uncombed upon his shoulders from a "brim" of extravagant dimensions. This style of dress was not then recognised as the distinctive badge of a religious sect, as it is now of the people called "Quakers," or, as they are more favourably designated, "Friends." The person of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... blear-eyed men, half drunk, leaning against the barrels, and sitting on the side-walks; and decayed fruit, in windows so thick with dirt that one could scarcely see through them; and second-hand, faded dresses and bonnets for sale, swinging from out the doorways; and girls with uncombed hair and bare feet and bold faces, fighting and swearing; and old, gray-haired men, smoking pipes and drinking. I was quite sick at heart, and was glad to get into Mr. Pease's house, and find something doing ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... deceased, had received a gift of three hundred acres of land from Madame Kuvshinnikov, a general's widow, was standing in a corner before a copper washing-stand, washing his hands. As usual, his face looked anxious and ill-humoured, and his beard was uncombed. ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... instinct that lady started back when she saw Hartsook, for she had just built a fire in the stove, and she now stood at the door with unwashed face and uncombed hair. ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... such a woful figure by the door as she turned her head—no bonnet, no shoes, and a tattered frock, all draggled with dirt and rain, and the long, uncombed locks straggling about the child's shoulders, and such a blue, pinched ...
— Little Alice's Palace - or, The Sunny Heart • Anonymous
... Lancashire. The speaker was a woman, the regularity of whose features showed that she had once been good-looking, but from whose face every trace of beauty had been scorched out by intemperance. Her hair uncombed, and prematurely grey, straggled out into the wind. Her dress, all patches, scarcely served for decent covering; while her poor half- naked feet seemed rather galled than protected by the miserable slippers in which she clattered along ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... impressed with a sense of humanity would have abhorred so cruel a practice, and a nation skilled in the arts of war would have disdained so impotent a resource. [39] Whenever these Barbarians issued from their deserts in quest of prey, their shaggy beards, uncombed locks, the furs with which they were covered from head to foot, and their fierce countenances, which seemed to express the innate cruelty of their minds, inspired the more civilized provincials of Rome ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... Lightning said. "Come in." In the midst of the riot of wealth, the professor didn't seem to have changed at all. He was still wearing the same ratty robe he'd worn in the carnival, his hair was still as uncombed. It was only on second glance that Charley saw the look in his eyes. Professor Lightning was Dr. Schinsake now; the eyes said that, and were proud of it. And the world agreed with ...
— Charley de Milo • Laurence Mark Janifer AKA Larry M. Harris
... country, where many a family goes without dinner, unless the father can knock down a squirrel in the woods, or his pale sickly boy pick up a terrapin in the swamps? We did, indeed, sometimes fall in with a little corn; but then, the poor, skinny, sun-burnt women, with long uncombed tresses, and shrivelled breasts hanging down, would run screaming to us, with tears in their eyes, declaring that if we took away their corn, they and their children must perish. Such times I never saw, ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... that insane people believe that they only are sane, and that reasonable people are insane. You will grant me that it is much more like a crazy person to strew his hair with flour, and tie it up in that ridiculous cue, than to wear it as God made it, uncombed and unparted, as I do my beautiful hair, and for which they call me crazy! But, for Heaven's sake, where are you going?" asked Goethe, struggling ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... knew again the good old way to La Ferrare, mounted on a huge bear. This at a distance would have put me in mind of St. Jerome's picture, had but the bear been a lion; for the poor way was all mortified, and wore a long hoary beard uncombed and entangled, which looked like the picture of winter, or at least like ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... seeing, at least during the interim, their friend in clean clothes, and reading "his copy" in the best journals. But the luxury of having a fixed place to sleep in, stimulated, not industry, but vicious laziness of the most ineradicable kind. Henceforth Sands abandoned all effort to help himself. Uncombed, unwashed, in dirty clothes, he lay in an arm-chair through all the morning, rising from time to time to mess some paint into the appearance of some incoherent landscape, or to rasp out some bars of Beethoven ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... when she has not grown too fat, and when she does not torture her small foot to make it smaller, she must be extremely handsome.... The general carelessness of their dress in the morning is, however, another great drawback to beauty. A woman without stays, with uncombed hair and reboso, had need to be very lovely, if she retain any attraction at all. This indolence, indeed, is going out of fashion, especially among the younger part of the community, owing, perhaps, to their more frequent intercourse with foreigners, though it will ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... went dirty—unwashed and uncombed, With hands black as pitch through the garden he roamed; When suddenly a monstrous black shadow fell o'er him, And the Woman Who Scrubs Dirty Goops stood ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... "No, not really. Mostly crackpots. Have you ever noticed how it is that the nonconformists in any society are usually crackpots? The people on your side that admit belonging to our organizations, are usually on the wild eyed and uncombed hair side—I admit it. On the other hand, the people in our citizenry who subscribe to your system, your religion, that sort of thing, are crackpots, too. Applies to religion as well as politics. An atheist in your country is a nonconformist—in ...
— Summit • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... down on the floor, in the space before the altar, unwashed, uncombed, unconscious of the dirty rags that scarce covered them; quite happy and self-forgetful in the charming friskings and friendly lollings of the well-fed, carefully groomed, beautiful little dog. Ailie, still so excited that she forgot to be shy, put ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... poore wretched ghost Is forst to ferrie over Lethes river, And spoyld of Charon too and fro am tost. Seest thou not how all places quake and quiver, 340 Lightned with deadly lamps on everie post? Tisiphone each where doth shake and shiver Her flaming fire-brond, encountring me, Whose lockes uncombed cruell adders be. ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... by steep stone stairways which curved this way and that down narrow alleys between the packed and dirty tenements of the village. It was a quarter well stocked with deformed, leering, unkempt and uncombed idiots, who held out hands or caps and begged piteously. The people of the quarter were not all idiots, of course, but all that begged seemed to be, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... this expedient failed. The youngest and the feeblest of the band of victims, Juggernaut spared him to Moloch. All his companions were disposed of. Three months' "play" in the streets got rid of this tender company,—shoeless, half-naked, and uncombed,—whose age varied from two to five years. Some were crushed, some were lost, some caught cold and fevers, crept back to their garret or their cellars, were dosed with Godfrey's cordial, and died in peace. The nameless one would not disappear. He always got out of the way of the carts and ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... aspect by which I was customarily distinguished, would in vain be sought in the apparition which would now present itself before them. My legs, neck, and bosom were bare, and their native hue was exchanged for the livid marks of bruises and scarifications. A horrid scar upon my cheek, and my uncombed locks; hollow eyes, made ghastly by abstinence and cold, and the ruthless passions of which my mind had been the theatre, added to the musket which I carried in my hand, would prepossess them with the notion of a ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... figure, and a giant's strength, whose sunburnt face and swarthy throat, overgrown with jet black hair, might have served a painter for a model. Loosely attired, in the coarsest and roughest garb, with scraps of straw and hay—his usual bed—clinging here and there, and mingling with his uncombed locks, he had fallen asleep in a posture as careless as his dress. The negligence and disorder of the whole man, with something fierce and sullen in his features, gave him a picturesque appearance, that attracted the regards ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... great poetical light of the magazine. Johnson looked up to him as a leader in his craft, and was graciously taken by Cave to an alehouse in Clerkenwell, where, wrapped in a horseman's coat, and "a great bushy uncombed wig," he saw Mr. Browne sitting at the end of a long table, in a cloud of tobacco-smoke, and felt the ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... indifference to all that was going on in that weary time of war, looked strange enough to indicate that it must be some most important business that engrossed him. On the few occasions when he came out from his immediate haunts into the village, he had a strange, owl-like appearance, uncombed, unbrushed, his hair long and tangled; his face, they said, darkened with smoke; his cheeks pale; the indentation of his brow deeper than ever before; an earnest, haggard, sulking look; and so he went hastily along the village ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... it with a golden comb and about to braid up the long tresses; but when she saw the goddesses before her, she stayed and called them within, and rose from her seat and placed them on couches. Then she herself sat down, and with her hands gathered up the locks still uncombed. And smiling she addressed them with ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... hair was uncombed and dishevelled. The sallow, old-young face was distorted with passion, and the beady eyes glittered with the light of ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... this declivity they were descending, with their horses and their pack mules, in a long line of single file. They were way-worn pilgrims, and the grotesqueness of their attire, and their unshaven, uncut, and almost uncombed locks, added to their ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... he felt a cold coming on and took quinine. He was feverish until morning, and sat about the next day while Carrie waited on him. He was a helpless creature in sickness, not very handsome in a dull-coloured bath gown and his hair uncombed. He looked haggard about the eyes and quite old. Carrie noticed this, and it did not appeal to her. She wanted to be good-natured and sympathetic, but something about the ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... philosopher. His long, dirty nails and ragged, uncombed hair and beard were intended to impress his subjects with the wisdom of a man so absorbed in learning that he was above such things as cleanliness. Unfortunately, they had just the opposite effect, and the people made ...
— Saint Athanasius - The Father of Orthodoxy • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... with filthy hand the uncombed masses of jet-black hair, which still retained something of the perfume of better days. "Not yet! ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... to his watch-chain a great uncut ruby which must have been worth five thousand pounds. One trade-mark of the sea alone did he possess, in the dark, curly ringlets which fell to his shoulders, matted there as long uncombed, but typical in all of the man. This then was the fellow upon whose every word that company of ruffians appeared to hang, who obeyed him, as I observed presently, when he did so much as lift his hand, who seemed to have in their uncouth ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... words:—Zedekias Ursel, imprisoned here on the Ides of March, A.D.——. Died and interred on the spot"—A blank was left for filling up the period. The figure of the captive could hardly be discerned amid the wildness of his dress and dishabille. The hair of his head, uncut and uncombed, descended in elf-locks, and mingled with ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... smiled broadly at me, and I inclined an uncombed head, while, for a moment, the quest was a dream, and I myself felt unutterably squalid and foolish. I ducked down, heard them parting, ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... now made the king's tenants and were obliged to pay taxes if they wished to hold their lands. These changes angered many and there were frequent rebellions against the king, but he put them all down, and year after year came nearer the goal of his ambition. And his hair continued to grow uncut and uncombed, and got to be such a tangled mass that men called ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... a woman, low-browed, uncombed, harsh of voice and speech and nature, who drove the four oxen forward over lava rock and rough prairie and the scanty sage. I might tell you a great deal about Marthy, who plodded stolidly across the desert and the low-lying hills ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... wildly. It was said that, full of threats, I had taken a shotgun menacingly from a rack ... that a vicious bull dog lay between my feet, growling ... that I went, sockless, in sandals ... had long, flowing, uncombed hair.... ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... beast, and obliged to suck blood and live among the tombs as if I liked it, without power to tell you how I loathe it, all through their sorcery. By the genius of Rome something must be done. I say, no one is safe. You call on your friend; he is sitting in the dark, unwashed, uncombed, undressed. What is the matter? Ah! his son has turned Christian. Your wedding-day is fixed, you are expecting your bride; she does not come; why? she will not have you; she has become a Christian. Where's young Nomentanus? Who has seen Nomentanus? in the forum, or the campus, in the circus, in ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... so that round the throat there was not the least portion of "carnation" appearing to be free from the insect plague. Their hair, too, is seldom cut; and I have seen girls of eight or ten years of age, bearing a growing crop which had evidently remained unshorn, and I may add, uncombed, from the time of their birth. It is impossible not to dread coming into contact with these imps, who, when old, are among the ugliest conceivable specimens of the human race. The women, even those who inhabit the towns, live much in ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... dissentient waved a roll of paper violently and refused to modify his standpoint. He was evidently speaking, for his jaws were making movements, which in the din and uproar could not rise above grimaces. There was a battered high hat on the back of his head, and his hair was uncombed, and his face unwashed. At last silence was restored ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... so ugly, and the face too, that there was no pity felt for her; those dirty, wrinkled features bore witness to her contempt for the cleansing qualities of water. Her uncombed hair was hanging in masses about her ears and face, and her countenance expressed cruelty and passion. But Harpstenah had nothing to avenge; when she was young she was passed by, as there was nothing in her face or disposition ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... great pains, in extracting from his breeches-pocket a purse bursting with coins. As the morning brightens, it is possible to see the shabby garb of KRAUSE, which is in no respects better than that of the commonest field labourer. He is about fifty years old. His head is bare, his thin, grey hair is uncombed and matted. His dirty shirt is open down to his waist. His leathern breeches, tied at the ankles, were once yellow but are now shiny with dirt. They are held up by a single embroidered suspender. On his naked feet he wears a pair of embroidered ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... a woman of about thirty-six or forty, short, thick-set, crooked, her neck sunk between unequal shoulders. They had pulled off her cap, and her hair, of a rather faded yellow, uncombed, tangled, striped with gray, fell over her low and stupid face. She was dressed in a blue frock, like the other prisoners, and carried under her arm a bundle tied up in a miserable, ragged handkerchief. ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... impudent carriage, and a pert, flippant voice, standing upon one of the trunks, and surveying all our proceedings in the most impertinent manner. The creature was dressed in a ragged, dirty purple stuff gown, cut very low in the neck, with an old red cotton handkerchief tied over her head; her uncombed, tangled locks falling over her thin, inquisitive face, in a state of perfect nature. Her legs and feet were bare, and, in her coarse, dirty red hands, she swung to and fro an ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... stretched out on the benches and others leaning on the tables with their elbows, some were barefoot others were wearing their shoes slipshod like slippers; almost all were dirty and poorly clad; their clothes were unbuttoned, their hair uncombed, and their faces frightful; they wore pistols in their belts, and sabers, with scarves turned into shoulder-straps. Bottles, bits of bread, fragments of meat and bones lay strewn around on the floor, and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... any of our back streets and alleys, those nurseries of vice and feeders of the jails, and to assure himself that children of the same class as those he will see in [these] haunts—dirty, rude, boisterous, playing in the mud with uncombed hair, filthy and torn garments, and skin that looks as if it had not been washed for months—are always, throughout Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Holland, and a great part of France, either in school or in the school play-ground, clean, well-dressed, polite and civil in their manners, ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... do with personality, therefore the physical structure must come in for its share of proper attention. No man of refined personality would walk the streets with a soiled face or uncombed hair. Such things do not give poise. They are the evidences of a laggard spirit. The more we exercise the more energetic we become, the surer we are of ourselves, the farther we get in the ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... position he was being fitted. He entered life with bright hopes. The world beckoned him, friends cheered him, but the archers shot at him; vile men set traps for him, bad habits hooked fast to him with their iron grapples; his feet slipped on the way; and there he lies. Who would think that that uncombed hair was once toyed with by a father's fingers? Who would think that those bloated cheeks were ever kissed by a mother's lips? Would you guess that that thick tongue once made a household glad with its innocent prattle? Utter no harsh words in his ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... their loafers' coats, out at elbows, or their laborers' jackets, defaced with grimy toil; the women drawing their shabby shawls tighter about their shoulders, to hide the raggedness beneath; all of them unbrushed, unshaven, unwashed, uncombed, and wrinkled with penury and care; nothing virgin-like in the brides, nor hopeful or energetic in the bridegrooms;—they were, in short, the mere rags and tatters of the human race, whom some east-wind of evil omen, howling along the streets, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... toil. And the washer-women were asking, "Why should we toil at the tub, and Citizeness Orleans ride in her carriage and dress in satins? We are as good as she, and our blood is as red." And at the corners of the streets, the uncombed mob were beginning to inquire, "Why should Citizen Orleans, who, by adopting the title of Egalite, has confessed himself to be only our equal, be in possession of magnificent palaces, and of thousands ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... hangs in agreeable folds over the neck and shoulders. There is but little beauty among them; and alas! how should there be? They are in general filthy; the hair of both old and young is allowed to fall in uncombed elf-locks about their heads; and the old women are often hideous and disgustful in the extreme. The heart bleeds for the women: they have more than their share of the labors of the field; they have all the toils of the men, added to the pains and cares ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... out some cold tea into two little cups, when Monsieur Perrier made his appearance, his face begrimed and his shaggy hair uncombed. I had been used to the sight of rough men in Adelaide, on our sheep-farm, but I had never seen one more boorish. He stood in the doorway, rubbing his hands, and gazing at us unflinchingly with the hard stare of a Norman peasant, while he spoke in rapid, uncouth tones to his wife. I turned away ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... fell a prey to despondent idleness which kept her at home, in a dirty petticoat, with hair uncombed, and face and hands unwashed. She neglected everything ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... laces, her cogitations were very busy. What concern were the Dows of hers or Maria's? They were not pleasant people to go near, she judged, from the look of their house and dooryard as she had seen it in passing; and the uncombed, fly-away head of the little girl gave her a shudder as she remembered it. They were not people that were often seen in church; they could not be good; maybe they used bad language; certainly they could not be expected to know how to "behave." Slowly ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... plucking up courage after sundry peeps at the good things, they came trooping in, in goodly numbers—a motly throng, ranging in point of age, from about seven to fourteen, and in point of condition, from ragged and torn urchins, with dirty faces and uncombed hair, to mill-girls of various ages with shining faces, and ribbons of different degrees of dirtiness in their crimped ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden
... packs lashed on their backs by ropes of twisted hide. Then another man came along, with another brace of donkeys. Finally, a fourth man, wearing skins for covering and with a mat of beard on his cheeks and chin, appeared. His uncovered head, a bush of uncombed flaxen hair, shone whitish as he knelt beside the dead beast, a knife with a dull-gray blade in his hand, and set to work skinning the wolf with appreciable skill. Three more pairs of donkeys, all heavily laden, ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... 'Tis somewhat to my humour: Stay, I fancy I'm now turned wild, a commoner of nature; Of all forsaken, and forsaking all; Live in a shady forest's sylvan scene, Stretched at my length beneath some blasted oak, I lean my head upon the mossy bark, And look just of a piece, as I grew from it: My uncombed locks, matted like misletoe, Hang o'er my hoary face; a murmuring ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... now the toilet's care Claims from her couch the restless fair; The toilet's care!—the glass has won Just half a glance, and all is done! A snappish—pettish word or so Warns the poor maid 'tis time to go:— Not at her toilet wait the Graces Uncombed Erynnys takes their places; So great a mind expands its scope Far from the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... colors shaped into frocks, and descending to the knee. Their trousers were of the same material. They were covered with slouched hats, worn bare by constant use, beneath which their long hair fell matted and uncombed over their cheeks; and these, together with the dirty blankets wrapped round their loins to protect them against the inclemency of the season, and fastened by broad leathern belts, into which were thrust axes ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... bony figure of the cadet, sitting bolt upright like a graven image in a tight uniform, with his eyes glued to the ceiling of his barrack-room, or the young man, with gaunt features, round shoulders, and uncombed hair, who wandered alone about the streets of Paris ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... Conceivable enough! Through coarse Thersites-cloak, we have revelation of the heart, wild-glowing, world-clasping, that is in him. Bravely he grapples with the life-problem as it presents itself to him, uncombed, shaggy, careless of the 'nicer proprieties,' inexpert of 'elegant diction,' yet with voice audible enough to whoso hath ears, up there on the gravelly side-hills, or down on the splashy, indiarubber-like salt-marshes of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... to our London coach were fastened by long rope traces six Flemish horses of different heights, but each large and clumsy enough to draw an English waggon. The nose of the foremost horse was thirty-five feet from the body of the coach, their hoofs all shaggy, their manes all uncombed, and their tails long enough to please Sir Charles Grandison himself. These beasts were totally disencumbered of every sort of harness except one strap which fastened the saddle on their backs; and high, high upon their backs, ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... arms and affections of that worthy and very enterprising lady, the door is opened by a slatternly maid of all work-her greasy dress, and hard, ruddy face and hands-her short, flabby figure, and her coarse, uncombed hair, giving out strong evidence of being overtaxed with labor. "Is it Mrs. Slocum hersel' ye'd be seein'?" inquires the maid, wiping her soapy hands with her apron, and looking querulously in the face of the old lady, who, with the air of a ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... the years spent with Lahoma was no longer apparent in his shifting bloodshot eyes, his crouching shoulders, his furtive hand ever ready to snatch the weapon from concealment. This sinister aspect of wildness, intensified by straggling whiskers and uncombed locks, gave to his giant form a kinship to the huge grotesquely shaped rocks among which ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... in vain. From the rear of a near-by house little Maggie appeared. A dirty, faded old shawl was wrapped about her tiny waist, hiding her bare feet and trailing behind. A sorry wreck of a hat trimmed with three chicken feathers crowned her uncombed hair, and the ragged remnants of a pair of black cotton gloves completed her elegant costume. In her thin little arms she held, with tender mother care, a doll so battered and worn by its long service that one wondered at the imaginative power of the child who could make of it anything ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... legs and crept about on their hands, or withered arms and fingerless hands. It was the most wretched misery, dragged from among the filthiest rags. "Excellenza, miserabili!" sighed they, thrusting forth their deformed limbs to view. Even the hostess, with bare feet, uncombed hair, and dressed in a garment of doubtful color, received the guests grumblingly. The doors were fastened with a loop of string; the floor of the rooms presented a stone paving half torn up; bats fluttered wildly about the ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... slow of speech, patriarchal in looks and bearing, powerful in body, became, to his mind's eye, the venerable chieftain of a mountain clan. Judd, with his aquiline face, which was undoubtedly handsome in a dark, brooding way, beneath its uncombed shock of black hair which swept low over his forehead, sinewy with the strength, quickness and muck of the natural grace of a panther, was the typical outlaw ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... also artful and audacious, glaring upon the beholder with an unpleasant fixedness and brilliancy, like that of a ravenous animal gloating on its prey. He wore no covering on his head, and the natural protection of thick, coarse hair, of a fiery redness, uncombed and matted, gave evidence of long exposure to the rudest visitations of the sunbeam and the tempest. He was armed with a rifle, and a broad leathern belt, drawn closely around his waist, supported a knife and a tomahawk. He seemed, in short, an outlaw, destitute ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... faded Benedictine habit, evidently spent with travel, appeared at the door. His beard was of long growth, his hair was uncombed, and his whole appearance that of a man who had passed through perils of no small ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... at sunset Hugh Price and Giles Peram suddenly came upon a wild-eyed, haggard young man, mounted upon a jaded steed. He had slept on the ground, for his uncombed hair had leaves still sticking to it, and his clothes were faded, soiled and torn. The evenings were cold, it being late in October, and the fugitive was looking about for a place to sleep. At a glance, both recognized him as Robert Stevens. They were armed with loaded pistols, while Robert, ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... the olives. He had gone (straight from his bed, and in perhaps the least considered of toilets: an old frieze ulster, ornamented with big buttons of mother-of-pearl, a pair of Turkish slippers, a bathing-towel over his shoulder, and for head-covering just his uncombed native thatch) he had gone for a swim, some half a mile upstream, to a place he knew where the Rampio—the madcap Rampio, all shallows and rapids—rests for a moment in a pool, wide and deep, translucent, inviting, and, ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... intellectual aptitude without having had much opportunity for intellectual acquirements. A series of felicitous crosses develops an improved strain of blood, and reaches its maximum perfection at last in the large uncombed youth who goes to college and startles the hereditary class-leaders by striding past them all. That is Nature's republicanism; thank God for it, but do not let it make you illogical. The race of the hereditary scholar has exchanged a certain portion of its animal vigor for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... was an equally short process. He jumped out of the box, shook himself, picked out one or two straws that had found their way into rents in his clothes, and, drawing a well-worn cap over his uncombed locks, he was all ready for the business of ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... democrat and be ashamed of the party, and a man may be of the party and not know a single principle of democracy), should be debarred from voting, I ask, is an Irishman just landed, unwashed and uncombed, more fit to vote than a woman educated in our common schools? Think of the mothers and daughters of this land, among whom are teachers, writers, artists, and speakers! What a throng could we gather if we should, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the drag, and thus it slowly entered a village, which attracted attention from its wretched appearance. The cottages, of the rough stone of the country, were little better than hovels; slates were torn off, windows broken. Wild-looking uncombed women, in garments of universal dirt colour, stood at the doors; ragged children ran and shrieked after the coach, the church had a hole in the roof, and stood tottering in spite of rude repairs; the churchyard was trodden down by cattle, and the whole place only resembled the pictures ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that no commodity whatsoever, of this nation's growth, should be sent to any other country except England, under the penalty of high treason; and that all the said commodities shall be sent in their natural state; the hides raw, the wool uncombed, the flax in the stub; excepting only fish, butter, tallow, and whatever else will be spoiled in the carriage. On the contrary, that no goods whatsoever shall be exported hither, except from England, under the same ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... rest—perhaps three or four—have only a few linen rags upon them. In the stifling atmosphere of these cave-dwellings it is by no means rare to see big children almost, if not absolutely, naked. I saw a great girl with a wild shock of uncombed hair, wearing nothing but a ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... spoke, the two smokers approached; shaggy, uncombed ruffians, whose enormous mustaches were turned back over their ears, and mingled with the wild elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under the old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... but two people there. But where, then, was the man who had led him hither? Here before him was a merry-looking youngster of perhaps two-and-twenty, with a light brown moustache and eyes grey or blue, and close-cropped fair hair. The hirsute and uncombed genius of the street ...
— Cruel Barbara Allen - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... Lloyd's dainty nose, as she went in, said more plainly than words, "Poah white trash!" For the house had a stuffy smell of liniment and bacon grease. An old woman came forward to meet them in her stocking feet and a dirty woollen wrapper. Her uncombed gray hair straggled around her ears, and her wrinkled face was unwashed and grimy. Lloyd was thankful that she did not offer to shake hands. She sat down on the edge of a chair, breathing the stuffy ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... who wants to meddle with me will get the worst of it." There was a brief pause; suddenly a man staggered out of the gin-shop, smearing the back of his hand across his mouth as he came—a massively built, ill-favoured brute, with a shock of uncombed red hair and small ferret-like eyes. He stared stupidly at the weeping Liz, then at Mother Mawks, finally from one to the other of the loafers who stood by. "Wot's the row?" he demanded, quickly. "Wot's up? 'Ave it out ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... flowers, sang, and listened to stories of the world beyond the hill. At times the school would dwindle away, and I would start out. I would visit Mun Eddings, who lived in two very dirty rooms, and ask why little Lugene, whose flaming face seemed ever ablaze with the dark red hair uncombed, was absent all last week, or why I missed so often the inimitable rags of Mack and Ed. Then the father, who worked Colonel Wheeler's farm on shares, would tell me how the crops needed the boys; and the thin, slovenly ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... nearly two years, and was quite unable to sit up; another blanket was fastened up against the side of the place to shelter her from the wind. On the other side of the fire crouched the daughter, listening to what I said about administering the medicines. A little boy with bright eyes and a stock of uncombed black hair was also crouching over the fire. This was Willie, the youngest of the family, now about five years old, and little did I think then how much I should have to do with that boy in his after life. Sitting down by the poor woman, I uncovered ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... Donatello's Wooden Statue of the same penitent in the Baptistery, seems a female Robinson Crusoe,—hirsute, cadaverous, fleshless, uncombed and uncomely,—certainly a more edifying spectacle than the voluptuous, Titianesque exhibitions of fair frailty which became the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... but her face was as yet unwashed, and her hair uncombed. She stood in the doorway between the dining-room and the kitchen, looking at Sanderson in ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... laughed, yet flushing to the worship of his eyes, "and my habit woefully torn of wicked bramble-thorns, and my hair ill-braided and all uncombed and—" ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... abandoned when Miss Whitford handed him a quite unnecessary cup of tea and a superfluous plate of toasted English muffins. He wished his hands had not been so big and red and freckled. Also he had an uncomfortable suspicion that his tow hair was tousled and uncombed in spite of his attempts at home ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... was forced to seek abroad for those amusements which he could not obtain at home. By the time he had completed his eighth year he was to be seen daily mingling with the poor boys in the village, with face unwashed and hair uncombed, and clothes more ragged and dirty than those ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... the homeward voyage, a settee was placed beside the soft couch which Derry had appropriated to Blair's especial use. The occupant of the settee was a huge, muscular, repulsive young man, whose yellow hair lay uncombed on his pillow, while his pale, freckle-marked face was distorted with pain, rage, and the torture of a rebellious spirit, when sorely smitten by ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... began to whistle. It was hard to understand how he had captured the loyal heart of this dusky princess. He was neither good-looking nor of a taking manner. His appearance was dirty, unkempt. His fair hair, very thin and getting gray at the crown, was long and uncombed, and his moustache was ragged and grossly stained. Yet she loved him with a devotion which had made her willing to renounce her people for him if necessary, and this means far more in a savage than it does amongst the ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... discouragingly rude. His sweaty, dirty shirt was open at the neck, his arms were bare, his scraggly teeth were yellow with tobacco, and his uncombed hair lay tumbled about on his high, narrow head. His clumsy, unsteady hands played with the dishes on the table. His pride was struggling with his sense of justice; he knew he ought to consent, and yet it was so hard ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... we harboured; We'd a hundred Jews to larboard, Unwashed, uncombed, uubarbered, Jews black, and brown, and grey; With terror it would seize ye, And make your souls uneasy, To see those Rabbis greasy, Who did nought but scratch and pray: Their dirty children pucking, Their dirty saucepans cooking, ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... tar in a barrel of honey. However, perhaps I would have hated to see a cook around here: as soon as a woman gets too domestic—she infallibly becomes unattractive. As for Lucie—enclosed in a cage as we are—I never saw her unwashed, uncombed, frivolous or unladylike. So let her be a plotter. I must be grateful as we never quarrel.... She sends ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... starvation, from corruption, scurvy, lock-jaw, gangrene, consumption, and fever. How ghastly the scene! Men, once robust and strong, weak and helpless as babes, with hollow cheeks, toothless gums, thin pale lips, colorless flesh, sunken eyes, long, tangled hair, uncombed for many months, skeleton fingers with nails like eagles' claws, lying in rags upon the deck,—some, with strained eyes, looking up for the last time to the dear old flag which waved above them, for which they had fought, for which they had starved, for which ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... inclined to favour the hiring of a substitute, but on further consideration concluded that it would be contrary to the law, and advised that the girl be allowed to go. The mother, however, was so anxious to prevent her being chosen that she sent her with uncombed hair, soiled clothes and a dirty face, that she might appear as ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... of constitution you see going about of a morning rather in dishabille—hair uncombed haply—face and hands even unwashed—and shirt with a somewhat day-before-yesterdayish hue. Yet are they, so far from being dirty, at once felt, seen, and smelt, to be among the very cleanest of her Majesty's subjects. The moment you shake hands with them, you feel in the ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... mouth, and yellow, fang-like teeth were displayed whenever he spoke. Beyond this fellow, and only half seen from where I crouched, was a heavy-set individual, his face almost purple, with a thatch of uncombed red hair. He wore the cocked hat of a Dragoon, pushed to the back of his head, his feet were encased in long cavalry boots, crossed on the table, and he was pulling furiously at a pipe, the stem gripped firmly between his teeth. Who the bearded man might be I had no means of knowing, ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... sequel: the instant he was gone, my very English curiosity hurried me out of the gate St. Gallo; 'twas the place and hour appointed. We had not been driving about above ten minutes, but out popped a little figure, pale but cross, with beard unshaved and hair uncombed, a slouched hat, and a considerable red cloak, in which was wrapped, under his arm, the fatal sword that was to revenge the highly injured Mr. Martin, painter and defendant. I darted my head out of the coach, just ready ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... The unshaven beard—it was the middle of morning—was a reddish mist over his face. His eyes were sunken in shadow. His hair was uncombed. He sat with his shoulders hunched up like one who suffers from cold. Altogether his appearance was that of one whose energy has been ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... mud-hovels, naked, sore eyed youngsters, unkempt, unwashed, bedraggled females, goats, chickens, and all the unsavory elements that enter into the composition of a wretched, semi-civilized community. With bare, uncombed heads, bare-armed, bare-breasted, and bare-limbed, and with their nakedness scarcely hidden beneath a few coarse rags, some of the women are engaged in making and baking bread, and others in the preparation of tezek from cow manure and chopped straw. In carrying ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... of the Hair.—When the hair is uncombed, the whole person looks untidy. The hair should be combed carefully every morning and again made tidy before each meal. You should use as little water as possible to moisten the hair. The glands ...
— Health Lessons - Book 1 • Alvin Davison
... to unscrew," said the Crabs; and forthwith they deposited a great pile of claws close to the boat, with which Violet uncombed all the pale pink worsted, and then made the loveliest mittens with it you can imagine. These the Crabs, having resumed and screwed on their claws, placed cheerfully upon their wrists, and walked away rapidly on their ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... neat dress, and hear them use their English, though they so seldom see any one with whom they have occasion to use it that it is not easy for them. The next morning, the girls had classes in reading and writing. Some of the children were ragged and dirty, with faces unwashed, and hair uncombed, one little boy with both knees coming through his trousers, but their faces were, almost without exception, bright and intelligent, with the intelligence of childhood, which would inevitably change to the stolid indifference of ignorance, were it not for the influence which this Christian ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 7, July, 1889 • Various
... when the bricks and mortar, the stagnated, oven-like air of the crowded city threatens to bake, parboil, or give the "citizens" the yellow fever, then we are very apt to think of plain Aunt Polly, rough-hewed Uncle John, and the bullet-headed, uncombed, smock-frocked cousins, nephews, and nieces, at their rural homes, amid the fragrant meadows and umbrageous woods; the cool, silver streams and murmuring brooks of the glorious country. Then, the poetic sunbeams and moonshine of fancy ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... the men dress their hair, so far as I was able to notice, may be roughly divided into the following categories:—(a) A simple crop of hair either cut quite close or allowed to grow fairly long, or anything between these two, but not dressed in any way, and probably uncombed, unkempt and untidy. This is the commonest form. (b) The same as (a), but with a band round the hair, separating the upper part of it from the lower, and giving the former a somewhat chignon-like appearance, (c) The hair done up all ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... together, you and I, Let us ask ourselves, what is age like? The dull eye is closed ere night comes; The idle head, still uncombed at noon. Propped on a staff, sometimes a walk abroad; Or all day sitting with closed doors. One dares not look in the mirror's polished face; One cannot read small-letter books. Deeper and deeper, one's love of old friends; Fewer and fewer, one's dealings with young men. One thing only, ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... to assume some rigidly fixed position instead of dangling among the ropes. The drawn saber, too, never consorted well with the dirty outside woolen wrapper which generally hung loose from the man's neck. Heaven knows, I did not begrudge him his comforter in that cold weather, or even his long, uncombed shock of hair; but I think he might have been made more spruce, and I am sure that he could not have looked more uncomfortable. As I went, however, I felt for him a sort of affection, and wished in my heart of hearts that he might soon ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... face as he spoke. A light wind passed his brow, fanning softly his fair uncombed hair and stirring silver points of anxiety in ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... old man and the boy, in a checked shirt without vest. His suspenders, once gay-colored, had given most of their color to his shirt, and had marked irregular broad bands of pink and brown and green over his shoulders. His hair was uncombed, merely pushed away from his face. He wore a mustache only, though his face was covered with a week's growth of beard. His face was rather gaunt and was brown ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... and was wending his way homeward at the same time. Not choosing to travel in solitude, he firmly fastened himself to our caravan. I would have preferred his absence, for he was a vile, smelly old creature with bleary eyes and coarse uncombed gray hair tied into a club and with a red band around his head. His clothes were mostly a pair of cast-off overalls, which had not been discarded by the original owner until he was in danger of arrest for indecent exposure. Incessant wear night and day by Smolley had not improved their looks. But ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... years. One could expect nothing better of a creature who, according to the concierge, fed her husband upon pork-butcher's meat, to spare herself the trouble of getting dinner, and passed the entire day with uncombed hair, in a dressing-sacque, reading novels, and telling her fortune with cards. The grocer's daughter declared she had met her one evening, at a dancing-hall, seated with a fireman before a salad-bowl full of wine, prepared in the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... rate-you can do that!" "And ye can make him feel as if law and his business warn't two and two," rejoined Anthony Romescos, a lean, wiry man, whose small indescribable face, very much sun-scorched, is covered with bright sandy hair, matted and uncombed. His forehead is low, the hair grows nearly to his eyebrows, profuse and red; his eyes wander and glisten with desperation; he is a merciless character. Men fear him, dread him; he sets the law at defiance, laughs when he is told he is the cunningest rogue in the county. ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... also was very busy preparing for the river voyage. He was not going down with them, but it was his business to see them well started. A singular looking man was he, with a huge shaggy beard, and shaggy uncombed hair, but with bright blue eyes, which gave to his face a remarkable look of sweetness. He was an uncouth man to the eye, and yet a child would have trusted herself ...
— Returning Home • Anthony Trollope
... careless grown of airs polite Her noon-day night-cap meets the sight; Her hair uncombed collects together With ornaments of many ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... raised her head and reached for the lamp where it lay wasting its rays against the black soil. She now turned the glow on the other and saw kneeling beside her a young man in American clothes. He was hatless and coatless and his soft gray shirt was torn and mud bespattered. A massive head of uncombed hair crowned a handsome forehead, but the face beneath was marred by a stubby growth ...
— In the Clutch of the War-God • Milo Hastings
... drew, they might perceive his head 190 To be unarmd, and curld uncombed heares Upstaring stiffe, dismayd with uncouth dread; Nor drop of bloud in all his face appeares Nor life in limbe: and to increase his feares In fowle reproch of knighthoods faire degree, 195 About his neck an hempen rope he weares, That with his glistring armes does ill agree; But he of ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... parties calling themselves Guinea-pigs have infringed on our patent rights, we, the Tadpoles of Saint Dominic's, have been and are from time immemorial entitled to the exclusive privilege of appearing in public with dirty faces, uncombed hair, and inky fingers. We have also the sole right of making beasts of ourselves on every possible occasion; and we hereby declare that it is our intention to institute proceedings against all parties, of whatever name, who shall hereafter ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... head was covered with long silky white hair that hung down to his neck and hid his ears. It was uncombed. His face in the sun looked like the face of an ascetic, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... last we reached the beach, and were proceeding towards the gate of the town, when two persons, Moors, came up to us. I almost started at sight of the first; he was a huge old barbarian with a white uncombed beard, dirty turban, haik, and trousers, naked legs, and immense splay feet, the heels of which stood out a couple of inches at least ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... time, Job had tapped at a door, which was opened by a gentleman with an uncombed head, who bolted it after them when they had walked in, and grinned; upon which Job grinned, and Sam also; whereupon Mr. Pickwick, thinking it might be expected of him, kept on smiling to the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... roof during the day, and the noise did not disturb his work. But the opening of the door, and the tapping continuing from the inside, caused him to look up. He was slightly startled by the figure of a young girl, dirty and shabbily clad. Still her great black eyes, her coarse, uncombed, lusterless black hair falling over her sun-burned face, her red arms and feet streaked with the red soil, were all familiar to him. It was Melissa Smith—Smith's ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... person is extremely ugly; short, but sinewy, his long uncombed locks fall to his waist, looking more like a horse's tail than human hair. He despises money, but is thankful for a knife, a hatchet, or a gaudy-coloured cloth, ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... were tramps, proved to be correct. Both had all the marks of vagrants. Their clothes were ragged and dirty, their hair long and uncombed, and their faces were covered ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... wait before the lieutenant answered, and he didn't look much like a police officer when his face finally showed up on the screen. His hair was uncombed and he was unshaven. His eyes were slightly bleary, but he was ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... adjoining houses were small, and apparently occupied by persons of an indigent class. At one of these was a sign denoting it to be the residence of a tailor. Seated on a bench at the door was a young man, with coarse uncombed locks, breeches knee-unbuttoned, stockings ungartered, shoes slipshod and unbuckled, and a face unwashed, gazing stupidly from hollow eyes. His aspect was embellished with good nature, ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... unsuccessful broker fast asleep. His face, which was turned toward me as I entered, showed that it had been many days since he had been shaved, and his hair had apparently been uncombed for about the same length of time. His clothes were very old, and a good deal torn, and he wore one boot ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... home in the evening they found Snow-White lying on the ground, and there appeared to be no life in her body; she seemed to be quite dead. They raised her up, and tried if they could find anything poisonous. They unlaced her, and even uncombed her hair, and washed her with water and with wine. But nothing availed: the dear child was really and ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... grimy, bug-infested post-houses; and the luxuries of a good night's rest and subsequent shave, cold tub, and clean linen were that morning appreciated as they only can be by one who has spent many weary days in the saddle, uncombed, unshaven, and unwashed. ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... eyes. Instead of the smart young soldier, smoothly shaven, with closely-trimmed hair, and rather carefully attired, as I had appeared on board the Warrior, the glass reflected a bearded face, the skin visibly roughened and reddened by exposure, the hair ragged and uncombed. Even to my view there remained scarcely a familiar feature—the lack of razor and shears, the exposure to sun and water, the days of sickness and neglect, had all helped to transform me into a totally different-appearing person from ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... shirt; with the left hand chained to the wall, and the right foot to the floor. An inkstand stood on the floor by his side; and on his knee was some paper, on which he was writing. His hair and beard were uncombed, and his fine eyes glared with fury as we approached him. He tried to rise, ground his teeth, made grimaces, and shook his fist at my grandfather, who tried in vain to draw me out of the room. But, escaping from his grasp, I stepped towards the lunatic, who grew more quiet when he saw me approach; ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska
... feet, who had just raised his spoke, probably to give me the coup de grace,—it was an awful moment. Just then I heard a shout and a rushing sound; a wild-looking figure is descending the hill with terrible bounds; it is a lad of some fifteen years; he is bare-headed, and his red uncombed hair stands on end like hedgehogs' bristles: his frame is lithy, like that of an antelope, but he has prodigious breadth of chest; he wears a military undress, that of the regiment, even of a drummer, for it is wild ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... live on this earth like the birds of heaven. I have seen enough of them in St. Petersburg: bold rascals who meet one another in the evening dressed in fantastic costumes, lie upon divans, smoke pipes, talk about trifles, read poetry, drink brandy and declare that they are artists. Uncombed, unwashed...." ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... scene of the Bedawi encampment—the black tents of goats' hair, the dark and ragged population sauntering about, the flocks and the horses, the ragged or naked children; and then the women in their blue, only article of dress, long-sleeved, their uncombed hair, and lips dyed blue, all walking with dignity of step, most of them employed in hanging up washed fleeces of wool to dry. One in particular I remarked for her stately appearance, with the blue dress trailing long behind, and the sleeves ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... milestones stand by the wayside, with deep-cut letters so smoothed by the hand of time that we cannot read them as we pass. Flowers grow thick in the hedgerows. A boy is lolling on the green grass in front of a cottage door—an uncombed English hind, with a face of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... and his only reply to the wordy fix into which the learned agent had drawn him was made in the dumb-show of scratching with his one disengaged hand (the other being employed in holding his hat) his uncombed head—an operation that created much laughter, which was not damped by the Agent's putting, with a serious face, a concluding question or remark to him to the effect that he presumed he (the witness) had not paid, or engaged to pay, so many guineas ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... humble servant on a milk-white palfrey. I rode on in safety, and at leisure to observe the company, especially the two figures that brought up the rear. The first was my servant, valiantly armed with two uncharged pistols; the last was the doctor's man, whose uncombed hair so resembled the mane of the horse he rode, one could not help imagining they were of kin, and wishing, for the honor of the family, that they had had one comb betwixt them. On his head was a velvet cap, much ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... five years of residence in Plattville, had been steel-proof against all the feminine blandishments of the town, whose long, lank face had shown beneath as long, and lanker, locks of proverbially uncombed hair, he who had for weeks conspicuously affected a single, string-patched suspender, who never, even upon the Sabbath day, wore a collar or blacked his shoes—what aesthetic leaven had entered his soul that ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... to give a high opinion of his respectability. His uniform jacket of dark green cloth was soiled and torn; his boina, which had served him for a nightcap during his imprisonment, was in equally bad plight; he was uncombed and unwashed, and a beard of nearly six weeks' growth adorned his face. It was in a tone of some suspicion that the peasant enquired his business, but Paco had his answer ready. Taken prisoner by the Christinos, he said, he had escaped from Pampeluna after a confinement ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... the announcement cannot be long postponed. Whoever he may be, he is not to be envied. We have also to note the steady growth on every side of Government bungalows—the haunts (if some critics are to be believed) of the Great Uncombed, even of the Hidden Hand. The men of forty-one were not wanted last March. Mr. Lloyd George tells us that they are wanted now, or it would mean the loss of two Army Corps. The Germans, by the way, appear to be arriving at a just ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... staring into the dying fire. Two smoky kerosene-lanterns that hung from spikes driven high in the logs cast a weird light over the company, eight men in all, rough and hardened with exposure to stormy life and weather. They were men with unkempt beards and uncombed hair, their coarse cotton shirts open at the neck, their brawny arms bare above the elbow, with crimes and sorrows and hard living written large across ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... saw him in bed, and I had trouble enough to wake him. Then I told him all, and he went on in such mad talk—it will be no wonder if the gods punish him. He wanted to rush off to the prefect, with his hair uncombed, just as he was. I had to bring him to his senses; and then, while I was oiling his hair and helping him into his best new mantle, he changed his mind, for he declared he would come home first, to talk with you and Argutis. Argutis was at home again, but ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Pomp emerged from his hiding-place, presenting a very ludicrous spectacle, with his unwashed face and uncombed hair, and the dirty cotton sticking ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... of seeing Mr. Browne and another or two of the persons mentioned in the preceding note. [The note contained the names of some of Cave's regular writers.] Johnson accepted the invitation; and being introduced by Cave, dressed in a loose horseman's coat, and such a great bushy uncombed wig as he constantly wore, to the sight of Mr. Browne, whom he found sitting at the upper end of a long table, in a cloud of tobacco-smoke, had his curiosity gratified.' [Mr. Carlyle writes of 'bushy-wigged Cave;' but it was Johnson whose wig is described, and not Cave's. On p. 327 Hawkins again ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... onderstaynd you to lafe at me, saw?" drawled the soldier, turning back with a pretence of heavy gloom on his uncombed brow. ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... were all closed; the low wooden arches thrown across the way were like so many black pits, in every one of which ill-favoured fellows lurked in knots of three or four; some standing upright against the wall, lying in wait; others skulking in gateways, and thrusting out their uncombed heads and scowling eyes: others crossing and recrossing, and constantly jostling both horse and man to provoke a quarrel; others stealing away and summoning their companions in a low whistle. Once, even in that short ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... fortunate at the opposite door, for Alfred was still asleep. The young man, upon hearing the news, however, made a toilet of unexampled brevity, and came breathlessly forth. Thorpe followed him to the balcony, where he stood collarless and uncombed, with the fresh morning breeze blowing his hair awry, his lips parted, his eyes staring with what the uncle felt to be a painful fixedness ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... humour and skill in suiting the grandest subjects for the stage, and in parodying the gravest effects, are often exceedingly happy. He often engages a troupe of wandering players for a month at a time, and he himself and his retinue form the entire audience. They are allowed to come on the stage uncombed, drunk, their parts not half learned, and half-dressed. The prince is not for the serious and tragic, and he enjoys it when the players, like Sancho Panza, give loose ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... sort of sly grog-shop, and passed the day in selling and drinking spirits, swearing, and smoking a short tobacco-pipe at the door of her tent. She was a most repulsive looking object. A dirty gaudy-coloured dress hung unfastened about her shoulders, coarse black hair unbrushed, uncombed, dangled about her face, over which her evil habits had spread a genuine bacchanalian glow, whilst in a loud masculine voice she uttered the most awful words that ever disgraced the mouth of man ten thousand times more awful when proceeding from ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... long snout, and a couple of rings through it by way of ornament; two equally long ears, that had evidently been submitted to some curious operation, for they were slit in various places, and hung down from his head like uncombed locks of hair; and a pair of very sharp little eyes, which seemed to have the unpleasant power of piercing right through you, if in their incessant wanderings they chanced to catch a look from your own. It was very evident that this ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... top of his shoes. He was as "thin as a rail," and if he stood upright would have been very tall, but he was bent nearly double. He had a slouched hat on, which partly concealed his long, lantern-jawed visage, while his shaggy, uncombed hair fell to his shoulders, and gave one a feeling that it contained many an inhabitant, like that which caused Burns to write those famous lines containing ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... shaded place against the railing. His mind was struggling in a vortex of ancient history, and this was the picture which arose from the strife. A very commonplace, bare-legged lad, with curly, uncombed hair and face so freckled that a few yards' distance merged them into one complete shade of reddish brown. He surveyed the neighboring bridge, and it came into his mental vision unconsciously. The long, lean girders he had once trod with the careless ease of a Blondin. ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... that there is a prejudice against Greeks among us; and though, as a barber unsnared by authorship, I share no prejudices, I must admit that the Greeks are not always such pretty youngsters as yourself: their erudition is often of an uncombed, unmannerly aspect, and encrusted with a barbarous utterance of Italian, that makes their converse hardly more euphonious than that of a Tedesco in a state of vinous loquacity. And then, again, excuse me—we Florentines have liberal ideas about speech, and consider that ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... paint a wrinkle," says Ruskin. All his portraits have the warts on. And the thought has often come to me that only a Rembrandt—the only Rembrandt—could have portrayed the face of Lincoln. Plain, homely, awkward, eyes not mates, sunken cheeks, leathery skin, moles, uncombed hair, neckcloth askew; but over and above and beyond all a look of power—and the soul! that look of haunting sorrow and the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... her,"—the uncombed chorister advanced bravely. "She's only a boarder. And after this, I'm goin' ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... get after it with one of our turreted monitors, they would have to move it out in the country if they wanted it where they could go and find it again when they needed it. The group on the pier was a rusty one—men and women, and boys and girls, all ragged and barefoot, uncombed and unclean, and by instinct, education, and profession beggars. They trooped after us, and never more while we tarried in Fayal did we get rid of them. We walked up the middle of the principal street, and these vermin surrounded us on all sides and glared ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the end of our journey, we were met by the children of my schooner-squire. Five of them—two boys, two girls, and a baby in the arms of the oldest girl. They all had the gentle quiet and ease of the father—but they were unkempt little creatures, uncombed, unwashed, in sad-colored clothes. That's the difference between the negro and the white man of this region. The negro is cheerful, debonair, he sings, he dances, and he wears all the colors of the rainbow. An old black woman who carries ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... move because of the railway strike, while behind him flared a huge advertisement that said, "The Sea is Calling you." Along the kerbstone a few yards in front were ranged the children of the district, row upon row, uncombed, in rags, filthy from head to foot, but silent with joy and admiration as they gazed upon the face of war. For many a gentle girl and boy that Friday and Saturday were the days of all their lives—the days on which the pretty ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson |
