"Complexion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it themselves. For example, Miss Smith will know Miss Jones a mile or so off. By her general air, or her face? Oh no! It's by the bonnet she helped her to choose at Madame What-d'ye-call's, because the colour suited he complexion. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 186, May 21, 1853 • Various
... ambassadors are faithfully depicted, as the portraits are marked. The procession advances from left to right. The first man, "the Great Chief of the Kefti and the Isles of the Green Sea," is young, and has a remarkably small mouth with an amiable expression. His complexion is fair rather than dark, but his hair is dark brown. His lieutenant, the next in order, is of a different type,—elderly, with a most forbidding visage, Roman nose, and nutcracker jaws. Most of the others are very much alike,—young, dark in complexion, and with long black hair hanging ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... remember that the natives differed much from one another, either in stature or complexion, or in their manners, their habits, their weapons, or indeed in anything; and yet we could not perceive that they had any intelligence one with another; but they were extremely kind and civil to us on this side, as well as on ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... time handsome and of a graceful figure, but she was short, without much colour, but rather of a pale complexion, and with brilliant and piercing eyes. It would take a life-time to tell of all her adventures during her theatrical life, but I think what little I have selected above will be sufficient to give an indication of her character. We must now briefly set forth what she and her husband did, ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... co-educational institution we should have figured them as products of Cambridge. It was a shock to us all when we learned they really hailed from Chicago. They were nearly of a height and a breadth, and similar in complexion and general expression; and immediately after arriving they had appeared for the ride down the Bright Angel in riding suits that were identical in color, cut and effect—long-tailed, tight-buttoned coats; derby hats; stock collars; shiny ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... and water. Perfumes and women were the two sensual enjoyments which his nature required, and his religion did not forbid; and Mahomet affirmed, that the fervor of his devotion was increased by these innocent pleasures. The heat of the climate inflames the blood of the Arabs; and their libidinous complexion has been noticed by the writers of antiquity. [159] Their incontinence was regulated by the civil and religious laws of the Koran: their incestuous alliances were blamed; the boundless license of polygamy was reduced to four legitimate wives or concubines; ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... worthy of Ariel, whose delicate involutions well repay study, and whose perfect melody carries along the unfolding of the thought as easily and lightly as a swift stream sweeps along scattered rose-leaves. And here is another of the same dainty complexion, but simpler: ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... brown hair thick upon his head, waving and luxuriant like a fine mattress, his tall, slender, alert figure, his bony, capable hands, which neither sun nor wind ever browned, his nervous yet interesting mouth, and his long Roman nose, set in a complexion rich in its pink-and-cream hardness and health—all this made him a figure good ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... could trace the series of developments that had taken place since they had left Hill's Crossing. Yet the full gray beard with the broad shaved upper lip still gave the Chicago merchant the air of a New England worthy. And Alexander, in contrast with his brother-in-law, had knotty hands and a tanned complexion that years of "inside business" had not sufficed to smooth. The little habit of kneading the palm which you felt when he shook hands, and the broad, humorous smile, had not changed as the years ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... mind could be sent down in gallons by the mail-coach. But if I talk in this way the reader will think I am laughing, and I can assure him that nobody will laugh long who deals much with opium: its pleasures even are of a grave and solemn complexion, and in his happiest state the opium-eater cannot present himself in the character of L'Allegro: even then he speaks and thinks as becomes Il Penseroso. Nevertheless, I have a very reprehensible way of jesting at times in the midst of my ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... Andrew Spooner was small, thin, and wiry, with the beak of a turkey-buzzard, the complexion of an Indian, and a set of large, white, very ill-fitting false teeth, which clicked like castanets whenever ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... some amusement. The insurance man stared very quietly at the board beneath his elbows. His complexion held a tint of green. Even Eemakh, plodding ponderously up, lowered himself to a bench with a sigh. The high priest seemed less affected by the celebration, and Mayne was proud when Haruhiku walked over with ...
— A Transmutation of Muddles • Horace Brown Fyfe
... distance, and the consequence is that the impression will appear without the hands being magnified. It has been found that a person with a freckly face can have as fine, fair, and clear an impression as the most perfect complexion; this may be done by the subject rubbing the face until it is very red. The effect is to lessen the contrast, by giving the freckles and skin the same color and the photogenic intensity of the red ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey
... well named! His bullet-head was covered with russet-red hair, cut very short; his complexion was a good match; his bloated cheeks and his potato-shaped nose were covered with red patches; his shaven chin was a tawny red; round his little gimlet eyes was a fringe of red lashes: ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... a dazzling whiteness, was illumined by not too brilliant a red, and art itself could not have arranged more skilfully the gradations by which this red joined and merged into the whiteness of the complexion. The brilliance of her face was heightened by the decided blackness of her hair, growing, as though drawn by a painter of the finest taste, around a well proportioned brow; her large, well opened eyes were of the same hue as her hair, and shone with a soft and piercing flame that rendered it ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... is indeed a complexion, as Taylor might call it, of sophisms. Thus;—unbelief from want of information or capacity, though with the disposition of faith, is confounded with disbelief. The question is not, whether it may not be safe for a man to believe simply that Christ is his Saviour, but whether it be safe ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... was a short, rotund man. His close-cropped hair was graying, although his face was unlined, with the smooth complexion of a child. His ...
— General Max Shorter • Kris Ottman Neville
... king's guest entered the chamber of the injured soldier. Upon a narrow bed lay the trooper, his mustachios appearing unusually red and fierce against his now yellow, washed-out complexion. As the free baron drew near the couch a tall figure arose from the side ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... is speaking of women painting themselves: this is a kind of falsification, which cannot be devoid of sin. Wherefore Augustine says (Ep. ccxlv ad Possid.): "To dye oneself with paints in order to have a rosier or a paler complexion is a lying counterfeit. I doubt whether even their husbands are willing to be deceived by it, by whom alone" (i.e. the husbands) "are they to be permitted, but not ordered, to adorn themselves." However, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... young women of over twenty, tall and robust in figure like their mother, the third was a girl of some fifteen years of age. The girls took after their German mother, and Malchus wondered at the fairness of their skins, the clearness of their complexion, and the soft light brown of their hair, for they were as much fairer than the Gauls as these were fairer than the Carthaginians. Malchus was able to hold little converse with his hosts, whose language differed much from that of the ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... waistcoat were of fustian, almost white, but he wore a jacket of old-fashioned blue West-of- England cloth, so well preserved that evidently the article was relegated to a box whenever its owner engaged in such active occupations as he usually pursued. His complexion was fair, almost florid, and he had scarcely ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... Senor Pedro Oje, who had been summoned by Major Honeywell, entered the room. An almost Indian complexion and cast of countenance indicated his Mexican origin. What had taken place was related to Senor Oje, and he left no doubt that he was thoroughly in sympathy with the project. He soon put matters on ...
— The Air Ship Boys • H.L. Sayler
... Donne, whose poetical work runs parallel to that in prose which we are now noticing, come as prose writers rather under the later date; others who continued to write till long after Elizabeth's death, and even after that of James, seem, by their general complexion, to belong chiefly to the earlier day. The first of these is Ben Jonson, whose high reputation in other ways has somewhat unduly damaged, or at least obscured, his merits as a prose writer. His two chief works in this kind are his English Grammar, in which a sound knowledge of the rules of ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... just turned of fourteen, and could be called neither tall nor short of her age; but her whole person was the most agreeable that can be imagined. She had an exceeding fine complexion, with as much colour in her cheeks as is the natural effect of perfect health. Her hair was light brown, and curled in so regular and yet easy a manner, as never to want any assistance from art. Her ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... completion of his academical studies—those golden years which generally determine the complexion of a man's future life—were not devoted in his case to any definite pursuit; for though he entered himself of Lincoln's Inn in June, 1835, he does not appear to have ever embarked in ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... natural length, fell in brown curls back from his forehead almost to the shoulder, a style just then new, even in France. His eyes were a deep blue, and his complexion, though browned by exposure, held a tinge of beauty which the sun could not mar and a girl might envy. He wore neither mustachio nor beard, as men now disfigure their faces—since Francis I took a scar on his chin—and his clear cut profile, dilating nostrils and mobile, though firm-set mouth, ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... with the pictures of the famous statesman, but the man himself was very different from his representation. He was a tall and stately person, scrupulously dressed, with a drawn, thin face, and a nose which was grotesquely curved and long. His complexion was of a dead pallor, which was more startling by contrast with a long, dwindling beard of vivid red, which flowed down over his white waistcoat, with his watch-chain gleaming through its fringe. Such was the stately ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a slimy eel, (Shovel) With a rinktum bolly kimo. The sun made his complexion peel, (Shovel) With a rinktum bolly kimo. The frog's legs went to join a fry, (Shovel) With a rinktum bolly kimo. The eel became a juicy pie, (Shovel) ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... endeavouring to get to the booking-office amongst the rest of the crowd, and there was far more pushing and struggling than was at all necessary for that purpose. Presently a burly ruffian, with a low East End face of the slum pattern and complexion, rolled out a volley of oaths at me. He asked where the —— I was pushing and what game I was up to, as though I were a professional pickpocket like himself. He had the advantage of me in being surrounded by a gang of ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... with scanty black hair and beard and yellow-toned complexion, he invariably wore black serge clothes, a rough linen shirt, black sandals, and the largest black-rimmed spectacles ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield
... years the Sixteenth Amendment made little headway, although the complexion of Congress changed, the Democrats breaking the Republicans' hold and winning a substantial majority. Encouraging as was the more liberal spirit of the new Congress and the defeat of several implacable enemies, ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... white slave-mother, of whom we have already spoken, created as much of a sensation by the fairness of her complexion and the alabaster whiteness of her child, when being conveyed on shore at New Orleans, as she had done when brought on board at Grand Gulf. Every one that saw her felt that slavery in the Southern States was not confined to the negro. Many had been taught ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... figure, that pale complexion, those deadened eyes, and faded lips? It is a lamentable fit of spleen. The whole faculty have been sent for, but their art is unavailing. She is given over. Happily one of her friends counsels her against despair, prescribes a few cups of Moka, and the dying patient, being restored to health, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... the gangway by which the chairs were approached sat a dark, pale child—I can call him by no other name, so frail and young did he seem—and the delicacy of his complexion led me to wonder perhaps whether he was not one of those whom the climate of England strikes with consumption, and who, in the mysterious providence of our race, wander abroad in search of health and find a ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... she don't look it, does she: not with that lovely coloured 'air and complexion? You knew she painted, I dessay? She don't look—well, not more than thirty-two, at the outside. She spends a lot on her 'air, I know. She sent our GEORGY one day to the 'air-dresser's for a bottle of the stuff she puts on, and the barber sez: "What, do you dye your 'air?" ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 23, 1890. • Various
... way of medicine are bitter? Were this not bitter, 'twould lack of the manifold virtues it possesseth; amongst which are that it digesteth food and disperseth cark and care and dispelleth flatulence and clarifieth the blood and cleareth the complexion and quickeneth the body and hearteneth the hen-hearted and fortifieth the sexual power in man; but to name all its virtues would be tedious. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... in Russia of the second quarter of the nineteenth century corresponds in its complexion to the early stage of the Mendelssohnian enlightenment in Germany, the period of the Me'assefim. [1] But there were also essential differences between the two. The beginning of German enlightenment was accompanied by a strong drift toward assimilation which led to the elimination of ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... munitions, and other necessaries from foreign countries, especially from England. He bestowed the greatest pains in selecting as generals of the new levies men who should be real soldiers. Under his inspiring influence the war in the provinces assumed a very serious complexion. France had responded nobly to the call he had made upon her people. Early reverses gave vigor to the new levies, and they fought with energy against the Bavarians under Von der Than at Arthenay and Orleans, and against the division of Wittich at ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... elder child a piano-lesson, while the younger, sitting in a baby-chair at the table, turned over a picture-book. The room was comfortably and prettily furnished; the children were very becomingly dressed; their mother, a tall woman, of fair complexion and thin, refined face, with wandering eyes and a forehead rather deeply lined, stepped forward as if in delight at the unexpected visit, and took Miss Shepperson's ill-gloved hand in both her own, gazing with ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... there represented;" the proportions, in fact, approaching to the colossal. "No, nor so green," said the wit to whom the observation had been unhappily confided. When the artist made a bronze statue, eight feet high, of Mr Canning, it was evidently not his stature nor his complexion that he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... sent me and ten others to go round about in all countries, so haply we might find a remedy for her: and now Allah hath caused me happen on it with thee.' Saying these words, he took from me the amulet, O Commander of the Faithful, and went his ways. Such, then, is the cause of the wanness of my complexion. As for me, I repaired to Baghdad, carrying all my wealth with me, and took up my abode in the lodgings where I lived whilome. On the morrow, as soon as it was light, I donned my dress and betook myself to the house of Tahir ibn al-Alaa, that haply I might ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... a third-class carriage, which carried natives and colored people, also one European in lonely majesty. This last stood smoking a cigarette in an amber or mock-amber mouthpiece. He was a boy not long out of his teens, a boy with a dazzling complexion if, indeed, he were not a girl in a boy's grey suit. He introduced himself, as he ushered his fellow-traveler into a compartment. 'I'm the only one here,' he said. 'I've been alone since Mafeking. I'm George Donald, and I'm just out from ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... her for a little angel, she was so very beautiful; for her swooning away had not diminished one bit of her complexion; her cheeks were carnation, and her lips were coral; indeed, her eyes were shut, but she was heard to breathe softly, which satisfied those about her that she was not dead. The King commanded that they should not disturb her, but let her sleep quietly till ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... difference. I wonder whether you would mind, Lady Ferringhall," he went on, with a sudden glance at her, "if I tell you that you yourself remind me a great deal more of what she was like then, except of course that your complexion and colouring ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... we sailed along the coast to the river Senegal[4], which is very large, and divides the people called Azanaghi, or Azanhaji, from the first kingdom of the Negroes. The Azanhaji are of a tawny colour, or rather of a deep brown complexion, and inhabit some parts of the coast beyond Cape Branco, ranging through the deserts, and their district reaches to the confines of the Arabs of Hoden. They live on dates, barley, and the milk of camels; but as they border likewise on the country of the Negroes, they carry ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... She was American by birth and marriage, and English by education and habits. She was a fair, beautiful woman, with large eyes and a white complexion. Her weak point was ambition, and ambition with her took ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... endeavoring to adjust all our differences with France by amicable negotiation, the progress of the war in Europe, the depredations on our commerce, the personal injuries to our citizens, and the general complexion of affairs render it my indispensable duty to recommend to your consideration effectual ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 4) of Volume 1: John Adams • Edited by James D. Richardson
... the situation of a banian. You will see, as no Englishman, properly speaking, acts by himself, that he must be made responsible for that person called his banian,—for the power he either uses under him, or the power he has acquired over him. The banian escapes, in the night of his complexion and situation, the inquiry that a white man cannot stand before in this country. Through the banians, or other black natives, a bad servant of the Company receives his bribes. Through them he decides falsely against the titles of litigants ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... dissolution, a number of persons, supposed to be the aboriginal natives, from their complexion, approaching the door of the assembly, gave the war-whoop, which was answered by a few in the galleries of the house, where the crowded assembly was convened. Silence was commanded, and prudent and peaceable deportment again enjoined. The savages repaired to the ships which contained the ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... review, the last century fills half. And the greatest care has been taken to bring the story down to date and to indicate as clearly and calmly as possible the underlying causes of the vast contemporaneous European war, which has already put a new complexion on our old historical knowledge and made everything that went before seem part and ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... to a window and looked out; and a little after, the chamberlain announced the Freiherr von Gondremark, who entered with something of a wild eye and changed complexion, confounded, as he was, at this unusual summons. The Princess faced round from the window with a pearly smile; nothing but her heightened colour spoke of discomposure. Otto was pale, but he was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of music, yet they can play on their respective instruments with taste and skill. A New Mexican female, in preparing herself for these balls, is very particular in making, by the aid of cosmetics, her complexion as light as possible. She first uses a red berry which stains her face almost to the color of brick and renders her excessively ugly; this she leaves on several hours, when it is washed off and chalk is applied so freely as to render ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... himself on having so attractive a young person to pour out his coffee and compose his "buttonholes" before he started for chambers in the morning. Eve was at an age when the wild-rose tints of a complexion fostered by judicious walks and schoolroom teas had not yet yielded to the baneful influence of late dinners and the other orgies which society conducts in an unduly-heated atmosphere. Her figure was ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... and noble aspect without any harshness; and he would have had a very agreeable face if M. le Prince de Conti had not unfortunately broken his nose in playing while they were both young. He was of a very beautiful fair complexion; he had a face everywhere covered with a healthy red, but without expression; the most beautiful legs in the world; his feet singularly small and delicate. He wavered always in walking, and felt his way with ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... asserting that mine was the real original hair, such as theirs would have been had it not been scorched and frizzled by the sun. In proof of what the sun could do, I compared my own bronzed face and hands, then about the same in complexion as the lighter-colored Makololo, with the white skin of my chest. They readily believed that, as they go nearly naked and fully exposed to that influence, we might be of common origin after all. Here, as every where, when heat and moisture are combined, the ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... from his pocket, consulted it briefly, then nodded at the man next to the girl. "Robert Brecken," he recited, "age thirty-one, six feet, one hundred eighty-five pounds, hair reddish brown, eyes green, complexion ruddy. Convicted of unjustified homicide by personal assault while resisting arrest for embezzlement. Detention record unsatisfactory. Implicated ...
— This World Must Die! • Horace Brown Fyfe
... kept up, was, with the exception of his boasting, a youth of good manners and very courteous demeanor. He made me acquainted with his sister, a girl who was a few years older than we were, and a very pleasant, well-grown girl, of regular form, brown complexion, black hair and eyes: her whole deportment had about it something quiet, even sad. I tried to make myself agreeable to her in every way, but I could not attract her notice. Young girls think themselves much more advanced than younger boys; and, while aspiring ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... at old Griffith with her hard, grey eyes; the sharpness of her features, the firm, clear complexion, with all softness blown out of it by the east winds, expressed the ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... and began to brush it, looking exquisite in a little blue dimity kimona delicately edged with' valenciennes. Opal made herself radiant in a rose-chiffon and old-point negligee and went through numerous gyrations relating to the complexion, complaining meanwhile of the ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... hair, huh! she was mighty particular to call it "aurbu'n," but a body might as well say red when they were namin' it, because red was what it was. If a man admired a turkey egg he would be likely to see beauty in Huldah's complexion—some folks might wear a sunbonnet to bed, and freckle they would! A vision of the laughing black eyes and white flashing teeth that went with Huldah Spiller's red ringlets and freckles, and made her little hatchet face brilliant when she ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... His complexion was sallow, and appeared the darker from the contrast afforded by the silvery whiteness of his long beard, moustache, and thick bushy eyebrows, from the deep cavities beneath which his dark eyes seemed literally to flash. His nose was aquiline, his cheek-bones prominent. ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... brothers. The one was a man with a clear white complexion, white hair, and white eyebrows; looked silly, and nothing that he uttered gave the lie to his looks. The other, whom, by way of eminence I have called the Dane, had likewise white hair, but was much shorter than his brother, with slender limbs, and a very thin face ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... morning of the fourteenth, a gentleman named Hosmer Angel. About five ft. seven in. in height; strongly built, sallow complexion, black hair, a little bald in the centre, bushy, black side-whiskers and moustache; tinted glasses, slight infirmity of speech. Was dressed, when last seen, in black frock-coat faced with silk, black waistcoat, gold Albert ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... way. Mrs. Plume had aged very rapidly after his sojourn on recruiting duty in St. Louis. Frontier commissariat and cooking played hob with her digestion, said the major. Frontier winds and water dealt havoc to her complexion, said the women. But both complexion and digestion seemed to "take a brace," as irreverent youth expressed it, when Neil Blakely came to Sandy and the major's roof. True, he stayed but six and thirty hours and then moved ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... he said quickly. "Your dress made me mistake you for one of the sailors; but I see from your complexion that you have not ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill
... theological opponent, Dr. Stiles, who, animated by the social spirit of the hour, was dispensing courtesies to right and left with the debonair grace of the trained gentleman of the old school. Near by, and engaging from time to time in conversation with them, stood a Jewish Rabbin, whose olive complexion, keen eye, and flowing beard gave a picturesque and foreign grace to the scene. Colonel Burr, one of the most brilliant and distinguished men of the New Republic, and Colonel de Frontignac, who had won for himself laurels in the corps of La Fayette, during ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... been a resident at Woodville for a number of years, is one of the survivors. While looking for Miss Paulsen, of Pittsburg, of the drowned, she came to a coffin which was marked "Mrs. H.L. Peterson, Woodville Borough, Pa., age about forty, size five feet one inch, complexion dark, weight about two hundred pounds." This was quite an accurate description of Mrs. Peterson. She tore the card from the coffin and one of the officers was about to arrest her. Her explanations were satisfactory and she ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... Hippopotamus suavely. "There's nothing better for the complexion than a good rub, and I assure you you have placed me under an obligation ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs
... but it seems to me now that all I ever knew or felt about Miss Pinshon in the years that followed, was duly begun and betokened in those first five minutes. She was a young-looking lady, younger looking than she was. She had a dark, rich complexion, and a face that I suppose would have been called handsome; it was never handsome to me. Long black curls on each side of her face, and large black eyes, were the features that first struck one; but I immediately decided that Miss Pinshon ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... of Him who is lifted above the lower regions where Time rolls and the succession of events occurs. That 'I am' covers all the varieties of was, is, will be. Notice the long vista of variously tinted days which opens here. Howsoever many they be, howsoever different their complexion, days of summer and days of winter, days of sunshine and days of storm, days of buoyant youth and days of stagnant, stereotyped old age, days of apparent failure and days of apparent prosperity, He is with us in them all. They change, He is 'the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.' ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... subjects of William or Henry called for the "good laws of Eadward the Confessor." But it was as a mere shadow of the past that the exile really returned to the throne of AElfred; there was something shadow-like in his thin form, his delicate complexion, his transparent womanly hands; and it is almost as a shadow that he glides over the political stage. The work of government was ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... seeing that glittering substance knew no bounds, but he overheard one of the servants say in a melancholy undertone: "What a pity his majesty has not a black complexion such as we have! What ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini
... neither bushy nor scraggly and with his black brows it made a striking setting for strong and rather deep-set eyes which if not actually black were certainly very dark. His smile revealed white, regular teeth under his dark mustache, and his olive complexion, though tanned, seemed different from those of men that rode the range with him—perhaps it was owing ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... swear he had seen Amadis of Gaul and some of the others he worshiped. Then he embarked on a description of these knights, giving the color of their eyes, of their beards and hair, their height, complexion, all according to his own crazy imagination. Much of what he said seemed so amusing to his two friends that they nearly went into hysterics from laughter. His mind's image of Roland was particularly laughable, ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... weeks or more, that I made the acquaintance of a handsome, accomplished, but unfortunate youth, young Harry Bolton. He was one of those small, but perfectly formed beings, with curling hair, and silken muscles, who seem to have been born in cocoons. His complexion was a mantling brunette, feminine as a girl's; his feet were small; his hands were white; and his eyes were large, black, and womanly; and, poetry aside, his voice was as the sound of ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... of any kind is necessary to enter France. At Calais one was given to me by the magistrates, mentioning my age, stature, complexion, &c. and this would have been a sufficient permit for my going out of France by sea or by land, if the disturbances in Paris, of the 10th of August, had ...
— A Trip to Paris in July and August 1792 • Richard Twiss
... had been on the point of striding away, turned sharply around. The man who had spoken to him was wearing morning clothes of dark gray tweed and a soft Homburg hat. His complexion was a little sallow and he was clean-shaven except for a slight black moustache. He was smoking a black cigar and his accent was transatlantic. Something about his appearance struck Tavernake as ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... superb building, and then at the great lady, was twice enlightened, and saw poor Anais de Negrepelisse as she really was, as Parisians saw her—a tall, lean, withered woman, with a pimpled face and faded complexion; angular, stiff, affected in her manner; pompous and provincial in her speech; and, and above all these things, dowdily dressed. As a matter of fact, the creases in an old dress from Paris still bear witness to good taste, you can tell what the gown was meant for; but an old dress ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... years old, of middle height, with lank limbs, and an exceedingly spare frame; he is wrapped in a long, blood-red pelisse, lined with black fur; his complexion, fair by nature is bronzed by the wandering life he has led from childhood; his hair, of that dead yellow peculiar to certain races of the Polar countries, falls straight and stiff down his shoulders; and his thin, sharp, hooked ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... appearance, her rounder throat and cheeks, and her better color; she was wont to mention the length of Rebecca's hair and add a word as to its remarkable evenness and lustre, at times when Mrs. Perkins grew too diffuse about Emma Jane's complexion. She threw herself wholeheartedly on her niece's side when it became a question between a crimson or a brown linsey-woolsey dress, and went through a memorable struggle with her sister concerning the purchase of a red bird for Rebecca's black felt hat. No one guessed the quiet ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of the window past him at the sunlit morning. Could it be possible that this alert pleasant person was the Nemesis of her dreams? The world had taken on a new complexion, washed clean of terrors by the pure ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... sport, with a complexion like an Easter egg, and a pair o' blinks that'd look a hole through a chilled steel vault. He runs us over without losin' step, sticks out a finger as he goes by, and says over his shoulder, "Piddie, take ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... successful in my purpose, sometimes I have, supporting it upon the shoulders of the truth; which truth is so clear that I can almost say I have with my own eyes seen Amadis of Gaul, who was a man of lofty stature, fair complexion, with a handsome though black beard, of a countenance between gentle and stern in expression, sparing of words, slow to anger, and quick to put it away from him; and as I have depicted Amadis, so I could, I think, portray and ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... prison and informed my wife of the fact that I had been taken to be a slaveholder. She thought that in addition to my light complexion my being dressed up in Garrison's old slave trading clothes might have caused the man to think that I was a slave trader, and she was afraid that we should yet be separated if I should not succeed in finding some body to ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... mind to find this Book of GOD'S Law so complex in its character,—so various in its contents,—so fruitful in its difficulties. Might it not, on the contrary, have been expected beforehand, that some analogy would have been recognizable between the general complexion of GOD'S Works and of GOD'S Word? While I behold the creatures of GOD so various,—their functions so marvellous,—their nature so little understood,—the very purpose of their creation so great a mystery;—shall I think it strange that that Book which is but another expression of GOD'S Mind ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... I have wandered from Mr. Gray. Of course, we first saw him in church when he read himself in. He was very red-faced, the kind of redness which goes with light hair and a blushing complexion; he looked slight and short, and his bright light frizzy hair had hardly a dash of powder in it. I remember my lady making this observation, and sighing over it; for, though since the famine in seventeen hundred and ninety- nine and eighteen ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... man as ever you saw. We all got tanned and coppered over and over again, but Joe kept as nice and fresh and fair as on the day we embarked from Gosport years before; and the standing joke was that Mrs Bantem had a preparation for keeping his complexion all square. ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... speaker, who was a young rustic, probably twenty or twenty-one years of age, of tall, good person, a handsome face, which was smooth, though of dark complexion, and lightened by an eye of more than ordinary size and intelligence. His tones were those of one whose sensibilities were fine and active, and it would not have called for much keen observation to have seen that his manner, in approaching and addressing ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... knowledge of party opinion, and party opinion helped him to make up his own. "Every 'Gazette' I see,"—he wrote in June, about eight weeks after the proclamation was published,—"every 'Gazette' I see (except that of the United States [Federalist]) exhibits a spirit of criticism on the Anglified complexion charged on the Executive politics.... The proclamation was, in truth, a most unfortunate error." A week before, he had been seemingly cautious even in writing to Jefferson. Then he had observed that newspaper criticisms aroused attention, and he had heard expressions ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... administrative reasons—and he fell in love with her even more energetically than he worked. Understand clearly that there was not a breath of a word to be said against Miss Castries—not a shadow of a breath. She was good and very lovely—possessed what innocent people at home call a "Spanish" complexion, with thick blue- black hair growing low down on her forehead, into a "widow's peak," and big violet eyes under eyebrows as black and as straight as the borders of a Gazette Extraordinary when a big man dies. But—but—but—. Well, she was a VERY sweet girl and very pious, but for many reasons ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... and one has to give in to conventionalities of dress and living and ceremonies, if one wants to retain one's friends. Now, I like to see you going about with that wide-awake—it suits your brown complexion and beard—and that stick that would do for herding sheep; and the costume looks well and is business-like and excellent when you're off for a walk over the Surrey downs or lying on the river-banks about Henley or Cookham; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... to boys, the case is not so, but the contrary: boys are likened to girls; for folk say, Yonder boy is like a girl. As for what proof thou quotest from the poets, the verses were the product of a complexion unnatural in this respect; and as for the habitual sodomites and catamites, offenders against religion, Almighty Allah hath condemned them in His Holy Book,[FN243] herein He denounceth their filthy practices, saying, 'Do ye ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... dictaphone from his lips as I entered. "Weener, although a rigid adherence to fact compels me to claim some acquaintance with general knowledge and a slight cognizance of abnormal psychology, I must admit bafflement at the spectacle of your mottled complexion once more in these rooms sacred to the perpetuation of truth and the dissemination of enlightenment. Everyday you embezzle good money from this paper under pretense of giving value received, and each day your uselessness becomes more conspicuous. Almost anyone would disapprove the divine choice ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... looked round, having succeeded in persuading Lady Flight that she had another engagement. She saw a young woman in a shabby black dress, with a bag in her hand, and a dark fringe over a complexion of clear brown, straight features, to whom Gillian was ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... one likes as well to follow and see where a brook goes as to find one's way to the places it comes from, and its tiny springs and headwaters, and in this case trout were not to be considered. William's only real anxiety was lest I might suffer from mosquitoes. His own complexion was still strangely impaired by its defenses, but I kept forgetting it, and looking to see if we were treading fresh pennyroyal underfoot, so efficient was Mrs. Todd's remedy. I was conscious, after we parted, and I turned to see if he were already fishing, and ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... of men when the complexion is not seen. We shall take the position that the inherent possibility of the Negro is equal to that of any race. Notwithstanding his environments are against him, yet he has the inherent power to break through ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... to give up the quest and return home to his young wife was almost unendurable. His thoughts were ever with her, and the poem relates that even a drop of blood fallen on the snow reminded, him most vividly of the dazzling complexion of Conduiramour, and of ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... forgot—why, your name is Brown—call me Green, if you like. One colour's just as good as another, and I may as well keep the complexion of my good friend, the Dragon, in countenance. So you wont forget, it is Mister Green, at the Green Dragon, in the Green Lane at the back of Beaufort House; and now, Mister Brown, I leave you a brown study, to carry you on ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... of that long haired brute who afterwards became her master, would make the strongest heart weep. You will stand by your colored girl friend. Perhaps you think you would, but I doubt it, Ben Hartright. When that time comes that the two races are arrayed against each other, my fair complexion will be of no avail. I am a Nigger, and will be dealt with as such, even by the man who ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... does afterwards. No matter what government may extend its control over him; no matter how miserable or how sinful the mother in whose arms his eyes opened to the day; no matter in what hovel his infancy is nursed; no matter what complexion—an Indian or an African sun may have burned upon him, this may decide the privileges which he is able to assert, but can not affect the existence of his rights. His self-mastery is the gift of his creator, and oppression, ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... do not ask! If my complexion From red to white should change in quick succession, And then from white to red, oh, take no notice! If my poor limbs should tremble with emotion, Pay no attention, mother—it is nothing! If long and deep-drawn sighs I ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... below for her luggage. A lonely dory, black of complexion and skittish of gait, had wandered out and hung in the shadow of the steamer, awaiting the passengers. The dory was manned by one negro, who sat with his oars ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... an Asiatic, and a soldier in a colonial regiment. Of a colossal stature, short hair, a nose extremely large, an enormous mouth, dark complexion, he made a most hideous appearance. At first he had placed himself in the middle of the raft, and, at each blow of his fist, knocked down every one who opposed him; he inspired the greatest terror, and none durst ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... years older than myself. What attracted me to him was a singular union of strength and tenderness. Not that the last was readily or easily to be seen. There was not a bit of sunshine in it,—no commonplace amiableness. He wore no smiles upon his face. His complexion, his brow, were dark; his person, tall and spare; his bow had no suppleness in it, it even lacked something of graceful courtesy, rather stiff and stately; his walk was a kind of stride, very lofty, ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... wholesome, and instances the fact that one coca-chewer attained the good old age of one hundred and thirty years; but when used to excess it leads to idiocy. The signs of intemperance are an uncertain step, sallow complexion, black-rimmed, deeply-sunken eyes, trembling lips, incoherent speech, and stolid apathy. Coca played an important part in the religious rights of the Incas, and divine honors were paid to it. Even to-day the miners of Peru throw a quid of coca ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... tallest. Her thick and wavy hair was blonde cendree, and all her features were perfectly Grecian. Her eyes were of a very dark blue, that turned into nothing but clear radiance when she was opposed or in any way excited. Her complexion was healthful, but would be described as soft and warm, rather than brilliant. Her whole fair little face was about as firm and spirited as a fair girlish face ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... years younger than Mrs. Zarubkin. Mrs. Zarubkin was rather plump, and had heavy light hair. Her appearance was blooming. Mrs. Shaldin was slim, though well proportioned. She was a brunette with a pale complexion and large dark eyes. They were two types of beauty very likely to divide the gentlemen of the regiment into two camps of admirers. But women are never content with halves. Mrs. Zarubkin wanted to see all the officers ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... house and walked over to the Capitol—a tall, rather loose-jointed figure, with swinging stride, symbolizing, one is tempted to think, the angularity of the American character. "A tall, large-boned farmer," an unfriendly English observer called him. His complexion was that of a man constantly exposed to the sun—sandy or freckled, contemporaries called it—but his features were clean-cut and strong and his expression was ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... for his age, light and quick in movement, intent but never deliberate, passing very rapidly from one thing to another, impatient of boredom and dullness, always desiring to do a thing that very minute. He was fair of complexion, with grey-blue eyes and a shock head of light hair, little brushed, and uncut often too long. He was careless of appearances, and wore clothes by preference of great shabbiness. He told me in 1909 ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Clement, Fulbert, and Lancelot, all three handsome, blue-eyed, fair-faced lads. Indeed Edgar was remarkable, even among this decidedly fine-looking family. He had a peculiarly delicate contour of feature and complexion, though perfectly healthy; and there was something of the same expression, half keen, half dreamy, as in Geraldine, his junior by one year; while the grace of all the attitudes of his slender lissome figure showed to advantage beside Felix's more sturdy form, ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for his heart was in Zahara, and to his eyes its parched sands were fresher than all the verdure of the Elysian fields. Ambling merrily along on shanks' mare, he arrived at Valladolid, where he stopped a fortnight to get rid of the mahogany hue of his complexion, and to change his rogue's costume for that of a gentleman. Having equipped himself properly, he had still a hundred reals left, which he spent on the hire of a mule and a servant, that he might ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... fault, are poniarded on the spot by a kriss or dagger; this being almost the only punishment in use among them, as the smallest faults and the greatest crimes are all equally capital. The natives of this country are mostly of a very brown complexion, tolerably well shaped, and having long black hair, which however many of them cut short. Their noses are all flat and broad, and their teeth very black, owing to the incessant chewing ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... member of the Virginia delegation. Jack wrote that he was in uniform, blue coat and red waistcoat and breeches; that he was a big man standing very erect and about six feet, two inches in height; that his eyes were blue, his complexion light and rather florid, his face slightly pock-marked, his brown hair tinged with gray; that he had the largest hands, save those of Solomon Binkus, that he had ever seen. His letter contains these ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... fur, and that I hope you will not reject!' Now this was a splendid fur mantle which the Princess was very fond of wearing, not so much because she felt cold, as that its richness set off to perfection the delicate tints of her complexion and the brilliant gold of her hair. However, she took it off, and with graceful politeness begged Prince Mannikin to accept it, which you may be sure he was charmed to do, and, taking only this and a little bundle of ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... very well, in Romance and Poems, to meet with unhappy, discarded lovers—they played an essential part in many of the best ballads in the Anthology; but when that romantic role falls, in real life, on the shoulders of a nice young Doc, the matter assumes a different complexion. Missy's own ecstasy over the Wedding suddenly loomed thoughtless, selfish, wicked. She longed timidly to reach over and pat that lean brown hand resting on the steering-wheel. Two sentences she formed in her mind, only to abandon them unspoken, when, to her relief, the need for delicate ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... certainly; but they were eyes that you might fear. They had been softer perhaps in youth, before the spirit of the tiger had been roused in the woman's bosom by neglect and ill-usage. Her face was now bronzed by years and weather. Of her complexion she took no more care than did the neighbouring fishermen of theirs, and the winds and the salt water, and perhaps the working of her own mind, had told upon it, to make it rough and dark. But yet there was ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... who compares it with his own detestation of meanness, and fraud, and profligacy; but when this hatred of vice in the Almighty is viewed in connection with gospel truth, and is contemplated in its effects upon One to whom it was only imputed, it begins to wear a very different complexion; and, as a motive to beware of that which God is determined to punish, and which he would not pass over even in his own Son, it leaves all other motives at an immeasurable distance. The same thing may be said of God's goodness and mercy in the gospel, as a motive for us to love him, ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... and a serious item in the expenses of an embarrassed household. She held up a Japanese fan between her face and the fire, from mere custom, for she had ceased to pay much heed to the exigencies of a florid complexion. ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... encouraged in the loveliest little city, and in such beautiful environs-nor had I forgotten the Cascines, the only spot containing English verdure. Mrs. Damer is as well, if not better, than she has been a great while: her looks surprise every body; to which, as she is tanned, her Spanish complexion contributes. She and I called, the night before last, on your friend Mrs. Cholmeley; and they are to make me a visit to-morrow morning, by their own appointment. At Dover Mrs. Damer heard the Gunnings are there: here, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... about that, I fancy," Meddoes answered lightly. "He ran some Austrian fellow off. She was quite the rage, in a small way, you know. Strange, demure-looking young woman, with wonderful complexion and eyes, and a style about her, too. Care for ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim |
