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Ashen   Listen
adjective
Ashen  adj.  Consisting of, or resembling, ashes; of a color between brown and gray, or white and gray. "The ashen hue of age."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ashen" Quotes from Famous Books



... doctor grasped him by the arm, a sudden clutch that perhaps shook loose some of the recovered papers from the long, slim fingers. At all events, a few went suddenly back to earth, and, as Cutler turned, wondering what was amiss, he saw Blakely, with almost ashen face, supported by the doctor's sturdy arm to a seat on the edge of the piazza; saw, as he quickly retraced his steps, a sweet and smiling woman's face looking up at him out of the trampled sands, and, even as he stooped to recover the pretty photograph, ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King

... Margaret, with a heart overflowing with gratitude and swelling with praise, quietly exclaimed "God is love." Paul stood before her, panting like a stricken deer, with but one of the children in his arms. As Margaret looked at him her pale face turned ashen white, her lips quivered and she fell into the arms of Paul Guidon as if dead. He sat down upon a rock, and by the lightning's flash bathed her temples with water from the sea shore. The Indian continued to pour salt water out of his ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith

... her. The stars paled and the dawn came, but she could not see the shores for the thick white mist. A spectral boat, with a sail like a gray moth's wing, slipped past her. The shadow at the helm was whistling for the wind, and the sound came strange and shrill through the filmy, ashen morning. The mist began to lift. A few moments now, and the river would lie dazzlingly bare between the red and yellow forests. She turned her boat shorewards, and presently forced it beneath the bronze-leafed, drooping boughs of ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... rustlers 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 ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey

... at the desk started up, and turned round. It was Hill. When he saw Rolfe he looked as though he would fall. He made as if to step forward. Then he stood quite still, looking at the officer with ashen face. ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson

... toward him. A late Winter sunset shimmered in the west like some pale, transparent cloth of gold hung from the walls of heaven, but the kindly light lent no beauty to her face. Rosemary's eyes were grey and lustreless, her hair ashen, and almost without colour. Her features were irregular and her skin dull and lifeless. She had not even the indefinable freshness that is the divine right of youth. Her mouth drooped wistfully at the corners, and even the half-discouraged dimple in her chin looked ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... of course meant 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 by ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... held on. It was now that I learned the nature of Nero's diversion when he was an angler in the Lake of Darkness. The loch really did deserve the term "grim"; the water here was black, the sky was ashen, the long green reeds closed cold about me, and beyond them there was trout that I could not deal with. For when he tired of running, which was soon, he was as far away as ever. Draw him through the forest of reeds I could not. At last I did the fatal thing. I took hold of the ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang

... hundred and seventy bodies of men. Some shrouded all in white with bound-up mouths; some naked and black as ebony in the strong light; and one—that lay face upwards with dropped jaw, far away from the others—silvery white and ashen gray. ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... skies they were ashen and sober; The leaves they were crisped and sere— The leaves they were withering and sere; It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year: It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, In the misty mid region of Weir:— It was down by ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... was waiting with expectant smile under a dome of sheltered lights in the dining-hall. Something of his dazed, ashen look brought back to Bedient the afternoon of the great wind—the Captain expecting to stick to his ship.... The table was set for two, and on one corner was the fresh handkerchief and the rose-dark meerschaum bowl. Bedient ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort

... At day-break a comparatively shallow grave was hastily dug near the edge of a little bamboo thicket on a slightly elevated piece of ground. As the flickering rays of the tropical sun began to shoot above the pale, ashen-gray hue of the eastern horizon, the prisoner was led to the foot of his prospective tomb. The firing squad took its place ...
— The Woman with a Stone Heart - A Romance of the Philippine War • Oscar William Coursey

... stowed their daffodils in the lunch basket, and Winona was peeping over the hedge to take a last look at the river, when an exclamation behind her made her turn round. Miss Beach was leaning heavily against the car, her face was ashen gray, her lips were white and drawn. She looked ready to faint. Winona flew to her in ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil

... and in his fluent manner discussed the day's developments and their preparations for the future; and he was still talking when, fifteen minutes later, the door opened and Matilda entered. Her face, of late so often ashen, was ashen as though ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott

... which even at mid-day [77] convey into any scene from which they are visible something of the solemnity and stillness of evening, sometimes wandering among them month after month, till at last their pale ashen colours seem to have passed into his painting; and on the crown of the head of the David there still remains a morsel of uncut stone, as if by one touch to maintain its connexion with the place from which it ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater

... old woman shook her, as if she had been a slender weed, and an ashen hue settled upon her wrinkled features, as she cried in ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... nor years of loneliness had broken his strength or bowed his spirit. His tall, gigantic form had shrunk to a skeleton; his hair had whitened and hung around his hollow face like an ashen veil. Heavy chains clasped his feet and his throat, a broad iron band encircled his waist, which was attached to the wall by a short chain—a thick bar held his hands apart; but still he lived. For years he had paced, ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... for a while, as nearly always happens, even wounds lost their power to pain in the sleep of bottomless exhaustion. Those who could not sleep were drugged with morphine. The moaning never stopped, but rose and fell and rose again. It shook my heart. We turned from the ashen faces and went out into the grey morning light. Everything seemed very grey. A mist was drawing up slowly from the sluggish Lys, and we wondered as we went shivering through it across the soaked grass what was happening beyond ...
— On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms • Innes Logan

... 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, ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills

... my God!" said Sheila with ashen lips, but a great light breaking in her eyes. "Dyck Calhoun did not kill Erris Boyne! ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... city's walls Are keenly smitten with a gleam Of pallid splendor, that appalls The fancy as the ruin falls In ashen embers ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... their spacious lawns and large restful homes of plenty. Mrs. Bellamy was filled with amusement when she heard the story of Kit's substitution of herself for the boy the Dean had asked for. She was a tall, slender woman with ashen gold hair and gray eyes, who seemed almost like an elder sister of Anne's. They occupied a suite of rooms near ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester

... had never looked out from under the straight, stiff brim. Her chin, firm, round, dimpled, was uplifted as she raised her head, descrying the horsemen's approach. She wore a full dark-red skirt, a dark brown waist, and around her neck was twisted a gray cotton kerchief, faded to a pale ashen hue, the neutrality of which somehow aided the delicate brilliancy of the blended roseate and pearly tints of her face. Was this the seer of ghosts—Dundas marvelled—this the Millicent whose pallid and troubled ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... are not very 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... a bearded man of strong build, but bent and wasted with age, toil, sickness, and hardship. He is an old soldier, and has lost an arm. His nose is sharp, his complexion ashen-grey, and he shakes; he is nothing but skin and bone, and has the deep-set, ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann

... his face. It was ashen grey and stricken old. The dark, clear, grey eyes were sunken and dim,—the light of hope, ambition, love and endeavour, was quenched ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... She turned ashen pale, but struggling to be playful, she said, 'I fear that the family of Aylwin and the family of somebody else must even take the calamity and bear it; for I don't mean my Henry to die, let me assure both ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... fell on the blanket between them. In the warm rose glow now filling the tent, Doolga's face was ashen-coloured. Awe-struck and startled Silka gazed wide-eyed upon her. For an instant the two girls sat staring in silence into each other's eyes. So much alike they were that one face seemed the reflection of the other, only there was a bloom, a light, a sweetness on Silka's ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross

... of his habit of thought. The noises of the city came to him as if they floated over an immeasurable distance of empty space. Through the spectral boughs of the sycamores the golden sky had faded to the colour of ashes. And both the empty space and the ashen sky seemed to be not outside of himself, but a part of the hidden ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow

... Dan, I'se mo' feared ter stay hyer," responded Big Abel, with an ashen face. "Whar we ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow

... proud Angus, be thy mate: Even in thy pitch of pride, Here in thy hold, thy vassals near— I tell thee, thou'rt defied! And if thou said'st, I am not peer To any lord in Scotland here, Lord Angus, thou hast lied!' On the Earl's cheek, a flush of rage O'ercame the ashen hue of age: Fierce he broke forth,—And dare'st thou then To beard the lion in his den, The Douglas in his hall? And hop'st thou thence unscathed to go?—Up drawbridge, grooms—what, Warder, ho! Let the portcullis fall.' Lord Marmion turned—well ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins

... person. She was a woman tall in stature, of an erect figure, finely proportioned, as well as the coarse mourning garments and large dark cloak in which she was muffled allowed me to judge. She must have been, in youth, very handsome; but on her thin ashen cheek premature age had already made unusual ravage. She could not, from the unbroken and graceful outline of her form, be much more than thirty; but her face was marked with the passionate traces of nearly double that period. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... The stunned parents, the ashen-lipped brother and the sister, not yet recovered from her collapse, had months for realization; nightmare months during which hordes of creditors arose with legitimate, but wolf-like, hunger from everywhere, and courts adjudicated and the world ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... still shows the castellations of the Hism. Looking down-stream, beyond the tree-dotted bed and the low dark hills that divide this basin from the adjoining Wady to the south, we see the tall grey tops of the Jebel Ziglb (Zijlb) and of the Shahb-Gmirah—the "ashen-coloured (Peak) of Gmirah"—the latter being the name of a valley. Both look white by the side of the dark red and green rocks; and we shall presently find that they mark the granite region lying ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton

... hand lantern in Brydges' face. It was ashen doughy, with sagged lips. "Wayland, have y' on y'r mountaineerin' boots, the boots pegged wi' handspikes?" cried the old frontiersman. "The cable's broken; and A like t' see y' shin for th' ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... a fine snout, a costume of ashen grey sprinkled with brown, flattened wing-covers, a dumpy, compact body, with two large black dots on the rear segment—such is the summary portrait of my visitor. The middle of May approaches, and with it the ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent

... Mannering's face was ashen. The whole horrible scene was rising up again before him. He covered his face with his hands. It was more distinct than ever. He saw the man's flushed face, heard his stream of abuse, felt the sting of his blow, the hot anger with which he had struck back. Then those few awful moments ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the world did not stand still. She was nineteen—twenty. She changed by slow degrees from the frightened little rabbit that had fled to Miss Toland for refuge to an observant, dignified young woman who was quietly sure of herself and her work. The rumpled ashen glory that had been her hair was transformed into the soft thick braids that now marked Miss Page's head apart from those of the other girls of her day. The round arms were guiltless of bracelets; Julia wore her severe blue uniform, untouched by any ornament; ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... each other through the chambers, And up and down the stair, And rioted among the ashen embers, And left their frolic ...
— Poems • William D. Howells

... can't tell—but we saw it." And one could hardly doubt, to look at their ashen faces, that they had, ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable

... what I could not make her by my craft as a teacher. And this, sir, I would tell you: there is one mischief I am loth to punish in my school, and that's the music that may be inopportune, even when it takes the poor form of a shrill with an ashen stick made by the performer during the morning's ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro

... hoped their descendants have not altogether lost. The gallant Berkshire Regiment, which fought so bravely at Maiwand, is composed of the sons of those who used to wield the back-sword on the Berkshire downs, and showed themselves not unworthy of their ancestry, although the quarter-staff and ashen-swords are forgotten. The old village feasts are forgotten too—more's the pity. Then old quarrels were healed, old bitternesses removed: aged friends met, and became young again in heart, as they revived old memories ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... "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. "Well—as always; ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen

... always made a light click, like a sheep's on a naked floor. But Saint-Denis did not hear her enter. She touched her cheek to her father's. It was smooth and cold from the October air. Clementine's hair hung in large pale ringlets; for she was an ashen maid, gray-toned and subdued; the roughest wind never ruffled her smoothness. She made her father know that she had come with Beauport women and men from Quebec, as soon as any were allowed to leave the fort, to escort ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... and, with glaring eyes, with agonized, ashen face, the Arizona merchant stood at the entrance of the ranch, clinging to the horse-rail for support, listening with gasping breath to Plummer's faltering recital of the ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King

... his seat and helped himself liberally to the whisky which was in his cabinet. He needed the generous spirit, and drank it off at a gulp. His chair behind him creaked. He started. His ashen face became more ghastly in its hue. He looked round fearfully. Then he understood, and he wheezed heavily. Once more he sat himself down, and the warming spirit steadily did ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... or more the girl ran easily. Then she began to show signs of distress. Her face grew ashen, the breath came harshly from her open lips, and once or twice she stumbled. With the first pang of fear at his heart, Grom closed up beside her, made her lean heavily on his rigid forearm, and cheered her with words of praise. He pointed ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... stillness beyond the window that replaced the noise, disclosed something huge, but subdued, something frightening, which sharpened her feeling of solitude, her consciousness of powerlessness, and filled her heart with ashen gloom. ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... is a receipt for my subscription to the"—But Miss Prince never finished the sentence, for when she had fairly taken the letter into her hand, the very touch of it seemed to send a tinge of ashen gray like some quick poison over her face. She stood still, looking at it, then flushed crimson, and sat down in the nearest chair, as if it were impossible to hold herself upright. The captain was uncertain ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... was already walking, directly and composedly, towards the waiting coach—erect, self-contained, well gloved and booted, and clothed, even in her dust cloak and cape of plain ashen merino, with the unmistakable panoply of taste and superiority. A good-sized aquiline nose, which made her handsome mouth look smaller; gray eyes, with an occasional humid yellow sparkle in their depths; brown penciled eyebrows, and brown tendrils of hair, all seemed ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... hero; and he, Hagan, and Guenther ran for the brook, Siegfried gaining it first. After the king had quenched his thirst, Siegfried threw down his arms and stooped to drink. Then Hagan, picking up his ashen spear, threw it at the embroidered cross, and Siegfried fell in the agonies of death, reproaching his traitorous friends whom ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... situation far graver than the burning of Big Shanty. The gray-haired man with his back against the hemlock realized this. He still stood grimly watching the fire—his ashen lips shut tight. ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith

... take a nap, knowing that the slightest movement or sound would wake me. I suppose I slept until six o'clock, when I was aroused by a footfall. I sprang up, and saw before me one of our native servants. He was trembling and his face was ashen beneath the black. Moreover he could not speak. All he did was to put his head on one side, like a dead man, and keep on pointing downwards. Then with his mouth open and starting eyes he beckoned to ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard

... wished to cling to him, but was still mistress of herself. He divined her impulse, and drew her arm through his and across his breast. He opened her hand and pressed his lips to the palm. Then he bent his face above hers. She was trembling violently; her face was wild and white. His own was ashen, and the heart beneath her arm ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... founded on the Budget. Departmental duties all day, the onward fight with his finance measure throughout the night and often the early hours of the morning, became the routine of Lloyd George's life. I have seen him at the table at the House of Commons at seven o'clock in the morning, with ashen face and burning eyes, after a week of all-night sittings, persuading, explaining, and arguing with determined opponents of his measure. Often enough in these fatiguing morning hours there would be sitting up behind the grille in the ladies' gallery an anxious, ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot

... writing his letters and was standing, with his wife and the potato baron, in front of the hacienda when Pablo and his prisoner rode into the yard. Thin rivulets of blood were trickling from the Basque's nose and lips; his face was ashen with rage and apprehension. ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... the 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

... elaborate workmanship. The sunshine came through the window, between the heavy festoons of two faded damask curtains, and fell directly across this vase, so that a mild splendor was reflected from it on the ashen visages of the five old people who sat around. Four champagne glasses were ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... many a fashion, Grown grey on many a head, And lips are turned to ashen Whose years ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman

... should come. Father Dennis, whose duty was in the rear, to smooth the trouble of the wounded, had naturally managed to make his way to the foremost of his boys, and lay like a black porpoise, at length on the grass. To him crawled Mulcahy, ashen-gray, demanding absolution. ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling

... deliver it. The present writer once heard a very eminent Churchman, who was also a great poet, preach his last sermon, at the age of ninety. This was the Danish bishop Grundtvig. In that case the effort of speaking, the extraction, as it seemed, of the sepulchral voice from the shrunken and ashen face, did not last more than ten minutes. But the English divines of the Jacobean age, like their Scottish brethren of to-day, were accustomed to stupendous efforts of ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse

... Her face was ashen white, and she was shaking in every limb, this stately woman who had walked so serenely into the drawing-room ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace

... singing of the tea-kettle. For some seconds, which to Juxon seemed like an eternity, Mrs. Goddard did not move. At last she suddenly dropped her hands and looked into the squire's eyes. He was startled by the ashen hue of her face. ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford

... their big horses, which were without mane, hair, or ears, and had silver horns in the middle of their foreheads to make them look like rhinoceroses. Between their squadrons were youths wearing small helmets and swinging an ashen javelin in each hand. The long files of the heavy infantry marched behind. All these traders had piled as many weapons upon their bodies as possible. Some might be seen carrying an axe, a lance, a club, and two swords all at once; others bristled with darts like porcupines, ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... with the confusion of it all, sat silent. A moment; then Argo appeared, driving a half-nude man before him. A native official of Venia, stripped of his uniform. Argo flung him down in the garden path, where he cowered, his face ashen, his eyes wild, ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings

... At length she began to wander in her mind, and to speak of summer days and flowers. A hand held my heart in a slowly tightening grip of iron, and the tears ran down the minister's cheeks. The man who had darkened her young life, bringing her to this, looked at her with an ashen face. ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... he shifted his hold on the girl, towing her by a portion of her dress, and two minutes later, lifted her beyond the water-line on the high shelving bank. Then, as he looked in her white face and marked the ashen lips, a panic of fear fell on him. Dropping to his knees he took her wrist in his hand and felt for her pulse. At first he thought that she was dead, then very faint and slow he caught the beat of it. The next moment he had her in his arms and ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... wind-exposed, distorted tree, We are blown against forever by the curse Which breathes through Nature. Oh, the world is weak; The effluence of each is false to all; Add what we best conceive, we fail to speak! Wait, soul, until thine ashen garments fall, And then resume thy broken strains, and seek Fit peroration without let ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

... perilous; for the greater part of his people were dispersed in various directions. Still, to betray hesitation or fear would be to discover his actual weakness, and to invite attack. He assumed, instantly, therefore, a belligerent tone; ordered the squaws to lead the horses to a small grove of ashen trees, and unload and tie them; and caused a great bustle to be made by his scanty handful; the leaders riding hither and thither, and vociferating with all their might, as if a numerous force was getting under way ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving

... 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

... curtained amply with blue damask. In this mirror I saw myself laid, not in bed, but on a sofa. I looked spectral; my eyes larger and more hollow, my hair darker than was natural, by contrast with my thin and ashen face. It was obvious, not only from the furniture, but from the position of windows, doors, and fireplace, that this was an unknown room in ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... writhen brow! Before now she had seen him look pale and wild and haggard, and had known neither fear nor pity for him. But now! An exhumed corpse galvanized into a horrid semblance of life might look as he did—with just such sunken cheeks and ashen lips and frozen eyes; with just such a collapsed and shuddering form; yet, withal, could not have shown that terrific look of utter, incurable despair! His fingers, talon-like in their horny paleness and rigidity, ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... blood welling from a shothole in his broad, burly chest and the seal of death already settling on his ashen brow, he was scowling up into the half-compassionate, half-contemptuous faces about him. Here lay the "Capitan Americano" of whom the Tagal soldiers had been boasting for a month—a deserter from the army of the United ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King

... having known neither wife nor child, and indeed this may be my lot." Having said so much, as he looked not at the girl but out of the window, he now turned his face upon her, which, always pale, began now to be ashen white, through rising emotion and intensity ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... victim was deciphering the fatal paper, he had restrained with impatience the desire to burst out into bitter laughter. But now there was something in the aspect of Plowden's collapse which seemed to forbid triumphant derision. He was taking his blow so like a gentleman,—ashen-pale and quivering, but clinging to a high-bred dignity of silence,—that the impulse to exhibit equally good manners possessed ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... cheeks were ashen gray and his throat thick with passion as he cried: "You can't do that! You must not separate us. I love her—she is mine! The spirit forces have promised her to me. They will resent your interference, they will ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... 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 ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow

... underneath the willows. But the reeds had to stand where they were, and those who stand still are always timid advisers. As for us, we could have shouted aloud. If this lively and beautiful river were, indeed, a thing of death's contrivance, the old ashen rogue had famously outwitted himself with us. I was living three to the minute. I was scoring points against him every stroke of my paddle, every turn of the stream, I have rarely had better profit of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... elms and butternuts in the meadow-field Still 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

... not met; but again at 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 and knelt beside ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown

... slightly relieved by the train entering upon the Bad Lands. For some time, Houston and Rutherford stood upon the rear platform, enjoying their cigars, and watching the strange phenomena of that weird region; on all sides, vast tracts of ashen gray or black, as if burnt to a crisp, with no sign of life, animal or vegetable, the lurid lights flashing and playing in the distance, until it seemed as though they might be gliding through the borderland of ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... governor sprang to his feet; through the treasurer's lips came a long, sighing breath; West's dark face was ashen. I came forward to the table, and leaned my weight upon it; for all the waves of the sea were roaring in my ears and the lights ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... so longed for you knew you had lost the power to enjoy. Like the girl bewitched in the fairy tale, you knew you must dance ever faster and faster, with limbs growing palsied, with face growing ashen, and hair growing grey, till Death should come to release you; and your only prayer was he might come ere your dancing ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... eyes could flash as of old; the voice would presently once more ring harsh and servant and equal alike would cringe before him; for still he held half Moscow in the iron grip of his terrible omniscience. But Ivan noted the color of his hair—that dead white that is not the snow of years but the ashen colorlessness borne of continuous nervous strain. And there was the unexpected stoop of the powerful shoulders, the occasional unavoidable trembling of the hands, and in his face, which repeated the livid tone of the ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... assumed the ashen hue which does duty for pallor in dusky countenances, and his knees began to tremble. Controlling his voice as well as he could, he replied that he was going up to Jonesboro, the terminus of the railroad, to work for a gentleman at that place. He felt ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... San Francisco would brook no successful rivalry and its leading men were united in a determination to rebuild a city beautiful on the ashen site and to regain and re-establish its commercial ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum

... to himself, "she hev done the trick proper, and no mistake. Couldn't have been better. That's a master one, that is." Then he turned his attention to the stricken man before him. Mr. Quest was sitting there, his face ashen, his eyes wide open, and his hands placed flat on the table before him. When silence had been restored he rose and turned to the bench apparently with the intention of addressing the court. But he said nothing, either because he could not find the words or because his courage failed ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard

... by the wives and daughters of the neighbouring farmers; and on her bare white arm, with its upturned sleeve, she carried a small split basket half filled with persimmons. She was of an almost pure Saxon type—tall, broad-shouldered, deep-bosomed, with a skin the colour of new milk, and soft ashen hair parted smoothly over her ears and coiled in a large, loose knot at the back of her head. As he reached her she smiled faintly and a little brown mole at the corner of her mouth played charmingly ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... discernible, the eyes of a fiery red; in size it was rather small than large, and the coat, which was remarkably smooth, as white as the falling flakes. It placed itself directly in my path, and showing its teeth, and bristling its coat, appeared determined to prevent my progress. I had an ashen stick in my hand, with which I threatened it; this, however, only served to increase its fury; it rushed upon me, and I had the utmost difficulty to preserve ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... breath for rowing," counseled Frank good-naturedly, as he bent to the ashen blades with ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum

... his action 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. ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... four foot-pads, who thought to beat the life out of his body as easily as boys that of a dog. He asked nothing better than that they should begin; and he asked so civilly that they very soon did. The fancy of glorious youth transformed them into knights-at-arms, and their ashen cudgels into blades. The only pity was that ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... 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

... 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

... shone with the fairest saffron gleams. There is nothing equal to this in the South—nothing so transcendently rich, dazzling, and glorious. Italian dawns and twilights cannot surpass those we saw every day, not, like the former, fading rapidly into the ashen hues of dusk, but lingering for hour after hour with scarce a decrease of splendour. Strange that Nature should repeat these lovely aerial effects in such widely different zones and seasons. I thought to find in the winter landscapes of the far North a sublimity of death and desolation—a ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... his teeth hard, as Dale scraped away the snow and found almost directly a narrow crack which ran parallel with the crevasse, but so slight that there was just room to force down the stout ashen staff which formed the handle of the ice-axe, the top of it and about a foot of the staff standing above ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn

... fugitives now to rise, and take their seats on the thwarts; though all this was done with exceeding caution, and without the least noise. The oars were soon out, Carlo took the tiller, and a feeling of exultation glowed at the heart of Raoul, as he bent to his ashen implement, and felt the ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... you mean, Eve?" cried Marguerite, her ashen face sufficient proof of the shock she had already undergone. "Speak, Eve; for heaven's sake tell me the worst. Is ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour

... and art plump and heavy with all. If I had taken thee so, thou wouldst have wept anyway, perhaps; for 'tis thy nature to have thy own way. 'Twould be a cross to thy father could he see thee now. I doubt not 'twould turn the Scot's bull-scaring face to ashen hues, 'tis possible—" Katherine's soft rippling laugh interrupted her, and at its sound Janet leant and kissed the maid's pink-palmed hands as they lay upon the coverlet, and taking them within her own fondled them, saying,—"And thou wilt surprise my lord and his friends by ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... to the smallest child in the school, knew that it was love for little Nan that had taken Annie off; and the tears started to Mrs. Willis' eyes when she first read the tiny note, and then placed it tenderly in her desk. Hester's face became almost ashen in its hue when she heard what Annie ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade

... as yonder, thy mistress, at height of her mutable glories, Wise from the magical East, comes like a sorceress pale. Ah, she comes, she arises—impassive, emotionless, bloodless, Wasted and ashen of cheek, zoning her ruins with pearl. Once she was warm, she was joyous, desire in her pulses abounding: Surely thou lovedst her well, then, in her conquering youth! Surely not all unimpassioned, at sound of thy rough serenading, She from the balconied night unto her melodist ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker

... a narrow escape little Billy had just had, he seemed to be pretty well off. He had swallowed some water, it was true, and his face was ashen white; but he could get up on his knees, ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... who once moved the springs of that minute yet gorgeous machine of luxury and of life! In the house of Diomed, 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 a prolongation of agonized life. The sand, consolidated ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... so simple an incident have produced so singular an effect? For the face of the speaker had been ashen. ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer

... Wherefore, since here no more dwells love, I fly To seek my home in other lands. For why Should Lilith wait since Adam's empty state More dear he holds than Lilith desolate?" But answer soft made Adam at the word, For faint his dying love, yet coldly stirred Its ashen cerements: "Nay, love, our home Within these garden walls lies safe. Wouldst roam Without? Sweet peace, by loss, wilt thou restore One little loss, or miss it evermore?" "In goodly Eden, Adam, safely bide, But I, for peace, nor love, nor life," ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier

... trembling and ashen-hued Usanga who tumbled out of the fuselage, for his nerves were still on edge as a result of the harrowing experience of the loop, yet with terra firma once more under foot, he quickly regained his ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Vane wince and heard his teeth come together with a snap, and he saw his hands clench up into fists and his face pale, already turned ashen grey white that denotes utter bloodlessness. It was the face of a corpse with living eyes that looked at him with an expression which could not be translated into human words. Rayburn had looked death in the face many a time and laughed at it, but he didn't ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith

... 1618, at three o'clock in the morning, a comet was seen from this city of Manila. It had a tail, was silver-colored, with a slightly ashen tinge, and had an extraordinary form. At first it was like a trumpet, and then like a catan (which is a weapon peculiar to Japon, resembling the cutlass), with the edge toward the southwest; and at the end it appeared palm-shaped. The declination [78] of the southwestern end was ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various

... motionless, spellbound. Amid the general excitement, Mrs. LaGrange sat as though turned to stone, her hands clasped so tightly that the jewels cut deeply into the delicate flesh, every vestige of color fled from her face, her lips ashen, her eyes fixed upon the witness, yet seemingly seeing nothing. Gradually, as she became conscious of her surroundings and of the curious glances cast in her direction, she partially recovered herself, though her eyes never left the face of ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour

... until his brain reeled and his 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 ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... they were ashen and sober, The leaves they were crisped and sere,— " " " withering " " It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year; It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,— " " down " " dark tarn " " In the misty mid region ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... figure, Miss Cursiter. Tall, academic and austere; a keen eagle head crowned with a mass of iron-grey hair; grey-black eyes burning under a brow of ashen grey; an intelligence fervent with fire of the enthusiast, cold with the renunciant's frost. Such was Miss Cursiter. She was in splendid force to-day, grappling like an athlete with her enormous theme—"The Educational Advantages of General Culture." She ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair

... almost every barony in the island. For the arming was now universal. No man dared to present himself at mass without some weapon, a pike, a long knife called a skean, or, at the very least, a strong ashen stake, pointed and hardened in the fire. The very women were exhorted by their spiritual directors to carry skeans. Every smith, every carpenter, every cutler, was at constant work on guns and blades. It was scarcely possible to get a horse shod. If any Protestant artisan refused to assist ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... hand she turned her horse round, and bending her ashen white face low rode slowly out of the crowd, her men close to her on either side, threatening with their swords those that pressed nearest and followed in their retreat by shouts and jeers. But when well out of sight and sound of the people ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson

... her beauty must have been of the ideal type of the time. All the portraits and images that Mme. du Barry has left of herself, in marble, engraving, or on canvas, show a mignonne perfection of body and face. Her hair was long, silky, of an ashen blonde, and was dressed like the hair of a child; her brows and lashes were brown, her nose small and finely cut. "It was a complexion which the century compared to a roseleaf fallen into milk. It was a neck which was like the neck of an antique statue...." In her were victorious youth, ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... rose to his feet. He took the bottle of whisky under his arm. His face was still ashen, but his tone was steady. He gripped Fischer ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... Raised by a daughter's hand, in lonely gloom, Huge-limbed Theodoric, the Gothic king, Sleeps after all his weary conquering. Time hath not spared his ruin,—wind and rain Have broken down his stronghold; and again We see that Death is mighty lord of all, And king and clown to ashen dust must fall ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde

... The ashen face of a woman, with a baby in her arms and two more by her side, looked as eager as if she had never experienced the pangs of ragged matrimony. Shelton went in inexplicably uneasy; the price of his tie was their board and lodging for a week. He followed his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... hen lead forth her brood of young for the first time. While the scratching and feeding are going on, all of a sudden the hen utters a loud shriek, and flaps her wings. The little chicks, although they have never seen a hawk, scurry hither and thither, and so prostrate their little brown and ashen bodies upon the ground as almost to conceal themselves. The Negro Folk Rhymes of warning must be looked upon a little in this same light. They are but the strains of terror given by the promptings of a mother instinct full enough of love to ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley

... never come, The shade is too black for a flower; And jewel-winged birds with their musical hum, Never flash in the night of that bower; But the cold-blooded snake, in the edge of the brake, Lies amid the rank grass, half asleep, half awake; And the ashen-white snail, with the slime in, its trail, Moves wearily on like a life's tedious tale, Yet disturbs not the toad in his spacious abode, In the innermost heart of that flinty old stone, By the gray-haired moss and ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... grown now quite ashen, looked at her. Something in her expression seemed to transfix and bind him. Suddenly shutting his teeth together, he stood up, his arms folded on his broad chest. The afternoon shadows spread pools of darkness around their feet, the flowers seemed ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... 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

... 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 the falls, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... single involuntary scream from her lips. And who can wonder! The thing thrust so unexpectedly before her eyes was hideous in the extreme. A great mountain of deformed flesh clothed in dirty, white cotton pajamas! Its face was of the ashen hue of a fresh corpse, while the white hair and pink eyes denoted the absence of pigment; a characteristic ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... rare instances, pallid. The false membrane, a peculiar tough exudation, soon appears and may be seen in patches, large or small, or covering the entire surface from the gums back as far as can be seen, its color varying from a whitish yellow to a gray or dark ashen tint. When it is thrown off, it sometimes leaves a foul, ulcerating surface beneath. The prostration soon becomes extreme, and small, livid spots may appear on the surface of the body. There may be delirium, which is, in fatal cases, succeeded ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... in which are seated two white men and a female, all of whom are attired in the garb of civilization. The young man near the stern is of slight mold, clear blue eye, and a prepossessing countenance. He holds a broad ashen paddle in his hand with which to assist his companion, who maintains his proximity to the shore for the purpose of overcoming more deftly the opposition of the current. The second personage is a short ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis

... whip, headed the horses over and started them. They floundered and splashed, and Andreas half rose from his seat, with lips clenched on a cry. The traces tightened under the water, a horse stumbled and vanished for a moment, and, as the cart tilted sickeningly, the man, ashen-faced and strung, leaped from it and ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... aristocrats. In the higher compartment is the husband, in the lower the wife—upper-class married life. Nevertheless, the ashen-purple colour of the flower shows that its life ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai

... Seeds hang here and there on the bare branches, mixed with the tendrils of the wild vine, or with ghostly clusters of what were the flowers of the clematis. The falling leaves are golden; those already fallen are of an ashen gray. The delicate tracery overhead is of infinite complexity, exquisite in its endless detail; and the whole of this disrobed Nature, in its unadorned simplicity, has an impress of sincerity that reminds you of the drawings of Holbein. Flat pools of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... there was no mistaking. The tissues of old Malakh's ashen face and throat and pallid hands were undergoing some subtle transfiguration. It was as if new blood had come encroaching in their veins. It was as if the muscles were become firm and full, as if the wrinkled ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale

... rage, but suffer me; for I have given thee this of free will, though with unwilling mind. For of those cities of earthly men, which are situated under the sun and the starry heaven, sacred Ilion was most honoured by me in my heart, and Priam and the people of Priam skilled in the ashen spear. For there my altars never lacked a due banquet and libation, and savour; for ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... red on the brow and ashen about the lips. "I don't call that tit-for-tat, Mr. Smith. I remind you of an innocent attachment for a young girl; you accuse me of harboring a guilty passion for—" All at once he ceased with open ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable

... gave me a better view of his face, but I could not guess his age. His was one of those old-young faces, deeply lined, smooth-shaven, the hair clipped short, the flesh ashen-gray, the lips a mere straight slit, yielding a merciless expression; but the eyes, surveying me coldly, were the noticeable feature. They looked to be black, not large, but deep set, and with a most peculiar gleam, almost that of insanity, ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish

... his bosom. The members were all very quiet and intent; every one was pale, but none so pale as Mr. Malthus. His eyes protruded; his head kept nodding involuntarily upon his spine; his hands found their way, one after the other, to his mouth, where they made clutches at his tremulous and ashen lips. It was plain that the honorary member enjoyed his ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson

... derisive tones, spoke of the Archduke's expectations of future government as laid aside, and gloated openly, with malicious delight, over the probable event. The Archduke, who while reading the article had turned ashen grey with rage and indignation, remained silent for a moment and then made the following characteristic remark: "Now I must get better. I shall live from now only for my health. I must get better in order to show them that their joy is premature." And though this ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... the glare of lightning seems to obscure all lesser luminaries, that the eyes of the gazing crowd were now fixed. He was completely armed at all points, except his head, and grasped in his hand an ashen lance; while a scarlet cloak, on which was depicted, in figures of gold tissue, the battle of the Centaurs with the Lapithae, flowed loose over his panoply, and was fastened in front with a clasp, representing Pallas sculptured in amber, and holding ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... he sigh'd. "There the sun drops, behold!" And indeed, whilst he spoke all the purple and gold In the west had turn'd ashen, save one fading strip Of light that yet gleam'd from the dark nether lip Of a long reef of cloud; and o'er sullen ravines And ridges the raw damps were hanging white screens Of melancholy mist. "Nunc dimittis?" she said. "O God of the living! whilst yet 'mid the dead And the dying we stand ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith

... blotches on the larger end. When a brood is strong enough to travel, the parents lead their young into general society. They are excessively tame, or bold. Often they may be seen strutting between the gnarled trunk and ashen masses of foliage peculiar to the sage scrub, and paying no more attention to the traveller than would a barnyard drove of turkeys; the cocks now and then stopping to play the dandy before their more Quakerly little hens, inflating the little yellow ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... head of the bed, on a little column, hung a trophy of arms, consisting of a visored helmet, a twofold buckler made of four bulls' hides and covered with plates of brass and tin, a two-edged sword, and several ashen ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier

... kind of day had fallen on Saunderson, whose face was ashen, and who held Carmichael's hand with such anxious affection that it was impossible to inquire how he had slept, and it would have been a banalite to remark upon the weather. After the Rabbi had been compelled to swallow a cup of milk by way of breakfast, ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... pelts of wild beasts and his nails were as vulture's claws and his members were meagre for the length of time spent by him in duresse and darkness, and the dust had settled upon him and changed his colour which had faded and waxed of ashen hue. So his lord mourned for his plight and, rising up in honour, kissed him and embraced him and wept over him saying, "Alhamdolillah—laud to the Lord—who hath restored thee to me on life after death!" ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... sunny morning of spring, that Ralph sat alone on the toft by the rock-house, for Ursula had gone down the meadow to disport her and to bathe in the river. Ralph was fitting the blade of a dagger to a long ashen shaft, to make him a strong spear; for with the waxing spring the bears were often in the meadows again; and the day before they had come across a family of the beasts in the sandy bight under the mountains; to wit a carle, and a quean with her cubs; ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... contest of the heady charioteers, Of them the goal that turn'd, and them that fell. But I outran the young men of my years, And with the bow did I out-do my peers, And wrestling; and in boxing, over-bold, I strove with Hector of the ashen spears, Yea, till the deep-voiced ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang

... 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 ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... well I knew, And you faded day by day, Until the Square that was heavenly Blue, Had paled to an ashen grey. ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... chamois-gun, which slipped out of his hands as he fell wounded to the ground. Springing forward Kennedy wrenched it out of his relaxing grasp, and presented it full at the head of the other, who, half-stunned with the blow he had received from the heavy iron-shod point of the ashen alpenstock, was crouching for concealment in the corner of ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... ashen. One hand dived for his pistol-pocket, but before he could reach it T. B. was at his throat. That moment the Pole felt two arms gripping him, two steel bands they seemed, and likely to crush his arms into his very body. Then he went over ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace

... 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 ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... Hector of Troy. 'Well know I this in heart and soul,' said Hector to his wife, when she would have kept him out of the battle, 'that the day is coming when holy Ilios shall perish, and Priam, and the people of Priam of the ashen spear, my father with my mother, and my brothers, many and brave, dying in the dust at the hands of our foemen; but most I sorrow for thee, my wife, when they lead thee weeping away, a slave to weave at thy master's loom and ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... still seated in the parlour below when Lucretia entered. Her face yet retained its almost unearthly rigidity and calm; but a sort of darkness had come over its ashen pallor,—that shade so indescribable, which is seen in the human face, after long illness, a day or two before death. Dalibard was appalled; for he had too often seen that hue in the dying not to recognize it now. His emotion was sufficiently genuine to give more than usual earnestness ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... between hope and dread, doctors and parents hung over the couch. What was their delight, within a few hours, to see the muscles of the little one begin to relax, the fatal blueness of its lips to diminish, and its breathing become easier. In a few hours more the color had returned to the ashen face and it was breathing quietly. Then it began to cough and to bring up pieces of the loosened membrane that had been strangling it. Another dose was eagerly injected, and within twenty-four hours the child was sleeping peacefully—out of danger. And the most priceless and marvelous ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson

... locked the door, and flung himself into his chair, the little book open before him. The ashen ring had widened until his whole face was like that of the dead. Not a muscle of his rigid face stirred as with desperate eyes he read on and on. Only the faint rustle of the leaves as he turned the pages, and his heavy breathing broke the silence. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various

... air, until Davy began to feel uncomfortably dizzy, and the Goblin himself seemed to be far from well. He had stopped smiling, and the rosy light had all faded away, as though the candles inside of him had gone out. His clothes, too, had changed from bright scarlet to a dull ashen color, and he sat stupidly upon the brim of the hat as if he were ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl

... first bishop. He is now in his sixty-eighth year, having been born in Durham in 1717. He lived to the age of nearly eighty- eight, and one who remembered him In his latest years says: "He rises to my mind the very ideal of age and decrepitude—a small, emaciated old man, very lame, his ashen and withered features surmounted sometimes by a cap, and sometimes by a small wig— always quiet and gentle in his manner." Such a condition as is here described is still, however, in the future for him. He is still vigorous enough to preside in the convention ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut

... due to be payed vnto the sayde Master generall and his successours, for sundry other damaged, grieuances, and robberies against himselfe and diuers other of his subiects of Prussia, namely. Matthewe Ludekensson, Arnold Ashen, Henri Culeman, Iohn Vnkeltop, Iohn Halewater, Egghard Scoffe of Dantzik, and Nicolas Wolmerstene of Elbing, done and committed by the sayde soueraigne king his liege people and subiects vnder-written, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt

... reached his palace, and the servants who opened the door of his carriage started back with alarm at the fearful expression of their master's face. It had become of an ashen gray, his blue lips quivered, and his gloomily-gleaming eyes seemed to threaten those who ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... pipe I color not, nor paint; White it remains, and hence 'tis true That, when in Death's cold arms I faint, My lips shall wear the ashen hue; And as it blackens day by day, So black the ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various

... knight, wherein were set sapphire-stones of great virtue. And at the top of the helmet was the figure of a flame-coloured lion, with a fiery-red tongue, issuing above a foot from his mouth, and with venomous eyes, crimson-red, in his head. And the knight came, bearing in his hand a thick ashen lance, the head whereof, which had been newly steeped in blood, was ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest

... Earl finished examining the papers. He put them down feebly, and sat staring blankly at vacancy. He looked ten years older than when he had entered the dining-room. His face was as bloodless as the face of a corpse, his lips were ashen, and new furrows seemed to have been traced on his brow. On his face there was stamped a fixed and settled expression of dull, changeless anguish, which smote Zillah to her heart. He did not see her—he did not notice that other face, as pallid as ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... he looked quickly round over the darkening landscape. There was no one in sight. This was one of the waste places of the world. Larralde seemed to remember the Eye that seeth even there, and crossed himself as he slipped from the saddle to the ground. He was shaking all over. His face was ashen, for it is a terrible thing to kill a man and be ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... up the stairs, a young man of a form and countenance singularly unprepossessing emerged from a door in the entresol, and brushed beside him. His glance was furtive, sinister, savage, and yet timorous; the man's face was of an ashen paleness, and the features worked convulsively. The stranger paused, and observed him with thoughtful looks, as he hurried down the stairs. While he thus stood, he heard a groan from the room which the young man had just quitted; the latter had pulled to the door with hasty vehemence, but some ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton



Words linked to "Ashen" :   blanched, colourless, livid, colorless, woody



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