"Coal-black" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... getting into bed, this good woman was summoned by a strange, squint-eyed, little, ugly old fellow to follow him straightway, and attend upon his wife. In spite of her instinctive repulsion she could not resist the command; and in a moment the little man whisked her, with himself, upon a large coal-black horse with eyes of fire, which stood waiting at the door. Ere long she found herself at the door of a neat cottage; the patient was a decent-looking woman who already had two children, and all things were prepared for her visit. When the child—a ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... Cappuccini. Signor Vozzi! How many travellers in the South recall with infinite pleasure their host's tall commanding figure, his snowy drooping whiskers, the sun-shade that was rarely out of his hand, his old-fashioned courteous manners, and his famous family of cats, whereof the coal-black Nerone was the prime favourite, a feline monster almost as tyrannical as his Imperial namesake of evil reputation. Signor Vozzi's striking personality, the sable fur of agate-eyed Nerone, the eternal sunshine, and the wide all-embracing views over sea and land, ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... Times, with their distresses, inarticulate gaspings and 'impossibilities;' meeting a tall Lifeguardsman in his snow-white trousers, or seeing those two statuesque Lifeguardsmen in their frowning bearskins, pipe-clayed buckskins, on their coal-black sleek-fiery quadrupeds, riding sentry at the Horse-Guards,—it strikes one with a kind of mournful interest, how, in such universal down-rushing and wrecked impotence of almost all old institutions, this oldest Fighting Institution is still so young! Fresh-complexioned, ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... casements shone With gold and ivory and elephant-bone.... Just then from the doorway, as fat as shotes, Came the cake-walk princes in their long red coats, Canes with a brilliant lacquer shine, And tall silk hats that were red as wine. And they pranced with their butterfly partners there, Coal-black maidens with pearls in their hair, Knee-skirts trimmed with the jassamine sweet, And bells on ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... coal-black natives shouted joyously as they stood by the shore of Lake Nyasa, and saw across the blue waters what a European would have taken for water-spouts, or ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... ice, perhaps? Down into the cold, coal-black water? And then, in the spring, to float up to the surface, all horrible and unrecognisable, with your ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... His coal-black eye, his balanced walk, His sable apron, white with chalk, His listless meditation, His curly locks, his sallow cheeks, His board of celebrated Greeks, Proclaim ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... his story on an ancient legend, found in Reginald Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft, concerning the horn and sword of Thomas of Hercildoune. Cannobie Dick, a jolly horse-cowper, was led by a mysterious stranger through an opening in a hillside into a long range of stables. In every stall stood a coal-black horse, and by every horse lay a knight in coal-black armour, with a drawn sword in his hand. All were as still and silent as if hewn out of marble. At the far end of a gloomy hall, illuminated, like the ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... and gold brocade; a Frenchwoman, called Josephine, with embroidered red slippers and black stockings; and a Jewess, called Sol, with a band of silk handkerchiefs tied round her forehead above her coal-black curls, with her fingers pricked out with henna and ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... true, and that when they have heard the worst, the 'half has not been told them;' for there are perpetrated here foul deeds of darkness of which man may not speak. You may also tell them," he said, looking around with a smile, while a tear of gratitude trembled in his eye and rolled down his coal-black cheek —"tell them of the blessings that the Gospel has ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... luncheon; there a small party of Memons are discussing affairs over their 'bidis' while on all sides are children playing with the paper toys, rattles and tin wheels which the hawkers offer at such seasons of merry-making. Coal-black Africans, ruddy Pathans and yellow Bukharans squat on the open turf to the west of the Victoria and Albert Museum; Mughals in long loose coats and white arch-fronted turbans wander about smoking cigars ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... in black clothes, wore a cloak, with a cape, and had the brim of his hat slouched over his eyes, which were coal-black and piercing. He had a heavy black mustache and imperial, which gave him a rather savage expression, and, withal, he ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... itself before they were hastened out of the exit of the tunnel, their situation would be just as bad as ever. Ramon would, of course, lose no time in following them up, either by a spare boat, which he might have had concealed in the vaulted chamber, or else on his fast, coal-black horse which he might ride across the rocky range, far above ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... not an ill-tempered girl, but the sight of those gay city people annoyed her, and when, at she sang the Jubilate Deo, she saw the soft blue orbs of the blonde and the coal-black eyes of the brunette, turning wonderingly toward her, she was conscious of returning their glance with as much of scorn as it was possible for her to show. Anna tried to ask forgiveness for that feeling in the prayers which followed; but, when the services were over, and she saw a ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... race Which as himself he loves; thus if we fall, We fall not with the anguish, the disgrace, Of falling unrevenged. The stirring call Of vengeance rings within me! Warriors all, The word is vengeance, and the spur despair. Away with coward wiles!—Death's coal-black pall Be now our standard!—Be our torch the glare Of cities fired! our fifes, the shrieks that fill ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... of Men with speed, And saddled straight his coal-black steed; Down the yawning steep he rode That leads to Hela's[2] drear abode. Him the Dog of Darkness spied; His shaggy throat he open'd wide, While from his jaws, with carnage fill'd, Foam and human gore ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... consular agent had told them of the interior of the wild Bambara country. As they were saying good night to their hospitable host and hostess, there was a knock at the door. In response to M. Desplaines shouted: "Come in," a tall coal-black figure stalked into the lamp-light. The glow shone warmly on his black skin and lit up the mighty muscles that played beneath it. The strength of the man was evidently tremendous. The boys, to their surprise, recognized him at ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... attributes in the man, very objectionable in the sight of some people, which to her were not specially disagreeable. She thought him rather good-looking than otherwise, in spite of a slight defect in his left eye. His coal-black, glossy hair commanded and obtained her admiration, and she found his hooky nose to be handsome. She did not think much of the ancestral blood of which he had boasted, and hardly believed that he would ever become a bishop. But he was popular, and with a rich, titled ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... generally, and never went out hunting at all. He was dignified, and tall, very handsome, no doubt,—and a lord. The grand question was that;—could she love him? Could she make another picture, and paint him as her hero? There were doubtless heroic points in the side wave of that coal-black lock,—coal-black where the few grey hairs had not yet shown themselves, in his great height, ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... flat feet like ducks' feet; its tail forked like a swallow, but longer and broader, and the fork deeper than that of the swallow, with very long wings; the top or crown of the head of this noddy was coal-black, having also small black streaks round about and close to the eyes; and round these streaks on each side a pretty broad white circle. The breast, belly, and underpart of the wings of this noddy were white; and the back and upper part of its wings of a faint black or smoke colour. See a picture ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... appearance, certainly, but to the untutored and inartistic eye of the writer it produces a horrid, unnatural effect. According to our ideas, flaming red hair looks uncanny and of vulgar, uneducated taste, when associated with coal-black eyes and a complexion like gathering darkness. These vain mortals seem inclined to think that in me they have discovered something to be petted and made much of, treating me pretty much as a troop of affectionate little girls - would treat a wandering kitten that might ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... clever, hidden flattery, which seemed like adoration, in every word he spoke, every tone of his voice, every glance of his coal-black eyes, that seemed in some way to atone for the long, gray, monotonous days that had weighed so heavily ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... with that trifling difficulty had he known who this was who had come softly up the stair and was now standing, irresolute, smiling, wondering, at the open door. She was a remarkably pretty, even handsome young lady, whose pale, clear, olive complexion and coal-black hair bespoke her Southern birth; while there was an eager and yet timid look in her lustrous, soft black eyes, and something about the mobile, half-parted mouth that seemed to say she hardly knew whether to cry or laugh over this meeting with an ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... the Royal Society in 1699, is, indeed, a work of remarkable merit, and has, in some respects, served as a model to subsequent inquirers. This "Pygmie," Tyson tells us "was brought from Angola, in Africa; but was first taken a great deal higher up the country"; its hair "was of a coal-black colour and strait," and "when it went as a quadruped on all four, 'twas awkwardly; not placing the palm of the hand flat to the ground, but it walk'd upon its knuckles, as I observed it to do when weak and had not strength enough ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... young man paid the price and held out his hand. The wise man took hold of the fingers, bent them back from the hand and pushed the cuff half way back to the elbow. He traced the course of the veins, ran his coal-black finger along each wrinkle of the palm, and all the time muttered to himself. Sometimes he nodded his head and gurgled approvingly. Again he hesitated and groaned feebly, as if the signs were sad. The young man had a scared look in his eyes. Then ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... the most perfect belief in the existence of vampires, and even assured me that he had seen them. The description he gave me perfectly corresponds with the features and character of the man before us. Oh, he is the exact personification of what I have been led to expect! The coal-black hair, large bright, glittering eyes, in which a wild, unearthly fire seems burning,—the same ghastly paleness. Then observe, too, that the woman with him is altogether unlike all others of her sex. She is a foreigner—a stranger. Nobody ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... only twenty-seven, he has been for a number of years a correo, or mail-rider, and a guide for travelling parties. His olive complexion is made still darker by exposure to the sun and wind, and his coal-black eyes shine with Southern heat and fire. He has one of those rare mouths which are born with a broad smile in each corner, and which seem to laugh even in the midst of grief. We had not been two hours together, before I knew his history from beginning to ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... shall serve!" said Lewis an instant later; for they brought out two handsome horses, one coal-black, the other ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... intently; it became quite silent now. The hour was growing late, the day had been overcast, and a damp chill that searched the marrow was settling as the short afternoon drew to a close. The prisoner's naked body showed very white beneath his shock of coal-black hair; his flesh seemed tender and the onlookers stared ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... for Chad when he came out on the porch, and she shook her curls and flashed her eyes in a way that almost alarmed him. Old Mammy dropped him a curtsey, for she had had her orders, and, behind her, Snowball, now a tall, fine-looking coal-black youth, grinned a welcome. The three girls were walking under the trees, with their arms mysteriously twined about one anther's waists, and the poetess walked down toward them with the three lads, Richard Hunt following. Chad could ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... whiter than the clouds which lay piled above the westward mountains. His two sons, Hassam and Elzemah, followed astride horses as black as night—horses the distinguished pedigrees of which were cited in the books of Ibn Zaid. Back of them came one hundred swarthy warriors on other coal-black mounts, whose flashing sides flung back the morning rays. Their flowing linen robes were like the snow, and from their turbans gleamed gems of value. Each horseman bore at his girdle a purse, a kerchief, and a poinard; and in their ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... shoulder; broad-chested, with straight, sinewy legs; and covered with thick, wavy, cream-coloured hair from the tips of his short ears to the end of his bushy tail—all except the left side of his face. That was black from ear to nose—coal-black; and in the centre of this storm-cloud his eye ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... moment there came suddenly along up the Via Sacra a tall man, deeply enveloped in a mantle, who drew near the fountain without looking round, threw down his hat, and held a coal-black, curly, almost perpendicular, hindhead under the stream of water. But hardly had he, turning upward, caught a glimpse of the profile of Albano, absorbed in his fancies, when he started up, all dripping, stared at the count, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Gian' Battista, the incarnation of the courage, the fidelity, the honour of 'the people.' Signor Viola does not think much of Sulaco natives. Both of them, the old Spartan and that white-faced Linda, with her red mouth and coal-black eyes, were looking rather fiercely after the fair one. Ramirez was warned off. Father Viola, I am told, threatened ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... true of Bosworth field; His eyebrow dark, and eye of fire, Showed spirit proud and prompt to ire; Yet lines of thought upon his cheek Did deep design and counsel speak. His forehead, by his casque worn bare, His thick moustache, and curly hair, Coal-black, and grizzled here and there, But more through toil than age; His square-turned joints, and strength of limb, Showed him no carpet knight so trim, But in close fight a champion grim, ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... by about 800 Hydah Indians, a very remarkable race of people. The most common type of the adult unmixed Hydah is about five feet, seven inches in height, thick-set, large-boned, with fairly regular broad features, coal-black hair and eyes, and a bronze complexion. They have generally—both men and women—finely developed breasts and fore-arms, caused by their almost daily use of the canoe paddle from infancy. A few have well-formed legs, though ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden
... doors and windows, and crowded about, hundreds deep, on the outside. Those audiences formed a brilliantly diversified patch of colour. The hue of their faces ranged from the clear olive of the pure-blood Spaniards down through the yellow and brown shades of the Mestizos to the coal-black Carib and the Jamaica Negro. Scattered among them were little groups of Indians with faces like stone idols, wrapped in gaudy fibre-woven blankets—Indians down from the mountain states of Zamora and Los Andes and Miranda to trade their gold ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... upon the ground, as far as it would reach, then he drew a figure with white chalk at each of the four corners, like interlaced triangles, and taking the vinculum of the heavenly creature, or the signet of the sun-angel, which was written with the blood of a coal-black raven upon virgin parchment, out of the hand of the Duke, hung it upon a new dagger, which no man had ever used, and fixed the same in the ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... death is aflare With a torch of back-blown fire, And the coal-black deeps of the quivering air Rend for ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... possible. In the background was another woman—a tiny old lady who must have been at least eighty. She was, in spite of her tininess, a very striking-looking personage; she was dressed all in black, and had snow-white hair, a dead-white face, and snapping, vivid, coal-black eyes. She looked as amazed as the other two, but ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... time that I had this hoary old tarantula, I had another smaller, coal-black fellow who went into a perfect ecstasy of anger and ferocity every time any one came near him. He would stand on his hind legs and paw wildly with fore legs and palpi, and lunge forward fiercely at my inquisitive pencil. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Creagan. He was about thirty, above middle height, every mold and line of him slender and fine and strong. His face was resolute, vivacious, intelligent; his eyes were large and brown, pleasant and fearless. A wide black hat, pushed back now, showed a broad forehead white against crisp coal-black hair and the pleasant tan of neck and cheek. But it was not his dark, forceful face alone that lent him such distinction. Rather it was the perfect poise and balance of the man, the ease and unconscious grace of every swift and sure motion. He wore a working garb now—blue ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... he uttered in a serious tone as he leaned against the Station-wall. He was a thick-set, ruddy-faced man, with coal-black eyes, the whites of which were not white, but a brownish-yellow, and apparently scarred and seamed, as if they had been operated upon. They were eyes that had worked hard in looking through wind and weather. ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... taken her place upon the chair near the open door in the porter's lodge, and sat there with her cold, immovable face staring into empty space with her great coal-black, glistening eyes, while her hands were busily flying, making the polished ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... took out of his pocket a small parcel from which he drew a lock of coal-black hair, which he spread ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... tired of the store—indeed, I should like to know who would have enjoyed it. It dated back to the beginning of the last century, a tarred, coal-black, ramshackle hut. The windows were low and small, the windowpanes diminutive. The ceiling was low. Everything was arranged in such a way as to exclude the possibility of lofty flights of ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... to act on any quarter as occasion might require. This corps, comprising the flower of his chivalry, was chiefly drawn from Alvarado's troop, greatly to the discontent of that captain. The governor himself rode a coal-black charger, and wore a rich surcoat of brocade over his mail, through which the habit and emblems of the knightly order of St. James, conferred on him just before his departure from Castile, were conspicuous.20 It was a point of ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... Indian is rather small in stature, but everything about him denotes symmetry and strength. His limbs are almost straight, and their muscles are as hard as iron. The elasticity of his movements, when in the least excited, shows a high degree of physical training. His coal-black eye exhibits an amount of treachery rarely seen elsewhere, proving the truth of the Chinese adage, that "the tongue may deceive, but the eye ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... a beauty that is short-lived with the people of her race. The afternoon sun shone down fiercely on her waving coal-black locks, and brought a rich colour to her nut-brown cheek; she had one little flimsy, ragged garment, neither long, broad, nor thick, which hung about her picturesquely; and, with her soft, dark, sleepy eyes, the rows of little white ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... past few weeks Todd had had the house to himself. Coal-black Aunt Jemima, with her knotted pig-tails, capacious bosom, and unconfined waist, forty years his senior and ten shades darker in color, it is true, looked after the pots and pans, to say nothing of a particular spit on which her master's joints and game were roasted; but the upper part ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... and suddenly, my eyes were irresistibly drawn to a large black spot right between her shoulders. What could it be? Were my eyes deceiving me? But no, there it was, staring me in the face! Then my mind reverted to the faint down on her lip, the heavy eyebrows almost meeting over her coal-black eyes, her glossy black hair —I should have been prepared for ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... a feeling that she was watching me day and night. Occasionally, when she thought I was looking down, I caught the vivid gaze of her coal-black eyes looking across at me through her long ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... Moses Morgenstein, a naturalized British subject, who showed his love for his adopted country by trading as Stanley Harcourt. He was a striking figure with his coal-black hair and nails, his drooping eye-lashes and under-lip, and the downward sweep of his ingratiating nose. The war found him burning with enthusiasm, and I give here one verse of a fine poem which he wrote and, as I will remember, recited in Mrs. ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... taketh the reins of Greyfell, nor yet will back him there, But afoot through the cold slaked ashes of yester-eve doth fare, With his eyes cast down to the earth; till he heareth the wind, and a cry, And raiseth a face brow-knitted and beholdeth men anigh, And beholdeth Hogni the King set grey on his coal-black steed, And beholdeth the image of Sigurd, the King in the golden weed: Then he stayeth and stareth astonished and setteth his hand to his sword; Till Hogni cries from his saddle, and his word ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... in armour, and mounted on a coal-black charger, arrived at the principal hostelry in Ecija, and on his shield he bore for his coat of arms a white cat rampant, and, underneath, ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... does the daisy see Down in the grassy thickets? The grasshoppers green and brown, And the shining, coal-black crickets. ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... pillows of the adjoining bed lay the fair head of Dubova who was still fast asleep. All was exactly the same as usual; only the crumpled dress flung carelessly across a chair told its tale. The flush on her face at waking soon gave place to an ashen pallor that was heightened by her coal-black eyebrows. With the awful clearness of an overwrought brain she rehearsed her experiences of the last few hours. She saw herself walking through silent streets at sunrise and hostile windows seemed watching her, while the few persons she met turned round to look at her. On she went in the dawn-light, ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... some force."—"But," says she, "pray, where did you get this boat, as you call it?"—"O madam!" says I, "that is too long and fatal a story to begin upon now; this boat was made many thousand miles from hence, among a people coal-black, a quite different sort from us; and, when I first had it, I little thought of seeing this country; but I will make a faithful relation of all to you when we come home." Indeed, I began to wish heartily we were there, for it grew into the night; and having strolled so far ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... troops under arms for the first time—the most of the organization of colored soldiers having been, done since our capture. It was startling at first to see a stalwart, coal-black negro stalking along with a Sergeant's chevrons on his arm, or to gaze on a regimental line of dusky faces on dress parade, but we soon got used to it. The first strong peculiarity of the negro soldier that impressed itself, upon us was his literal obedience ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... are cut from the hides of oxen, and it is easy to imagine what a splendid sight was presented by a Zulu impi twenty thousand strong, divided into several regiments, one with snow-white shields and tall cranes' feathers on their heads, one with coal-black shields and black plumes, and others with red and mottled shields, and bands of fur upon their foreheads. In their war with the English many of the Zulus were armed with muzzle-loading guns and rifles of the worst description, ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... cheeks, and flowing beard. Foremost among the Spanish grandees, and close to Philip, stood the famous favorite, Ruy Gomez, or as he was familiarly called "Re y Gomez" (King and Gomez), a man of meridional aspect, with coal-black hair and beard, gleaming eyes, a face pallid with intense application, and slender but handsome figure; while in immediate attendance upon the emperor, was ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... being quite five feet ten in height, and is strongly built: his face is of a broad, massive type, he has a low, square forehead, large dark eyes, a short straight nose with dilated nostrils, and a coal-black beard and mustache; while an enormous mouth, with irregular but white teeth, and a chin somewhat concealed by his beard, and not at all in character with the otherwise determined appearance of his face, must ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... length a league against them, To molest them and destroy them. Hiawatha, wise and wary, Often said to Chibiabos, "O my brother! do not leave me, Lest the Evil Spirits harm you!" Chibiabos, young and heedless, Laughing shook his coal-black tresses, Answered ever sweet and childlike, "Do not fear for me, O brother! Harm and evil come not near me!" Once when Peboan, the Winter, Roofed with ice the Big-Sea-Water, When the snow-flakes, whirling downward, Hissed among the withered oak-leaves, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... little black-eyed manager and wife, and the most beloved of Deaneville matrons, was in the bare, odorous hallway. She was clad in faded blue denim overalls, and a floating transparent kimono of some cheap stuff. Her coal-black hair was rigidly puffed and pinned, and ornamented with two coquettish red roses, and her ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... going to design a postage-stamp for Bucarest, it struck me that the natural thing would be a woman in the corner of an open victoria—after seeing scores of them all alike, you feel as though you could do it in a minute: one slashing line for the hat, two coal-black holes, and a dash of carmine in a patch of marble white, and a pair of silk-covered ankles crossed and pointed in a way that seems Parisian enough after one has become used to the curious boxes in which women enclose their ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... ten minutes he was brought downstairs. His appearance was most unprepossessing. He was very short, with a huge head and a remarkable shock of coal-black hair. Having hastily risen from bed, he had retained his pyjamas, but a long frock-coat hung nearly to his slippers, and in one hand he carried a pair of gloves, and in the other a huge eccentric silk hat of the true chimney-pot type. These were details, and one might have passed them over. ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... with the cook (and it means hot coffee, dry socks, and other little comforts being in favour with the cook) we had chiefly to thank Dennis. Our coal-black comrade loved jokes much, but his own dignity just a little more; and the instinctive courtesy which was as natural to Dennis as the flow of his fun, made him particularly acceptable ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... was a tall vagabond of the most picturesque type. No ragamuffin was ever so tattered and torn as this rakish individual. His clothes barely hung together on his lank frame; he was barefoot and hatless; a great mop of black hair topped his shrewd, rugged face; coal-black eyes snapped and twinkled beneath shaggy brows and a delighted, knowing grin spread slowly over his rather boyish countenance. He was not a creature to strike terror to the heart of any one; on the contrary, his mischievous, sprightly ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... propriety, are not cleanly. The women bathe their hands once a day, but any other washing is unknown. They never wash their clothes, and wear the same by day and night. I am afraid to speculate on the condition of their wealth of coal-black hair. They may be said to be very dirty—as dirty fully as masses of our people at home. Their houses swarm with fleas, but they are not worse in this respect than the Japanese yadoyas. The mountain villages have, however, the appearance of extreme cleanliness, being devoid ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... remember me, Mr. Hepworth, but I knew you at the first sight. Ask my lady here. Didn't I say, Mrs. Stacy, that gentleman with the coal-black mustacher, and them splendid eyes, is Mr. Hepworth, if ever I set my two eyes on Mr. Hepworth, which I did many a time, when he used to ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... and a half, and stood thirty-five by thirty on the ground. It had a north room and south room, with bedrooms attached; it had four chambers, two large and two small, above; and a kitchen, a tea-room, and wood-house in the rear. It was painted white without, with a coal-black border on the tops of the chimneys, and had blinds of Paris green. It had white walls and oak-grained doors and casings in the south room, and white walls, doors and casings in the north room. The north room was Fanny's, and the spare bed was spread with a blue and white carpet-coverlet, ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... begun. The blood had run down on his neck and shoulders, coagulating and stiffening as it flowed, until it had formed a large, red, spongy mass around his neck and on his naked back between the shoulder-blades. This, with the coal-black hair, the chalky face partly buried in mud, and the distorted, agonized attitude of the half-nude body, made one of the most ghastly pictures I had ever seen. There was already a stench of decomposition in the hot air of the tent, and the coagulated ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... rubbed her bony hands together; and laughed deprecatingly. She was a little woman, with very bright, beady black eyes, and hair that was still coal-black in spite of her wrinkled face. Her son was like her, but taller and better looking. One had but to glance at the child to realise that she must be the image of ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... in my life". With that Theodoric wrapped a bathing-cloak round him, and calling for his horse, prepared to set off in chase of the stag. The horse was long in coming, and meanwhile a mighty steed, coal-black, suddenly appeared before him. Theodoric sprang upon the strange charger's back, and it flew off with him as swiftly as a bird. His best groom on his best horse followed vainly behind. "My lord", cried he, "when wilt thou come back, that thou ridest so fast and far". But Theodoric knew ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... answered Tostig; and he seemed to pause as in doubt;—when, made aware of this parley, King Harold Hardrada, on his coal-black steed, with his helm all shining with gold, rode from the lines, ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... looked long enough where this wise old raven came flying; he was, and remained, alone. And without troubling about anything or uttering a sound, he sped on his strong coal-black wings through the dense rain-mist, steering ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... table at Richard out of sea-blue eyes shaded by very heavy black lashes, which, it struck Richard quite suddenly, were much like another pair which he had had one very limited opportunity of observing. The boy also possessed a heavy thatch of coal-black hair, a lock of which was continually falling over his forehead and having to be thrust back. "Because father says," Ted went, on, "it's a whole lot better for children to be brought up together, so they will learn to be polite to each ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... persons of the first rank and condition; that any one of them (provided he likes them) may now send him, for their service, to Constantinople at half a day's warning; that Time has not yet been able to make a visible change in any part of him but the colour of his hair, from a fierce coal-black to that of a milder milk-white: When I have taken this liberty with him, methinks it cannot be taking a much greater if I at once should tell you that this person was ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... of the Nusairiyeh women, "when young, they are handsome, often fair, with light hair and jet-black eyes; or the rarer beauty of fair eyes and coal-black hair ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... and level; but over a mile square of it was ringed and streaked and striped with a thousand branching streams of liquid and gorgeously brilliant fire! It looked like a colossal railroad map of the State of Massachusetts done in chain lightning on a midnight sky. Imagine it—imagine a coal-black sky shivered into a tangled net-work of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... flees before his kisses. Even the stars and planets sympathize with human beings, and live in constant intercourse with them and their affairs. Stars become messengers; a proud maiden boasts to be more beautiful than the sun; the sun takes it ill, and is advised to burn her coal-black in revenge. The moon hides herself in the clouds when the great Tzar dies. One of the most interesting Servian tale, called "The Heritage," is the fruit of the moon and the morning star's gossiping with each other. It ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... up by later reflection on that meeting and its consequences. I only know that as I bowed and left her, the vision that I bore away was not of the gleaming gems, the yellow face, the white hair, or waving fan, but of two coal-black and impenetrable eyes. ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... superiority which one sacrificial horse in a Spanish bullfight ring has over another, Dennis de Brian de Boru suddenly produced the remnants of a bag of cream puffs and, by means of three well-directed, squashing shots on the rear quarters of his coal-black steed, plunged ahead and won the road, ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... girls said this also, but they did not say: "Beware of Rudy!" No, not even the grave mothers, for he nodded to them quite as amicably as to the young girls. He was so bold and gay, his cheeks were brown, his teeth fresh and white and his coal-black eyes glittered; he was a handsome young fellow and but twenty years old. The icy water did not sting him when he swam, he could turn around in it like a fish; he could climb as did no one, and he was as firm on the rocky walls as a snail—for he had good ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... official registers; but, though the soft down is similar in fineness, it is very different in colour. Anthrax is Greek for coal. It is a happy denomination, reminding us of the Fly's mourning livery, a coal-black livery with silver tears. The same deep mourning garbs those parasitic Bees, and these are the only instances known to me of that violent opposition ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... snowdrift," said one. "The irascible old white-haired gentleman in the Pullman smoker; the good-natured travelling salesman; the wistful young widow in the day coach, with her six-year-old blue-eyed little daughter. A coal-black Pullman porter who braves the shrieking gale to bring in a tree from the copse along the track. Red-headed brakeman (kiddies of his own at home), frostbitten by standing all night between the couplings, holding parts of broken steampipe together so the Pullman car will keep warm. ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... his haunches, and sat there looking at me. His apple-green bow had wandered to the side of his neck, and one ear was turned back. Yet notwithstanding the fact that his appearance was so far grotesque, I felt no inclinations whatever towards mirth. His coal-black eyes were fixed upon me steadfastly, his tiny wrinkled face seemed like the shrivelled and age-worn caricature of some Eastern magician. He showed no signs of pleasure or of welcome at my coming, ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... how thou canst, have wind and tide thy friend, This hand, fast wound about thy coal-black hair, Shall, whiles thy head is warm and new cut off, Write in the dust this sentence with thy blood, 'Wind-changing Warwick now ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... there was who didn't care, Whatever the furious storm might dare, A wonderful, hook-nosed bright-eyed fellow In a thin brown cape and a cap of yellow That perched on his dripping coal-black hair. A red scarf set off his throat and bound him, Crossing his breast, and, winding round him, Flapped at his flank In a red streak dank; And his hose were red, with a purple sheen From his tunic's ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... city by seven o'clock, very like for the same reason—to take advantage of the cool of the day; and like us also, he must have had a very good horse to make that distance in that time. I glanced at his horse as the thought occurred to me, and saw that it was indeed a good horse. Coal-black, except for a white star on his forehead and one white stocking, he was powerfully built, and yet with such an easy stretch of limb as promised speed as well as endurance. I thought it a little strange that a country farmer should own a horse of such points ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... the world's comforter with weary gait His day's hot task hath ended in the West; The owl, night's herald, shrieks 'tis very late; The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest And coal-black clouds, that shadow heaven's light, Do summon us to part ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... grounds of her suburban residence, a large number of East-Side children. On her rounds of hospitality she was impressed with one strikingly beautiful little girl. She could not have been more than nine years old, but her coal-black eyes flashed with intelligence. The hostess introduced herself and ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... through the pure bright air, announcing the hour of devotion. The muleteer halts his burdened animals before the chapel, thrusts his staff through his belt behind, and enters with hat in hand, smoothing his coal-black hair, to hear a mass, and to put up a prayer for a prosperous wayfaring across the sierra. And now steals forth on fairy foot the gentle Senora, in trim basquina, with restless fan in hand, and dark eye flashing from ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... dismay, of warning, broke from the spectators, some of whom sprang forward to separate the pair. But there was something so awful in the expression of Hazon's countenance, in the glare of the coal-black eyes, in the drawn-in brows and livid horror of fiendish wrath, that even they stopped short. It was, as they said afterwards, as though they had looked into the ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... Godalming, and there had supper, for it was yet early, and the American girl had dropped a hint that we should not go near Frenbury till past midnight. As we sat at table in a private room, I saw that she was exceedingly handsome, with a pair of coal-black eyes and a shrewd, alert expression, but her American accent was not always pronounced. Indeed, when she liked, ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... of a different and darker type of beauty. Her hair was wavy like Nyleptha's but coal-black, and fell in masses on her shoulders; her complexion was olive, her eyes large, dark, and lustrous; the lips were full, and I thought rather cruel. Somehow her face, quiet and even cold as it is, gave an idea of passion in repose, and caused one to wonder involuntarily what ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... and threw himself face downward upon the ground. I sprang to my feet, my inert hand grasping my pistol, my mind paralyzed by the dreadful shape which had sprung out upon us from the shadows of the fog. A hound it was, an enormous coal-black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen. Fire burst from its open mouth, its eyes glowed with a smouldering glare, its muzzle and hackles and dewlap were outlined in flickering flame. Never in the delirious dream of a disordered brain ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... compelled to hold similar inquiries into cold-blooded crimes committed by Chinese coolies, found greater interest in observing Clancy. A subtle exultation had suddenly danced into the diminutive Franco-Irishman's expressive features when Market Street was first mentioned, and his coal-black eyes blazed in their slits at the sound of ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... and looked fixedly towards the house. Brett, too, gazed in silence. They saw a small, pale-faced, exceedingly handsome Italian—a young man, with coal-black eyes and a mass of shining black hair—scowling at them ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... and a most elegant bridle; indeed, the whole equipment would not have disgraced Rotten Row. But, the horse! My courage had to be "screwed to the sticking point" before I could mount him. He was a very fine animal—a magnificent coal-black charger sixteen hands high, with a most determined will of his own, not broken for the saddle. Mr. Forrest rode a splendid bay, which seldom went over six consecutive yards of ground without performing some ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... Among the Furies in the shades of Hell. Sweet are war's sorrows to her soul, and sweet Are evil deeds, and hatred and deceit. E'en Pluto, e'en her sister-fiends detest The monstrous shape, so many forms complete The grisly horrors of that hateful pest, So many a coal-black snake sprouts from ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... drawing-room which still retained some of its ancient splendour. Maria was a short, stumpy woman with a slight moustache and a wart on her chin, and was dressed in green satin, cut low to disclose her generous figure. About her stiff, coal-black hair was a heavy diamond bandeau. She was sitting on a settee, her feet hardly touching the ground, cleaning her nails with a little pocket-knife as the girl entered. Evidently this was her maid of honour, and she ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... is an interesting picture beneath the way-post: a girl in a blue calico gown, her face deep hidden in her red sunbonnet, sits upon a chestnut mount, with a laden market-basket before her; while by her side, astride a coal-black pony, which fretfully paws to be on his way, is a roughly dressed youth, his face shaded by a broad slouched hat of the cowboy order. They have evidently met there by appointment, and are so earnestly conversing—she with her hand resting lovingly, perhaps deprecatingly, upon his ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... tall blue campanulas. Above them, and before them, and below them, the ashes shook their green filigree in the bright sunshine; and through them glimpses were seen of the purple cliffs above, and, right in front, of the great cataract of Nant Gwynnant, a long snow-white line zigzagging down coal-black cliffs for many a hundred feet, and above it, depth beyond depth of purple shadow away into the very heart of Snowdon, up the long valley of Cwm-dyli, to the great amphitheatre of Clogwyn-y-Garnedd; while over ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... why—because he had no money and the Moudir could not 'eat off him' as he could off the money and property—he believes. He is a capital fellow, and in order to compensate me for what he eats he proposed to wash for me, and you would be amused to see Khayr with his coal-black face and filed teeth doing laundry-maid out in the yard. He fears the family will sell him and hopes he may fetch a good price for 'his boy'—only on the other hand he would so like me to buy him—and so his mind is disturbed. Meanwhile the having all ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... Italian palaces bears no comparison with the beauteous proportions of extinct vegetable forms with which the galleries of these instructive coal-mines are overhung.... The effect is heightened by the contrast of the coal-black colour of these vegetables with the light groundwork of the rock to which they are attached"—for you must not forget that it is upon the roof of the mine that the impressions of the plants which have been turned into coal are found, not upon the coal itself, though even there ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... it was difficult to believe that he knew any thing of so shocking a kind. I was introduced to the other, Mr Percy Marvale, and saw so much Italian, or perhaps gipsy, blood in his dark skin, and such a fierce expression in his coal-black eyes, that I was not so much surprised at his being implicated in the fearful deed. He looked just like one of the fellows on the stage who cut throats in a heroic fashion on the slightest provocation. But ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... had passed between himself and the dyers of the town, adding, "I can dye various kinds of red, such as rose-colour and jujubel-colour[FN202] and various kinds of green, such as grass-green and pistachio-green and olive and parrot's wing, and various kinds of black, such as coal-black and Kohl-black, and various shades of yellow, such as orange and lemon-colour," and went on to name to him the rest of the colours. Then said he, "O King of the age, all the dyers in thy city can not turn out of hand any ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... savagery. He wore the chapeau and dress-coat of a General of the American Army, with a large epaulette on one shoulder. He was very proud of the coat, because General Crook had given it to him. His shirt, leggings and moccasins were of buckskin, and the long braids of his coal-black hair, tied with strips of red flannel, gave the last ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... Majesty, that Colonel Toll, One of Field-Marshal Price Kutuzof's staff, In the retreating swirl of overthrow, Found Alexander seated on a stone, Beneath a leafless roadside apple-tree, Out here by Goding on the Holitsch way; His coal-black uniform and snowy plume Unmarked, his face disconsolate, his grey eyes Mourning in tears the fate of his brave array— All flying southward, save ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... to mind her baby. Dame Goody didn't like the look of the old fellow, but business is business; so she popped on her things, and went down to him. And when she got down to him, he whisked her up on to a large coal-black horse with fiery eyes, that stood at the door; and soon they were going at a rare pace, Dame Goody holding on to the old ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... touched the flower than the whole plant suffered a blight, its leaves turning coal-black as if ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... replied Jim. "She's about twenty years of age, I should say, with a dash of the gypsy in her, for she has coal-black hair and ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... greatcoats yellowish-green, and their muddy helmets sporting the crescent in place of our grenade. Their eyes are like balls of ivory or onyx, that shine from faces like new pennies, flattened or angular. Now and again comes swaying along above the line the coal-black mask of a Senegalese sharpshooter. Behind the company goes a red flag with a green hand in ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... on a coal-black steed, Himsel lap on behind her, An' he's awa' to the Hieland hills Whare her frien's ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... of a mountain eagle, with those overhanging brows and piercing, coal-black eyes of his; but I must admit that he is disappointingly tame when he looks at Smiles—as he does most of the time, to my furious jealousy. Alas, the eagle then becomes a sucking dove. She is apparently oblivious to the obvious fact ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... brow in sunlight glow'd; On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode; From underneath his helmet flow'd His coal-black curls as on he rode, As he rode down to Camelot. From the bank and from the river He flashed into the crystal mirror, "Tirra lirra," by ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... the tree, they beheld it completely leafless. Then the birds descended upon the tree. And the song of the birds was far sweeter than any strain they had ever heard before. Then they beheld a Knight, on a coal-black horse, clothed in black satin, coming rapidly towards them. And Kai met him and encountered him, and it was not long before Kai was overthrown. And the Knight withdrew. {36} And Arthur and his host ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... motion. I followed him as he sank down on a long slant to the lawn, swift as a bolt from the blue; then I rubbed my eyes in amaze. It was a pigeon of snowy whiteness that an instant before had been flying free; it was a coal-black nondescript that now fluttered feebly once or twice and then lay still on the gravelled path, close to the stone sun-dial. I ran down the steps and bent over the pitiful thing. Pfui!—the bird was but a charred ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... his first voyage in a square-rigged vessel. He was born in Hingham, and of course was called "Bucket-maker.'' The other watch was composed of about the same number. A tall, fine-looking Frenchman, with coal-black whiskers and curly hair, a first-rate seaman, named John (one name is enough for a sailor), was the head man of the watch. Then came two Americans (one of whom had been a dissipated young man of some property and respectable connections, and was reduced to duck trousers and monthly wages), a German, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... Neptune, an oblation due, Another bull to bright Apollo slew; A milk-white ewe, the western winds to please And one coal-black, to calm the stormy seas. DRYDEN, ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... mistakes the logic. Wordsworth does not celebrate any power at all in Paganism. Old Triton indeed! he's little better, in respect of the terrific, than a mail-coach guard, nor half as good, if you allow the guard his official seat, a coal-black night, lamps blazing back upon his royal scarlet, and his blunderbuss correctly slung. Triton would not stay, I engage, for a second look at the old Portsmouth mail, as once I knew it. But, alas! better things than ever stood on Triton's pins are now ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... graceful, unconscious of herself, her low but broad forehead crowned with a shining mass of long black hair that fell in heavy tresses over her shoulders, and made her pale olive complexion look paler still by the contrast of its coal-black hue. ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... furnished talk for a while. In the morning when they were rising for their candlelight breakfast, the hotel man glancing from the window exclaimed, "Here he is now!" and Josh peered forth to see in the light of sunrise something he had often heard of, but never before seen, a coal-black Fox, a giant among his kind. How slick and elegant his glossy fur, how slim his legs, and what a monstrous bushy tail; and the other Foxes moved aside as the patrician rushed in impatient haste to seize the food ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... you wake up, children, with somethin' into your head, Concernin' a han'some daughter, that's lyin' still an' dead, All scorched into coal-black cinders—perhaps you may not weep, But I rather think it'll happen you'll ...
— Farm Ballads • Will Carleton
... the crooel war. He wuz a gentleman uv the old skool—one uv the few left us in these degenerate days. His home wuz wun uv unalloyed happiness. Situated just back uv Mobeel, he had the finest plantashun in that section, and hed on it 250 niggers. All shades wuz represented. There wuz the coal-black Cuffee, whose feechers denoted the pure Afrikin, and whose awkward manners showed that he wuz not long from Afrika. There wuz the civilized mulatto, in whose veins the Guttle blood showed; the quadroon, in whom the good old Guttle blood predominated; and the octoroon, which ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... fragment of coal-black ware is entirely smooth on the outside, and indicates an unusually well finished and symmetrical vessel. Another shows the impression of basket-work, in which a wide fillet or splint has served as the warp and a small ...
— Illustrated Catalogue of a Portion of the Collections Made During the Field Season of 1881 • William H. Holmes
... and glad to find shelter, the ladies entered the house, where they were met by two young women, unmistakably the daughters of the host. Their sparkling eyes and coal-black hair, their round faces and regular features, were like his; and they were only less swarthy, from being less exposed to the sun. Their dress was in fashion, but commonly worn by the peasant women—the jacket and petticoat—but smarter, and of more costly stuffs than usual. Their ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... the peasants and a universal crossing of themselves, a caleche, with four horses, drove up behind us, overtook us, and drew up beside the coach. I could see from the flash of our lamps as the rays fell on them, that the horses were coal-black and splendid animals. They were driven by a tall man, with a long brown beard and a great black hat, which seemed to hide his face from us. I could only see the gleam of a pair of very bright eyes, which seemed red in the lamplight, as ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... appearance, Mr. Greatorex would have stood in no danger of being overlooked, even if he had not those twinkling jewel-like eyes, and two strands of coal-black hair trained across his large bumpy cranium, from the left ear to the ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... kissed the mermaid, and with sad hearts, bidding her good-by, they walked along the golden strand. When they had gone what seemed to them a long way, they began to feel weary; and just then they saw coming towards them a little man in a red jacket leading a coal-black steed. ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... think doves; at least, their flight was straight and swift like to that of doves. Yet of this I am not sure either, since I saw each of them for but a second. As they reached the man they appeared out of nothingness. They were of two colours, snow-white and coal-black. The white appeared upon his right side, the black upon his left side. Each bird in those never-ceasing streams hovered for an instant by his head, the white over his right shoulder, the black over his left shoulder, as though they ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... tourney's chance, And urge his coal-black charger on To an arbitrament by lance For lovely Alison; I mark the onset, see him hurl From broidered saddle to the dirt His rival, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... still more ugly than the negroes. Their complexion is a light bronze, stunted in stature, well-knit, and about the middle size. They have broad and somewhat compressed features, and thick, coal-black hair, hanging straight down, which the women sometimes wear in plaits fastened to the back of the head, and sometimes falling down loose about them. Their forehead is broad and low, the nose somewhat flattened, the eyes long and narrow, almost like those of the Chinese, ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... felled the pines on Pelion, and shaped them with the axe, and Argus taught them to build a galley, the first long ship which ever sailed the seas. They pierced her for fifty oars—an oar for each hero of the crew—and pitched her with coal-black pitch, and painted her bows with vermilion; and they named her Argo after Argus, and worked at her all day long. And at night Pelias feasted them like a king, and they slept in ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... The horse was a large, coal-black mustang, with fiery eyes and red, open nostrils. He was foaming at the mouth, and the white flakes had clouted his throat, counter, and shoulders. He was wet all over, and glittered as he moved with the play of his proud flanks. ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... hair, shaken down by her merriment, fell nearly to her slipper, like the skin of some coal-black beast, that had ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... to me are woven clouds, or what, If dames from spiders learn to warp their looms? If coal-black ghosts turn soldiers for the State, With wooden eyes, and ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... a large coal-black mustang, with a long full tail, pointed at the tip, and carried like the brush of a running fox. Even while in gallop, his neck slightly curved, and his proud figure, displayed against the smooth sward, called forth expressions ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... invincible General, of whom men tell such romantic tales?" And the army would march in, and the guns would rattle and leap along the village street, and, last of all, you—you, the General, the fabled hero—you would enter, on your coal-black charger, your pale set face seamed by an interesting sabre-cut. And then—but every boy has rehearsed this familiar piece a score of times. You are magnanimous, in fine—that goes without saying; you have a coal-black horse, and a sabre-cut, ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... was rising behind the redoubt of Cheverino, which stood two cannon-shots from our encampment. The moon was large and red, as is common at her rising; but that night she seemed to me of extraordinary size. For an instant the redoubt stood out coal-black against the glittering disk. It resembled the cone of a volcano at the ...
— How The Redoubt Was Taken - 1896 • Prosper Merimee
... men, beautiful as angels, clad in the skins of the black fox, and playing upon ivory jew's harps, all mounted upon coal-black steeds. ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... steed, he set out for the fortress of Fiach O'Duda. Over the first high wall nimbly leaped the magic horse, and Sculloge called aloud on the Druid to come out and surrender his sword. Then came out a tall, dark man, with coal-black eyes and hair and melancholy visage, and made a furious sweep at Sculloge with the flaming blade. But the Druidic beast sprang back over the wall in the twinkling of an eye and rescued his rider, leaving, however, his tail behind in the court-yard. Then Sculloge ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... broomsticks mounted high, Seen like shadows against the sky; Crossing the track of owls and bats, Hugging before them their coal-black cats. ...
— The One Hoss Shay - With its Companion Poems How the Old Horse Won the Bet & - The Broomstick Train • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... take the gold-embroidered robe which adorned Tora the fair. It suits not me. Kraka am I called in coal-black baize. I have ever herded goats on the stones ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... soon contrive to hire the 'contraband,' get him to working, and make something better of him than planterocracy ever did. At least, this is what Northern ship-captains and farmers contrive to do, in their way, with numbers of coal-black negroes, and we have no doubt that the soldier-planter will manage, 'somehow,' to get out a cotton-crop, even with the aid of hired negroes! Here, again, a bounty could be given to the wounded. Observe, we mean a bounty which shall, to as high a degree as is possible or expedient, fully recompense ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... ball seemed to fill the exit. The red sun, barred with bands of coal-black cloud, was dipping into the farther verge of ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... evil liver. Some even believed him to have committed some great crime; but none rightly knew his history, and his present sanctity and power and holiness were never doubted. A single look into that stern, worn, powerful face, with the coal-black eyes gleaming in their deep sockets, was enough to convince the onlooker that the man was intensely, even terribly in earnest. His was the leading spirit in that small and austere community, and he began at once to exercise a strong influence upon each of the three youths ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... instantly, as if a battering-ram had been let swing past me at many layers of stretched gauze, I beheld, through a tattered deep hole in the fog, a roaring vision of flames, borne down and springing up again; a dance of purple gleams on the strip of unveiled water, and three coal-black ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... filigree buttons, an embroidered shirt-bosom with gold studs, and a dark navy-blue broadcloth coat, with standing collar and anchor gilt buttons. His head-gear was simply a white chip hat, with a very narrow brim and a fluttering red ribbon; but beneath it his coal-black hair behind was chopped as close as could be, leaving a single long and well-oiled ringlet on each side, which curled like snakes around a pair of large gold rings pendent from his ears. His complexion was dark, bilious, and swarthy, with a thin, sharp nose, and a million of minute wrinkles, all ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... in the early afternoon that Norvin Blake received a note from a coal-black urchin, who, after many attempts, had finally succeeded in penetrating ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... night and morning, haunted the purlieus of his abode. His house fell under such a load of infamy that no one dared to sleep in it, until municipal improvement leveled the structure with the ground. And my father has often been told in the nursery how the devil's coach, drawn by six coal-black horses with fiery eyes, would drive at night into the West Bow, and belated people might see the dead Major through ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... heavenly than an earthly creature. This lady appeared before them in a most rich gown of purple velvet, costly embroidered; her hair hanging down loose, as fair as the beaten gold, and of such length that it reached down to her hams; having most amorous coal-black eyes; a sweet and pleasant round face, with lips as red as any cherry; her cheeks of a rose colour, her mouth small; her neck white like a swan, tall and slender of personage; in sum, there was no imperfect place in her. She looked round about her with a rolling hawk's eye, ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... twa sons on coal-black steeds, Himsel' upon a freckled gray, And they are on wi' Jamie Telfer, To Branksome Ha' to tak ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... master, 'Sit thee down; this much sufficeth;' so she sat down and he signed to the brunette. Now she was a model of beauty and loveliness and symmetry and perfect grace; soft of skin, slim of shape, of stature rare, and coal-black hair; with cheeks rosy-pink, eyes black rimmed by nature's hand, face fair, and eloquent tongue; moreover slender-waisted and heavy-hipped. So she rose and said: 'Praise be to Allah who hath created me neither leper-white nor bile-yellow nor charcoal-black, but hath made my colour to be beloved ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... always been fond of outdoor sports in his Kentucky home, he was, at least, no greenhorn. When he came to the new country where his father was interested with Frank's in mining ventures, Bob had brought his favorite Kentucky horse, a coal-black stallion known as "Domino," and which vied with Frank's native "Buckskin" ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... aristocratic objections they at first interposed against his reception. "Mus' be somebody bigger dan common nigger preacher; wudn't cotch Miss Frankone spoken wid 'um if 'um warn't," says Dad Timothy's Jane, who is Uncle Absalom's wife, and, in addition to having six coal-black children, as fat and sleek as beavers, is the wise woman of the cabins, around whom all the old veteran mammies gather for explanations upon most important subjects. In this instance she is surrounded by six or seven grave worthies, whose comical faces add great piquancy to the conclave. ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... at Alida de Barberie was scarcely necessary to betray her mixed descent. From her Norman father, a Huguenot of the petite noblesse, she had inherited her raven hair, the large, brilliant coal-black eyes, in which wildness was singularly relieved by sweetness, a classical and faultless profile, and a form which was both taller and more flexible than commonly fell to the lot of the damsels of Holland. From her mother, la ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... elegant carriage, drawn by a pair of coal-black horses in silver-mounted harness, drove to the humble home of the Richardsons in Hughes street, and the colored driver presented a note from Mrs. Mencke, saying that Violet was to return home at once; that she had an important ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... was heard a terrible sound, as of the rushing of many waters or the roll of the heavy wheels of the chariot of one who comes to slay. Then was the earth cleft open, and from it there arose the four coal-black horses of Pluto, neighing aloud in their eagerness, while the dark-browed god urged them on, standing erect in his car ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... scattered through his plays. Now no one who reads Titus Andronicus with an open mind can doubt that Aaron was, in our sense, black; and he appears to have been a Negro. To mention nothing else, he is twice called 'coal-black'; his colour is compared with that of a raven and a swan's legs; his child is coal-black and thick-lipped; he himself has a 'fleece of woolly hair.' Yet he is 'Aaron the Moor,' just as Othello is 'Othello the Moor.' In the Battle of ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley |
