"Tress" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she was found—dead is she not, monsieur?—with her face down on her pillow, and her beautiful hair all scattered wild; she never would let me tie it up, saying it made her head ache. Such hair!" said the waiting-maid, lifting up a long golden tress, ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... him about the great Copper-Boiler costume, Dolly?" she said, bending down so that one brown tress hung swaying before ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... a soft little hand slip into mine; a perfumed hair tress touched my cheek; and the sweetest voice, to me, on earth whispered ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... tress back upon the pillow, very gently, and, looking into the quiet eyes of the ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... Cronion wedded in love, and she conceived, and brought forth Pandia the maiden, pre-eminent in beauty among the immortal Gods. Hail, Queen, white-armed Goddess, divine Selene, gentle of heart and fair of tress. Beginning from thee shall I sing the renown of heroes half divine whose deeds do minstrels chant from their charmed lips; these ministers ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... Look! how that eyeball grows bright as a brand! That neck proudly arches, those nostrils expand! Mark! that wide flowing mane! of which each silky tress Might adorn prouder beauties—though none like ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... naked feet, she would wait in all innocence for the coming of the young sailor from Samos. How rapidly those hours used to pass! How pleadingly, on the last evening, he had knelt beside her, with his arm resting upon her knee, and there, gazing up into her face, had asked her for one long tress of hair! How foolish she had been to give it to him; and how earnestly he had vowed that he would come back some day, no longer poor and forlorn, but in his own two-masted vessel, with full banks of oars, manned by the slaves whom he would capture, and would then ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... much, and a lock of whose hair he kept so sacred. I remember I tried to buy a part of it from him, but could not succeed until once, when his funds from home failed to come, and he was so hard up, as we used to say, that he actually sold, or rather pawned, half of the shining tress for the sum of five dollars. As the pawn was never redeemed, I have the hair now, but never expected to meet with its fair owner, who needs not to be told that the tress is tenfold more valuable since I have met her, and know her to be the wife of our esteemed Member," and young Clifford bowed ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... faith of maidenhood; Before her still a cloud-land lay, The mirage loomed across her way; The morning dew, that dries so soon With others, glistened at her noon; Through years of toil and soil and care, From glossy tress to thin gray hair, All unprofaned she held apart The virgin fancies of the heart. Be shame to him of woman born Who hath for such but thought ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... curious eye could find it, and carefully folded between its leaves was a curl of golden hair. It was faded now, and its luster was almost gone, but as often as he looked upon it, it brought to mind the bright head it once adorned, and the fearful hour when he became its owner. That tress and the Bible which inclosed it had made Hugh Worthington a better man. He did not often read the Bible, it is true, and his acquaintances were frequently startled with opinions which had so pained the little girl on board the St. Helena, ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... should content me wondrous well. Should not be fair, but lovely to behold; Of lively look, all grief for to repel, With right good grace as would I that it should Speak, without words, such words as none can tell, Her tress also should be of crisped gold; With wit, and these, I might perchance be tried, And knit again with knot that ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... remained sitting; but at this she also rose. "Ah!" she exclaimed simply, moving slowly to the fireplace. Madame Merle observed her as she passed and while she stood a moment before the mantel-glass and pushed into its place a wandering tress of hair. ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... gauze: the mother's was saffron, crowned with a wreath of golden wheat-ears; the daughter's blue with a circlet of violets. And now as they stood with arms entwined the younger brushed aside her veil. The gossips were right. The robe and the crown hid all but the face and tress of the lustrous brown hair,—but that face! Had not King Hephaestos wrought every line of clear Phoenician glass, then touched them with snow and rose, and shot through all the ichor of life? Perhaps there was a fitful fire in the dark eyes that awaited the ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... many formed the gown, Which, opening with her walk, or wind that blew, Now showed, now hid her; for they were unsown. Her hair appeared to be at strife; in hue Like silver and like gold, and black and brown; Part in a tress, in riband part comprest, Some on her shoulders flowed, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... me and shut the door! And I went wandering alone again— So lonely—O so very lonely then, I thought no little sallow star, alone In all a world of twilight, e'er had known Such utter loneliness. But that I wore Above my heart that gleaming tress of hair To lighten up the night of my despair, I think I might have groped into my grave Nor cared to wave The ferns above it with a breath of prayer. And how I hungered for the sweet, sweet face That bent above me in my hiding-place That day amid the grasses there beside Her ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... bat; a popular and silly Anglo-Indian name. It almost justified the irate Scotchman in calling "prodigious leears" those who told him in India that foxes flew and tress ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... crow, Fallen on a bed of snow. Of thy dark hair that extends Into many graceful bends: As the leaves of Hellebore Turn to whence they sprung before. And behind each ample curl Peeps the richness of a pearl. Downward too flows many a tress With a glossy waviness; Full, and round like globes that rise From the censer to the skies Through sunny air. Add too, the sweetness Of thy honied voice; the neatness Of thine ankle lightly turn'd: With those beauties, scarce discrn'd, Kept with such sweet privacy, That they seldom ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... Jericho, becomes desperately enamoured of the elfin princess. There he is, great, ruddy, hairy wretch: there she is, a wraith of a creature made up of thistledown and fountain-bubbles and stars. He stares at her, stretches out his huge paw to grab a fairy, feathery tress of her dark hair. Defensive, she puts up her little hand. Its touch is an electric shock to the marauder. He blinks, and rubs his arm. He has a mighty respect for her. He could take her up in his fingers and eat her like a quail—the one ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... in the village, I met one, a dainty little dot, with golden hair and laughing eyes, a pink ribbon round a tress that hung roguishly over her left cheek. She smiled at me as she passed where I sat on the roadside under the poplars, her face was an angel's set in a disarray of gold. In her hand she carried an empty jug, almost as big as ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... head, as she lay in her coffin, and which now held a place in the large square trunk. "I will send him a lock of that," she said; and kneeling reverently by the old green trunk, the shrine where she nightly said her prayers, she separated from the mass of rich, brown hair, one long, shining tress, which she inclosed within her letter, adding, in a postscript, "It is mother's hair, and Dora's tears have often fallen upon it. 'Tis all I have ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... cryptomerias. A religious dance, which is held in a building near by, is one of the many attractive features of this temple. The dress of the dancers is peculiar, composed of a wide red divided skirt, a white under-garment, and a long gauze mantle. The hair is worn in a thick tress down the back, a chaplet of flowers is on the forehead, the face very much powdered, and in the hands are carried either the branches of a tree or some tiny bells which are swayed back and forth in a measured manner. The orchestra ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... and hapless shepherdess, Rose from her swooning in a sore dismay, And tried to smooth her damp and rumpled dress, That showed in truth a grievous disarray; Then where the brook the wan moon's mirror lay, She laved her eyes, and curled each golden tress. ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... knees, and with her eyes upon the fire, and the fire shining on her ruined beauty and her wild black hair, one long tress of which she pulled over her shoulder, and wound about her hand, and thoughtfully bit and tore while speaking, she ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... girl, partly turned from him, was framed in the small window. The wimple had been thrown back and a single tress of golden hair had escaped across the forehead. The countenance was unhappy, but beautiful for all its misery. The lids were heavy, as if weighted down with sorrow; the cheeks were pallid, the lips colorless and pathetically drooped. A white hand, resting ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... that shall fatten the kine in the drear barren months of snow. The young men rest on their scythes, that glisten like Turkish sabres, and, from under their broad-brimmed hats of straw, the town girls smile, as they tress garlands of garish flowers to bind the last and the largest ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... Weave the supple tress, Deck the maiden fair In her loveliness; Paint the pretty face, Dye the coral lip, Emphasise the grace Of her ladyship! Art and nature, thus allied, Go to ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... he took from his pocket the duke produced a shining tress. It was the lock of hair which had arrived in the first communication. ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... Porfer, unable longer to endure the disagreeable business, had walked back to the tree and seated herself at its root. While rearranging a tress of golden hair which had slipped from its confinement she was attracted by what appeared to be and really was the fragment of an old coat. Looking about to assure herself that so unladylike an act was not observed, she thrust her jeweled hand into the exposed breast ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... words had been But one more pang to bear For him who kissed unto the last Your tress of golden hair; I did not put it where he said, For when the angels come, I would not have them find the sign ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... Mildred to herself, "that would be delightful." Once, too, he even showed her a tress of Angela's hair, and, strange to say, she found that there still lingered in her bosom a sufficient measure of vulgar first principles to cause her to long to snatch it from him and throw it into the sea. But, as it was, she smiled faintly, ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... burn," said Alice simply, putting up a hand to confine a wandering tress. The young man saw a small, very simply dressed girl, with a flushed face and bright, deep eyes. The small white hat crowned a great tangle of wonderful reddish gold hair. She held herself with the grace ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... Is ours, no master as of yore, Himself the Senate's very crown Of justice, who has called from down In her deep Stygian duress The hoyden Truth, with tangled tress. Be wise, Rome, see you shape anew Your tongue; your prince would have it true. ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... falls straight behind, and several locks, the same number on each side, are brought forward upon the breast. As usual, too, the front hair is disposed symmetrically; in this case, a smaller and a larger flat curl on each side of the middle of the forehead are succeeded by a continuous tress of hair arranged ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... to kiss her as he bent over her, though such caresses were rare between them, but there was something in her tones that chilled him, and he merely raised a tress of her hair to his lips instead. At the door he bade her a pleasant farewell, but his countenance grew sorrowful as he went down ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... determined that nothing in the outward man should repel the sympathy of those whom they sought to persuade. On the frontiers of Mongolia, the Chinese dress, which they had hitherto worn, was laid aside; the long tress of hair, that had been cherished since they left France, was pitilessly sacrificed, to the infinite despair of their Chinese congregation; and they assumed the habit generally worn by the Lamas, or ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... is in his study on the north side of the house, and busy over his sermon, we can get away; otherwise we cannot," said Dorothy, combing the thick tress over ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... forgive him for the 'ambushes' and cherish him with much tea?" I stipulated, winking away a tress of ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... winds of Thought,— By shores of Beauty, whose colors pass Faintly into the misty glass,— By hills of Truth, whose glories show Distorted, broken, and dimmed, as we know,— Kissed by the tremulous long green tress Of the glistening tree of Happiness, Which ever our aching grasp eludes With sweet illusive similitudes,— All pictured over in shade and gleam, For ever ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... flanked on the right by a wood and on the left by the Ulai, while the flower of the Elamite nobility was ranged around him. The equipment of his soldiers was simpler than that of the enemy: consisting of a low helmet, devoid of any crest, but furnished with a large pendant tress of horsehair to shade the neck; a shield of moderate dimensions; a small bow, which, however, was quite as deadly a weapon as that of the Assyrians, when wielded by skilful hands; a lance, a mace, and a dagger. He had only a small body of cavalry, but the chariotry formed an important force, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... maiden accords to an accepted lover. But far from claiming the privileges which he might apparently have enjoyed, it seemed to him presumption enough and happiness enough to kiss her dress, her sleeve, a tress of her hair, or, at most, her hand, and to ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... his second fainting-fit. When they lifted him up and laid him on his bed, in his clenched right hand they found a small tress of a woman's dark hair. Where did this lock of hair come from? Anna Semyonovna had such a lock of hair left by Clara; but what could induce her to give Aratov a relic so precious to her? Could she have put it somewhere in the diary, ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... our arrival, Nadine and myself wondered not at the gloomy solitude of the marble house. But the affronts to society, the practical imprisonment of this girl, this chilling silence as to her mother, have roused her brave young heart. Not a picture, not a single memento, not even a jewel, not a tress of hair, not even a passing mention of where that shadowy mother lies buried!" the Swiss woman sighed. "He is a brute and tyrant—a man of a stony heart ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... forthwith an abundant darkness fell to her dancing knees, almost to her tiny dancing feet, heavy as a wave, shadowy as sleeping water. As some rich weed that the warm sea holds and swings, as some fair cloud lingers in radiant atmosphere, her hair floated, every parted tress an impalpable film of gold in the crude sunlight of the ray turned upon her; and when she danced towards the footlights, the bright softness of the threads clung almost amorously about her white wrists—faint ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... with the icy draughts, until, growing weary of watching the white flakes whirl past, she drew them to and walked slowly towards a mirror. Then a faint tinge of pink crept into her cheek, and a softness that became her into her eyes. They, however, grew critical as she smoothed back a tress of lustrous hair a trifle from her forehead, straightened the laces at neck and wrist, and shook into more flowing lines the long black dress. Maud Barrington was not unduly vain, but it was some time before she seemed contented, and one would have surmised that she desired ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... lying on the package in her lap. She was prepared for, expectant of the worst, but the details added keener stings to suffering that had benumbed her. At last, with a shuddering sigh, she broke the seal, and took from folds of tissue paper, a long thick tress of the beautiful black hair. Shaking it out of its satin coil, she held it up, then wrapped it smoothly over her hand, and laid it ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... inquired where he could find a snake. The now sympathetic man of bottles told him to follow the main road three miles to the forks, and then a few hundred yards to the west, and he would find a small grove of decayed tress, where there still lingered a few snakes, and by the exercise of a reasonable degree of diligence he might manage to get bit, and thereby lay the foundation for the desired relief. With bundle again in place, and evincing ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... or thou, my dear, my rash Athalie, art lost to me!" and he paused to gaze with earnestness upon a jewel that glittered on his hand. It was a hair ring, bound with gold, and a little shield bearing initials, clasped the small brown tress that was so ingeniously woven ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... O cull, a section of my Pipkin's purple tress; Thou shalt find me drinking deeply with the Lords that rule ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... acquaintances in Italy were Lord and Lady Blessington, with whom he kept up a pleasant correspondence. The most plaintive, sad, and generous of all his letters was the one he wrote to Lady Byron from Pisa, in 1821, in acknowledgment of the receipt of a tress of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... had for him few attractions remaining. Once, and only once, a shade of sadness crept over his features, and he gave utterance to a deep sigh, almost a sob, of regret, as he drew from his breast a small locket containing a tress of golden hair. It was a gift of Rita's in their happy days, before they knew sorrow or foresaw the possibility of a separation; and from this token, even when Herrera voluntarily renounced his claim to her hand, and bade her farewell for ever, he had not had courage to part. By ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... said, "Observe you not, Lady Davers, that you used a word (to avoid that) which had twice the hissing in it that sister has? And that was mis-s-s-tress, with two other hissing words to accompany it, of this-s-s hous-s-e: but to what childish follies does not pride make one stoop!—Excuse, Madam" (to the countess), "such poor low conversation ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... half-sheet of note-paper, and between the folds lay a circle of narrow blue ribbon plaited in three strands. But only two of the strands were ribbon; the third was a tress of her gleaming hair. Roy gazed at it a moment, lost in admiration, still wondering; then he glanced at Tara's letter—not scrawled, but written with ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... that she felt no pain, for in a minute he opened her lids to see, and the blue eyes laughed back at him "without a stain." He loosed the tress about her neck, and the colour flashed into her cheek beneath his burning kiss. Now he propped her ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... green, green moss, O whaur the bents sae fine? And whaur gat ye the bonny broun hair That ance was tress o' mine?' ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... that golden tress was charmed; each hair had in it a spell of terror and remorse for thee, and was used by a mightier power to bind thy cruel hands from inflicting uttermost evil on ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... we could all sit on it when the grass was wet. At the moment there's a particularly beautiful tress caressing your left shoulder. And I think you ought to know that the wind is kissing it quite openly. It's all very embarrassing. I hope I shan't catch it," ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... his. He draws it within his own, and places his arm around the daintiest little waist that ever submitted to the operation. Then the two enter the front parlor, where the dim light falls on Mortimer and a beautiful girl on the verge of womanhood. She looks into his face, and his lips touch a tress of chestnut hair which has fallen over ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... wasted away of a languishing sickness which lasted twenty days. His life, however, might be saved by discovering and digging up the buried hair, spittle, or what not; for as soon as this was done the power of the charm ceased. A Maori sorcerer intent on bewitching somebody sought to get a tress of his victim's hair, the parings of his nails, some of his spittle, or a shred of his garment. Having obtained the object, whatever it was, he chanted certain spells and curses over it in a falsetto voice and buried it in the ground. As the thing decayed, the person to whom it had belonged ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... wide sleeves which hung around them. Her neck rose strong and stately over the silver clasp of a cloak which she had thrown back from her shoulders. She wore a hat which seemed to hold her hair captive from falling loose around her. One great tress alone escaped from it, and by some cunning manipulation was made to stand straight out, as if blown by the wind from its fastenings. In comparison her suite looked commonplace and mean. Poor Miss O'Dwyer was arrayed—'gowned,' she would have said ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... pure, polished surface (Like ivory turned to the billiard-room's spherosid), BALDER'S occiput glassing bewitchingly her face, The face of his Dear, by herself in her hero eyed— DULCINEA would deem it profanity, were It in nature to beg for a tress of his hair! ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Volume 101, November 21, 1891 • Various
... an awful dream, I gazed till the ripples closed above it. One instant the terror held me,—the next I was far down in those waves, so silver fair above, so black and terrible below. A brief, blind struggle passed before I grasped a tress of that long hair, then an arm, and then the white shape, with a clutch like death. As the dividing waters gave us to the light again, Agnes flung herself far over the boat-side and drew my lifeless burden in; I followed, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... reply died on Berenger's lip. At the thought of Philip, he opened the purse, and held out the contents on his palm: a tiny gold ring, a tress of black hair, a fragment of carnation-ribbon pricked with pin-holes, a string of small worthless yellow shells, and, threaded with them, a large pear-shaped pearl of countless price. Even the Chevalier was touched at the sight of this treasury, resting on the blanched ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... same way. With the paddy chillies are sown the first year. The egg plant, arum, ginger, turmeric, and sweet potatoes of several varieties are grown by them in a similar manner. Those that rear the lac insect plant landoo tress (Hindi arhal dal) in the forest clearings, and rear the insect thereon. Some of these people, however, are prohibited by a custom of their own from cultivating the landoo, in which case they plant certain other trees favourable to the growth of the lac insect. The ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... he keeps with Vigor for a space, The dry'ed Earth is parched with his face. August of great Augustus took its name, Romes second Emperour of lasting fame, With sickles now the bending Reapers goe The rustling tress of terra down to mowe; And bundles up in sheaves, the weighty wheat, Which after Manchet makes for Kings to eat: The Barly, Rye and Pease should first had place, Although their bread have not so white a face. ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... up nearly all night pacing his room, muttering incoherently to himself. Over and over again he regarded intently a locket containing a solitary tress of grey hair, and once or twice the word "Avenged" rose to ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... know, 'heart-honoured maid! How thrice a thousand-fold repaid My humble gift may be? With cheerful hand and heart unbraid The band thy modest brow that shades, And send, with three kind words convey'd, One little tress to me! ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... through the park of Luckenough, "to fancy that any one with eyes, heart and brain, could possibly fall in love with the 'Will-o'-the-wisp' Jacquelina, or worse, that giglet, Angelica; when he sees Marian! Marian, whose least sunny tress is dearer to me than are all the living creatures in the world besides. Marian, for whose possession I am now about to risk everything, even her own esteem. Yet, she will forgive me; I will earn her forgiveness ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... the grass in front of her; they pattered like hail on the stockade-fence, but still untouched, unharmed, the slender brown figure sped toward the gate. Three-fourths of the distance covered! A tug at the flying hair, and a long, black tress cut off by a bullet, floated away on the breeze. Betty saw the big gate swing; she saw the tall figure of the hunter; she saw her brother. Only a few more yards! On! On! On! A blinding red mist obscured her sight. She lost the opening in the ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... Jijiu was going to leave her, and she thought of giving her some souvenir. Her own dress was not to be thought of, as it was too old; fortunately she had a long tress of false hair, about nine feet long, made of the hair which had fallen from her own head. This she put into an old casket, and gave it to Jijiu, with ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... with a tress of black hair gave him a look rather Asiatic than European. . . . This man was one of the bold creations of wild countries and troublous times—beings of impetuous courage, iron strength, original ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... an early hour, after lady Feng had gone into the upper rooms, P'ing Erh set to work to put in order the clothes and bedding, which had been brought from outside, when, contrary to her expectation, a tress of hair fell out from inside the pillow-case, as she was intent upon shaking it. P'ing Erh understood its import, and taking at once the hair, she concealed it in her sleeve, and there and then came over into the room on this side, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... nose—conscientious, hardworking, and all that. But what magnificent hair she had! Abundant, long, thick, of a tawny colour. It had the sheen of precious metals. She wore it plaited tightly into one single tress hanging girlishly down her back and its end reached down to her waist. The massiveness of it surprised you. On my word it reminded one of a club. Her face was big, comely, of an unruffled expression. She had a good complexion, and her blue eyes were so pale that she appeared to look at ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... held it in his hands for some time, and so completely was he touched by the beauty of the tress, and the affection of him to whom it had belonged, that the tears gushed from his eyes; and as these men, who were then in the very act of trampling upon the laws of God and men, looked at it, one by one, there was scarcely a dry eye among them. As water, however, is frequently sprinkled over ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... grows. Yet there is another thing which I must tell thee, to wit, that what thou hast said about the fashion of any part of me, that same, setting aside thy lovely words, which make the tears come into the eyes of me, would I say of thee. Look thou! I take thine hair and lay the tress amongst mine, and thou mayst not tell which is which; and amidst the soft waves of it thy forehead is nestling smooth as thou saidst of mine: hawk-grey and wide apart are thine eyen, and deep thought ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... helmsman. Am I wrecked, I know the devil has sufficient weight To bear: I lay it not on him, or fate. Besides, he's damned. That man I do suspect A coward, who would burden the poor deuce With what ensues from his own slipperiness. I have just found a wanton-scented tress In an old desk, dusty for lack of use. Of days and nights it is demonstrative, That, like some aged star, gleam luridly. If for those times I must ask charity, Have I not any charity ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... lady dear, hast thous no fear? Why and what art thou dreaming here? Sure thou art come p'er far-off seas, A wonder to these garden trees! Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress! Strange, above all, thy length of tress, And this all ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... music in the flowing tide, there 's music in the air, There 's music in the swallow's wing, that skims so lightly there, There 's music in each waving tress of grove, and bower, and tree, To eye and ear 'tis music ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... was very proud of her hair, did not like the idea of parting with any of it, so she said no. But the girl could not give up hope, and each day she entreated to be allowed to cut off just one tress. At length the princess lost patience, and exclaimed, 'You may have it, then, on condition that you shall find the handsomest prince in the world to be ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... the light of the lamp. She was kneeling over the knapsack, and did not see what he was about, till she found his hand on her head, and heard the scissors close, when she perceived that he had cut off one of her pale, bright ringlets, and saw his pocket-book open, and within it a thick, jet-black tress, and one scanty, downy tuft of baby hair. She made no remark; but the tears came dropping, as she packed; and, with a sudden impulse to give him the thing above all others precious to her, she pulled from her bosom a locket, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it is in vain!' she cried. 'This hour of death has given me more Of reason's power than years before; For, as these ebbing veins decay, My frenzied visions fade away. A helpless injured wretch I die, And something tells me in thine eye That thou wert mine avenger born. Seest thou this tress?—O. still I 've worn This little tress of yellow hair, Through danger, frenzy, and despair! It once was bright and clear as thine, But blood and tears have dimmed its shine. I will not tell thee when 't was shred, Nor from what guiltless victim's head,— ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... looked. The first thing she saw was her own exquisite face, and Sam's brown phiz peering over her shoulder. A golden tress of hair, loosened by the sea breeze, fell down into the water, and had to be looped up again. Then gazing down once more, she saw beneath the crystal water a bed of flowers; dahlias, ranunculuses, carnations, ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... delicate as the tint of a shell, glowed in her cheeks; her large, dark eyes looked straight at Ahmed, drawing in all the proud beauty of his face; her hair lay soft and thick without its veil above her brows, and one heavy tress fell forward over her shoulder to her knee. Ahmed lay watching her, his eyes filled with sombre fires, his whole soul listening to the song; and one other lay listening also, and this was Murad, crouching ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... are almost as even in reticulation as a piece of basket-work; but each has a different form and a due relation to the rest, and if you set to work to draw that mane rightly, you will find that, whatever time you give to it, you can't get the tresses quite into their places, and that every tress out of its place does an injury. If you want to test your powers of accurate drawing, you may make that lion's mane your pons asinorum, I have never yet met with a student who didn't make an ass in a lion's skin of ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... serious, almost solemn thoughts on his journey towards London. I am sorry I must assure my female readers that very few of them had reference to Mary Flood Jones. He had, however, very carefully packed up the tress, and could bring that out for proper acts of erotic worship at seasons in which his mind might be less engaged with affairs of state than it was at present. Would he make a failure of this great matter which he had taken in hand? He could not but tell ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... sultriness, The broidered coverlet aside And nothing was there to deck or hide The glory of her loveliness, But a scarf of gauze, so light and thin You might see beneath the dazzling skin, And watch the purple streamlets go Through the valleys of white and stainless snow, Or here and there a wayward tress Which wandered out with vast assurance From the pearls that kept the rest in durance, And fluttered about, as if 'twould try To lure a zephyr from the sky. "Bertha!"—large drops of anguish came On Rudolph's brow, as he breathed that ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... recognize the bracelet?" cried the stranger, holding up, as he spoke, the ornament in question. "Or, if that convince you not, do you recognize this tress of raven hair—this bouquet that she wore upon ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... this I blenched and well I might, and she smiled down at the long tress of hair she was braiding and then glances at me mighty demure; quoth she: "But only sometimes, Martin. Now, for instance, you are wondering why of late I have taken to wearing my hair twisted round my head and pinned with these two small pieces of ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... under and above her, uttering their brief plaintive cries of gladness or anger as the wild wind bore them to and fro. When Reay first saw her run eagerly to the very edge, and stand there, a light, bold, beautiful figure, with the wind fluttering her garments and blowing loose a long rippling tress of her amber-brown hair, he could not refrain from an involuntary cry of terror, and an equally involuntary rush to her side with his arms outstretched. But as she turned her sweet face and grave blue eyes upon him there was something in the gentle ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... Xenia elongata, a shrub-like coral distinguished for the beauty of its colors, having stellar tentacles, rose-colored, blue and lilac, an inch in diameter, and looking like flowers of living jewelry; another with a long cue, like a tress of hair, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... a fringe of silver, and it was fastened with a broad golden brooch. She wore also a tunic of green silk, stiff with embroidery of gold that glittered in the sun. Her hair before she loosed it was done in two mighty tresses, yellow like the flower of the waterflag, each tress being plaited in four strands, and at the end of each strand a little golden ball. When she laid aside her mantle her arms came through the armholes of her tunic, white as the snow of a single night, and her cheeks ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... ask Whitefire, Eric, though Whitefire shall kiss the gift. I ask nothing but one tress of that ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... may you blaspheme at fortune! I "threw Venus" (Ben, expound!) Never did I need importune Her, of all the Olympian round. Blessings on my benefactress! Cursings suit—for aught I know— Those who twitched her by the back tress, Tugged and thought to ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... of splendour, Dulness, pride, and slavery; Skyey vault of pale-green tender, Cold, and granite, and ennui! With a pang, I say adieu t'ye With a pang, though slight—for there Trips the foot of one young beauty, Waves one tress of golden hair. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... Lady Byron, and probably also with Mrs. Leigh, as a young girl who had existed, and the date of whose death almost coincided with Lord Byron's landing in England in 1811. On one occasion he showed Lady Byron a beautiful tress of hair, which she understood to be Thyrza's. He said he had never mentioned her name, and that now she was gone his breast was the sole depository of that secret. 'I took the name of Thyrza from Gesner. ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... see beyond the lamp, and his heart gave a sudden jump. Shimmering on the faded red cloth of the table, glowing as brightly as though it had been clipped from a woman's head but yesterday, was a long, thick tress of hair! It was dark, richly dark, and his second impression was one of amazement at the length of it. The tress was as long as the table—fully a yard down the woman's back it must have hung. It was tied at the end with a bit of ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... and brushed again the tress from her forehead. 'Ye have made this King rich with gear of the Church: if ye will be friends with me ye shall make this King a pauper to repay; ye have made this King stiffen his neck against God's Vicegerent: if you and I shall work together ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... weed, or fish, or floating hair? A tress of maiden's hair, Of drowned maiden's hair, Above ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... thou, O queen, whilst gazing at the stars, shalt propitiate the goddess Venus with festal torch-lights, let not me, thine own, be left lacking of unguent, but rather gladden me with large gifts. Stars fall in confusion! So that I become a royal tress, Orion might ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... to the impression of omens, there is a most striking one on record with respect to the birth of this ill-fated prince, not less so than the falling off of the head from the cane of Charles I. at his trial, or the same king's striking a medal, bearing an oak tress, (prefiguring the oak of Boscobel,) with this prophetic inscription, "Seris nepotibus umbram." At the very moment when (according to immemorial usage) the birth of a child was in the act of annunciation to the great officers of state ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... All kinds, though, it must be con-fessed, He likes the poi-son-ous ones the best. From him we learn how ve-ry small A thing can bring a-bout a Fall. Oh, Mon-goos, where were you that day When Mis-tress Eve was led a-stray? If you'd but seen the ser-pent first, Our Parents would not have been cursed, And so there would be no ex-cuse For ...
— A Child's Primer Of Natural History • Oliver Herford
... one ray the less, Had half impair'd the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens o'er her face; Where thoughts serenely sweet express How ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various
... the lid was opened, and a lock of soft brown hair fell out, clinging to Katy's hand as if it had been a living thing, and making her shudder with fear as she shook off the silken tress and remembered that the head it once adorned was lying in St. Mary's churchyard, where ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... winds of fall Sing dangerously through the hissing grass; Sunlight and clouds in slow procession pass Over the tress, then comes an interval Of utter calm, the air is a morass Of humid breathlessness. A dreadful call Rings suddenly from the onrushing squall, And the storm closes in ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer
... yellow, heavy, lustreless— With less of radiance than the burnished tress, Crumpled on Beauty's forehead: cloddish, cold, Kneaded together with the common mold! Worn by sharp contact with the fretted edges Of ancient drifts, or prisoned in deep ledges; Hidden within some mountain's rugged breast From man's desire ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... Beaufort's hand for once allowed to repose in his; many a noble gentleman was exchanging last words with his wife—many a young squire whispering what he had never ventured to say before—many a silver mark was cloven—many a bright tress was exchanged. Even Ralf Percy was in the midst of something very like a romp with the handsome Bessie Nevil for a knot of ribbon to carry ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the middle of this pleasantness There stood a marble altar, with a tress 90 Of flowers budded newly; and the dew Had taken fairy phantasies to strew Daisies upon the sacred sward last eve, And so the dawned light in pomp receive. For 'twas the morn: Apollo's upward fire Made ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... mirrors of the Egyptians consisted of circular metallic plates, with variously ornamented handles. The specimens in this case, which have lost their lustre under centuries of rust, include one with a lotus handle, ornamented with the Egyptian goddess of beauty, Athor; one with a tress of hair as a design for the handle: and others ornamented with the head of the much reverenced hawk. The pins are in bronze and wood, and were used by the Egyptian ladies either to bind the hair or ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... pulp and finally leaving it against an unusually firm foundation or in the bed of an eddy. The masses contain human bodies, but it is slow work to pick them to pieces. In the side of one of them I saw the remnants of a carriage, the body of a harnessed horse, a baby cradle and a doll, a tress of woman's hair, a rocking horse, and a piece of beefsteak ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... wall'd cities far, I'll tell them there (They'll list, for 'twill be true) Of Delos and of you. But chief and evermore my song shall be Of Prince Apollo, lord of Archery. God of the Silver Bow, whom Leto bare— Leto, the lovely-tress'd. ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... One thick golden tress, shaken loose by her fall, lay curling down past the bloom of her cheek on to her shoulder. The lights in it blazed. From beneath the brim of her small tight-fitting hat her great grave eyes held mine expectantly. ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... more slowly, lord, and consider the other side of it," the old knight entreated. "Suppose the message is false,—the black tress around it proves nothing. Suppose the son of Lodbrok has spread ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... should be set free, that every crystal vase in the house of Vedius should be broken in his presence and that the fish pond should be filled up. Even women inflicted upon their female slaves punishments of the most cruel atrocity for faults of the most venial character. A brooch wrongly placed, a tress of hair ill-arranged, and the enraged matron orders her slave to be lashed and crucified. If her milder husband interferes, she not only justifies the cruelty, but asks in amazement: "What! is a slave so much of a human being?" No wonder that there was a proverb, "As many ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... and clasped over her breast with marvelously wrought clasps of gold and silver, so that men saw the bright gold and the green silk flashing against the sun. On her head were two tresses of golden hair, and each tress plaited into four strands, and at the end of each strand a little ball of gold. Each of her two arms was as white as the snow of a single night, and each of her two cheeks of the hue of the foxglove. Even and small the teeth in her head, and ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... proceeded many of the listeners observed the chaired lady, whose back hair, by reason of her prominent position, so challenged inspection. Her face was not easily discernible, but the aforesaid cunning tress-weavings, the white ear and poll, and the curve of a cheek which was neither flaccid nor sallow, were signals that led to the expectation of good beauty in front. Such expectations are not infrequently disappointed as soon as the disclosure comes; and in the present ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... all pale brown With the dead leaves matted down One on other, thick and thicker; Soft, but springing to the tread. There a youth late met a maid Running lightly,—oh, so fleetly! "Whence art thou?" the herd-boy said. Either side her long hair swayed, Half a tress and half a braid, Colored like the soft dead leaf, As she answered, laughing sweetly, On she ran, as flies the swallow; He could not choose but follow Though it had ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
... in the next bed stirred feebly; the figure of a woman, straight and gaunt under the hospital bedclothes. A tress of her hair had come uncoiled and looped itself across the pillow—reddish auburn hair, streaked with grey. She had been brought in, three nights ago, drenched, bedraggled, chattering in a high fever; a case of acute pneumonia. Her delirium ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... an ignis-fatuus?" asked he, stooping over her an instant, and suddenly snatching himself erect, as she looked up with a certain sweetness in her smile, and pushed back the drooping tress, that, streaming along the temple and lying in one large curve upon the cheek, sometimes fell too low for order, though never ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... thought of that, either. "But Aunt Sophie wouldn't 'low me to go up on her roof," he remembered. "And I don't b'lieve the jan'-tress would on ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... cuts a tress of your hair with a stroke of the Sword of Light it will take you out of ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum
... laid the flower across his mouth; The sparkling drops seem'd good for drouth; He smiled, turn'd round towards the south. Held up a golden tress. ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... you let me hear your report. Did the villain's shot graze Elsie's forehead and carry a tress ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... means, I imagine: and I take leave also to suppose that the nobles, and noble ladies, might wear such tress and ringlet as became them. But again, we receive unexpectedly embarrassing light on the democratic institutions of the Franks, in being told that "the various trades, the labours of agriculture, and the arts of hunting and fishing, were exercised by servile hands for ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... unusual sensations she stopped in the doorway and instinctively drew the lower part of the curtain across her face, leaving only half a rounded cheek, a stray tress, and one eye exposed, wherewith to contemplate the gorgeous and bold being so unlike in appearance to the rare specimens of traders she had seen ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... shelf. It was his mother's book, and he found therein many little tokens of her presence. Here was a verse underlined; at some gracious passages the page was much fingered and worn; in one place there were stains that looked like the mark of tears; then again, in one page, there was a small tress of hair, golden hair, tied in a paper with a name across it, that seemed to be the name of a little sister of his mother's that died a child; and again there were a few withered flowers, like little sad ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... cry of surprise, and then screamed with laughter. One of them tried to grab the hair, but the poilu held it high, beyond her reach, with a gruff command of, "Hands off!" Other soldiers and women in the estaminet gathered round staring at the yellow tress, laughing, making ribald conjectures as to the character of the woman from whose head it had come. They agreed that she was fat and ugly, like all German women, and ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... dressing-gown; her feet were bare, because, having fallen asleep towards the morning, she ran out headlong in her fear of being too late. Heemskirk had never seen her looking like this, with her hair drawn back smoothly to the shape of her head, and hanging in one heavy, fair tress down her back, and with that air of extreme youth, intensity, and eagerness. And at first he was amazed, and then he gnashed his teeth. He could not face her at all. He muttered a curse, and kept still behind ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... world, for it was like spun gold, and the smell of it was like the smell of fresh roses. But her locks were so long and thick that the weight of it was often unbearable, and one day she cut off a shining tress, and wrapping it in a large leaf, threw it in the river which ran just below her window. Now it happened that the king's son was out hunting, and had gone down to the river to drink, when there floated towards him a folded ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... and burnt to the ground by the Saracens, those terrible warriors of the East, was restored in the ninth century, and fortified; and as the sainted inmates were believed to have amongst their relics a tress of the golden hair of the beautiful and repentant Magdalen, troops of the faithful—and people were ready to believe a great deal in those days—flocked to Vezelay, when it soon became a ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... fair accused have better left the matter alone? That torrent of slang and oath, O nymph! falls ill from thy lips, which should never open but for a soft word or a smile; that accurate description of vice, sweet orator [-tress or-trix]! only shows that thou thyself art but too well acquainted with scenes which thy pure eyes should never have beheld. And when we come to the matter in dispute—a simple question of mackerel—O, Mrs. Trollope! Why, why should you abuse other people's fish, ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... before a glass to set a wayward tress of her hair in its place, or to arrange the falling folds of the lace, and perhaps lingered for a moment in contemplation of her own reflection, half conscious that she looked fairer dressed as she was than in Court attire of costly ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... everything else was made as nearly and as beautifully as it could be made a substitute for religion. Mark was intensely aware of her holiness, but he was equally aware of her capable well-tended hands and of her chatelaine glittering in and out of a lawn apron. One tress of her abundant hair was grey, which stood out against the dark background of the rest and gave her a serene purity, an austere strength, but yet like a nun's coif seemed to make the face beneath more youthful, and like a cavalier's plume more debonair. ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... in wonder and dismay, sure that the child must be very ill, and indignant that we had not been told. Harold talked of going up to town to find out; I was rather for going, or sending, to Therford for tidings, and all the time, alas! alas! he was smoothing and caressing the yellow tress between his fingers, pitying the child and fancying she was being moped to ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... story, a solid platform, from which the piers of the next tier of arches rose. The building towered into the air to the height of at least seventy-five feet, and was covered at the top with a great mass of earth, in which there grew not merely flowers and shrubs, but tress also of the largest size. Water was supplied from the Euphrates through pipes, and was raised (it is said) by a screw, working on the principal of Archimedes. To prevent the moisture from penetrating ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... a fool," said my head to my heart, "Indeed, the greatest of fools thou art, To be led astray by the trick of a tress, By a smiling face or a ribbon smart;" And my ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... filled with sorrow, and searches through all the elements for his lost bride. At length he catches a fish which is unknown to him, who, like Atlas, 'knew the depths of all the seas.' The strange fish slips from his hands, a 'tress of hair, of drowned maiden's hair,' floats for a moment on the foam, and too late he recognises that 'there was never salmon yet that shone so fair, above the nets at sea.' His lost bride has been within his reach, and now is doubly lost to him. Suddenly the waves are cloven asunder, and the mother ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... simplifies itself into a pearl-like portion of a sphere, with exquisitely gradated light on its surface. When you look at them nearer, you will see that each smaller portion into which they are divided—cheek, or brow, or leaf, or tress of hair—resolves itself also into a rounded or undulated surface, pleasant by gradation of light. Every several surface is delightful in itself, as a shell, or a tuft of rounded moss, or the bossy masses of distant forest would be. That these intricately modulated masses ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... day they made a breach in the wall, and when I heard of it for the first time, I sickened, and could not call on God; but Alys cut me a tress of her yellow hair and tied it in my helm, and armed me, and saying no word, led me down to the breach by the hand, and then went ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris
... mid the bloom and tenderness I catch that scarlet menace there, Like a gray sudden wintry tress Set in ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... of the grass-green silk, Her mantle of the velvet fine; At ilka tress of her horse's mane Hung fifty silver bells ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... have lacked in education and cultivation, they wanted nothing in affection. They gathered about the little tress, took it daintily in their palms, kissed it again and again, and moistened it with tears. Low sobs and endearing names for the brave darling who had been willing to sacrifice her life to preserve theirs fell from their ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... was opened not a bone was found within it; the lead coffin had contained an oaken shell which crumbled into dust on exposure to the air, but within the coffin lying on a block of oak, so shaped as to receive the head of the corpse, was a tress of auburn hair forming a plait about eighteen inches long. It was in perfect condition and looked as if the skull had only recently been removed from it. Why the hair and the block on which it lay should alone have been preserved is sufficiently mysterious; but there are other problems ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: A Short Account of Romsey Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... the founts, bedropped with light, Or silver-tress'd with shade of trees, Not one there is, but sprinkles bright It's plume of freshness on the breeze, ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... locket, lightly touched the spring, and it flew open. It contained more than a picture, although there was a picture of a handsome, boyish face that somehow had to Grace a familiar look. A slip of folded paper, a plain gold ring, and a tress of brown, curly hair dropped out. Grace opened the little slip of paper, and read it with an utterly confounded face. It was partly written and partly printed, and was the marriage certificate of Agnes Grant and Henry Darling. It bore date New York, ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... this moment that the wind, rising again in a brief spasm, blew a tress of my loosened hair across his face. How it changed! flushed crimson. His lips parted—a strange, sudden light ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... no emotion. She seemed to take no heed of the two men who were onlookers. They were doubtless nothing to her. Her tress of hair had become entangled, and the cord that confined her skirts must have given way, for the drapery flapped in the wind like a flag. She was ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... he cried, "O sleep, sweet sleep! heap poppies on the eyes of this lovely jewel; interrupt not my delight in viewing as long as I desire this triumph of beauty. O lovely tress that binds me! O lovely eyes that inflame me! O lovely lips that refresh me! O lovely bosom that consoles me! Oh where, at what shop of the wonders of Nature, was this living statue made? What India gave the gold for these hairs? What Ethiopia the ivory to form these ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... spoken of. It looked like a tress of silky hair, and had it not been shown upon a piece of black paper could hardly have been ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... so very ugly, my darling, do I? Not so very ugly? though they have cut off all my poor hair, and I told them so often not! But I kept a lock for you;' and feebly she drew from under the pillow a long auburn tress, and tried to wreathe it round his neck, but could not, and ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... herself. She lifted her hands to a tress of hair that was unfastened, and put it in its place. Instinctively she straightened her belt, her white collar. Mrs. Colwood noticed that she was in black again, in one of ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... when the last of them had departed out of our sight, we put down our heads and wept, and I said, "Sing us one of the songs of the Hollow Land." Then he whom I had called Swerker put his hand into his bosom, and slowly drew out a long, long tress of black hair, and laid it on his knee and smoothed it, weeping on it: So then I left him there and went and armed myself, and brought armour ...
— The Hollow Land • William Morris
... under cover of the tress, on the edge of Hupp's Hill, crept down the slope to the front of the wood, and there, likewise in shadow, hardly a thousand feet from the bridge and the middle ford, he too watched for ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... hair with a golden pin, And bind up every wandering tress; I bade my heart build these poor rhymes: It worked at them, day out, day in, Building a sorrowful loveliness Out of the battles ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... importance is attached to the custom. If by chance you are a bachelor—and if you are, you must put up with being looked down upon by everybody in Corea—you have to let your hair grow long, part it carefully in the middle of your skull, and have it made up into a thick tress at the back of your head, which arrangement marks you out as a single man and an object of sport, for in the Land of the Morning Calm it seems that you can only be a bachelor under the two very circumstances under ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... at the same time waving his wand over the fire. Immediately the flames rose towards the sky, the snow began to melt and the tress and shrubs to bud; the grass became green, and from between its blades peeped the pale primrose. It was Spring, and the meadows were ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... stag glen drag slum stab crag trim skill skim slim glad crop drop snuff skin skip scab snob skull snip bled stun twin dress grab drill skiff from swell drug twig grim snap scum bran stub snag stem plum sped spill prop slam drum gruff snug tress snub ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... thrown back against the wall, his eyes closed, his mouth open, and in his hand was a long tress ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... it there is!" And Shenac Dhu stooped down and lifted a long tress or two tenderly, as if ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... "No"—my lady fair— And lightly laughs at my despair. She quick evades my least caress, Nor grants to me a single tress From out her wealth of ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... among wine-stained wanderers in deep woods; And him who sold tillage and house and goods, And sought through lands and islands numberless years Until he found with laughter and with tears A woman of so shining loveliness That men threshed corn at midnight by a tress, A little stolen tress. I too await The hour of thy great wind of love and hate. When shall the stars be blown about the sky, Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die? Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows, Far off, most ...
— The Secret Rose • W. B. Yeats
... alone, And o'er his noble, Godlike face there gleamed A pride to think this maid was all his own. He loved—and love our hearts can ne'er repress— In truth he gazed upon that face and form As though upon her head each wet and gleaming tress Were more than all the phantoms of the storm. He loved as even the sun must love the flowers That shyly glance to him 'neath leafy bowers, Or as the river with its strong deep tide Must love the willows ...
— Love or Fame; and Other Poems • Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
... overcame The Outer False with the Inner True, And overthrew The empty show and thin deceits of sex, Pale nightmares of this barren world that vex The soul of man, shaken by every breeze Too faint to stir the silver olive trees Or lift the Dryad's smallest straying tress Frozen in her clear ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various
... brute for some moments. As I looked, it made a little skip back, quite into the corner, and I, in a panic, found myself at the door, having put my head out, drawing deep breaths of the outer air, and staring at the lights and tress we were passing, too glad to reassure ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... a slim, white hand to order the rebellious tress but, finding none, trembled and hid itself. Then very suddenly Jocelyn leaned near and caught this hand, clasping it fast yet with fingers very gentle, ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... that grew alone. The King's Son rode up and put his hands to the tree to climb and put his head against it, and as he did he heard speech from the tree. "The stroke of the Sword of Light will slay the King of the Land of Mist and the stroke of the Sword of Light that will cut a tress of her hair will awaken Fedelma." There was no more speech from the tree and the falcon rose from its branches and flew high up in the air. Then the King of Ireland's Son rode back towards ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum
... come my dear, I will confess— (Though really you too hard are) So dry these tears and smooth each tress— Let Betty search the larder; Then o'er a chop and genial glass, Though I so late have tarried, I will recount what came to pass I' the days ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... woman's hand; she arose, tears streaming from her eyes, and, stepping up to the mirror with a strange smile on her face, she cut from her head a long tress of hair; then she looked at herself thus disfigured and deprived of a part of her beautiful crown, and ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... dallied with the cane, And sweetly whisper'd I should be her king, And with this cane, the sceptre of our rule, Command the sweets of her surprised heart. Therewith she raught from her alluring locks This golden tress, the favour of her grace, And with her own sweet hand she gave it me: O peerless queen, my joy, my heart's decree! And, thou fair letter, how shall I welcome thee? Both hand and pen, wherewith thou written wert, Blest may ye be, such solace that impart! And blessed be this cane, and he that ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various |
