"Complexion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Their natural complexion is that kind of clear olive, or brunette, which many people in Europe prefer to the finest white and red. In those that are exposed to the wind and sun, it is considerably deepened, but in others that live under shelter, especially ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... care a hang what goes in the Army," snarled the private, who was a man some twenty-eight years of age, dark of complexion and forbidding of feature. "You've had it in for me all along, Corporal Overton. Only yesterday morning you scorched ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... a stranger instantly discovers which portion of its inhabitants are the slaves, though both the complexion and the dresses of all are alike. The free Zealander is a joyous, good-humoured looking man, full of laughter and vivacity, and is chattering incessantly; but the slaves have invariably a squalid, dejected look; ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... ladies of the present day a madness beyond description for dress, for balls, theatres, watering-places, and all kinds of worldly amusements; you can see in them the greatest desire to appear ladies. They go and spend the whole day at the perfumer's, where they purchase their complexion; at the goldsmith's and the milliner's, where they get their figures. A few days ago, the father of one of these ladies had to pay a bill of forty-nine hundred dollars at the milliner's, for his daughter. ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... beautiful: small and delicate in structure, with a dazzling complexion, and a smile which, though rare, was of the most winning and brilliant character. Her rich brown hair and her deep blue eye might have become a dryad; but her brow denoted intellect of a high order, and her mouth spoke inexorable resolution. She was a woman ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... certiorari in a case closely resembling that of Screws, although the trial judge, while charging the jury that it must find specific intent, nevertheless went on to say:"'The color of the act determines the complexion of the intent. The intent to injure or defraud is presumed when the unlawful act, which results in loss or injury, is proved to have been knowingly committed. It is a well settled rule, which the law applies to both criminal and civil ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... spirits that surround it, and into these from a higher society, and so on. All his types mean the same few things. All his figures speak one speech. All his interlocutors Swedenborgize. Be they who they may, to this complexion must they come at last. This Charon ferries them all over in his boat; kings, counselors, cavaliers, doctors, Sir Isaac Newton, Sir Hans Sloane, King George II., Mahomet, or whosoever, and all gather one grimness of hue and style. Only when Cicero ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... much I always begin to feel like a gouty Prime Minister who has been ordered to play for the good of the country," she said. "But when I'm an old woman I shall certainly play regularly for the sake of my figure and my complexion. When I am sixty you will probably see me every day ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... hardness in the lines of the mouth and a flatness of the nose which belied the first impression. This was particularly true when, after being deprived of morphine in the Tombs, her ordinary high color gave way at her second trial to a waxy paleness of complexion. But the story of her career in the Tenderloin would prove ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... good-looking lad, not tall for his age, but as tough as a street cat in hard training. He had short and thick brown hair, a clear complexion, his father's energetically intellectual features, though only half developed yet, a boldly-set mouth, and his mother's kindly, practical blue eyes. For surely the eyes of practical people are always quite different from those of all others; and not many people are practical, though I never knew ...
— The Little City Of Hope - A Christmas Story • F. Marion Crawford
... retailed so often to gatherings of workers on winter evenings, that the details vary widely in poetic merit and incongruity of detail. It has been told by every generation, handed down by grandames at the fireside, narrated night and day, and the chronicle has changed its complexion somewhat in every age. Like some great building that has suffered many modifications of successive generations of architects, some sombre weather-beaten pile, the delight of a poet, the story would drive the commentator and the industrious ...
— Christ in Flanders • Honore de Balzac
... from the throttled stag, and on his knee presented his knife to a fair female form, on a white palfrey, whose terror, or perhaps her compassion, had till then kept her at some distance. She wore a black silk riding-mask, which was then a common fashion, as well for preserving the complexion from the sun and rain, as from an idea of decorum, which did not permit a lady to appear barefaced while engaged in a boisterous sport, and attended by a promiscuous company. The richness of her dress, however, as well as the mettle and form of her palfrey, together with the silvan compliment ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... would be giving too much trouble, and I am sure you want all the help in the house to carry out the service as exquisitely as you do," said Mrs. Fothergill hurriedly, and blushing as well as her artistic complexion would allow. ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... day, though one likes as well to follow and see where a brook goes as to find one's way to the places it comes from, and its tiny springs and headwaters, and in this case trout were not to be considered. William's only real anxiety was lest I might suffer from mosquitoes. His own complexion was still strangely impaired by its defenses, but I kept forgetting it, and looking to see if we were treading fresh pennyroyal underfoot, so efficient was Mrs. Todd's remedy. I was conscious, after we parted, and ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... time which apparently would afford no opportunity for a soldier's career. I have often thought of that talk. Barlow was really not unlike the youthful Napoleon, in frame he was slender and delicate, his complexion verged toward the olive, his face was always beardless. I never saw him thrown off his poise in any emergency. The straits of course are not great in which a college boy is placed, but such as they were, Barlow was always cool, with his mind working at its best in the midst of them. ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... was a great peace-maker; if any of the neighbours fell out, he would never let them alone till he had made them friends. He was tall and slender. He wore a gown like an artist's gown, with hanging sleeves, and a slit. He had a very fair, clear, sanguine complexion, a long beard as white as milk. A ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... numbers 4, 6, 7, and 8, to wit, Edgar, Clement, Fulbert, and Lancelot, all three handsome, blue-eyed, fair-faced lads. Indeed Edgar was remarkable, even among this decidedly fine-looking family. He had a peculiarly delicate contour of feature and complexion, though perfectly healthy; and there was something of the same expression, half keen, half dreamy, as in Geraldine, his junior by one year; while the grace of all the attitudes of his slender lissome figure showed to advantage ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... covered by a slight veil of Brussels lace, which allowed her long curls a l'Anglaise to sweep down on both sides over her marble-smooth shoulders and ravishingly beautiful bosom. And then that face, that complexion like a faintly blushing rose, that look worthy of a goddess, those burning black eyes so full of vivacity and passion, and contrasting so strangely with the childlike lips suggestive of sleeping innocence, but harmonizing on the ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... described as a man of fair complexion, and very ruddy, but he waxed tawny with age, when he also became bald and grey. He had little hair on the cheeks but a long mustachio with reddish ends. In stature he overtopped the people and was stout as he was tall. A popular saying of Mohammed's is, "All (very) long men are ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... to have had a genius scarcely inferior to that of Master Burke himself: there was no part nor passion she could not enact. She would complain that the old Irish woman had tied an invisible noose round her neck, and was choking her; and her complexion and features would instantly assume the various hues and violent distortions natural to a person in such a predicament. She would declare that an invisible chain was fastened to one of her limbs, and would limp ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... grates. Here we, in shining armour white, Like virgin amazons do fight, And our chaste lamps we hourly trim, Lest the great Bridegroom find them dim. Our orient breaths perfumed are With incense of incessant prayer; And holy-water of our tears Most strangely our complexion clears; Not tears of grief, but such as those With which calm pleasure overflows; Or pity, when we look on you That live without this happy vow. How should we grieve that must be seen Each one a spouse, and each a queen, And ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... yet?" I am asked, and much surprise is expressed at the information supplied by Goat's Mother that I have not yet seen my fortieth birthday. "It is the white hair that makes her look so old," is the comment offered in explanation of my fair complexion. ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... roast pork into a cocoa nut shell of salt water, according to their manner, as substitute for salt. He likewise avoided all intercourse and communication with the Bounty's people, by which means necessity forced him to gain a pretty competent knowledge of their language; and from natural complexion was much darker than ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... to be a plucky fellow, but when it transpired that neither he nor the others possessed money beyond what the voyage would cost them, and that what they intended to do when they arrived at the Fiji Islands was to be left to chance, the proposed expedition assumed a different complexion. The Judge denounced it as sheer madness, specially for a man to take his wife to such a place. It was true that some missionaries had settlements there, but these are generally safe, as the savages, as a rule, fear and respect the missionaries of the Great Spirit, be it that of the white man ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... a bit of cheese, perched in a tree, and held it in her beak. A fox seeing her longed to possess himself of the cheese, and by wily stratagem succeeded. "How handsome is the raven," he exclaimed, "in the beauty of her shape, and in the fairness of her complexion! Oh, if her voice were only equal to her beauty, she would deservedly be considered the Queen of the birds!" This he said deceitfully; but the raven, anxious to refute the reflection cast upon her voice, set up a loud caw, and dropped the cheese. The fox quickly picked it up, ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... bring your big doll?" asked Daisy, hoping she had, for on the last visit Nan had ravaged the baby house, and insisted on washing Blanche Matilda's plaster face, which spoilt the poor dear's complexion for ever. ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... waving feathers, and his manners and appearance were not devoid of grace and gentility. He displayed considerable self-possession, and wore his kingly honours with great assurance. He was of a fair and sanguine complexion, pale rather than clear, and his hair clustered in heavy ringlets on his shoulders. A rapid and somewhat uncertain motion of the eye, and his mouth not well closed, showed that although he might have been ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... nature does not promptly respond, there are many patent medicines which when taken at the time the monthly flow is to begin, will produce the desired result. Let women beware; for it is only a question of a few years when their constitution, complexion, and health will be a sorry evidence of their folly. The woman who continually takes a drug to prevent conception, cannot retain her natural complexion; her eyes will become dull, her cheeks flabby, and she will show various evidences ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... review of women known in society and to new discussions on their grace, their chic and beauty. Musadieu pronounced the blonde Marquise de Lochrist incomparably charming, while Bertin esteemed as a beauty Madame Mandeliere, with her brunette complexion, low brow, her dusky eyes and somewhat large mouth, in which her teeth ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... Her complexion, unblemished, except for the sun-tinge which showed an out-of-doors life, was of that peculiar tint, neither blond nor brunette, which is usually found with hair of that coppery hue, and the whole artistic head but crowned a form whose ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... an hour or so after dinner. But she works on all the same, never rests, and they still look on her with astonishment. Dan and Olive have two little boys. Willie, the eldest, is five years old; he is a strong, healthy looking lad, with a ruddy complexion, blue eyes, and brown curly hair; his principal amusements are throwing stones, chasing the chickens, and hurting his little brother. George, the youngest of Dan's boys, is the finest boy of his age in the village and is only a little over a year old; his merry little laugh, winning ways, and ...
— The Haunted House - A True Ghost Story • Walter Hubbell
... great-grandfather, old Lord Abercorn's sons and daughters must have been of singular and quite unusual personal beauty. Not one of the five attained the age of twenty-nine, all of them succumbing early to consumption. Lord Aberdeen had a most unfortunate skin and complexion, and in addition he was deeply pitted with small-pox. As a result his face looked exactly like a slice of brown bread, and "Old Brown Bread" he was always called by my elder brothers and sisters, who had ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... that the thoughts of both men were of a very serious complexion, and gave them food for much ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... "Yes, madame—because?" he asked, offering her a chair. He was dressed in simple black, as on that first day when he called at the Manor, and it set off the ivory paleness of his complexion, making his face ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... with him; so was another old lady, dark-browed and high-nosed, and who must have had something real about her or she could not have existed, but it was certainly not her hair or her teeth or her figure or her complexion; so was a grey old gentleman of dignified and sullen appearance; both of whom had come to dinner. But, as they had all been in the British Embassy way in sundry parts of the earth, and as a British Embassy cannot better ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... around, in a confusion which completely put to flight all ideas of study or devotion in the mind of the visiter. On a small table near the door were strewn divers preparations for the toilette, and cosmetics for improving the complexion, of which the King used quantities almost incredible, all prepared by his own hand; and the mixing and arranging of these formed his greatest delight and amusement. In the recesses on each side the window stood two highly-polished ebony cases, which Catherine ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... behind with a black ribbon—a bit of conservatism in costume which tells you that he is not a young man. He will perhaps turn round by and by, and in the meantime we can look at that stately old lady, his mother, a beautiful aged brunette, whose rich-toned complexion is well set off by the complex wrappings of pure white cambric and lace about her head and neck. She is as erect in her comely embonpoint as a statue of Ceres; and her dark face, with its delicate aquiline nose, firm proud mouth, and small, intense, black eye, is so keen and sarcastic ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... is not a record of STUDIES, searchings, seekings after light; it mainly (and sarcastically) indicates what ASSOCIATION can do. If you know a man's nationality you can come within a split hair of guessing the complexion of his religion: English—Protestant; American —ditto; Spaniard, Frenchman, Irishman, Italian, South American—Roman Catholic; Russian—Greek Catholic; Turk—Mohammedan; and so on. And when you know the man's religious complexion, you ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... feel proud of her when I see her sitting among the china. But, la, me! of what account would she be if I didn't help her? I'd like to know how they'd make tea without hot water! What would she be good for, any how, if I didn't do the drudgery for her? This fire would ruin her complexion! ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... were smoking our pipes after dinner, a gypsy, or Torpinda, entered, and we had him up to our table forthwith, that we might reconnoitre and catechise him. He was a mere lad, apparently not more than sixteen or seventeen years of age, though in costume, complexion, and expression of countenance, a perfect specimen of his tribe. His dress was a broad-brimmed low hat, a dark brown cloak with sleeves, and a solitary under-garment, which, woven apparently without ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... success when you have a man stand on the street corner and pass out cards telling girls to get clean. Every girl that is worth while is affronted by the insinuation." Acting upon this expert advice, we then got out a neatly printed card reading as follows: "For a clear complexion, sprightly step, and bounding vitality, visit the Center Market Baths, open from 6 A.M. to 9 P.M. daily." The board of managers shook their sage masculine heads and reluctantly gave permission to issue these appeals. Woman's judgment was vindicated, however, and ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... capable of attracting cultured white wives, the fusing process, beginning at the top with types like these, should be far less unwelcome than that which starts with the dregs of both races. But the negroid hair and complexion being, in Mendelian language, "dominant," these black traits are not easy to eliminate from the hybrid posterity; and in view of all the unpleasantness, both immediate and contingent, that attends ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill
... face and hands? It looks very unnatural." And so thinking to himself, instead of drinking the water, he threw it in the Princess's face! The Princess started back with a little cry, while the water, trickling down, washed off the charcoal, and showed her delicate features and beautiful, fair complexion. The Prince caught hold of her hand, and said, "Now, tell me true, who are you? where do you come from? Who are your father and mother? and why are you here alone by yourself in the jungle? Answer me, or I'll cut your head off." And he made as if he would draw his sword. The Princess ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... going, it renews itself in all the mystical lights and shadows so familiar to us that, till we read some such tales as those grouped together here, we are scarcely aware how largely they form the complexion of our ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... just turned of fourteen, and could be called neither tall nor short of her age; but her whole person was the most agreeable that can be imagined. She had an exceeding fine complexion, with as much colour in her cheeks as is the natural effect of perfect health. Her hair was light brown, and curled in so regular and yet easy a manner, as never to want any assistance from art. Her eyebrows (which were not of that correct turn as to look ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... without a sign of distress or embarrassment; and then we went off together and had a bit of a dance,—a rough-and-tumble fore-and-after,—at the nearest booth. With her bonnet off, and neat cap, her beautiful complexion and dark hair and eyes, how happened it that she was really modest and well-behaved? And how came she there? After some resolute questioning, I determined to see her home, at least so far as to set her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... so," answered Luke, slowly. "I will read his description from the letter: He has a wart on the upper part of his right cheek—a mark which disfigures and mortifies him exceedingly. He is about five feet ten inches in height, with a dark complexion and dark hair, a little tinged ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger
... though my expectations as to his personal appearance had been raised, I own the first glance did not disappoint them. He was about three-and-twenty then, rather tall, but very slightly built; his eyes long, sleepy, of a violet blue; features small and delicately cut, with a complexion so soft and bright that his silky, chestnut mustache hardly saved the face from effeminacy; his hands and feet would have satisfied the Pacha of Tebelen at once as to his purity of race; indeed, though Charley was not disposed to undervalue any of his own bodily advantages, I imagine he considered ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... without believing,—sees without admiring; has suffered persecution without learning mercy;—and been taught to mistrust the candour of others by the forfeiture of her own. The freshness of her disposition has vanished with the freshness of her complexion; hard lines are perceptible in her very soul, and crowsfeet contract her very fancy. No longer pure and fair as the statue of alabaster, her beauty, like that of some painted waxen effigy, is tawdry and meretricious. It is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 548 - 26 May 1832 • Various
... for his services, the same as the larger spooks. He was powdered until he was very white, a blond wig put over his own hair, and dressed as most boys are at the age Mr. Smith's son died. Mr. Smith recognized him by his size, his light complexion, and flaxen hair, and the fact that he called him "papa" and gave his correct name. His father was "made up" from the description given by the medium, and acknowledged by Mr. Smith as correct. Of course he knew his own name, for it was given him by ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... mob-cap,—but it's the same old sixpence.' So I said to myself, I must have some new characters. I had no trouble with young characters; they are all pretty much alike,—dark-haired or light-haired, with the outfits belonging to their complexion, respectively. I had an old great-aunt, who was a tip-top eccentric. I had never seen anything just like her in books. So I said, I will have you, old lady, in one of my stories; and, sure enough, I fitted her out with a first-rate odd-sounding name, which I got from the directory, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... and scalloped flounces of white and graduated tints of green! With her pale, sodden complexion, she must have looked like ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... European's; their hair being very fair, and so is their skin. They are very different from the Maoris, and do not resemble them at all." But as the Maoris do not seem to have any myths of golden-haired solar heroes, these peculiarities of hair and complexion cannot be referred to the same cause as those of my little daughter's Indian ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... individual proclaimed him to be a native African, but not one of those inferior varieties of the human race which that country produces. He was a man of about forty years of age, tall and muscular, with features well formed, and that expressed both intelligence and courage. His complexion was tawny brown, not black; and his hair was more like that of a ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... circumstances conspired to make the condition of the mill-hands unbearable from the pressure of starvation and misery. Mr. Cartwright was a very remarkable man, having, as I have been told, some foreign blood in him, the traces of which were very apparent in his tall figure, dark eyes and complexion, and singular, though gentlemanly bearing. At any rate he had been much abroad, and spoke French well, of itself a suspicious circumstance to the bigoted nationality of those days. Altogether he was an unpopular man, even before ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the time this story opens, was fifteen years old, of rather dark complexion, and was tall and well-developed for his age. He was vigorous and athletic and a lover of outdoor sports. His magnetism and vitality made him a "live wire," and he was the natural leader among the boys with whom he associated. His nature was frank and friendly, and he was extremely popular with ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... one hundred and eighty-nine years. The first slave brought into New England out of Africa by your progenitors was an ancestor of mine—for I am of a mixed breed, an infinitely shaded and exquisite Mongrel. I'm not one of your sham meerschaums that you can color in a week. No, my complexion is the patient art of eight generations. Well, in my own time, I had acquired a lot of my kin—by purchase, and swapping around, and one way and another —and was getting along very well. Then, with the inborn perversity of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... winds th' exhausted chain, To run the twelvemonth's length again: I see the old, bald-pated follow, With ardent eyes, complexion sallow, Adjust the unimpair'd machine, To wheel the ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... of middle age and handsome, courteously rose from his seat at the top of the table to welcome him. At the right hand of the count Nigel observed a person of middle height, ruddy complexion, and well-proportioned figure, with a calm and pleasant, if not decidedly handsome countenance. On the other side sat a tall man, whose sunburnt features, though regular, wore an expression which at the first glance gave Nigel the feeling that ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... "oh, if you could have seen the father!—such a mouth, such eyes, such a complexion; and he declares she's the living picture of himself! But what do you say, Mr. Reynard,—you, who have been so much in the world, have, perhaps, ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... she had been trained from early childhood to sustain the reputation of her distinguished theatrical family. A good-looking young woman, with large, dark eyes, a profusion of dark hair, a low forehead, and healthy strawberry-and-cream complexion, she was personally attractive, and wonderfully effective. Every movement, gesture, and inflection of voice had been carefully studied, and when making an ordinary remark in conversation she would deliver her words with a deliberate ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... the most, tall, lithe, and sinewy men, but physically in no way superior to the Saxons, from whom they differed very widely in complexion, the Saxons being fair while the Danes were very dark, as much so as modern gypsies; indeed, the Saxon historians speak of them as the black pagans. Upon the other hand many of the Northmen, being Scandinavians, were as fair as ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... tunes; cranes and herons of white, crimson, and carnation, perching in the river's side; the air fresh with a gentle easterly wind; and every stone that we stooped to take up promised either gold or silver by his complexion. Your Lordship shall see of many sorts, and I hope some of them cannot be bettered under the sun; and yet we had no means but with our daggers and fingers to tear them out here and there, the rocks being most hard of that mineral spar aforesaid, which is like a flint, and is altogether ...
— The Discovery of Guiana • Sir Walter Raleigh
... lesson presented itself. He stepped over the pail towards the bureau and, catching the girl's eye as she looked up, turned the key noisily in the lock and placed it ostentatiously in his pocket. A sudden vivid change in Selina's complexion satisfied him that his manoeuvre ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... subsequently rejected in the senate by the casting vote of the vice-president, and the further consideration of the whole subject was postponed until March. When it was resumed, the progress of events had given such new complexion to the whole matter, that ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... the daughter of John French of Primrose Farm. Endowed by Nature with a beauty that is seldom seen outside this sort of story, she was yet as modest and as good a girl as was to be found in the county. Many a fine lady would have given all her Parisian diamonds for the peach-like complexion which bloomed on the fair face of Gwendolen. But the gifts of Nature are not to be bought ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... muscular strength. Restless—full of nervous energy—and, they tell me, somewhat short of temper. Georg was a blond, powerful young giant. A head taller than I—blue-eyed, from his mother, now dead—square-jawed, and a complexion pink and white. He was slow to anger. He seldom spoke impulsively; and usually with a slow, quiet drawl. Always he seemed looking at life and people with a half-humorous smile—looking at the human pageant with its foibles, follies and frailties—tolerantly. Yet there was nothing conceited ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... pulled him up so his feet were just off the floor, and then we talked as though we were away off, and I told my chum to look out that Pa did not hit the gas fixtures, and Pa actually thought he was being hauled clear up to the roof. I could see he was scared by the complexion of his hands and feet, as they clawed the air. He actually sweat so the drops fell on the floor. Bime-by we let him down, and he was awfully relieved, though his feet were not more than two inches from the floor any of the time. We were just going to slip Pa down ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam; and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes. She was ladylike, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days; characterised by a certain state and dignity, rather ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Moncrieffe sisters as regards beauty. Certainly I thought this particular sister, the late Lady Winterton, surpassed the others in outward appearance, for she had beautiful and very refined features, and the most exquisite skin and complexion. I thought her a most lovely apparition when covered with my ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... His complexion was sallow, and appeared the darker from the contrast afforded by the silvery whiteness of his long beard, moustache, and thick bushy eyebrows, from the deep cavities beneath which his dark eyes seemed literally to flash. His nose ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... a heretic," said Carol, "for I do want to be friendly enough with her to ask if she uses anything on her complexion to keep it so rose-leafy. If she does, I'll have some of it, if it takes all my next ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... the liquor was sweet, unctuous and not agreeable. Our party consisted of the captain, the chief officer, who was his brother-in-law, the Pole, who was a second-cousin of Kosciusko, and had a name consisting of eight consonants and two vowels, a grave young Swede with a fresh Norse complexion, and our two selves. The steward, Hildebrand, and the silent stewardess, Marie, were our attendants and purveyors. The ship's officers were rather slow and opaque, and the Swede sublimely self-possessed and indifferent; but the Pole, who had been ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... sent me a very pressing invitation to go there this evening, and to-morrow to the races; but I have not the smallest inclination, and shall not go. This Mr. Gordon is a mighty clever man—I wish you could see him. I saw a beauty at church, a Miss Thaskkel. She has hazel eyes, fine complexion, and Beautiful Auburn hair, which hung in ...
— Journal of a Young Lady of Virginia, 1782 • Lucinda Lee Orr
... She was American by birth and marriage, and English by education and habits. She was a fair, beautiful woman, with large eyes and a white complexion. Her weak point was ambition, and ambition with her took the ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... name of "the Handsome." He was of middle height, strongly built, with square shoulders, broad chest, and arms that reminded men of a pugilist. His head was round and well shaped, and he had reddish hair and gray eyes which seemed to flash with fire when he was angry. His complexion also was ruddy and his face is described as fiery or lion-like. His hands were coarse, and he never wore gloves except when necessary in hawking. His legs were hardly straight. They were made for the saddle ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... Solely my complexion. They cast me, then a young and nursing mother, Into a dungeon of their prison house. There was no bed, no fire, no ray of light, 210 No touch, no sound of comfort! The black air, It was a toil to breathe it! I have seen The gaoler's lamp, the moment that he enter'd, How the flame sunk at ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... varied and substantial, Linen for couch and table, and the lighter garniture of summer, Frocks of a flaxen color for the laborer, or striped with blue for the younglings; Stout garments in which man bides the buffet of wintry elements. From the rind of the stately butternut, drew they a brown complexion, Or the cerulean borrowed from the tint of the southern indigo. Thus rustic Industry girded itself, amid household music, As History of old, set her fabulous legends to the harp. Ears trained to the operas of Italy, would find discordance to be mocked at, But the patriot heard the ring of gold ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... after there firing, still with inadequate effect, one musket at himself and another at his captor, is clutched and locked in Prison. (Riouffe, p. 73; Deux Amis, xii. 298-302.) An indignant little man this Amiral, of Southern temper and complexion, of 'considerable muscular force.' He denies not that he meant to "purge France of a tyrant;" nay avows that he had an eye to the Incorruptible himself, but took Collot ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... forehead!' His appearance was different from what I had anticipated from seeing him before. At a distance, and in the dim light of the chapel, there was to me a strange wildness in his aspect, a dusky obscurity, and I thought him pitted with the small-pox. His complexion was at that time clear, and ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... to complexion; tall spare; has small grey eyes. In three long interviews she has tried very hard to remember for us from her youth and back through the years; it seems to trouble her that she cannot remember more. Samuel Sutton's father married her mother. Neither she or Samuel had ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... to Vencata the evening before, so that the archbishop had been able to turn over at once to his especial guidance the Americanos who had been sent by the Blessed Virgin to rescue the bambinos from the inferno of the mines. Padre Filippo was short, rotund, with a ruddy complexion and a cheerful crop of carrot-colored hair. The two carabinieri were splendid specimens of men, but after all, to say carabinieri is enough: for the Italian cavalry must stand not only a physical, but also a moral examination ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... legends, and myths, for which ancient India was famous, found a shelter under the expanding wings of this wonderful Epic; and as Krishna-worship became the prevailing religion of India after the decay of Buddhism, the old Epic caught the complexion of the times, and Krishna-cult is its dominating religious idea in its present shape. It is thus that the work went on growing for a thousand years after it was first compiled and put together in the form of an Epic; until the crystal rill of the Epic itself was all but lost in an unending ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... amusement. The insurance man stared very quietly at the board beneath his elbows. His complexion held a tint of green. Even Eemakh, plodding ponderously up, lowered himself to a bench with a sigh. The high priest seemed less affected by the celebration, and Mayne was proud when Haruhiku walked over with ...
— A Transmutation of Muddles • Horace Brown Fyfe
... the frozen sound, there can be no doubt that winter sports answer their presumed purpose. They keep up that glow which only exercise in the open air can give, and promote the health which shows itself in the complexion. It is the young lady who interprets literally the Scotch invitation "come into the fire," and who spoils the backs of library novels by holding them too near the comfortable hearth, she it is who suffers from the ignoble and unbecoming liberties that winter takes ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... which he did not try to hide. At a period when it was the fashion to sigh and be pale and melancholy, in a stage-setting of lakes, clouds and cathedrals, and when one was expected to be abnormal and mediaeval, Balzac displayed a robust joviality, he was proud of his stalwart build and ruddy complexion, and, far from looking to the past for literary material, his observing and clairvoyant eyes eagerly seized the men of his own time and transformed ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... Jews. They had large frames strongly made, well-developed muscles, curled beards, and abundant hair. In their features they may have borne a resemblance, but probably not a very strong resemblance, to the Cypriots,[336] who were a mixed people recruited from various quarters.[337] In complexion they belonged to the white race, but were rather sallow than fair. Their hair was generally dark, though it may have been sometimes red. Some have regarded the name "Phoenician" as indicating that they were of a red or red-brown colour;[338] ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... judge by the complexion of the sky The state in inclination of the day; So may you by my dull and heavy eye, My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say. I play the torturer, by small and small To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken: Your uncle York is join'd with Bolingbroke; And all your northern castles ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... ill-mannered speech was as follows: 'Gentlemen, I return you my best thanks for your kindness in drinking my health. As for what I have done in Cruces, Providence evidently made me to be useful, and I can't help it. But I must say that I don't appreciate your friend's kind wishes with respect to my complexion. If it had been as dark as any nigger's, I should have been just as happy and as useful, and as much respected by those whose respect I value; and as to the offer of bleaching me, I should, even if it were practicable, decline it without any thanks. As to the society ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore
... were far from regular, for his nose was flattish, his mouth tending to the larger size, and his complexion inclining to be more dark than was then thought consistent with masculine beauty. But, in despite of his having always breathed the air of a crowded city, his complexion had the ruddy and manly expression of redundant health; his turned-up nose gave an air of spirit ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... or after something which it converts into a question, is usually marked with its own separate eroteme; as, "But this is even so: eh?"—Newspaper. "Is't not drown'd i' the last rain? Ha?"—Shakespeare. "Does Bridget paint still, Pompey? Ha?"—Id. "Suits my complexion—hey, gal? so I think."—Yankee Schoolmaster. Sometimes we see it divided only by a comma, from the preceding question; as, "What dost thou think of this doctrine, Friend Gurth, ha?"—SCOTT'S IVANHOE: ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... forms than she dreamt of; out of which variety she may choose what is most agreeable to her fancy. On Tuesdays, he is sometimes a black, proper, young gentleman, with a mole on his left cheek. On Thursdays, a decent well-looking man, of a middle stature, long flaxen hair, and a florid complexion. On Saturdays, he is somewhat of the shortest, and may be known from others of that size by talking in a low voice, and passing through the streets without ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... sincerely sympathized with him on the lack of bread-stuff among them, and wondered no longer at the avidity with which they had munched our flinty biscuits on first coming aboard. His wife, a buxom, motherly woman of about fifty, of dark, olive complexion, but good features, was kindness itself; and their three youngest children, who were at home, could not, in spite of repeated warnings and threats, keep their eyes off me, as if I had been some strange animal dropped from the moon. I felt very unwilling to leave ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... would deny the desirability of beauty in a wife, particularly when it is remembered that beauty, especially as determined by good complexion, good teeth and medium weight, is correlated with good health in some degree, and likewise with intelligence. Nevertheless, we are strongly of the opinion that beauty of face is now too highly valued, as a standard of ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... a set of features, or complexion, The tincture of a skin, that I admire: Beauty soon grows familiar to the lover, Fades in his eye, and palls upon the sense. The virtuous Marcia tow'rs above her sex: True, she is fair (Oh, how divinely ...
— Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison
... Something more remained to be said. It was for a speaker whose undergraduateship lay thirty years behind to state as plainly as he could his own deepest obligation to the place which had decided the course and complexion of his life. Wherever philosophical insight is combined with literary genius and personal charm, one says instinctively, "That man is, or ought to be, an Oxford man." Chiefest among the great names which Oxford ought to claim but cannot is the name ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... read and reread those lines, with his whole soul he yearned to have her look at him. He watched the colour come and go in her clear, bright complexion, and was rejoiced to see in her the personification of activity and health. Beneath his own effusion on the photograph he saw something written in pencil, in the hand he ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... complexion and an unlovely griffon (to her companion). So fussy and tiresome of the Government bringing in muzzles again after ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919 • Various
... at the little one and pursed up his mouth. His face proclaimed him of a like age with Captain Barker. It did not at all match his figure, being short as a bull-dog's; and like a bull-dog he was heavily jowled. Many weathers had tanned his complexion to a rich corn-colour. His name was Jeremy Runacles, and for two years, that had ended on this very morning, he had commanded the Trident frigate. As he climbed down her ladder into his gig he had left on the deck behind him a reputation for possessing a shorter temper than any three officers ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... course, Miss Leigh will think me very uncharitable in saying that Mrs. D. paints; but I know she does. She left her dressing-case open yesterday, and her little boy was dabbling his fingers in her French carmine and pearl white, and a fine mess he made of his mamma's beautiful complexion. Bless me!" exclaimed the old maid, suddenly lowering her voice to a whisper, "if there is not her black imp sitting under the table; he will be sure to tell her all that we have said about her! What a nuisance he is! I do not think it is proper for him, ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... little girls walking along so properly and primly. Each had a green velvet pelisse, a neat Leghorn bonnet, and a green fringed parasol; each wore nice buff mitts and a good-tempered smile, and each had a complexion like pink and white ice-cream, and eyes like pretty blue beads. It was therefore very naughty indeed of Prince Vance to shout "Boh!" so loudly that each Princess started and hopped quite one foot from ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam
... advanced from his tent with salaams of welcome. As he stood before us in the glowing sunset, he was a rather tall, but well-proportioned man, with black eyes and dark mustache, contrasting well with his brown-tanned complexion. Upon his face was the stamp of a rather wild and retiring character, although treachery and deceit were by no means wanting. He wore a headgear that was something between a hat and a turban, and over his baggy Turkish trousers hung a long Persian coat of bright-colored, ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... Lustucru went out one morning at about half-past six, to take a walk on the quay. As he crossed the threshold, he noticed on the other side of the street a large woman, dry and angular, clothed in cheap, flashy colors. This woman had sunken eyes, a copper-colored complexion, the nose of a bird of prey, and a face as wrinkled as an old apple. She was talking with a boy of thirteen or fourteen, covered with rags, but possessing a sharp, ...
— The Story of a Cat • mile Gigault de La Bdollire
... at this moment his whole head and face are so besmeared with clay that his aspect is piebald and not more becoming than his attitude. Still, there is a massive grandeur in the outline of his features which cannot be destroyed by incrustations of clay, although his complexion is ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... her a hat with feathers in it. Scarcely had the three damsels appeared in the parlour, when who should arrive but Captain Smith, Mistress Audley coming in directly afterwards. He gazed with more astonishment than admiration at the young Indian, for the costume, though becoming enough to the fair complexion of Lettice, sat but ill on the Indian girl, accustomed to the free play of her limbs; its colour harmonising worse with her dark skin. Forgetting the progress Pocahontas had made in English, he said with slight caution to Mistress Audley, in his blunt fashion, "You will spoil the little savage, ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... uninformed. Soon after this report was delivered to Congress, having been persecuted in the public papers for several months, in the most scandalous, virulent, and licentious manner, and accused before the public of crimes of the blackest complexion, I again addressed myself to Congress, and as their servant claimed their protection, and that I might be heard in the most public manner, or in any other way they thought proper. This letter, of the 30th of March, remains unanswered, and I now ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... the Author, during the summer months of the year 1793, conducted a party of young ladies; one of whom, of stature elegantly small, and of complexion colourless yet clear, was proclaimed the Faery Queen. On which occasion the following Irregular Ode ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... and am no judge of its authenticity. The traditional description of him is that of a man almost beardless—a rare case among the Goths—with masses of golden ringlets, and black eyebrows over 'oculos caesios,' the blue grey eyes common to so many conquerors. A complexion so peculiar, that one must believe it to ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... the free colored people of Philadelphia, through two distinguished representatives, Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, "two men of the African race," as the chroniclers say, "saw the irreligious and uncivilized state" of the "people of their complexion," and finally concluded "that a society should be formed without regard to religious tenets, provided the persons lived an orderly and sober life," the purpose of the society being "to support one another in sickness and ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... there. Baron de Magnac took the corpse by the hair to lift up the face, which was turned toward the ground, and asked me if I recognized him; but, as one eye was torn out, and his face was covered with blood and dirt, I could only reply that it was certainly his height and his complexion, but farther ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... eyes—hers a lustrous black, and his dark gray or blue, as the light was. Her hair was abundant, and very dark; his a light brown, thick, wavy, and long. Both had the same aquiline nose, short upper-lip, bland, firm, but soft mouth, and well-formed chin. Her complexion was dark, and his fair—too fair ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... God on this earth. My only wish is to verify this gallant affirmation in the case of my companion. She has put back her veil. Is she a young woman or an old girl? With these Englishwomen one never knows! Twenty-five years is apparently about her age, she has an Albionesque complexion, a jerky walk, a high dress like an equinoctial tide, no spectacles, although she has eyes of the intense blue which are generally short-sighted. While I bend my back as I bow, she honors me with a nod, which only brings into play the vertebrae of her long neck, ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... room, and had begged her, for her sake, to come downstairs. Nora was looking quite charming in that pretty white frock which Mrs. O'Shanaghgan had purchased for her in Dublin. Her softly rounded figure, her dazzlingly fair complexion, were seen now for the first time to the best advantage. Her thick black hair was coiled up becomingly on her graceful little head, and, with a bunch of sweet peas at her belt, there could scarcely have been seen a prettier maiden. ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... accomplishments, and during the evening took a seat beside him. Borrow confessed to being "a little frightened at first" of the distinguished man, whom he described as having "a thin weaselly figure, a sallow complexion, a certain obliquity of vision, and a large pair of spectacles." It would be dangerous to accept entirely the account that Borrow gives of the meeting, {36b} because when that was written he had come to hate and despise the man whom he had begun by regarding with such ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... of about Pepe's own age, twenty-five. His complexion had the hale tint of one who followed the sea for a profession. Thick dark eyebrows were strongly delineated against a forehead bony and broad, and from a pair of large black eyes shone a sombre fire that denoted a man of implacable passions. His arched ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... born a man. Those who regard woman as an imperfect man are no doubt mistaken, but they have external resemblance on their side. Up to the age of puberty children of both sexes have little to distinguish them to the eye, the same face and form, the same complexion and voice, everything is the same; girls are children and boys are children; one name is enough for creatures so closely resembling one another. Males whose development is arrested preserve this resemblance ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... found in the medicine chest was a great prize to me. It contained iodine and, with a weak solution of this, I was able to maintain my colour. I did not care so much for my face and hands, for I was so darkened by the sun that my complexion was little fairer than that of many of the Arabs. But I feared that an accidental display, of a portion of my body usually covered by my garments, would at once prove that I was a white man. I had used up the stuff that I had brought with me, when I escaped from the square; ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... Marya Lanois, a lithe, warm, golden creature with greenish golden eyes that slanted, and the strawberry complexion that ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... woman of medium height; her complexion was of golden bronze; the flesh had fallen, giving her cheeks a square set, and her dark eyes gleamed brightly beneath a broad wrinkled brow; a cap of black lace surmounted her head, a white net fichu was crossed on her breast and fastened with a cameo pin in a wide gold frame, and her ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... political feeling, and their pre-judgments; all tending to make the condemnation of the President, upon all superficial calculations, inevitable. The effort of the Constitution to guard against mere partisan judgment, by requiring a two-third vote to convict, was paralyzed by the complexion of the Senate, showing more than four-fifths of that body of the party which had instituted the impeachment and was demanding conviction. To this party, as well, the Chief-Justice belonged, as a founder, a leader, a recipient of its honors, and a lover of its prosperity and ...
— Eulogy on Chief-Justice Chase - Delivered by William M. Evarts before the Alumni of - Dartmouth College, at Hanover • William M. Evarts
... pulses thrilled. Was this Sylvia risen from the dead? Surely it was Sylvia's graceful girlish form! This was Sylvia's oval face, with Sylvia's large gray eyes. In such a way Sylvia's pretty light hair waved about her temples, and the pink and white of her delicate complexion revealed the blue veins. Twenty-five years had rolled back in an instant, and I was standing in the presence of the past. Alas, the swift passing of the illusion, for the conversation of the evening ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... clearly shown in the attribute of priesthood, with which the clergy were invested and which conferred on them the greatest importance.[259] The development of this conception, whose adoption is a proof that the Church had assumed a heathen complexion, cannot be more particularly treated of here.[260] What meaning it has is shown by its application in Cyprian and the original of the first six books of the Apostolic Constitutions (see Book II.). The bishops (and also the presbyters) are priests, in so far as they alone are ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... of a very uncommon beauty,—a combination, a harmony of opposite attributes. Her hair of a gold richer and purer than that which is seen even in the North; but the eyes, of all the dark, tender, subduing light of more than Italian—almost of Oriental—splendour. The complexion exquisitely fair, but never the same,—vivid in one moment, pale the next. And with the complexion, the expression also varied; nothing now so sad, and nothing ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... two or three pictures of quite another complexion—pictures of which a long green valley, almost in the centre of France, makes the general setting. The valley itself, indeed, forms one delightful picture, although the country which surrounds it is by ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... its bow lightly on the sand, the first man who leaped ashore was La Roche. He seemed even more sprightly and active than formerly, but was a good deal darker in complexion, and much travel-stained. Indeed, the whole party bore marks of having roughed it pretty severely for some time past among the mountains. Edith's face was decidedly darker than when she left Moose, and her short frock considerably shorter ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... and the ever musical stream; most of all, perhaps, the charm of her brother's society, and the expectation of that coming meeting with her friends, which is so near at hand. Behind sits a pretty little girl, with fine complexion and delicate regular features, whom the stranger would pick out as the beauty of the company, and a tall, rather angular figure, clad in a dress exactly resembling Charlotte's. Emily Bronte does not talk so much as the rest of the party, but her wonderful eyes, brilliant ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... suitable majesty of deportment, and with a shrewd, dauntless, honourable, generous mind. His very sirname had an influence upon the good will of his superstitious and devoted followers. It denoted that he was dark, both in hair and complexion; and so many brave achievements had been performed by chieftains of the clan Cameron, who were of this complexion, that it had been foretold by gifted seers, that never should a fair Lochiel prove fortunate. Endowed with this singular hold upon the confidence of his people, Ewan ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... outset, appear made to be healthy and vigorous. Upon the same account, the women did not bathe the new-born children with water, as is the custom in all other countries, but with wine, to prove the temper and complexion of their bodies; from a notion they had that epileptic and weakly children faint and waste away upon their being thus bathed, while, on the contrary, those of a strong and vigorous habit acquire firmness and ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... and energy, but saddened perpetually by the shadow upon them of the great things from which they shrink. His morality is all sympathy; and it is this sympathy, conveying into his work somewhat more than is usual of the true complexion of humanity, which makes him, visionary as he is, so forcible ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... interests and views. If it should be objected that we have seen other descriptions of men in the local legislatures, I answer that it is admitted there are exceptions to the rule, but not in sufficient number to influence the general complexion or character of the government. There are strong minds in every walk of life that will rise superior to the disadvantages of situation, and will command the tribute due to their merit, not only from the classes to which they ...
— The Federalist Papers
... billows borne. Men from England bought and sold me, Paid my price in paltry gold; But though slave they have enrolled me, Minds are never to be sold. Still in thought as free as ever, What are England's rights, I ask, Me from my delights to sever, Me to torture, me to task? Fleecy locks and black complexion Cannot forfeit Nature's claim; Skins may differ, but affection Dwells in white and ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... his way. She was a pretty girl of rather an unusual type, accounted for, her father declared, by the fact that her mother was an Irish beauty, and gave to Betty that wonderful golden-red hair, the hazel eyes and the indescribable complexion that is said to come from ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... condivided with fault. But envy is a kind of punishment: for Gregory says (Moral. v, 46): "When the foul sore of envy corrupts the vanquished heart, the very exterior itself shows how forcibly the mind is urged by madness. For paleness seizes the complexion, the eyes are weighed down, the spirit is inflamed, while the limbs are chilled, there is frenzy in the heart, there is gnashing with the teeth." Therefore envy is ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... medal from the company, and he certainly deserved all that he received for his daring exploit in the guise of a young girl, and a pretty one too, the boys said he made, for he had no mustache then, his complexion was perfect, though bronzed, and his waist was as small as a woman's, while in the saddle his height ...
— Beadle's Boy's Library of Sport, Story and Adventure, Vol. I, No. 1. - Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood • Prentiss Ingraham
... any progeny, and I know to a certainty that no offspring will bless our union. My daughter, whose name is Zelmi, is now fifteen; she is handsome, her eyes are black and lovely like her mother's, her hair is of the colour of the raven's wing, her complexion is animated alabaster; she is tall, well made, and of a sweet disposition; I have given her an education which would make her worthy of our master, the Sultan. She speaks Greek and Italian fluently, she sings delightfully, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... he is a noble of very lofty carriage, black hair, swarthy complexion, piercing eye, white teeth, and has a ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... history,—a mystery,—who is tall, slim, has dark eyes and swarthy complexion, and faints away at sight of Miss Renwick, might be said to possess peculiar characteristics,—family traits, some of them. Of course you've kept an eye ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... Abrantes, who was intimately acquainted with Hortense from her childhood and with the whole Bonaparte family, in her interesting memoirs writes: "Hortense de Beauharnais was fresh as a rose; and though her fair complexion was not relieved by much color, she had enough to produce that freshness and bloom which was her chief beauty. A profusion of light hair played in silky locks round her soft and penetrating blue eyes. The delicate roundness of her slender figure was set off by the elegant carriage ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... a not unpleasant impression of taking a reasonable interest in his diet. The other man was quite young, not more than five-and-twenty, and was a fine athletic-looking fellow with a healthy, out-of-door complexion and an intelligent and highly prepossessing face. I took a liking to him at the first glance, and so, I ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman |
