"Chalky" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lies spread in many an oozy trail, Like glossy weeds hung from a chalky base, That shows no whiter than his brow is pale; So soon the wintry death had bleach'd his face Into cold marble,—with blue chilly shades, Showing ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... whip. In this broad new thoroughfare there were only buildings of recent erection. Still, the wave of the cabman's whip became more pronounced and his voice rose to a higher key, with a somewhat ironical inflection, when he gave the name of a huge and still chalky pile on his left, a gigantic erection of stone, overladen with sculptured work-pediments ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... as frescoes, for lack of a significant title. Apparently the rock surface was slightly smoothed where inequalities existed—in one case the design follows the ridges and hollows—the subjects being worked in, in dry earth of a chalky nature, dull red in colour. Animated nature and still life have been studied and reproduced. The turtle is true, and the most conspicuous and sharply-defined study the least convincing. It resembles those ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... together with the black, hand-made, polished pottery, known as 'bucchero,' which is characteristic of Neolithic sites in the AEgean, ornamented frequently with incised patterns which are filled in with a white chalky substance. The stratum of debris belonging to the First City averages ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... was my next stage) lies in the same valley with Great Missenden, but at the foot of it, where the hills trend off on either hand like a coast-line, and a great hemisphere of plain lies, like a sea, before one. I went up a chalky road, until I had a good outlook over the place. The vale, as it opened out into the plain, was shallow, and a little bare, perhaps, but full of graceful convolutions. From the level to which I have now attained the fields were exposed before me like a map, and I could see all that bustle ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the left fire-bay seemed quite comfortable. But, standing and looking down the trench, it suddenly dawned upon me that I was gazing right into a line of chalky German trenches, and consequently that the enemy in those trenches could look straight into this trench. I left instructions with the corporal in charge of that section to build up a barricade in the gap before daybreak. ...
— Attack - An Infantry Subaltern's Impression of July 1st, 1916 • Edward G. D. Liveing
... gave him an approving nod. Being perfectly familiar with the surrounding scenery, he scarcely noticed it, occupied as his thoughts were just then by the position in which he was placed. Away to the right were the white Needle rocks, their pointed heads standing high up out of the sea, with chalky cliffs rising high above them; wide, smooth downs extending eastward; below which were cliffs of varied colour, with a succession of bays and rocky reefs; while ahead were the picturesque heights of Freshwater, covered by green trees, ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... in England, and yet more common through Spain, France, Germany, and Poland, quite from Gibraltar to Petersburg, is nowhere met with in Ireland, except for narrow slips of hillocks, upon the sea coast. Nor did I ever meet with or hear of a chalky soil. ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... and crowded with people; excursionists pour in by thousands, German bands and organs seem to spring up under one's feet at every step. The sun blazes in the windows of the houses on the Marine Parade all day, and the fine, dry, chalky dust from the Downs is apt to be irritating to delicate throats; but for all that, Brighton in August is delightful, at least to children. Then they may pass an almost amphibious existence without danger of catching cold. Foremost in ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... through a garden transformed into a dust-bin, and dipped down a hummocky slope that rose again to a chalky ridge. Shells were screaming overhead in quick succession now, and we walked fast, making for a white boulder that looked as if it would offer shielded observation and protection. We found ourselves near the top of one of the giant air-shafts that connected with the canal tunnel. Tufts of smoke ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... chalk ones," decided Twaddles, choosing a box of soft, chalky crayons. "I'd like a bottle of glue, too, ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Oak Hill School • Mabel C. Hawley
... plant, Cichorium Intybus (natural order, Compositae), in its wild state is a native of Great Britain, occurring most frequently in dry chalky soils, and by road-sides. It has a long fleshy tap-root, a rigid branching hairy stem rising to a height of 2 or 3 ft.—the leaves around the base being lobed and toothed, not unlike those of the dandelion. The flower heads are of a bright blue colour, few in number, and measure nearly an inch and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... But from gay Venice soon expect to steer For Britain's coast, and dread no perils near: Inflamed by hope, their throbbing hearts, elate, Ideal pleasures vainly antedate, Before whose vivid intellectual ray Distress recedes, and danger melts away. Already British coasts appear to rise, The chalky cliffs salute their longing eyes; Each to his breast, where floods of rapture roll, Embracing strains the mistress of his soul; 40 Nor less o'erjoy'd, with sympathetic truth, Each faithful maid expects ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... greatest part of the calcareous masses upon this globe to have originated from marine calcareous bodies; for whether we examine marbles, limestones, or such solid masses as are perfectly changed from the state of earth, and are become compact and hard, or whether we examine the soft, earthy, chalky or marly strata, of which so much of this earth is composed, we still find evident proofs, that those beds had their origin from materials deposited at the bottom of the sea; and that they have the calcareous substance which they contain, from the same source as the ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... overlooks a flat, Half sea, half country side; A flat-shored sea of low-voiced creeping tide Over a chalky, weedy mat. ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... snow of their horse-chestnut trees. From the bridges I could perceive beyond the stony horizon of Chaillot and Passy the long line of verdant and undulating hills of Fleury, Meudon, and St. Cloud. These hills seemed to rise as cool and solitary islands in the midst of a chalky ocean. They raised in my heart feelings of remorse and poignant reproach, and were images and remembrances which awaked the craving after Nature that had lain dormant for six months. The broken rays of moonlight floated at night upon the tepid waters of the river, and the dreamy orb ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... disagreeable sense of imponderability of body from the cold and sleepless ride, that I was vaguely aware as the jumper—rigorous vehicle!—disappeared round a corner. Frontier towns are not lovely, and the death-like peace which seemed properly to accompany the chalky pallor of the buildings was somewhat uncanny; but it proved to be only what sleep can do for a village with railroad influences one hundred miles away. We entered boldly the adobe before which we had been ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... his private laboratory on the third floor of the Bureau of Standards. When Carnes entered he was seated in a chair at his desk. His black eyes shone out from a chalky face like two burned holes in a blanket. Carnes started at the appearance of utter weariness presented by the famous scientist. Dr. Bird straightened up and squared his shoulders as ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... a wiggery so long. Nobody could guess of what it was that France or the world might be with child: nobody, till the birth in 1789, and even for a generation afterwards. France is weakly and unwieldy, has strange enough longings for chalky, inky, visionary, foolish substances, and may be in the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... has not much to say to me. He sits in his bunk with his beard gone, his moustaches flaming, and with an air of silent determination on his chalky physiognomy. Ransome tells me he devours all the food that is given him to the last scrap, but that, apparently, he sleeps very little. Even at night, when I go below to fill my pipe, I notice that, though dozing flat on his back, he still looks very determined. ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... cooled—mixed and distilled. I heard him sigh like a despairing creature; I heard him pray; I perceived that he held his breath in his anxiety. The lamp had gone out—he did not seem to notice it. I blew on the red-hot cinders; they brightened up, and shone on his chalky-white face, and tinged it with a momentary brightness. The eyes had almost closed in their deep sockets; now they opened wider—wider—as if they were about ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... Wood lived! Mr. Wood, instructor in Latin and Greek at Densmore Academy. It was now borne in on me for the first time that he did live and have his ties like any other human being, instead of just appearing magically from nowhere on a platform in a chalky room at nine every morning, to vanish again in the afternoon. I had formerly stood in awe of his presence. But now I was suddenly possessed by an embarrassment, and (shall I say it?) by a commiseration bordering on contempt ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... tip-toe for a dance; and all the green trees that had retreated from her dancing-floor seemed ready to break into music, so that Rosalind held her breath lest she should shatter the moment and the magic, and stayed spell-bound where she was. But an hour afterwards Maudlin, riding the chalky ledge on the ash-grown height, looked down on that same sight and uttered a sharp cry; for she saw, no fairy, but a little yellowing birch, and under it the snow-white hart with the Rusty Knight beside him. Then all the company with her echoed the cry, and the forest ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... is an ancient British breed, taking its name from a chalky range of hills in Sussex and other counties in England about sixty miles in length, known as the South Downs, by the side of which is a tract of land of ordinary fertility and well calculated for sheep walks, and on which probably more ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale
... One was a rough brown-faced country lad; the other, who held the strings and wore the usual cap and comforter, was a man of about five-and-twenty, with pale blue eyes and yellowish hair, close-cropped, and the unmistakable London mark in his chalky complexion. He regarded me with cold, suspicious looks, and, when I talked and questioned, answered briefly and somewhat surlily. I treated him to tobacco, and he smoked; but it wasn't shag, and didn't soften him. On mentioning casually that I had seen ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... in a S.W. by S. direction, we reached Kikuru. The march lasted for five hours over sun-cracked plains, growing the black jack, and ebony, and dwarf shrubs, above which numerous ant-hills of light chalky-coloured earth appeared ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... S.E. South of Achachinskoi, the land is not so high and broken as between that bay and the mouth of Awatska, being only of a moderate elevation toward the sea, with hills gradually rising farther back in the country. The coast is steep and bold, and full of white chalky patches. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... exultant Andy; but it might be noticed that his voice was a bit husky, even as his face seemed chalky white. ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... in his chair; his hands rested on the carved arms; and his face and eyes were as if made of Caen stone, chalky and hard. He was looking out from the room, Master Richard said; and Master Richard knew at once what it was that he was seeing. It was that of which the holy youth had spoken; and was nothing else than the passion ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... animals) a number of waving arms round the mouth. In the next geological age the stalk will become a long and flexible arrangement of muscles and plates of chalk, the cup will be more perfectly compacted of chalky plates, and the five arms will taper and branch until they have an almost feathery appearance; and the animal will be considered a ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... eyes, too far apart, thin lips, chalky skins and perennial colds in the head. They breathed together, smiled and wept together, rose and sat down together and wiped their noses together—none too frequently. Never were such 'twinneous' twins ...
— The Girl and the Kingdom - Learning to Teach • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the lights of the picture more strong and clear, while the deep shades are more intense. It gives a finer lustre to the drapery. The solarized portions also are very seldom blue, especially after gilding. If heated too high, however, the light parts become of a dead, chalky white, and the shadows are injured by numerous little globules of mercury deposited over them. Just the right quantity of mercury leaves the impression of a transparent, pearly white tone, which improves in the highest degree in gilding. To mercurialize ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey
... whose sty had been cured, opened a drawer and took out the eyestone, carefully wrapped in a piece of linen cloth. She handled it gingerly, and as I gazed at the small gray piece of chalky secretion, something of her own awe of it communicated itself to me. We dropped it into the vial, to be "refreshed"; and then, buttoning it safe in the pocket of my coat, I set off for home. Since I was now two or three miles north of Lurvey's Mills, I took another and shorter road ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... went like the wind. He and the black mare that Nap Errol rode led the field, a distinction that Anne had never sought before, and which she did not greatly appreciate on this occasion. For when they killed in a chalky hollow, after half-an-hour's furious galloping across country with scarcely a check, she dragged her animal round with a white, set face and forced him from ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... effectually upon his features as he turned to leave the room with a low bow, and they looked, he fancied, unnaturally chalky. ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... valiant son, From Pleuron's walls, and chalky Calydon, And rough Pylene, and the Olenian steep, And Chalcis, beaten by the rolling deep. He led the warriors from the AEtolian shore, For now the sons of OEneus were no more! The glories of the mighty race were fled! OEneus himself, and Meleager dead! To Thoas' care now trust the martial train, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... descended by a chalky ribbon of a footpath to the ravine, crossed over it by a narrow shadow-dappled pathway hidden among a maze of trees, and made his way along its further ridge to a forest watch-house. It stood in a bare open space, exposed to the swift rushing Dance of the Winds, and close to the naked ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... milk-white girl with hair dyed pink came tugging at my arm. Her opalescent eyes looked from out her chalky countenance; but they were not hard eyes, indeed they seemed the eyes of innocence. As I shook my head and rebuffed her cordial advance I felt, not that I was refusing the proffered love of a painted woman, but rather that I was meanly declining a child's invitation ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... do you know that these masses of chalky-material, these enlarged glands, are the result of tuberculosis? They may be due ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... large arch. The garden is on a slope, commanding views of the surrounding country, with the tower of Calne in front, the woods of Bowood on the right, and the mansion and woods of Walter Heneage, Esq. Towards the south. The view to the south-east is terminated by the last chalky cliffs of the Marlborough downs, extending to within a few miles of Swindon. In the garden, a winding path from the gravel-walk, in front of the house, leads to a small piece of water, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... and looking at the papers respecting the ownership of Basildene which were now laid before him. At the lower end of the hall, his hands bound behind him, and his person guarded by two strong troopers, stood Peter Sanghurst, his face a chalky-white colour, his eyes almost starting from his head with terror, all his old ease and assumption gone, the innate cowardice of his nature showing itself in every ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... brutally, his body still trembling and his face chalky. His laugh echoed, hollowly, from ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... ever saw. Conway, indeed, has more beauty; but Chateau Gaillard is infinitely superior in dignity. Its ruins crown the summit of a lofty rock, abruptly rising from the very edge of the Seine, whose sinuous course here shapes the adjoining land into a narrow peninsula. The chalky cliffs on each side of the castle, are broken into hills of romantic shape, which add to the impressive wildness of the scene. The inclosed sketch will give you an idea, though a very faint one, of the general appearance of the castle at ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... front of her—I hadn't seen it rightly— Lurked that little finger-post to point another road, Just a tiny path of poppies twisting infi-nite-ly Through the whispering seas of wheat, a scarlet thread that showed White with ox-eye daisies here and there and chalky cobbles, Blue with waving corn-flowers: far and far away it glowed, Winding into heaven, I thinks; but, Lord, the way she hobbles, Lord, she'll never reach it, for she bears too great a load; Yus, and then I knowed, If she did, she couldn't, for the board ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... and as she had a relation, who was a gentleman of much respectability, that then resided in the neighbourhood of Kelso, it was agreed that we should spend a few weeks in the summer at his house. I entertained the hope that society, and the beautiful scenery around Kelso, with the white chalky braes[A] overhung with trees, and the bonny islands in the Tweed, with mansions, palaces, and ruins, all embosomed in a paradise as fair and fertile as ever land could boast of, would have a tendency to cheer her spirits, and ease, if not remove, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... otherwise changed its height and distance. A sense of always moving with some indefinite purpose, but of always returning at night to the same place—with the same surroundings, the same people, the same bedclothes, and the same awful black canopy dropped down from above. A chalky taste of dust on the mouth and lips, a gritty sense of earth on the fingers, and an all-pervading heat and ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... though infinitely finer than our own, is more remarkable for its verdure, and for a general appearance of civilisation, than for its natural beauties. The chalky cliffs may seem bold and noble to the American, though compared to the granite piles that buttress the Mediterranean they are but mole-hills; and the travelled eye seeks beauties instead, in the retiring vales, the leafy hedges, and the clustering towns that dot the teeming island. Neither ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... A Pierrot, chalky white, whistled in three registers, soprano, bass, and baser. A row of soubrettes rollicked in and out again in a flash ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... country houses in the Reverend James Stafford's parish. The village of Chilmark—a stone bridge, crossroads, a church with Norman tower and frondlike Renaissance tracery, and an irregular line of school, shops, and cottages strung out between the stream and chalky beech-crested hillside occupied one of those long, winding, sheltered crannies that mark the beds of watercourses along the folds of Salisbury Plain. Uplands rose steeply all along it except on the south, where it widened away into the flats of Dorsetshire. Wharton overlooked this ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... great numbers in Labrador and Newfoundland, and in the winter migrates as far south as the Middle States. They feed principally upon fish, lay commonly two eggs, of a pale greenish color, overlaid with a white chalky substance.—Vide Cones's Key to Nor. Am. Birds. Boston, ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... in my berth, that I was aroused by the noise overhead. Was the brief voyage over, I wondered; had we reached England so soon? and, weak as I was, I crawled on deck, full of languid curiosity, to see my father's country. But the first glimpse disappointed me—a leaden sea, white chalky cliffs, and a gray sky, with black ugly-looking buildings and ships looming out of a damp mist; this was all I could see of Old England. And I was turning away disconsolately when Mrs. Stanforth came up to me with a tall gentleman with ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... village stands on solitary upland country, 500 to 600 feet above the sea,— a country with little natural beauty, but possessing a certain charm in the shaws, or straggling strips of wood, capping the chalky banks and looking down upon the quiet ploughed lands of the valleys. The village, of three or four hundred inhabitants, consists of three small streets of cottages meeting in front of the little flint-built church. It is ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... vegetable substances; for in all positions of the light on it, it seems to give a much fainter reflection then the more barren tops of the incompassing Hills, and those a much fainter then divers other cragged, chalky, or rocky Mountains of the Moon. So that I am not unapt to think, that the Vale may have Vegetables analogus to our Grass, Shrubs, and Trees; and most of these incompassing Hills may be covered with so thin a vegetable ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... scrutinised; but, alas! no more golden images or nuggets of the precious metal gladdened our eyes! Nothing came in view but sand and lava, lava and sand, varied occasionally by the sight of some fragment of half-fossilised tortoise-shell, or the chalky bones of cuttlefish and similar debris of the deep, washed up by the sea, and buried a fathom deep and more amid the ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... wide and arduous national life condensed in unfragrant deafening factories, cramping itself in mines, sweating at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving under more or less oppression of carbonic acid, or else, spread over sheepwalks, and scattered in lonely houses and huts on the clayey or chalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary. This wide national life is based entirely on emphasis,—the emphasis of want, which urges it into all the activities necessary for the maintenance of good society and light irony; it spends its heavy ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... soil or position the hornbeam will grow readily, except exceedingly dry or too marshy spots. On chalky hillsides it does not grow so freely as on clayey plains. Under the latter conditions, however, the wood is not so good. In mountainous regions the hornbeam occupies a zone lower than that appropriated by the beech, rarely ascending more than 1,200 yards above sea level. It is not ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various
... far as the eye could penetrate the still somewhat misty atmosphere. As I glanced outboard my attention was instantly arrested by the short, choppy tumble of the water, and its colour, which was a pale, chalky blue. ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... astonishment. There was no lake on it, no woody shores, and no velvety evening mists that covered the distant island at this moment. Instead of all this we saw a charming sea view; thick clusters of shapely palm-trees scattered over the chalky cliffs of the littoral; a fortress-like bungalow with balconies and a flat roof, an elephant standing at its entrance, and a native boat on the crest of ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... villages which lie under the ridge between Farnham and Guildford. Seale is a fascinating little place. It consists only of a few cottages, shy and red-roofed, deep among high hedges, bushy dells and reedy meadows, with wheatfields and barleyfields clothing the chalky slopes above. The church has been rebuilt, but has some inscriptions worth looking at. One is an epitaph on a young officer, Edward Noel Long, who was drowned at sea. ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... cinders. There remained not one thing that could burn which had not been burned. Only breeze-stirred ashes marked these silent places, with here and there a bit of iron from wagon or plough, rusting in the dew, or a steel button from some dead man's coat, or a bone gone chalky white—dumb witnesses that the wrath of England had passed wrapped in the lightning ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... too, upon the picket line, and it was favored above its fellows by daily and nightly occupancy by officers of the command. At this period the Regiment almost lived upon the picket line. An old wench, with several chalky complexioned children, whose paternal ancestor was understood to be under a musket of English manufacture perhaps, somewhere on the south side of the Rappahannock, occupied the kitchen of the premises. She was unceasing in reminding ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... have a splendid picture here in Edinburgh. A Ruysdael of which one can never tire: I think it is one of the best landscapes in the world: a grey still day, a grey still river, a rough oak wood on one shore, on the other chalky banks with very complicated footpaths, oak woods, a field where a man stands reaping, church towers relieved against the sky and a beautiful distance, neither blue nor green. It is so still, the light is so cool and temperate, the river woos you to bathe ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... room, by a cheerful flame In the fire-place, bending above her frame, Is grandma, snapping her chalky string Across and across a broad, bright thing. "Gramma, what you are a-doin' here?" "I'm a-makin' a 'comfort,' my little dear; For grandpa and I are a-gittin' old. And we're afeared o' ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... chapter Art of Spain. Ellis says: "In his more purely religious and supernatural scenes Greco was sometimes imaginative, but more often bizarre in design and disconcerting in his colouring with its insistence on chalky white, his violet shadows on pale faces, his love of green. [Mr. Ellis finds this 'predilection for green' significant as anticipating one of the characteristics of the Spanish palette.] His distorted fever of movement—the ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... but a collection of worm-eaten planks roughly bound together by cross-beams which resembled roughly hewn logs. It opened directly on a steep staircase of lofty steps, muddy, chalky, plaster-stained, dusty steps, of the same width as itself, which could be seen from the street, running straight up like a ladder and disappearing in the darkness between two walls. The top of the shapeless bay into which this door shut was masked by a narrow scantling in the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... despite this warning, Nan did seem somewhat disappointed, when, after hours of rattling and splashing along a muddy road, they came upon a stretch of dirty, chalky-green water that in a manner mirrored the gray ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... a midday sun when he came on deck. Its low, square houses were glaring white; here and there a splotch of vivid Cuban blue stood out; the rickety, worm-eaten piling of its water-front resembled rows of rotten, snaggly teeth smiling out of a chalky face mottled with unhealthy, artificial spots of color. Gusts of wind from the shore brought feverish odors, as if the city were sick and exhaled a tainted breath. But beyond, the hills were clean and green, ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... shot in her feed tank and had to fall out of line, Sir David must transfer his flag. He signalled for his destroyer, the Attack. When she came alongside he did not wait for a ladder, but jumped on board her from the deck of the Lion. An aged vice-admiral with chalky bones might have broken some of them, or at least received a shock to ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... galleon his eyes rested they found only whiteness—the whiteness of extreme eld. There were slightly varying degrees in her whiteness; here she was of a white that glistened like salt-granules, there of a greyish chalky white, and again her whiteness had the yellowish cast of decay; but everywhere it was the mild, disquieting whiteness of materials out of which the life had departed. Her cordage was bleached as old straw is bleached, and half her ropes kept their shape little more ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... on the most approved methods. Our host now took my young friend's reins, he seating himself behind, and we drove slowly over a large portion of the estate, taking a zigzag course across the fields. There are here three kinds of soil—dry, chalky and unproductive, rich loam, and light intermediate. In spite of the drought of the last few weeks, the crops are very luxuriant, and quite a month ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... wiped it from the board; but the senior members of the class would on no account allow any work by a young but promising master to be lost, and succeeded in the struggle in wiping Mr. Byles's own face with the chalky cloth. That Mr. Byles, instead of entering into the spirit of the day, lost his temper and went to Bulldog's closet for a cane; whereupon Speug, seizing the opportunity so pleasantly afforded, locked Mr. Byles ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... grow, and old people will live longest where our common fruits ripen best, as these conditions of vegetation indicate a climate which is least favorable to bronchitis and rheumatism. Pines and their companions, the birches, indicate a dry, rocky, sandy, or gravel soil; beeches, a dryish, chalky, or gravel soil; elms and limes, a rich and somewhat damp soil; oaks and ashes, a heavy clay soil; and poplars and willows, a low, damp, or marshy soil. Many of these are found growing together, and it is only when one species predominates ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... in question, a door which the larva builds to exclude the dangers from without, is two-and even three-fold. Outside, it is a stack of woody refuse, of particles of chopped timber; inside, a mineral hatch, a concave cover, all in one piece, of a chalky white. Pretty often, but not always, there is added to these two layers an inner casing of shavings. Behind this compound door, the larva makes its arrangements for the metamorphosis. The sides of the chamber ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... can hardly be expected to be found on the trip; but as it might be found, I will detail some of its characteristics. Hardness 4, specific gravity 2.3; it generally occurs in small crystals, but more frequently in a crumbly, chalky mass, which it becomes upon exposure to the air. The crystals are generally transparent and frequently tinged yellow in color. It gelatinizes by boiling with acid, and after intumescing before the blowpipe, fuses to a frothy mass. To keep this mineral when in crystals from crumbling ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... to New South Wales, Nor hunt for glory at the Pole— To feed the sharks, or catch the whales, Or tempt a Lapland lady's soul. I'll never willing stir an ell Beyond old England's chalky border, To steal or smuggle, buy or sell, To drink cheap wine, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... leave the rocks bare. At the bottom of the ebb I like to climb perilously down the rough Glades cliffs to life-brooding pools and inlets, where lazy waves swirl or are for a brief hour cut off. At the half-tide line the rock that is a reddish granite becomes chalky white with the shells of barnacles that cover every inch of space from there down. Acorn-like, they cluster closer than ever acorns did on the most prolific oak. After the tides reach them as they rise, the whole surface of the rock must be fuzzy with their curved cirri ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... this county is generally a vast continued body of high chalky hills, whose tops spread themselves into fruitful and pleasant downs and plains, upon which great flocks of sheep are fed, &c. But the reader is desired to observe these hills and plains are most beautifully intersected and cut through by the ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... to return; brave hearts in that old town have borne witness against it and sealed their testimony with their hearts' blood—most precious to the Lord is the blood of His saints! we are not far from hallowed ground. Observe ye not yon chalky precipice to the right of the Norman bridge? On this side of the stream, upon its brow, is a piece of ruined wall, the last relic of what was of old a stately pile, whilst at its foot is a place called the Lollards' Hole; and with good reason, for many a saint of God has breathed his last beneath ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... then snapped on, more strongly. He stood in the kitchen of the cold-water apartment, still naked, with bits of chalky ...
— Pursuit • Lester del Rey
... steam, and panted like a person out of breath from running does, and its pistons made a rapid noise, like iron legs that were running. The oppressive heat of the end of a July day lay over the whole city, and from the road, although there was not a breath of wind stirring, there arose a white, chalky, opaque, suffocating, and warm dust, which stuck to the moist skin, filled the eyes, and got into the lungs, and people were standing in the doors of their houses in search of ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... lost its beauty. Its olive flush had given place to a chalky whiteness. The radiance of her eyes had become a merciless glitter, like the glint cast from the eyes of a serpent. The reflection of a consuming passion for vengeance had transfigured her countenance, till it had become like the ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... condition of soil formed by the burning of roots in the intense heat of the sun); from which each kind of soil is called by a particular name, in accordance with the substances of which it is composed, as a chalky soil, a gravelly soil, or what ever else may be its distinguishing quality. And as there are different varieties of soil so each variety may be subdivided according to its quality, as, for example, a rocky soil is either very rocky, moderately rocky or hardly ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... native species, distinct, ornamental, and evergreen. Its name may, with some, prevent its being planted in the pleasure garden, but its foetid odour is not perceptible unless sought for. It is mostly found wild in this country in chalky districts, and it occurs largely in the southern parts of Europe. Though poisonous, it is a valuable herb. Its value as a garden subject consists in its dark evergreen foliage, good habit, and handsome panicles of bloom. ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... the east, and skirting the River Aisne and the famous city of Reims—where the vandals who had destroyed Louvain and many another city had long since wrecked the Cathedral, famous throughout the world—their line swept on over hill and dale, and hollow and furrow, across chalky plains and wooded heights and forest country to Verdun—that famous city which for centuries has been a stronghold. An ancient city, girdled at the outbreak of this gigantic war by a ring of fortresses of modern construction, in which a complete battery of guns was mounted; forts, let ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... a tinge of sorrow at his heart that Jack Mackenzie stood on his own quarter-deck and saw the chalky cliffs of England fading far astern, as the gloom of eventide fast deepened into night. He was not the one to give way to useless grief, but he could not help contrasting the hope and joyfulness with which he had last left home with his present state of mind. He was not a post-captain ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... said to himself in a stern, hopeless way; and, with the past farther back than ever, he started early the next morning, tramping through the chalky dust slowly now, for he did not want to get to his destination yet; and, as he walked, he noted the farms and cherry orchards he passed upon the road, but in a dull, uninterested manner, and, bending his head ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... one case an allegorical or tropical sense was chiefly intended. So by the word 'native,' I may be supposed to mean a town where I might have been born; or where it might be desirable that I should have been born, as being situate in wholesome air, upon a dry chalky soil, in which I delight; or a town, with the inhabitants of which I passed some weeks, a summer or two ago, so agreeably, that they and it became in a manner native to me. Without some such latitude of interpretation in the present case, I see not how we can avoid falling into ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... there are no lines of union with the ground; the meagre monotony of the lines of shingles and clapboards making subdivisions too small to be impressive, and too large to be overlooked,—and finally, the paint, of which the outside really consists, thrusting forward its chalky blankness, as it were a standing defiance of all possibility of assimilation,—all combine to form something that shall forever remain ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... baffled him with a joke or a jeer, or a story—and sometimes with a transition so extreme, rapid, and unconnected, that it was impossible to do any thing with him. My singing was adverted to. "Ay," said Whiteley, "I suspected he was one of your squallers; I thought from his chalky face and lank carcase that he was of the Italian breed, and that his story would end in a song. Did you ever see Signor Tenducci, boy?" "No sir." "No matter, you are not the worse for that; but I have nothing to do with Italianos. I have none but men and women ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... showed me a series of air-photographs of Pozieres as it was in 1914, with its peaceful little streets and rows of trees. What a contrast to the Pozieres as it was in 1917—MUD. Further on, the Butte stood out on the right, a heap of chalky mud, not a blade of grass round it then—nothing but mud, with a white cross on the top. On the left, the Crown Prince's dug-out and Gibraltar—I suppose these have gone now—and Le Sars and Grevillers, ...
— An Onlooker in France 1917-1919 • William Orpen
... and Landriglier past on the left hand, Orlando's vessel skims the Breton shore; Then shapes her course towards the chalky strand, Whence England's isle the name of Albion bore: But the south wind, which had her canvas fanned, Shifts to north-west, and freshening, blows so sore, The mariners are fain to strike all sail, And wear and scud before the ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... know what you're driving at, Dundee!" Sprague was on his feet, his black eyes blazing out of a chalky face. "If ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... beware, if you can't get the veritable don't fall for a domestic imitation or any West German abomination such as one dressed like a valentine in a heart-shaped box and labeled "Camembert—Cheese Exquisite." They are equally tasteless, chalky with youth, or choking with ammoniacal gas when ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... German silver, white metal, barium sulphate [Chem], titanium oxide, blanc fixe [Fr.], ceruse^, pearl white; white lead, carbonate of lead. V. be white &c adj.. render white &c adj.; whiten, bleach, blanch, etiolate, whitewash, silver. Adj. white; milk-white, snow-white; snowy; niveous^, candid, chalky; hoar, hoary; silvery; argent, argentine; canescent^, cretaceous, lactescent^. whitish, creamy, pearly, fair, blond; blanched &c v.; high in tone, light. white as a sheet, white as driven snow, white as a lily, white as ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the Cretans Idomeneus the famous spearman was leader, even of them that possessed Knosos and Gortys of the great walls, Lyktos and Miletos and chalky Lykastos and Phaistos and Rhytion, stablished cities all; and of all others that dwelt in Crete of the hundred cities. Of these men was Idomeneus the famous spearman leader, and Meriones peer of the man-slaying war-god. With these followed ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... sunken in his gloomy despair till death mercifully released him from torment. It rarely if ever happened that anything was known of him after having been marooned. A boat's crew from some vessel, sailing by chance that way, might perhaps find a few chalky bones bleaching upon the white sand in the garish glare of the sunlight, but that was all. And ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... churches, certainly, with its circle of columns surrounding the great central well, where two colossal pillars carry the triumphal arch, carry a great blank windowed wall above it, immensely high up. Those columns, that wall, pearly white, of carved and broken marble against pure chalky brilliancy of whitewash, seem in a way the presiding divinities of this great circular sanctuary in the church's centre; or is it the white light, the solemn pure emptiness among them? An immanent presence, greater certainly than could be ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee
... was a tall, thin man, with chalky, expressionless features, but his eyes gave life to his face with their keen, almost ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... required more cautious treatment. The Rev. R. W. was seized with the gout about the age of thirty-two, which increased so rapidly that at the age of forty-one he was confined to his room seven months in that year; he had some degree of lameness during the intervals, with chalky swellings of his heels and elbows. As the disease had continued so long and so violently, and the powers of his digestion were somewhat weakened, he was advised not entirely to leave off all fermented liquors; and as small-beer is of such various strength, ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... chosen to slaughter one another at ease. The immense plain expanded for several leagues, and was quite bare, without a house or tree. Hedges and bushes made slight spots on the whiteness of the ground. I have never since seen such a country, an ocean of dust, a chalky soil, bursting open here and there, and displaying its tawny bowels. And never either have I since witnessed a sky of such intense purity, a July day so lovely and so warm; at eight o'clock the sultry heat was already scorching our faces. O the splendid morning, ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... take pleasure in seeing how completely the workman is master of the particular material he has used, and how beautiful and desirable a substance it was, for work of that kind. In oil painting its unctious quality is to be delighted in; in fresco, its chalky quality; in glass, its transparency; in wood, its grain; in marble, its softness; in porphyry, its hardness; in iron, its toughness. In a flint country, one should feel the delightfulness of having flints to pick up, and fasten ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... apex of the delta was reached, and the broad river—stretching miles from bank to bank—lay before the navigators. The milk-white current, laden with chalky washings from the land, swept by in a mighty flood. On its bosom floated trees and detached masses of soil, going northwards to build up the growing delta. But for the wind and the guidance of the natives the adventurers would have made no headway against the mighty ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... statues are immersed in a bath of water and gradually heated nearly to the boiling-point—an operation requiring great care, for if the temperature be not carefully regulated, the stone acquires a dead-white chalky appearance. The effect of heating appears to be a partial dehydration ofthegypsum. If properly treated, it Very closely resembles true marble, and is known as mormo di Castellina. It should be noted that sulphate ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Bartholomew-Fair by the sea side), Ramsgate, & other places there, and so came by Sandwich, Deal, Dover, Folkstone, & Hithe, back again. The coast is not like Hartlepool: there are no rocks, but only chalky cliffs of no great height, till you come to Dover. There indeed they are noble & picturesque, and the opposite coasts of France begin to bound your view, w^ch was left before to range unlimited by anything but the horizon: yet it is by no means a shipless sea, but everywhere ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... ago, all but a day, that Clare had married Tess, and only a few days less than a year that he had been absent from her. Still, to start on a brisk walk, and on such an errand as hers, on a dry clear wintry morning, through the rarefied air of these chalky hogs'-backs, was not depressing; and there is no doubt that her dream at starting was to win the heart of her mother-in-law, tell her whole history to that lady, enlist her on her side, and so gain ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... loose, upright habit, and with pretty pinnate leaves. The flowers are borne in densely packed spikes, and are of a purplish tint with bright yellow protruding anthers and produced at the end of summer. It prefers a dry, warm soil of a sandy or chalky nature, and may readily be increased from cuttings or suckers, the latter being freely produced. Hard cutting back when full size has been attained would seem to throw fresh vigour into the Amorpha, and the flowering is greatly enhanced by such a mode of treatment. A native of Carolina, ...
— Hardy Ornamental Flowering Trees and Shrubs • A. D. Webster
... seas and lakes, mud, sand, and pebbles are annually spread out by rivers and currents. There are also great masses of limestone growing in some seas, chiefly composed of corals and shells, or, as in the depths of the Atlantic, of chalky mud made ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... two people entered. One of them, a dazzling beauty with glorious black hair and the tread of a princess, a picture of perfection from jeweled sandals to coiffured hair, was Charmion Kane. Behind her came her brother, whose face was chalky white. But Charmion, as she crossed to Kleig and kissed him, while her eyes were luminous with love, held her head proudly ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... chalky white and her hands trembled. They got off the railroad tracks and into the streets of Willow Springs. A change came over Melville Stoner. Of a sudden he seemed just a man of forty, a little embarrassed by the presence of the younger woman, a little hesitant. ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... with dead bodies, the trumpets sound the attack, the survivors, obeying an irresistible impulse, spring to the front. The ridges are crested with human masses swaying to and fro, and the first red uniform is seen in the streets of Montebello, in relief against the chalky facades bristling with Austrian guns, pouring forth their ammunition on the enemy below. The soldiers burst into the houses, the courtyards, the enclosures; every instant you hear the breaking open of doors, the crashing ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... exposing the reddened conjunctiva to view. Sunlight is painful, as is shown by the fact that the animal keeps the eyes continuously closed. This inflammation may extend to the cornea, causing it to assume a slightly clouded appearance in mild cases or a chalky whiteness in more severe affection. Cases of ulceration of the cornea followed by perforation and subsequent escape of the aqueous humor, leading to shrinking of the eyeball and permanent loss of sight, have been recorded, but these are relatively rare, although slight ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... but often destroy the blood-vessels, chiefly the larger arteries, as the arch of the aorta or the basilar artery of the brain. In the walls of these vessels may be gradually deposited a morbid product, the result of disordered nutrition, sometimes chalky, sometimes bony, with usually a ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... of light. Five minutes after we take up our slow advance, again interrupted by halts that grow longer and longer. The journey ends with daybreak, and leaning from the car window, worn out by the long watch of the night, I look out upon the country that surrounds us: a succession of chalky plains, closing in the horizon, a band of pale green like the color of a sick turquoise, a flat country, gloomy, ...
— Sac-Au-Dos - 1907 • Joris Karl Huysmans
... on his back. He got up, grinding his teeth. His hands were tied behind him. He turned his back on the broken rock and sawed the ropes against it. To his dismay he felt the rock edge crumble away. It was some chalky, friable stuff, and it ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... which I Answer, That Hemp or Flax (one or the other) may plentifully be had in every County of England: Take Sussex as an example; any indifferent good Land, Chalky, &c. from the foot of the Downes to the Sea-side, with double Folding or Dunging, and twice Plowing, will produce Hemp in abundance; yet though their Land be rich enough, dry, &c. it will not produce good Flax: But to supply that, many Thousand ...
— Proposals For Building, In Every County, A Working-Alms-House or Hospital • Richard Haines
... a lonely desert beach, Where the white foam was scatter'd, A little shed uprear'd its head, Though lofty barks were shatter'd. The sea-weeds gath'ring near the door, A sombre path display'd; And, all around, the deaf'ning roar Re-echo'd on the chalky shore, By the green ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... Seine, commanding the river in both directions. It was clear at a glance that when Roger the Dane laid here the first stone of his pirates' stronghold, to protect his port of Harfleur, the salt water must have dashed right up against the chalky cliff; but the centuries during which the silt of the Vosges had been carried down the river and piled up against the rocks at its mouth, had driven the castle inland for an eighth of a mile. Melcourt-le-Danois which had once looked ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... as bad, but in a different way. Leaden clouds went scudding from horizon to horizon, accentuating the chalky whiteness of the cliffs, and reflecting their sombre hue on the gray waters. A cold, raw wind swept through the old town, lashing the sea to milk-crested waves. It was an ugly day for cross-Channel passages, but the expectant onlookers sighted ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... constant tippling, culminating in a wild debauch, had shattered him. He stood in a reeling world. And the fear weakening his limbs changed his drunken stupor to a heart-heaving sickness. He swayed to and fro, with a cold sweat oozing from his chalky face. ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... to be heard, except the early morning cub-hunters routing woodlands, and the autumn stag-hunters of Exmoor, harrier packs are hard at work racing down and up the steep hillside and along the chalky valleys of Brighton Downs, preparing old sportsmen for the more earnest work of November—training young ones into the meaning of pace, the habit of riding fast down, and the art of climbing quickly, yet not ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... with her own petard, for, being heavily made up, she could not and would not follow the leader. After this Charles Reade acquitted me of the use of "pigments red," but he still kept up a campaign against "Chalky," as he humorously christened my powder-puff. "Don't be pig-headed, love," he wrote to me once; "it is because Chalky does not improve you that I forbid it. Trust unprejudiced and friendly eyes and drop ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... the familiar street and stopped at the door of the Lorimers' house, the gray dawn was breaking. Before its wan color, the street lamps turned to a sickly yellow, and the asphalt street stretched away between them like a long chalky ruler bordered with dots of luminous paint. Above him, the lights in the house glared out across the sombre dawn, and something in their steady, unsympathetic glow, in the gray dawn and in the yellowing lamps ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... at the stile leading to "Knight's Portion," as it was called, and a very barren portion must the poor Knight have possessed if it was all his property. It was a sloping chalky field or rather corner of a down, covered with very short grass and thistles, which defied all the attacks of Uncle Roger and his sheep. On one side was a sort of precipice, where the chalk had been dug away, ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... them is land of some little height, and quite dry. It is ooelitic on the east, chalky on the south, and the old towns and the old roads look from all round this amphitheatre of dry land down upon the alluvial flats beneath. Peterboro', Cambridge, Lynn, are all just off the Fens, and the Ermine street runs on the bank which forms ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... Channel was smooth as glass and as the sun rose, the far chalky cliffs gleamed along the horizon, a belt of fire. I waved a good-bye to Old England and then turned to see the spires of Dunkirk, which were visible in the distance before us. On the low Belgian coast we could see trees and steeples, resembling a mirage over the level surface of the sea; at length, ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... in the doctor's face, as if life and death hung on his lips. "Have the goodness to leave us," he added tartly, perceiving she did not stir, but continued her fearful, scrutinizing glance. She started at his altered tone, flushed crimson, then paled to a chalky whiteness, ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... moon was at its full. Huge, white, embossed, cut out, it did not shine—it glared from the sky. It made a melted moonstone of the atmosphere. It faded the few clouds to a sapphire-gray, just touched here and there with the chalky dot of a star. It slashed a silver trail across a sea jet-black except where the waves rimmed it with snow. Up in the white enchantment, but not far above them, the strange air-creatures were flying. They were not birds; ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... is a gum creek running to north-east. To the west is the same range, and a number of conical hills between. Changed our bearing to 220 degrees in order to break through the range. This range is very stony, composed of a hard milky-white flint stone, and white and yellow chalky substance, with a gradual descent on the other side to the south, which is the finest salt-bush country that I have seen, with a great quantity of grass upon it. The grey mare has been very bad; her belly was very much swollen, but this morning she seemed better. Towards afternoon, ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... manacles. Stewart's face took on a chalky whiteness. Hawe, in a slow, stupid embarrassment beyond his control, removed his sombrero in a respect that ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey |
