"Inky" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... frequently intrude the claims of rather curious objects for Divine compassion. Sometimes it is the rocking-horse that has broken a leg, sometimes it is Shem or Japhet, who has lost an arm in disembarking from Noah's ark; Pinky and Inky, the kittens, and Bob, ...
— The Little Violinist • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Christian. In two more cuts we behold them drawing nearer to the other shore; and then, between two radiant angels, one of whom points upward, we see them mounting in new weeds, their former lendings left behind them on the inky river. More angels meet them; Heaven is displayed, and if no better, certainly no worse, than it has been shown by others—a place, at least, infinitely populous and glorious with light—a place that haunts solemnly the hearts of children. And then this symbolic draughtsman once more strikes ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... walking a while up and down the long corridor for the sake of exercise, would sink languidly on the seat below its large western window, she looked out upon a confusion of hills near and far, drawn in hard white upon an inky sky. To the south the Helvellyn range stretched in bold-flung curves and bosses; in the far distance rose the sharper peaks of Derwentwater; while close at hand Blencathra with its ravines, and all the harsh splendour ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... had slept but little during the long night, and even when, from sheer exhaustion, they had dropped off into a troubled doze, weird, distorted fancies came to torment them into wakefulness, to stare, wide-eyed and fearful, into the inky blackness of the cabin. ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... Cap'n's office. He beheld a three-legged stool, a hacked desk, an inky steel-pen, an inkless ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... with a louder swell: And the chair tossed as tosses a bark with tattered sail When raves the Adriatic beneath an eastern gale, When Calabrian sea-marks are lost in clouds of spume, And the great Thunder-Cape has donned his veil of inky gloom. One stone hit Appius in the mouth, and one beneath the ear; And ere he reached Mount Palatine, he swooned with pain and fear. His cursed head, that he was wont to hold so high with pride, Now, like a drunken man's, hung down, and swayed from side to side; And when his stout retainers ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... parlor, and her foreign face, with its natural olive tones, was very much fixed up with many touches of peach and carmine, as well as darker hints under the eyes; and her lashes—well, perhaps Dolorez had been crying inky tears; that was the effect one gathered from a ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... great champion called Chernuble. He was huge and ugly and his strength was such that he could lift with ease a burden which four mules could scarcely carry. His face was inky black, his lips thick and hideous, and his coarse long hair reached the ground. It was said that in the land from whence he came, the sun never shone, the rain never fell, and the very stones were black as coal. He too, swearing that the Franks ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... moonlight, an ominous quiet filled the place. Everything grew still as death. Slowly and in the midst of this most solemn silence the minutes sped away, and while they sped the full moon passed deeper and deeper into the shadow of the earth, as the inky segment of its circle slid in awful majesty across the lunar craters. The great pale orb seemed to draw near and to grow in size. She turned a coppery hue, then that portion of her surface which was unobscured as yet grew grey and ashen, and at length, as totality approached, her mountains and ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... out of that; so Solomon finished his sum, writing the figures of the answer rather faint, in case he should discover from another boy next morning that they were wrong; then producing a Hebrew prayer-book from his inky cotton satchel, he made a mumbling sound, with occasional enthusiastic bursts of audible coherence, for a length of time proportioned to the number of pages. Then he went to bed. After that, Esther put her grandmother to bed and curled herself up at ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... I could only make out a blurred mass of men on board both junks. They seemed to be swaying to and fro, and the smoke, instead of passing off, once more grew thicker, and in place of being white and steamy, it now looked to be of a dirty inky black, completely enveloping the vessels and ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... of white cloud between the lead colour and the black. They were hurried about in the sky, evidently by counter currents. The river was almost inky in its hue, and every large drop made its own splash and circle. Up went the umbrellas in both boats; but almost before they were raised, some were turned inside out, and all were dragged down again. The gust had come, and brought with it a pelt of hail—large hailstones, which fell in ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... all was inky darkness on the other side of the thick plate glass of the conning tower. Then, all in a flash, Dalzell caught sight of the twinkling stars as the dripping conning tower rose above the top of ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... and loftier grow the woods, and hark! The freshening roar! The chute is near us now, And dim the canyon grows, and inky dark The water whispering from the birchen prow. One long last look, and many a sad adieu, While eyes can see and heart can feel you yet, I leave sweet home and sweeter hearts to you, A prayer for Picaud, one for pale Lisette, A kiss for Pierre, my little Jacques, and thee, A sigh for Jeanne, a ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... a change came over her sparkling, happy face, like an inky cloud across a noon sky, and he felt a shiver stealing ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... right underneath the dragon's cave, or he would have done some nice mischief. As it was, the people on the coast looked out across the water toward Japan, and saw three inky-black clouds stretching from the sky into ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... now. Inky bread and cold bacon-fat sandwiches, or else sherbet, if their tongues are long enough to reach to the bottom ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... three paces away from me, was the dim outline of the young girl's form vaguely discernible in the gloom—a white mass, almost motionless, against a background of inky blackness. With a quick intaking of my breath I sprang forward, the shawl outspread in my hand, and with a quick dexterous gesture I threw it over her head, and the next second had her, faintly struggling, in my arms. She was as light ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... on the big river between darkness and broad daylight. The stars go out all at once, and the inky sky which serves then becomes a delicate blue. The shadows melt deeper and deeper into the forest, clearly revealing the outlines of the straight-stemmed trees. There is just this interregnum of pearl greyness, a sort of hush-light, which lasts whilst a man counts twenty, before the silver ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... changed his manner towards Miss Hazeldean. He ceased that profusion of compliment in which he had hitherto carried off in safety all serious meaning. For indeed the doctor considered that compliments to a single gentleman were what the inky liquid it dispenses is to the cuttle-fish, that by obscuring the water sails away from its enemy. Neither did he, as before, avoid prolonged conversations with the young lady, and contrive to escape from all solitary rambles by her side. On the contrary, he now sought every occasion ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... down into the inky water. "It will not give back those who are gone forever. Achilles could ask Hephaestus for his armour, but he could not put breath into the body of Patroclus. Plutus and Cratus[162] are, after all, but weaklings. A! This ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... roars of anger and screams of terror in the night, and above the Chateau de Bellecour the inky blackness of the heavens was broken by a dull red glow, which the distant wayfarer might have mistaken for the roseate tint of dawn, were it possible for the dawn to restrict itself to so ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... the texts on the scriptural patchwork quilt which covered my couch. There were—"Let not your heart be troubled," "Remember Lot's wife," and "Philander Keeler," traced in inky hieroglyphics, all ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... his copy with pencil, afterward going over it with ink, but so irregularly had his pen followed the pencil lines that in certain portions of this enlargement there was room for a man's fist between the first tracing and its inky covering. ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... ineffectual fires," mounted into a cloudless heaven, higher and higher, in queenly majesty, until the dark world was filled with her glory, and the road before me became transformed into a silver track splashed here and there with the inky shadow of hedge and trees, and leading away ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... was in love with the idea of London. He got maps of London and books about London. He made plans to explore its various regions. He tried to grasp it all, from the conscious picturesqueness of its garden suburbs to the factories of Croydon, from the clerk-villadoms of Ealing to the inky streams of Bow. In those days there were passenger steamboats that would take one from the meadows of Hampton Court past the whole spectacle of London out to the shipping at Greenwich and the towed liners, the incessant tugs, the heaving ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... ragged and wild with the tattered banners of cloud; the sea was inky dark, and the wind had an iron ring. The Mission vessel had dropped to leeward of the fishing smack, and the boat had about three hundred yards to go. But what a three hundred yards! Great black hills filled up the space and flowed on, leaving room for others equally big and equally black. ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... people out of their tents to the foot of the mountain into the presence of the Lord. What happened? When the children of Israel saw the whole mountain burning and smoking, the black clouds rent by fierce lightning flashing up and down in the inky darkness, when they heard the sound of the trumpet blowing louder and longer, shattered by the roll of thunder, they were so frightened that they begged Moses: "Speak thou with us, and we will ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... beds, she found the preacher seated by her desk chuckling over a little book among the papers before him, and peeping over his shoulder she saw it was the brown and gold volume which she had given Peace that afternoon. On the fly-leaf, just above the quaint brownie chorus, in straggling inky letters, Peace had penned the title, "Glimmers of Gladness," this being as near as she could recall the name Elizabeth had suggested. Then followed the most extraordinarily original diary the woman had ever seen, and she laughed till ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... with the responsibility. Yes, I understood the great Farrington. He felt as I did—that Peter's genius needed to see and help old Dr. Chubb drench Buttercup with a can of condition-mixture. Now, could I supply all that, or enough of it to keep Peter from being murdered in his father's office? The inky bundle at my side began to look as if it weighed a ton, but my loyalty and affection for Peter made me know that I must put my back to the burden and raise it somehow. If it had been a simple burden, like three sick cows, it would have been easier to take ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Madeline, "I don't believe I can pick out my own horse. It's inky dark here under the trees." Madeline had ridden all her life but she seldom went out at Harding, and so hadn't a regular mount, like most ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... silence, and sent light shivers through Cuthbert's frame. He was not free from superstition, and the evil-omened bird was no friend of his. He would rather not have heard its harsh note just at this time; and he could have wished that the river did not look so inky black, or that the trees did not ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... feet. Realizing that the men he was after were making their escape by another exit, Jennings hurled himself against the door, an automatic in either hand. It gave way before his assault and he was precipitated headlong into the inky blackness of the room. Taking no chances this time, he raked it with a stream of lead from end to end. Then, there being no further sound, he swept the place with a beam from his electric torch. Stretched on the floor were ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... ears. He fell. He knew he fell. For hours it seemed to him he continued to fall in an abyss of blackness that was wholly horrifying. It was a blackness peopled with hideous invisible shadows. So impenetrable was the inky void that even sound had no place ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... flying glance through the just open door Hilary saw her holding bread-and-butter with inky fingers, her lips a little parted, expecting the next bite, and her eyes fixed curiously on Mr. Stone, whose transparent hand held a teacup, and whose eyes were immovably fixed ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... so awful that we did not speak again for some moments. The great inky mass was extending toward the eastward, and approaching the fire burning on the mountain-top, and the moon rising above and to the left of it; and from beneath its black shadow came a heavy, muffled sound that ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... was going away from it all, into the blackness. Her lantern glimmered,—went out. Mary Bell's cramped fingers let it fall. Her heart pounded with fear of the inky dark. ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... colouring of the thickly strewn eggs, and admiring the fortitude or indifference with which the fledglings endured the sizzling heat, I found myself subject to an optical illusion, for when I looked up and abroad the brightly gleaming sea had been changed to inky purple, the hills of the mainland to black. Though absolutely cloudless, the sky seemed oppressed with slaty gloom, and the leaves of the trees near at hand assumed a leaden green. For a few seconds I was convinced that ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... with proof, scratch paper, scissors, mucilage, pencils, inkwells, and a case of "pie." He was engaged in sorting this. His collar and cravat hung upon a nail on the wall above the table. He was in his shirt sleeves. His hair was rumpled, his fingers inky. ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... 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 ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill
... well, all sorts of things might happen. And now the moment had come. It was true that he had always pictured the scene as taking place by moonlight and at present there was a half-gale blowing, out of an inky sky; also on the present occasion anything in the nature of a low-voiced speech was absolutely out of the question owing to the uproar of the elements. Still, taking these drawbacks into consideration, the chance was far too ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... that the "sooner" is the "better" in this case. Try not to increase the size of the spot, for you must keep the ink from spreading. Then dip fresh cotton in milk, and carefully sop the spot. Do not use the cotton when it is inky; that will smear the carpet and spread the stain. Use fresh bits of cotton, dipped in clean milk, until the stain has disappeared. Then rinse with clean water in the same way, and dry ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... fleet-footed ahead, the man following with long strides. There was evidently a way and Tito knew it. His black head bobbed along in front, now a dark sphere glossed by the sunlight, now an inky silhouette against the white shine of water. There were creeks to jump and pools to wade—the duck shooters' planks only spanned the deep ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... Henderson's inky retreat, there came the sound of a dry chuckle. Pop Henderson had been chuckling in just that way for three weeks, now. It was getting on ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... radio-activity has so rudely shaken. Picture the fate of the world when the sun has become a dull red-hot ball, or even when it has cooled so far that it would no longer emit light to us. That does not all mean that the world would be in inky darkness, and that the sun would not emit light to the people then inhabiting this world, if any had survived and could keep themselves from freezing. To such, if the eye continued to adapt itself to the changing conditions, our blues and ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... a yellow eye peering at him through a slit in an inky wall. A moment later the darker shadow of the cabin rose up in his face, and a flash of lightning showed him the door. In a moment of silence he could hear the patter of huge raindrops on the roof as he dropped ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... usually radiate from a common point, as from or near the stem, when the stem is present; or from the point of attachment of the pileus when the stem is absent. The plants vary widely in form and consistency, some being very soft and soon decaying, others turning into an inky fluid, others being tough and leathery, and some more or less woody or corky. The spores when seen in mass possess certain colors, white, rosy, brown or purple brown, black or ochraceous. While a more natural division of the agarics can be made on the basis ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... Katrine, perhaps, under its best presentment; for the surface was roughened with a little wind, and darkened even to inky blackness by the clouds that overhung it. The hill-tops, too, wore a very dark frown. A lake of this size cannot be terrific, and is therefore seen to best advantage when it is beautiful. The scenery of its shores is not altogether so rich and lovely as I had preimagined; not equal, indeed, to ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and ate, inky spots on the nut-brown soil, and Jude enjoyed their appetite. A magic thread of fellow-feeling united his own life with theirs. Puny and sorry as those lives were, they ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... longer shines upon the tranquil scene. Dark, heavy clouds obscure the sky; a suffocating heat depresses the spirits and enervates the frame; sharp, short gusts of wind now ruffle the inky waters, and the floating islands sink into insignificance as the deceptive haze which elevated them flies before the approaching storm. The ducks are gone, and the plaintive notes of the whip-poor-will are hushed as the increasing breeze rustles the ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... account of his friend Lavengro's 'daring and heroic act in rescuing so many from a watery grave.' 'I wish they had all been critics,' he adds; 'he would have done just the same, and they might perhaps have shown their gratitude when they got among his inky waves ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... strolled back slowly through the inky summer dark, finding the house hot and close when they came in. Margaret went upstairs, hearing her mother's apologetic, "Oh, Dad, why didn't I give you back your club?" as she passed the dining-room door. She knew Mother hated whist, ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... traces of earnestness visible, I fancy, on my inky face, for I saw Mr Barnacle look at me curiously as I spoke, while there was the faintest perceptible twitch at ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... anxious faces, drop into one of these 'exchanges' about the time the drawings come in. The office will be full. All classes of men are represented. There is the day-laborer with his tin pail, the merchant with an unmistakable business air, the gambler glittering with diamonds, clerks with inky fingers, men of leisure, cool and vacant looking, and I have even seen very ministerial looking men, who might have been divines, or dealers in a faro bank; it is hard to tell one from the other in New York, where, if a man has a very respectable appearance, he is put down as ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... Inky blackness drifted up in wisps, in smoke before his eyes; he was powerless to move, to cry out. There was no room to turn; no air to breathe. And yet there was a low, continuous, never-varying stir as of ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... more than that, He was to be Himself reckoned and dealt with as sin itself. All the horror of that broke upon Him under those trees, more intensely than it had yet. The brightness of the full moon made the shadows of the trees very dark and black, but they seemed as nothing to this awful inky black shadow of the sin load that would come, no longer in shadow but actually, ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... about their manner: no nonsense, nor affectations, look you! As for the rest whom I have known, there was always more or less of the author about them—the pen peeping from behind the ear, and the thumbs a little inky, or so. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... when hope has fled; When vanishes each prospect fair, When the last flickering ray has sped, And naught remains but mute despair; When inky blackness doth enshroud The hopes the heart once held in store, As some tall pine, by great winds bowed, Doth snap, and when the tempest's o'er, Its noble form, magnificent and proud, Doth prostrate lie, nor ever riseth more; Thus ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... dark, exceedingly dark, with neither moon nor starlight; one of those nights of inky intenseness. I cannot say just exactly what woke me. The house was strangely silent and still; the air seemed stretched and laden. It was summer. Perhaps it was the heat. I only knew that I woke suddenly and ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... poetry of Dryden, Pope, and all their school, is briefly this: Their poetry is conceived and composed in their wits, genuine poetry is conceived and composed in the soul. The difference is immense.' Taine is contemptuous: 'Pope did not write because he thought, but thought in order to write. Inky paper, and the noise it makes in the world, was his idol.' Professor Henry A. Beers is more judicious: 'Pope did in some inadequate sense hold the mirror up to Nature.... It was a mirror in a drawing-room, but it gave back a faithful image of society, ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... Sunday evenings were the saddest of all, because of the relative gaiety in other homes on that day, for there are joyful evenings even among those forgotten hamlets of the coast; here and there, from some closed-up hut, beaten about by the inky rains, ponderous songs issued. Within, tables were spread for drinkers; sailors sat before the smoking fire, the old ones drinking brandy and the young ones flirting with the girls; all more or less intoxicated ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... on! Through seas of inky air Roll on! It's true I've got no shirts to wear; It's true my butcher's bill is due; It's true my prospects all look blue; But don't let that unsettle you. Never you mind! Roll ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... the inevitable. He got his wits to the front by walking faster; and then thought of the young countess and the friend she might be about to lose. She could number her friends on her fingers. Admiral Fakenham's exclamations of the name of the place where she now was, conveyed an inky idea of the fall she had undergone. Counting her absent brother, with himself, his father, and the two Whitechapel girls, it certainly was an unexampled fall, to say of her, that they and those two girls had become by the twist of circumstances the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... brought the latest magazines and a box of chocolates and laid them at her shrine with a smile of admiration and the words, "Th' g'n'lmun sent 'em!" The suit-case lay on the seat opposite, the reflection of her face in the window-glass, as she gazed into the inky darkness outside, was crowned by the hat he had provided, and when she moved the silken rustle of the rain-coat reminded her of his kindness and forethought. She put her head back and closed her eyes, and for just an instant let her ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... no ordinary convulsion can imitate, which no illness gives, but which says to the physician, "Go your ways!" and is, as it were, a standard which Death plants on his conquests. He clutched in one hand his pen, his poor last pen, inky and ragged, in the other a crust of his last piece of bread. His legs knocked together, so as to make the crazy bed crackle. I listened carefully to his hard breathing; I heard the rattle with its hollow husk; ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... questioningly, and with a meekness which had its roots deeper than she knew. And here out of the depths of her humility came a noble thought. A noble thought, which was a noble truth. Through the darkness of the night, through the inky gloom of her own soul came with that thought a ray of truth which, whilst it showed her her own shrivelled unworthiness, made the man whom she had dishonoured with insults worse than death stand out in noble relief. In that instant she guessed at, and realised, ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... wished to be prepared for a possible attack. Presently the boat again rocked as another animal took to the water, then the new-comer dislodged the other with a snap of the jaws, and the first, with a complaining grunt, surged down the channel. Venning could see nothing in the inky blackness, but he knew the beast had seen the Okapi from the short note of alarm it sounded. Immediately the alarm was repeated. Snorts and splashes arose from all sides. Some great beast who had been standing unnoticed within a few yards of ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... sympathized, for Peter had a son, who, reason or none, would needs exchange the torn and inky fustian sleeves for the blue jacket and white lapelle; and he suggested, as the reader knows, the engaging our friend Alan in the matter of Poor Peter Peebles, just opened by the desertion of young Dumtoustie, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... the banks of the Pamunkey, shadowed into inky blackness the water below them; but between the lines of darkness slept a charmed sheet, glassy, fiery red from the sunken sun. Three boats moved silently and swiftly up the crimson stream, until, rounding a low point, they came upon an Indian village, nestling amidst vines ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... my right hand, toying with it curiously, and not without pleasure. It was merely a long, wooden pen-holder, inky and inert to an unappreciative eye, but to me it was a bright magician, skilled in the painting of glowing pictures, a traveller in many climes, a tried and trusted friend, who had led me safely through many strange adventures and much uncouth dialect. "Old friend," I said, addressing it kindly, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 30, 1892 • Various
... scene just when the confusion was at its height; the room was littered with scraps of paper and inky cloths; the famous printer's towel was lying on the desk; the stove, with its hearth piled full of ashes, emitted smoke and coal gas freely; and the printer was emptying the vials of his wrath upon the public in general, because all wanted their ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... inky blackness at my right I saw two flaming eyes glaring into mine. They were on a level that was over two feet above my head. It is true that the beast who owned them might be standing upon a ledge within the cave, or that it might be rearing up upon its hind ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and very small, yet clearly visible in swarms upon the inky-black expanse of waters, a hundred, a thousand little points of ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... surveying the scene, before either Karen or her guardian saw him, and it was then the latter who did the honours of the occasion, naming him to the bundled lady, who was an English poetess, and to Mlle. Suzanne Mauret, the French actress. The inky-locked youth turned out to be a famous Russian violinist, and the vast young German Jew none other than Herr Franz Lippheim, to whom—this was the fact that at once, violently, engaged Gregory's attention—Madame von Marwitz had ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... "you can't think how you cheer me. I shall owe you, you don't know how much. What changes, Esther, even in my small world! You recollect that first night, when I was so unpolite and inky? Who would have thought, then, of my ever teaching people to dance, of all other ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... that Dick did not understand, and directly after three curious looking, long, slender creatures of the cuttle-fish tribe were in Dick's net, and he was just drawing them in when—spatter!—one of them discharged a shower of black inky fluid, a good deal of which fell upon Arthur's trousers, and filled ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... crannies of the old Keep, being considerably alarmed by this sudden illumination of their domain, flew with one accord round and round their ancient tenement, now in the full blaze of light, now lost in the inky darkness beyond, and fluttering about in a state of the utmost bewilderment. Methinks even Mr. Pickwick, had he been present in the flesh, would have been equally ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... great wood. Huge branches shot across the narrow road, and the benighted stranger groped his way in what seemed an interminable and inky cave with a rugged floor, on which he stumbled and stumbled as ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... are closed and all the camp is quiet in sleep. Outside in the darkness the askari paces to and fro, and the thick masses of foliage stand out in inky blackness against the brilliant tropic night. We are far from civilization, but one has as great a feeling of security as though he were surrounded by chimneys and electric lights. And no sleep is sweeter than that which has come after ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... they were making their way along in this fashion toward the middle of the afternoon, that, without the slightest warning, there came a loud and angry crash of thunder; and looking up in a startled way they saw inky black clouds gathering overhead. ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... fir-forest. Here and there a peak rises high above the general level, the Feldberg attaining a height of five thousand feet. The aspect of this region is stern and gloomy: the fir-woods appear darker than elsewhere; the frequent little lakes are as inky in hue as the pools of the High Alps; and the meadows of living emerald give but a partial brightness to the scenery. Here, however, the solitary traveller may adventure without fear. Robbers and robber-castles ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... saw through the gloom the face of Rad el Moussa turned suddenly virulent, spitting at him in hate, and then the swing-floor slammed up into place again, and all view of anything but inky ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... trailing brambles and clumps of fern, while the streams that poured out from black gaps in the peat and flowed beside the road flashed with coppery gold in the evening light. It was growing brighter ahead of them, though inky clouds still clung to the ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... thin squeal came from the Rogan's mouth, a squeal that cracked abruptly at its height. What had been its gangling body drifted up in inky smoke. ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... us to be poets, in despite of Pallas. Now, wherein we want desert were a thank-worthy labour to express: but if I knew, I should have mended myself. But I, as I never desired the title, so have neglected the means to come by it. Only overmastered by some thoughts, I yielded an inky tribute unto them. Marry, they that delight in poesy itself should seek to know what they do, and how they do; and especially, look themselves in an unflattering glass of reason, if they be inclinable unto it. For poesy must not be drawn ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... sky, and moved, though no wind blew. Where the sun's rays touched them they were gold and red and purple, but above these of an inky blackness. They took strange shapes those clouds, and marshalled themselves like a host gathering for battle. There were the commanders moving quickly to and fro; there the chariots, and there the sullen lines of footmen with their gleaming spears. Now one ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... bail, which may be allowed to be somewhat poignant, are admitted to interfere; and, as wrath and revenge commonly strike in the dark, the colors are laid on with a grossness which I am convinced must often defeat its own purpose. The fish that casts an inky cloud about him that his enemies may not find him, cannot more obscure himself by that device than the blackening representations of these angry advertisers must inevitably serve to cloak and screen the persons of those who have injured them from ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... The boats are plying again, but they stop at nightfall, and the river is inky-smooth, with the same long weed-like reflections as in August. Only the reflections are fewer and paler; bright lights are muffled everywhere. The line of the quays is scarcely discernible, and the heights of the Trocadero are lost in the blur of night, which presently effaces even the firm tower-tops ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... a silk scarf wound high round his neck, shivered in the cold air, for the wind had veered to the north, and the first breath of the Arctic winter was already carried on it. The waters of the loch had turned a slaty black; little angry waves broke incessantly over its surface; and inky black clouds were gathering slowly on the distant horizon. It looked as if the fine weather were at an end; as if Nature herself were mourning angrily at the wanton destruction of her child. The pity and regret Gimblet had felt, as he stood by the murdered man's ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... the Colonel's quiet voice warns the excited husband. "There are two more letters following. Read 'em in the proper sequence. That one with the inky design at the top, that might be the pattern for a pair of fancy pyjamas—that's ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... grapes, and several fat plums, all very beautifully done in wax, as was the fashion about the middle of this most glorious reign. They were appropriately coloured—the apple blushing red, the grapes an inky black, emerald green leaves were scattered here and there to lend finish, and the whole was mounted on an ebonised stand covered with black velvet, and protected from dust and dirt by a beautiful glass cover ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... that hundred pounds, and bought Ethel a little gold ring set with pearls. With that there must needs be a ceremonial, and on the verge of the snowy, foggy Common she took off her glove and the ring was placed on her finger. Whereupon he was moved to kiss her—on the frost-pink knuckle next to an inky nail. ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... right; the storm was coming up fast, throwing a veil of inky cloud across the star-spangled sky. In South Africa there is but little twilight, and the darkness follows hard upon the heels of the day. No sooner had the angry ball of the setting sun disappeared than the night swept with ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... was making his way slowly and cautiously down the rope. It was a good stout one and he had no real misgivings. Yet the situation was unusual enough to have a piquant flavor. In the first place the darkness was more than inky in character, the kind of blackness in comparison with which the blackest night seems luminous. Then there was the peculiar quality of the air, so different from anything above ground, that the words chill, and dampness, ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... worked like a fiend at his theory and practice. He suffered from occasional attacks of the most violent melancholy, obsessions of inky gloom, which kept returning upon him at long intervals. But when he threw off the spell, he was himself again, and could write to his mother of ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... not lost his presence of mind. Already he had jumped out of the carriage, banging the door to behind him, despite feeble protests from his sister; pistol in hand he tried with anxious eyes to pierce the inky ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... had fallen within the hour; but still the sky was dense with a sullen rack, and still the sidewalks were inky wet. ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... self-possessed in the dark, even when going about the ranch, when he entered the inky darkness caused by the maze of boughs and foliage, Horace lost his head completely, and it did not take the comrades long to realize they ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... the Isle of Man, Tom carried his tail behind him, he went on in ignorance of the fact that more than once the furry end touched lightly in a more than usually well-filled ink-well, the result being an inky trail, which, however, dried rapidly in the warm theatre, and was not likely to excite notice upon unpainted desk-lids which were dotted with the blots and smudges made ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... surprise of his life. It was as if, at one moment, a flash of lightning had made all things bright; and then in another second was inky darkness. He saw this lovely wife, one moment active and fleet as a deer. In another, in the twinkling of an eye, nothing was there. She had vanished. After this, there was a lonely home, empty ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... to be safe without them, led to, a door on the opposite side. This door, which was open, Jonathan locked and took out the key. As he stood upon the bridge, he held down the light, and looked into the profound abyss. The red glare fell upon the slimy brick-work, and tinged the inky waters below. A slight cough uttered by Jonathan at the moment awakened the echoes of the place, and was returned in hollow reverberations. "There'll be a louder echo here presently," thought Jonathan. Before leaving the place he looked upwards, and could just discern the blue vault and ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the thirty negroes on the place, I was given a youth of perhaps eighteen to be my body-servant. He was to black my boots, keep my clothes dusted, hold my stirrup, take care of my horse, and do anything else I wanted him to do. This negro I dubbed Inky, in deference ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... more complete self-revelation than act. When one thinks of the floods of foul or idle or malicious talk which half drown the world as being revelations of the sort of hearts from which they have gushed, one is appalled. What a black, seething fountain that must be which spurts up such inky waters! ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... with slush. Not even on the river bank was the snow white—the rain which fell was a diluted solution of smoke, and Jurgis' hands and face were streaked with black. Then he came into the business part of the city, where the streets were sewers of inky blackness, with horses sleeping and plunging, and women and children flying across in panic-stricken droves. These streets were huge canyons formed by towering black buildings, echoing with the clang of car gongs ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... in the Furmville jail sat on the edge of her cot at midnight, staring into inky darkness while she tried to remember the events of the night before. She was not of the slow-witted, stupid-looking type of negro women. The thing against which she struggled was not poverty of brain ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... the men had gone home early, wet and dispirited; and Walter stood, all splashed and stained with mud, sick at heart and heavy, on the edge of the place, and looked very gloomily at the trenches, which lay like an ugly scar on the green hilltop. The sky was full of ragged inky clouds, with fierce lights on ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... ahead of us and lit up the blackness. Beneath its sheen a huge white-topped breaker, twenty feet high or more, was rushing on to us. It was on the break—the moon shone on its crest and tipped its foam with light. On it rushed beneath the inky sky, driven by the awful squall behind it. Suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, I saw the black shape of the whale-boat cast high into the air on the crest of the breaking wave. Then—a shock of water, a wild rush of boiling foam, and ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... tables were exalted above anything on the same page. Some books of history were adorned with illustrations; but no use was made of them by the masters, and for the pupils they merely served as outlines to which, were they the outlines of human beings, inky beards and moustaches had to be affixed, or were they landscapes, flights ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... hand. The rich golden glow of night, to which the dwellers on the earth's surface are accustomed, as we passed to higher altitudes, had given place to a thin inky blue. This was obscured by no fleck or mist, and yet the stars shone through it faint and dim, despoiling the firmament of its glory. The same loss of power was manifest on the ushering in of day. The auroral ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... were uttered, a dull, booming, subterranean sound was heard, and instantly afterwards, with a crash like thunder, the whole of the green circle beneath slipped off, and from a yawning rent under it burst forth with irresistible fury, a thick inky-coloured torrent, which, rising almost breast high, fell upon the devoted royalist soldiers, who were advancing right in its course. Unable to avoid the watery eruption, or to resist its fury when it came upon them, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Through the inky curtain of blackness that had for days overcast the skies the sun had at last burst with a radiance that seemed twice as great to unaccustomed eyes. From somewhere a life-giving breeze had sprung up and driven away the vapors. Back rolled the walls of mist and fog, and ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... sit down, but stood by the fire dipping her inky middle finger in the egg-cup, which contained vinegar, and smearing it over the ink stains on her face, frowning the whole time ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... Its throat was ablaze with gold, and bordered with red were its inky black pinions. When they were unfolded, the boat flew in a race with the whirlwind and left far behind the swift eagle. Widely renowned was the ship, the chief of all ships ...
— Northland Heroes • Florence Holbrook
... fellow who has a good seat in his saddle, and delight in horsemanship, because horsemanship requires no brains; driving a "buggy" in good style is respectable, but "shoving along" a four-in-hand the highest exercise of human intellect, as for Milton and Shakspeare, and such inky-fingered old prigs, who never had a good horse in their lives, they despise such low fellows thoroughly. Their chief companions, or rather, their most intimate friends, are the fellows who hang about livery stables, betting-rooms, race-courses, and hippodromes; crop-eared grooms, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... now—good old Kitch! With a great black patch over one roving blue eye and an inky paw, a trim, taut body and a masterful tail, he travelled more miles than fall to the lot of most bull dogs and got quite as much good out of them as most of his fellow travellers. He would have chased ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... who writes, Ever. These two she saw like meteorites Flare down the wind and burn afar, then fade. And Leto next, a mother grave and staid, Drave out her chariot, which two winged stags drew, Swift following, robed in gown of inky blue, And hooded; and her hand which held the hood Gleamed like a patch of snow left in a wood Where hyacinths bring down to earth the sky. And in her wake a winging company, Dense as the cloud of gulls which from a rock At sea lifts up in myriads, if the knock Of oars assail their peace, she saw, ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... rest of the Gordons, swinging along the road to crown the heights on either side the nek. Coming through I noticed—and the kilted Highlanders noticed, too, they were staying out all night—that the sky over Ladysmith was very black. The great inky stain of cloud spread and ran up the heavens, then down to the whole circumference. In five minutes it was night and rain-storm. It stung like a whip-lash; to meet it was like riding into a wall. Ladysmith streets ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... sea, not unlike the sound of telegraph wires; the night is quite cool and pitch dark, with a small fine rain; one light over in the leper settlement, one cricket whistling in the garden, my lamp here by my bedside, and my pen cheeping between my inky fingers. ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... storm and stress for that. On one awful night long ago, I waited for hours watching waves that reared and thundered as if they would charge headlong through the streets of the town. The white crests nickered like flame, and below the crests the dreadful inky bulge of each monster rolled on like doom—like death. Throughout the mad night of tempest the guns from many distressed vessels rang out, and I could see the violent sweep of the ships' lights as they were hurled in wild arcs from crest to crest. Many and many a corpse lay out on those ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... all the lamps?" she inquired, and when Lettice replied in amazement that there were as many lamps as usual, she shrugged her shoulders, and muttered something about "inky darkness." If Mr Bertrand had not appeared at that moment it would be difficult to say what would have happened, but he came rushing in like a breeze of fresh, wintry air, seizing each of the girls in turn, and folding them ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... which drowned all others. From the inky sky descended a jagged line of light, and in the same second the crash of the thunder broke. Never have I seen such a storm. Down in the Tidewater we had thunderstorms in plenty during the summer-time, but they growled and passed and scarce ruffled the even blue of the sky. But here it looked ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... to this savage, but the tone that rang through them, and his crouching, ready pose, must have been plain. The inky face beneath the high-pointed dome of head was twisted with rage; the eyes glared at this being who dared to oppose him. But the black one paused, then stepped backward to the casket ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... not the inky cloak, Mr. Applebite," replied Mrs. Greatgirdle, "that truly indicates regret; but it's here," (laying her hand upon her left side): "no—there, under his liver wing, that he feels it, poor bird! It's a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 28, 1841 • Various
... had stood looking forth on the wide waste; the distant ocean, whose tumbling waves one moment gleamed in living light, at others immersed in inky blackness, were barely distinguished from the lowering sky. The moaning winds swept by, bearing the storm-cloud on their wings; patches of blue gleamed strangely and brightly forth; and, far in the west, crimson and amber, and pink and green, inlaid in beautiful ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... It was not inky darkness that met his gaze. The room was draped in the grey of dawn, cold, harsh, lifeless. Every object on the wall was plainly visible in this drear light. The light green stripes in the wall paper were leaden in colour, the darker ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... squid is a baby octopus, or "devil fish." The squid is caught by jigging up and down a lead weight filled with wire spikes and painted bright red. It seizes the weight with its tentacles. When raised into the boat it releases its hold and squirts a small stream of black inky fluid. In the water, when attacked, this inky fluid discolors the water and screens ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... snow all the shipmen of Shoreby came clustering in an inky mass, and tailing out rearward in isolated clumps. Every man was shouting or screaming; every man was gesticulating with both arms in air; some one was continually falling; and to complete the picture, when one fell, a dozen would fall upon the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to cultivate by all means her lady's favour; to lament her incapacity as to writing and reading; to shew letters to her lady, as from pretended country relations; to beg her advice how to answer them, and to get them answered; and to be always aiming at scrawling with a pen, lest inky fingers should give suspicion. I have moreover given the wench an ivory-leafed pocket-book, with a silver pencil, that she ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... look, and the rueful expression of Rachel, set off by the inky stains, was so irresistibly comical, that, after a hard struggle, she too gave way, and ...
— Jack's Ward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the road. It is in execrable condition, for work in daylight here is impossible. It is all knocked to pieces with traffic, and frequently pitted with shell holes, and as a rule very narrow. There is no moon, which is just as well, and no lights can be carried. The driver feels his way through inky blackness by some sixth sense begotten of many such journeys. Every now and then a flare lights up the broken cobbles for a few seconds. His wheels are only a couple of feet from the mud on either side, and if he goes into that the ...
— On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms • Innes Logan
... not alone thy inky cloak, good Sir EDWARD, that attracts the Baron, nor is it the business-like profile of THOMAS DE GREY, sixth Lord Walsingham, Chairman of the Ensilage Committee, that gives the Baron matter for special admiration; but it is the perfectly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 12, 1892 • Various
... overseer, having laboriously written and signed a pass, laid down the quill, wiped his inky forefinger upon his sleeve, and gave the paper to the storekeeper, who ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... more at the table outside the cafe. A cold wind was blowing. The sky was blue-black and the ashen white arc lamps cast a mortuary light over everything. In the Colonnade of the Palais Royal the shadows were harsh and inky. In the square the people were gradually thinning. The lights in the Magazin du Louvre had gone out. From the cafe behind him, a faint smell of fresh-cooked food began to saturate the ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... seawards, about west; the ice-terraces of the island lay with the wild strange gleam of their own snow radiance upon them upon the larboard quarter; around the schooner was the whiteness of her frozen seat, and her outline was an inky, exquisitely defined configuration upon it; above the crystal wall on the larboard bow rose the spume of the breaking surge in pallid bodies, glancing for an instant, and sometimes shaking a thunder into ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... limbers as well as troops. I stayed that night with the engineers, as the weather looked threatening. The sky grew black and rain began to fall. When one stood in the open and looked all round at the inky darkness everywhere, with the rain pelting down, and knew that our men had to carry on as usual, one realized the bitterness of the cup which they had to drink to the very dregs. Rain and darkness all round them, hardly a moment's respite from some irksome task, the ache in the heart ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... for an all-night march of 15 miles. The brigade transport was in front, and checks were naturally frequent as we retraced our steps through Bruay and Marles, thence on to Burbure, where our guide misled us through a narrow inky lane, in which most of the Brigade lost touch. Just as the dawn was breaking and our troubles seemed nearly over our guide again mistook the way, and we found ourselves bogged in a cart track at the top of a down. ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... so long. Nobody could guess of what it was that France or the world might be with child: nobody, till the birth in 1789, and even for a generation afterwards. France is weakly and unwieldy, has strange enough longings for chalky, inky, visionary, foolish substances, and may be in the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle |
