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Ashen   Listen
adjective
Ashen  adj.  Of or pertaining to the ash tree. "Ashen poles."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ashen" Quotes from Famous Books



... moved majestically down the hall. Then at a sound she paused and glanced toward the stair which rose on the left, opposite the library. A woman was descending, a woman only an inch or two shorter than herself and no less stately, with ashen blonde hair coiled low on her graceful neck and wearing a loose gown of pale green crepe with a ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... removing her clothing, dressed her for bed as if she had been a little child. When nothing more could be done, he knelt by her and fondling her unresponsive hand let the tears he could no longer control pour over his ashen cheeks. ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... wore the features of familiar friends; The English ivy clambered to the roof, The English willow spread its branches still, And as I stood before the cottage-door My heart-pulse quickened, for methought I heard My mother's footsteps on the ashen floor. ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... from a dressing room and pranced and leaped over the sand to bring the sweat- beads to his skin; then, snatching at the nearest gladiator, wrestled with him until the breathless victim cried for mercy; dropped him then, as crushed as if a python had left a job half-finished, and shouted for the ashen sword-sticks. In a minute, with a leather buckler on his left arm, he was parrying the thrusts and blows of six men, driving and so crowding them on one another's toes that only two could seriously answer the terrific ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy

... Tullahoma County was ashen in color when he emerged into the hall; and then it was only to look into the muzzle of a rifle, held steadily by old Bill. There ambled up to Bill's side, also, Jack, and between them they laid ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough

... felt the sudden spurs and raced like a whirlwind over the remaining stretch of plain. Hollis had become suddenly imbued with a suspicion that brought an ashen pallor to his face and an awful rage into his heart. He slid his pony down one side of a steep arroyo, sent it scrambling up the other side, jumped it over some rocks that littered the rise, spurred savagely through ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer

... came nearer, and its shape was more clearly marked, the boys discovered that only a single warrior sat within. He was in the stern, manipulating his long, ashen paddle with such rare skill that he seemed to pay no heed to the ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis

... dream That I am older and I love thee then In knightly fashion, and my sword is dull'd And scarred by blows that it has struck for thee. My heart beats high when I behold thy face; My cheek burns hot or freezes ashen pale. And then, at other times, I dream that I Have died for thee, only to wake and weep That I am still ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... flowers, their flame or their freshness being relieved to the utmost by contrast with the coal-like blackness of the soil itself, a volcanic sandstone, cinder of burnt-out fires. Would they ever kindle again?—possess, transform, the place?—Turning to an [100] ashen pallor where, at regular intervals, an air-hole or luminare let in a hard beam of clear but sunless light, with the heavy sleepers, row upon row within, leaving a passage so narrow that only one visitor at ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater

... Fight he must. Rinaldo, desirous to make short work of him, took his station with fierce delight; and at the third sound of the trumpets, the Duke was forced to couch his spear and meet him at full charge. Sheer went the Paladin's ashen staff through the false bosom, sending the villain to the earth eight feet beyond the saddle. The conqueror dismounted instantly, and unlacing the man's helmet, enabled the king to hear his dying confession, which he had hardly finished, when life forsook him. Rinaldo then took off his ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... last long streak of snow, Now bourgeons every maze of quick About the flowering squares, and thick By ashen roots the violets blow. Now rings the woodland loud and long, The distance takes a lovelier hue, And drowned in yonder living blue The lark becomes ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education

... dead—Saxons, and Greeks and Germans—and the one side are blithe thereat; and the other side, grieved; but soon will the truth be known. For now has Cliges no longer held his peace: shouting, he gallops towards a Saxon, and strikes him with his ashen lance with the head on it, full in the breast, so that he has lost his stirrups; and he calls out, "Barons, strike! I am Cliges whom you seek. On now, bold freeborn knights! Let there be no coward, for ours is the first shock. Let no craven taste of ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes

... Pete visited Kate in prison. He had something to say to her, something to ask; but he intended to keep back his own feelings, to bear himself bravely, to sustain the poor girl's courage. The light was cold and ashen within the prison walls, and as he followed the sergeant into the cell, he could not help but think of Kate as he had first known her, so bright, so merry, so full of life and gaiety. He found her now doubled ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... tramps could not turn white, but they did show an ashen fear under their eyes—a deadly fear of the two men for whom any one of them would have been more than a match, but who represented the world from which they were outcasts, the world of Home, of ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner

... national, more completely imbued with tropical coloring and character, than this evening scene on the lake, can hardly be conceived. When we reached the landing, the gold and rose-colored clouds were fading into soft masses of white and ashen gray, and moonlight was taking the place of sunset. As we went up the green slope to the sitio, a dance on the grass was proposed, and the Indian girls formed a quadrille; for thus much of outside civilization has crept into their native manners, though they throw into it so much of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... a moment ere he started to go—with lips set tight and looking down on Bobby, whose pale face had taken on an ashen hue: ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... safe and now home again at Glencardine! He reflected upon the ugly facts of "the other affair" to which her ladyship sometimes referred, and his face went ashen pale. ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux

... as marble she lay in my arms, so that for one terrible moment I thought her dead. "Better so," my heart had cried, and then I laughed aloud (God forgive me!) at the utter cruelty of it all. But she was not dead. As I watched the lovely ashen face, the slow blood came trickling back and throbbed faintly at her temples, the light breath flickered and went and came once more. Feebly and with wonder the dark eyes opened to the light of day, then closed again as the lips parted ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... ashen bread and wine of tears Shall I be solaced in my pain. I wear through black and endless years Upon my brow the mark ...
— Trees and Other Poems • Joyce Kilmer

... and he shook one of Polozov's hands; arrayed in tight kid-gloves of an ashen-grey colour, they hung as lifeless as before beside his barrel-shaped legs. 'Have you been here long? Where have you come from? Where are ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... the distance when there came a yell and Chris' pony broke from the trees and bore down upon them at a run. The little darky was clinging to its back, his face ashen and his eyes ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... crimson and staring, was dumb. There came a little shivering moan from the figure crouched in the corner, and Frau Nirlanger, her face queerly withered and ashen, crumpled slowly in a little heap on the floor and buried her shamed head in ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber

... a wild, feverish, sullen look in them that she had never seen there. His face was ashen white; his lips were like fire. He had not slept all night; but his passionate sobs had given way to delirious waking dreams and numb senseless trances, which had alternated one on another all through ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee

... under armed guard. Four still forms were on the ground. Holderness lay outstretched, a dark-red blot staining his gray shirt. Flinty-faced Mormons, ruthless now as they had once been mild, surrounded the rustlers. John Caldwell stood foremost, with ashen lips breaking ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey

... improved the capstan and other instruments. He owed his baronetcy to King Charles II., and was one of the gentlemen of the Privy Chamber and Master of Mechanics. He died in 1696, and was buried at Hammersmith. There are here also large lead-mills. Behind the Lower Mall is a narrow passage, called Ashen Place; here is a row of neat brick cottages, erected in 1868. These were founded in 1865, and are known as William Smith's Almshouses. Besides the building, an endowment of L8,000 in Consols was left by the founder. There are ten inmates, who may be of either sex, and ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... the darkness is grown deep. That Emperour, rich Charles, lies asleep; Dreams that he stands in the great pass of Size, In his two hands his ashen spear he sees; Guenes the count that spear from him doth seize, Brandishes it and twists it with such ease, That flown into the sky the flinders seem. Charles sleeps on nor ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous

... she sprang away like a mad thing, dodged him, avoided him, then leapt suddenly upon a chair and snatched a rapier from a group of swords arranged in a circle upon the wall. The light fell full upon her ashen face and eyes of horror. She ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... tears seaming their ashen battle-stained faces, were his boys. Tenderly they helped me carry his poor torn body to the shelter of a neighboring ravine. On the hillside we buried him, marking his grave with the Sign of Him who shall remember the Brave, the ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy

... Hampton could distinguish the faint ticking of the watch in his pocket, the hiss of the breath between the giant's clinched teeth. Twice the fellow tried to utter something, his lips shaking as with the palsy, his ashen face the picture of terror. No wretch dragged shrieking to the scaffold could have formed a more pitiful sight, but there was no mercy in the eyes of ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men? Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back With dying eyes and lolling heads,—those ashen-grey Masks of the lads who once were ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon

... "The great yellow face, ashen now in its mortal agony, looked silently up at me—for three or four awful seconds; and ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... balancing and posturing on well-curved legs, and jauntily pinning his plaid on his shoulder, in a flash lost backbone. He stepped a pace back, as if some one had struck him a blow, his jaw fell, and his face grew ashen. ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... at your hands a sum of money—twenty thousand pounds—towards the expenses of the campaign. Have you the money at hand?" And his eye, glittering between cruelty and mockery, fixed itself upon the merchant's ashen face. ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... Wingfield, Sr. stood guard by the door, his hand gripping the heavy portieres for support, while his gaze was steadily fixed at a point in the turn of the stairs just below where Jack was obscured in the shadow. His face was drawn and ashen against the deep red of the hangings, and torment and fear and defiance, now one and then the other, were in ascendency over the features which Jack had always associated with composed and unchanging mastery until he had seen them illumined with affection ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... to a whisper, thrilled with excitement. There, a few yards away from them, ashen grey against the silver-grey of a dead tree, was a great bird. To Hilda's excited fancy, it seemed the spirit of the place, changed by some wizardry into bird form, crouching there amid the ruins ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards

... Hermione's one-sidedness. She only felt Hermione's cool evidence, which seemed to put her down as nothing. Hermione, who brooded and brooded till she was exhausted with the ache of her effort at consciousness, spent and ashen in her body, who gained so slowly and with such effort her final and barren conclusions of knowledge, was apt, in the presence of other women, whom she thought simply female, to wear the conclusions of her bitter assurance like jewels which conferred on her an unquestionable distinction, ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... about daybreak. At five o'clock the street lamps of Valencia were still burning, their flickering lights mirrored red as blood in the puddles of the uneven pavement. The irregular line of housetops was just beginning to stand out against an ashen background of sky brightening with the first glow of morning. The night watch-men were unhooking their lanterns from their stations at the street-crossings and walking off, stamping their chilled feet after wishing a listless bon ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... the old seems to you to be so empty and ashen grey that you wonder they care to live. But life to them, for all its disappointments, its weariness, its foiled efforts, its vanished hopes, its departed companions, is yet life, and most of them cling to it like a miser to his gold. But yet, like a man sucked into Niagara above ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... that met my gaze was absolutely staggering. I stood upon the threshold aghast. Sir Bernard, his dark eyes starting from his ashen face, stood, holding a woman within his grasp, pinning her to the wall, and struggling to cover her mouth with his hands and prevent her cries from ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux

... Joffre. Above middle height, silver-haired, elderly, he has a certain paternal look which his eye belies; Joffre's eye is the hard eye of a commander-in-chief, the military eye, the eye of an Old Testament father if you will. De Castelnau was speaking, making no gestures—an old man with an ashen skin, deep-set eye and great hooked nose, a long cape concealed the thick, age-settled body. Poincare stood listening, with a look at once worried and brave, the ghost of a sad smile lingering on a sensitive mouth. Last of all came Petain, the protege of De Castelnau, who commanded ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan

... particular about their dress in this part of the country.” And he paused, supposing she would observe him and escape; and seeing that she still looked before her, stood and hummed aloud. Up she leaped at the sound. Her face was ashen; she looked this way and that, and her mouth gaped with the terror of her soul. But it was a strange thing that her eyes ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson

... distinguish the signal that was flying from the flagstaff, situated on the lofty eminence mentioned before, as the Lion's Rump signalling station, announcing the approach of an English vessel from London. On hearing this the lady's face changed to an ashen hue, and she trembled slightly. It was for an instant only; her strong will conquered the emotion, and with her feelings now under perfect control, she was again conversing and smiling in the most charming manner until luncheon was announced, ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... solemnly on, the mellow cadence scarcely dying before another stroke renewed it. The sexton was Simeon Pease, a little red-headed man, a hunchback, abnormally strong. Suddenly he rose in amazement. His face looked ashen. ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown

... Jack sat at his desk, ruminating upon it, and feeling as if at last they saw a light through the woods, when a step startled him, because it was not the kind of step usually heard through that hall, so he turned. It was Fred Lawrence, with a face of ashen pallor. Jack sprang ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... come out into the sunshine to make oath that they are still above ground. One, whom Mr. S——— saluted as "Uncle John," went into the bar-room, walking pretty stoutly by the aid of a long, oaken staff,—with an old, creased, broken and ashen bell-crowned hat on his head, and wearing a brown old-fashioned suit of clothes. Pretty portly, fleshy in the face, and with somewhat of a paunch, cheerful, and his senses, bodily and mental, in no very bad order, though he is now in his ninetieth year. ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... as unwholesome, came over the bright blue of the sea. No longer did it reflect, as in a limpid mirror, the splendour of the sun, the sweet silvery glow of the moon, or the coruscating clusters of countless stars. Like the ashen-grey hue that bedims the countenance of the dying, a filmy greasy skin appeared to overspread the recent loveliness of the ocean surface. The sea was sick, stagnant, and foul, from its turbid waters arose a ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle

... very white, the features delicate and mobile, the mouth heart-shaped and representing perfectly certain portraits of the Regency. Often they have fair hair, and you cannot take three turns in the Prado without meeting eight blonds of all shades, from the ashen blond to the most vehement red, the red of the beard of Charles V. It is a mistake to think there are no blonds in Spain. Blue eyes abound there, but they are not so much ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... enough to give cause for any uneasiness. As the afternoon wore on, however, there were indications that a change of weather was impending. The sky lost the pure brilliancy of its blue, and by insensible degrees assumed an ashen pallor, which the sun vainly struggled to pierce until he merged from a palpitating, rayless ball of light to a shapeless blotch of dim, watery radiance, and then disappeared. At the same time the wind died away until ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood

... soul grew sick before the unsolvable problem. He could move neither hand nor foot, and just before dawn he sank to sleep in his bonds. Then for the waking girl the loneliness became unspeakable, and her lips grew ashen in the first light of ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... left the trader's face, and his olive skin was ashen. "Next time," he moaned, "next time, Santa Maria, they will be in force and they—they will take the very horse ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... Sautee's face was ashen. His voice trembled as he spoke again: "Hand it over and get out of here. I've had enough trouble with you. I'll take ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts

... from Cecropia came warlike Butes, son of brave Teleon, and Phalerus of the ashen spear. Alcon his father sent him forth; yet no other sons had he to care for his old age and livelihood. But him, his well-beloved and only son, he sent forth that amid bold heroes he might shine conspicuous. But Theseus, who surpassed all the sons of Erechtheus, an unseen bond ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius

... to the opening at the front of the wagon and called at the top of his voice. Only the shrieking of the wind answered him. A dozen times he cried out, then paused to strike a somewhat damp match and light a smoky lantern hanging to the front ashen bow of the turn-out's covering. Holding the light over his head he peered forth into the inky darkness surrounding ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill

... table-bottles crashing—the board shaking beneath its weight—and lay before the very eyes of Morton, a distorted and lifeless mass. At the same instant Gawtrey sprang upon the table, his black frown singling out from the group the ashen, cadaverous face of the shrinking traitor. Birnie had darted from the table—he was half-way towards the sliding door—his face, turned over his shoulder, met the ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... his heart it grew ashen and sober As the leaves that were crisped and sere,— As the leaves ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard

... holy man bade his hearth-retainers take their weapons. Three hundred and eighteen wielders of the ashen spear he gathered, loyal-hearted men, of whom he knew that each would stoutly bear his linden shield to battle. And Abraham went out, and the three earls who had pledged their faith, together with a great ...
— Codex Junius 11 • Unknown

... in the subterranean vaults, twenty skeletons (one of a babe) were discovered in one spot by the door, covered by a fine ashen dust, that had evidently been wafted slowly through the apertures, until it had filled the whole space. There were jewels and coins, candelabra for unavailing light, and wine hardened in the amphorae for the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... the act of twirling the spindle, turned round to the rest of the party, lifted her withered, trembling, and clay-coloured hand, raised up her ashen-hued and wrinkled face, which the quick motion of two light-blue eyes chiefly distinguished from the visage of a corpse, and, as if catching at any touch of association with the living world, answered, "What gars the Glenallan family inter their dead by torchlight, said the lassie?Is ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... awakened and almost strangled at the same time. A hand was clamped across his mouth, with force enough to push his teeth down his throat. A lamp burned low in the room. Whitey saw Mrs. Steele bending over him. Her face was ashen with fear. Her eyes, bulging from her head, looked to Whitey to be the size of saucers. Whitey ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart

... and the guard stepped into the carriage, thinking that perhaps the lady was asleep. He touched her arm lightly and looked into her face. In his own poetic language, he was 'struck all of a 'eap.' In the glassy eyes, the ashen colour of the cheeks, the rigidity of the head, there was the unmistakable ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy

... really, I suspect, as an artistic flourish, thrown in to make up in some way for the deficiency of her musical performance. If plainness of dress indicates powers of song, as it usually does, then Phoebe ought to be unrivalled in musical ability, for surely that ashen-gray suit is the superlative of plainness; and that form, likewise, though it might pass for the "perfect figure" of a bird, measured by Joe Gargery's standard, to a fastidious taste would present exceptionable points. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... had acquired new ideas of me, so had I of him from that interview. I had no idea till then how much passion still burned in that aged frame, nor how full of energy and fire that face, generally so stern and ashen, could appear. As I left him seated on the rustic chair, by the steps, the traces of that storm were still discernible on his features. His gathered brows, glowing eyes, and strangely hectic face, and the ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... this communication his face grew ashen. "Called upon to join at last!" he muttered. "What shall I do now? What excuse can I ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield

... climbing into the buggy at the gate, Grant, standing by the hitching-post, said: "Doctor—sometime—when we are both older—I mean Laura—" He got no further. The Doctor looked at the boy's ashen face, and knew the cost of the words he was speaking. He stopped, reached his hand out to Grant and touched his shoulder. "I think I know, Grant—some day I shall tell her." He got into the buggy, looked at the lad a moment and ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... ward of the hospital, the bed surrounded by screens, Father O'Connor found a woman, her face of an ashen colour, and constantly contracted in pain. She lay very quietly and in silence save when a faint groan spoke of a spasm of agony. Her voice had sunk to a faint whisper, so that the priest was compelled ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin

... days the black in his hair withered to an ashen white. His flesh fell away. He could neither eat nor sleep. He shambled through the obscure streets of Warchester, or lingered wistfully in the beech woods behind his own palatial home in Acredale, staring at the window of his daughter's chamber. The week passed in such mental torture as tries ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... of shade, for the sun was directly above their heads. The beadle awaited them in the empty church; he hurried them toward a small chapel, asking them indignantly if they were not ashamed to mock at religion by coming so late. A priest came toward them with an ashen face, faint with hunger, preceded by a boy in a dirty surplice. He hurried through the service, gabbling the Latin phrases with sidelong glances at the bridal party. The bride and bridegroom knelt before the altar in considerable embarrassment, not knowing ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... and deeper every moment, changing the rosy hues of the west into a pale ashen gray, over which hung the lamp of love,—the evening star, which shines so brightly and sets so soon,—and ever the sooner as it hastens to become again the morning star of a ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... penetrates their bodies and so they generally all die from haemorrhages, oppression of the chest caused by staying such long stretches of time without breathing; and from dysentery caused by the frigidity. 40. Their hair, which is by nature black, changes to an ashen colour like the skin of seals, and nitre comes out from their shoulders so that they resemble human monsters of some species. 41. With this insupportable toil, or rather, infernal trade, the Spaniards completed the destruction of all the Indians of the Lucayan Islands who were there when they ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... sentence, and lifted the blade over her head. It caught the light of the hovering sun, and the Indians near enough to hear her words set up a scream of such unearthly emotion that the priest turned ashen, and made the sign to ward ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan

... Geoffrey's death. Horrible as it was to him, he had been possessed by that one idea—go where he might, do what he might, struggle as he might to force his thoughts in other directions. He looked round the broad ashen path on which the race was to be run, conscious that he had a secret interest in it which it was unutterably repugnant to him to feel. He tried to resume the conversation with his friend, and to lead it to other topics. The effort was useless. In despite of himself, he returned to the ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... Yule log in Devonshire is taken by the "ashen [sometimes "ashton"] faggot," still burnt in many a farm on Christmas Eve. The sticks of ash are fastened together by ashen bands, and the traditional custom is for a quart of cider to be called for and served to the merrymaking company, as each ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles

... as a taunt; for the negro, who now perceived that there was a jaguar howling in the way that led to the hacienda, had given up all notion of proceeding in that direction. On the contrary, while his black face turned of an ashen-grey colour, he drew closer to his imperturbable companion—who had not even attempted to take hold of the carbine which lay on the grass ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... back with a little gasp of fear at the swift change that came over his face. As if she had touched a hidden spring in his being the man's countenance was darkened by furious hatred and desperate fear. His trembling lips were ashen; the muscles of his face twitched and worked; his eyes blazed with a vicious anger beyond all control. Springing to his feet, he faced her with a snarling exclamation, and in a voice shaking with passion, cried, "Pete Martin! What is he? Who is he? Everything he ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright

... would have supposed he was in a convulsion; his hands were clenched and his hair stood on end: this was Terror! The protruded veins of the second seemed ready to burst, and his rubicund visage decidedly proved that he had blood in his head; this was Rage! The third was of an ashen colour throughout: this was Paleness! And the fourth, with a countenance not without traces of beauty, was even more disgusting than his companions from the quantity of horrible flies, centipedes, snails, and other noisome, ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli

... experimenters besides the author have tried in vain a host of expedients in the hope of finding some way to improve the color of diamond. About the only noticeable alteration that the author has been able to bring about was upon a brown diamond, the color of which was made somewhat lighter and more ashen by heating it in a current of hydrogen gas to a ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade

... remember. The moment remained the blackest of all her life. It was not the subtly changed atmosphere of the house, not Mary's tear-swollen face, as she appeared, silent, at the top of the stairs; not Millie, who came ashen-faced and panting from the kitchen; not the sudden, weary little moan that floated softly through the hallway—no one ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris

... but guilt? What need was there for it? Her feet seemed turned to stone upon the cold ground, and her heart almost stopped beating. There was a film before her eyes, and yet she saw his face still, though dimly, and as if it were far off. She saw his hands withdrawn, and she saw his ashen lips ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... boy-martyr was first led out upon the drop. His face, which was deathly pale, appeared working with the effects of strong mental agony. The high priest of English rule over Irishmen, Calcraft, came forward, placed the treacherous noose around Allen's neck, pulled a thin white cap over his ashen face, and then stooped, and securely tied his feet together. The pinioning of the arms, which had been done in the cell, allowed his hands, from the elbows downward, sufficient freedom to clasp on his breast a crucifix, which ever and anon, as he spoke aloud the responses of the litany, the poor ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown

... young budding leaf to an olive which was almost black. Then there was the ruddy bronze of leaves which appeared just ready to fall; and thickly interspersed among the greens were large bushes with long lance-shaped leaves of a beautifully delicate ashen-grey tint; others glowed in a rich mass of flaming scarlet; whilst others again had a leaf thickly covered with short white sheeny satin-like fur—I cannot otherwise describe it—which gleamed and flashed in the sun-rays ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... to herself. "It is too late! too late!" She passed her fingers slowly across her brow with a feeling that life had turned ashen, cold, barren."How is Kitty?" she asked quickly. ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen

... Earl's cheek the flush of rage O'ercame the ashen hue of age. Fierce he broke forth,—"And dar'st thou then To beard the lion in his den, The Douglas in his hall? And hop'st thou hence unscathed to go? No, by Saint Bride of Bothwell, no! Up drawbridge, grooms,—what, warder, ho! Let the portcullis fall." ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... the water's countenance Blurrs 'twixt glance and second glance; When the tattered smokes forerun Ashen 'neath a silvered sun; When the curtain of the haze Shuts upon our helpless ways— Hear the Channel Fleet at ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling

... fire of spring; the horses of Geraint are ruddy ones, with the assault of spotted eagles, of black eagles, of red eagles, of white eagles; an onset in battle is like the roaring of the wind against the ashen spears. These poets are the poets of 'tumults, shouting, swords, and men in battle-array.' The sound of battle is heard in them; they are 'where the ravens screamed over blood'; they are among 'crimsoned hair and clamorous sorrow'; they praise 'war with the shining wing,' ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... turned an ashen face toward Mr. McGowan, and with a wild stare studied that young man's face. The two men sprang to the old man's assistance, but as the minister reached out his hand Mr. Fox gave a startled cry and threw up his arm as though ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper

... Sir Frederick's ashen hue changed to a ruddy one, as he said: "Lord Clowes, 't is a bitter mouthful for a man to eat, but I ask your clemency till my luck changes, for change it must, since cards and dice cannot always run against one. I know ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... Warren's ashen face changed to purple hue, his hand trembled just enough to incite Shirley to a desperate chance. As the criminal drew the trigger with a spasmodic jerk, Shirley was dropping to the floor, whence he pushed himself forward with a froglike leap, as he straightened ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... open door-way to which Paul pointed peered the ashen faces of other servants huddled ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... whited sepulchre!" he bellowed, with a final shake, and cast Whiskers-on-the-moon from him with a vigour which impelled that unhappy pacifist to the very verge of the choir entrance door. Mr. Pryor's once ruddy face was ashen. But he turned at bay. "I'll have the law on you ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... ship was loaded with lime, tallow, and acids—acids above, lime and tallow down here. This stuff is neither; it is lime-soap. And, moreover, it had not been touched by acids." The doctor's ruddy face was ashen. ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various

... fetched th' parish doctor, for I thought he'd ha' died before my face,—he was so wan, and ashen-grey, so thin, too, his eyes seem pushed out of his ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell

... twilight Clelia took her walk, and this time she found Sabrina stretched out on the lounge of the sitting-room. There was a change in her. Pallor had settled upon her face, and her dark eyebrows and lashes stood out startlingly upon the ashen mask. Clelia hurried up to her ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown

... shop, fell against the wall, and then sank down upon the floor. Mrs. Sharp sprang toward him, not with any humane intention, we are sorry to say; but, ere she had grasped the boy's arm, and given him the purposed jerk, the sight of his ashen, lifeless face prevented the outrage. Exhausted nature could bear nothing more, and protected herself in a temporary suspension of her power. Henry had fainted, and it was well that it was so. The fact was a stronger argument in his favor than ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur

... grand war-council of the Dakotah confederacy, comprising thirteen tribes of Sioux, and more than seventeen thousand warriors, many years since promulgated a national medicine, prescribing a red stone pipe with an ashen stem for all council purposes, and (herein was the true point) an eternal hostility to the whites. The prediction may be safely ventured, that every Sioux will preserve this medicine until the nation shall cease to exist. To it may be traced the recent Indian war that devastated Minnesota; and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... awful desolation, the accustomed sights and sounds of nature all gone. Terraces, cliffs, lakes, ridges, rivers, mountain sides, whirlpools, chasms of lava surrounded us, solid, black, and shining, as if vitrified, or an ashen grey, stained yellow with sulphur here and there, or white with alum. The lava was fissured and upheaved everywhere by earthquakes, hot underneath, ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... upon a pile of caked thin leaves Whose life had dried up full two years ago. Their flakes shook in the breath from those moist lips; The vow his kiss would seal must prove, I knew As friable as that pale ashen fritter; It had more body than reason dare expect From that so beautiful creature's best intent. He waking found me no more there; and wanders Through AEtna's woods to-day Calling at times, or questioning charcoal burners, Till he shall strike a road shall lead ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various

... no more of his medicine. If it had been any good and able to cure me, the more I took the quicker I ought to have been cured." And she scrubbed and thumped with astounding energy, while Lotte lay with her little ashen face a shade more set and suffering. The wash-tub, though in the middle of the room, was quite close to Lotte's bed, because the middle of the room was quite close to every other part of it, and each extra hard maternal thump must have hit the child's head like a blow from a hammer. She ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim

... light coat as he came across the pavement. One arm was in, the other out. He stopped dead; and the bright colour of his face slowly faded, leaving a sort of ashen gray behind. His mouth suddenly went dry, and it was only at the third attempt ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson

... tree, the needles of which ignite like flash-powder and make beautiful rose-purple flames. At night fires of this kind furnish rare fireworks. Each tree makes a fountain of flame, after which, for a moment, every needle shines like incandescent silver, while exquisite light columns of ashen green smoke float above. The hottest fire I ever experienced was made by the burning of a thirty-eight-year lodge-pole forest. In this forest the poles stood more than thirty feet high, and were about fifteen thousand to an acre. They stood among masses of fallen trees, the ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills

... abruptly, for I was alarmed at the effect of my words. The young painter's face had become ashen pale, and the brush had fallen out of his shaking hand. The next moment a fierce, angry light had come ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... Great weathered columns of rock stood alone in the debris of their own dismemberment, the bare gray or rusty and jagged expanses sloping up steeply from the edge of the canal, sparingly dotted over with gray bushes, and covered with an ashen colored lichen. ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap

... the effect of the whole, considered as a piece of deception and insincerity, is magnificent. It would be even finer than it is, were not the Florentine pietra serena of the stonework so repellent in its ashen dulness, the plaster so white, and the false architectural system so painfully defrauded of the plastic forms for which it was intended to subserve ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... the careful precision of his answer struck her with a swift sense of apprehension. She looked up at him and what she saw made her catch her breath convulsively. His face was ashen, the veins in his forehead standing out like weals, and his eyes gleamed like blue flame—mad eyes. His hands, hanging ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler

... It now began to be a grief to me to see the turgid pallor that gradually overspread the always ashen countenance of Zaleski; I grew to consider the ravaging life that glared and blazed in his sunken eye as too volcanic, demonic, to be canny: the mystery, I decided at last—if mystery there were—was too deep, too dark, for him. Hence perhaps it was, that I now absented myself more and more from ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel

... Nor would the steeds surrender, seeking which He voyaged from afar. But thou shalt take 775 Thy bloody doom from this victorious arm, And, vanquish'd by my spear, shalt yield thy fame To me, thy soul to Pluto steed-renown'd. So spake Sarpedon, and his ashen beam Tlepolemus upraised. Both hurl'd at once 780 Their quivering spears. Sarpedon's through the neck Pass'd of Tlepolemus, and show'd beyond Its ruthless point; thick darkness veil'd his eyes. Tlepolemus with his long lance the thigh Pierced of Sarpedon; ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... heart, Godwin held down the lamp and looked. Oh! those robes were red, and those lips were ashen. It was Masouda, whose spirit had passed him in the desert; Masouda, slain by the headsman's sword! This was the evil jest that had been played upon him, ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard

... more they ate the faster they coughed, and the louder became the uproar, until Manabozho, exerting the magical gift which he found he retained, changed them all into squirrels; and to this day the squirrel suffers from the same dry cough which was brought on by attempting to sup off of Manabozho's ashen bear's meat. ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews

... they did not pass here?" asked the stranger, and as he turned his head the dried pollen was loosened from the cat-tails and drifted in an ashen dust ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow

... there talking to Robert Bucknor—young then and now old and dead and gone—Billy, with ashen face, had come to her with the news that Peyton, her beloved home, was completely destroyed by fire. She had fainted. Young ladies usually fainted in those days when overcome by emotion. How the friends and cousins rallied around her ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson

... his hand and touched her, almost as if he doubted that she was real. His breath was coming fast; he was ashen pale. ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres

... woman Paul Stepaside's mother was, and she, although she professed to care nothing for her appearance, could not help being pleased. Now, however, all was changed. The last few days seemed to have added years to her life. The ruddy hue of health was gone. Her face had become almost ashen, while in her eyes was a haunted look. Paul was almost startled as he caught sight of her, although he said nothing. But he drew his own ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking

... had her father turned ashen pale? He looked at her, barely able to speak; he seemed to have received an awful shock and he was gasping for breath. What had happened? There was a pause during which Helene wondered why she had not ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein



Words linked to "Ashen" :   colourless, woody, white



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