"Complexion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his heart after it; and his smile is good for twenty thousand dollars to the Hospital, besides ample bequests to all relatives and dependants. 2. Lady of the same; remarkable cap; high waist, as in time of Empire; bust a la Josephine; wisps of curls, like celery-tips, at sides of forehead; complexion clear and warm, like rose-cordial. As for the miniatures by Malbone, we don't count ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... of the Wood, with her own divine hand, and with every magical herb of the forest, has anointed me King. Behold the complexion of royalty!—and henceforward transact ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... bearing that, except for his white and gold turban, it might have been difficult to suppose that he was not one. Many Indians are, comparatively speaking, very fair, and if you are living habitually in the country you become almost oblivious to shades of complexion. The English Collector also arrived, with his wife. Collectors are, of course, magistrates and officials of importance. The Commissioner of the division followed, who is senior to a Collector. Mohammedans, Hindus, and a few Parsees arrived, some in smart carriages, ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... besought her to shield her from the consequences. Distressed beyond measure, the lady chid her severely, and then asked her how it had come to pass. The damsel, to screen Pietro, invented a story by which she put another complexion on the affair. The lady believed her, and, that her fall might not be discovered, took her off to one of their estates; where, the time of her delivery being come, and she, as women do in such a case, ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... my children. I need not tell you that it is a homely retreat compared with the other gardens near, costly, curious, and prim, where the beds are like enormous bouquets dropped on the grass, and the complexion of every flower is suited with that of its neighbour. But this old garden was always a favourite, for its unfailing sunshine, its murmurous repose, and the refreshing fragrance of ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... turned away. The fair spinster who had been clinging to him in a paroxysm of terror, attempted to faint, but remembering her complexion thought better of it and contented herself with being half led, half carried out, in a "walking swoon." And both she and Mr. Percy felt there was no longer room to doubt ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... them, and "receive no colour of good or evil but according to the application of the individual soul." Did Hamlet learn of him that "there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so"?—What we call evil is not so of itself: it depends only upon us, to give it another taste and complexion.—Things, in respect of themselves, have peradventure their weight, measure, and conditions; but when once we have taken them into us, the soul forms them as she pleases.—Death is terrible to Cicero, courted by Cato, indifferent to Socrates.—Fortune, circumstance, ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... dining-room, my great-grandfather, old Lord Abercorn's sons and daughters must have been of singular and quite unusual personal beauty. Not one of the five attained the age of twenty-nine, all of them succumbing early to consumption. Lord Aberdeen had a most unfortunate skin and complexion, and in addition he was deeply pitted with small-pox. As a result his face looked exactly like a slice of brown bread, and "Old Brown Bread" he was always called by my elder brothers and sisters, who had but little love for him, for he disliked young people, and always made the ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... with two eyes, a nose, and a mouth? The only attributes of which it can safely be asserted that they can form no part of the intension of a term are those which are not common to all the things to which the name applies. Thus a particular complexion, colour, height, creed, nationality cannot form any part of the intension of the term 'man.' But among the attributes common to a class we cannot distinguish between essential and unessential, except by the aid of definition itself. ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... these distressing dreams of Rachel's began to be varied by others of a pleasanter complexion, of which, although they were vivid enough, she could only remember upon waking that they had to do with Richard Darrien, the companion of her adventure in the river, of whom she had heard nothing for so many years. For aught she knew he might have died ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... or perhaps so consciously superior to it, that one was provoked into a more critical examination of her face. But this only resulted in a reiteration of her beauty, and perhaps the added facts that her dark eyes were very womanly, her rich complexion eloquent, and her chiselled lips fell enough to be passionate or capricious, notwithstanding that their general effect suggested neither caprice, womanly weakness, ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... organization. Its characteristics are Gravity, Receptivity, Darkness, and Coldness. This temperament was formerly called the Bilious or Brunette Temperament. It is distinguished by dark, hard, dry skin, dark, strong hair, dark eyes, olive complexion, and usually by a long, athletic form of body. It is remarkable for concentrativeness of design and affections, strong gravity, drawing power and cohesiveness, strong will, resolution, dignity, serious disposition and expression; ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... professes to have taken the passage from a late number of the Presburg 'Schnellpost.' 'Viele' has evidently been misconceived (as it often is), and what the translator renders by 'sorrows,' is probably 'lieden,' which, in its true version, 'sufferings,' would give a totally different complexion to the whole account; but, of course, much of this is merely ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... floor, and then we talked as though we were away off, and I told my chum to look out that Pa did not hit the gas fixtures, and Pa actually thought he was being hauled clear up to the roof. I could see he was scared by the complexion of his hands and feet, as they clawed the air. He actually sweat so the drops fell on the floor. Bime-by we let him down, and he was awfully relieved, though his feet were not more than two inches from the floor any of the time. We were just ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... like; nor did we omit to view the spot where St. Paul once instructed the Athenians in lessons of Christianity. We traveled some little through the country districts outside of Athens, and I noticed that the peasantry, in point of picturesqueness of dress and color of complexion, were not unlike the gypsies we see at times in America. They had also much of the same shrewdness, and, as far as I could learn, were generally wholly uneducated, ignorant, indeed, except as to one subject—politics—which I was told came to them ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... while cooking something over the fire. I at first supposed they were assisting their mother, but little Dick informed me, in a whisper, that they were making a wash for the face. Washes of all kinds I had a natural antipathy to; for I knew that, instead of mending the complexion, they spoil it. I therefore approached my chair by sly degrees to the fire, and grasping the poker, as if it wanted mending, seemingly by accident overturned the whole composition, and it was ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... beautiful as a child, and she was not beautiful as a girl, but her face was pleasant to look at, very bright when animated, very steadfast and sweet when in repose. The air was like nectar to her cheeks. She was naturally a pale girl, but a faint rose colour was now discernible in her complexion, and the look of expectation in her dark ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... Methodist Recorder, speaking of his presence there, said:—Rev. Dr. Punshon, the President, gave a brief and discriminating introduction to Dr. Ryerson. The Doctor's personal appearance is very prepossessing; he is grey-haired; of a fine, healthy complexion; has a gentle eye; and a full, emotional voice. He dresses in the style of the "fine old English gentleman," with a refreshing display of "linen clean and white." One scarcely knows which most to admire—the simplicity of ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... whose expression was ever gentle. She was not pretty, perhaps, still she was charming, slender, and tall, the bib of her apron covering her flat chest like that of a young man; one of good heart, displaying a snowy complexion, and overflowing with health, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... a very handsome lad, twelve or fourteen years of age, whose prepossessing appearance seemed to attract the attention of a tall gentleman, of distinguished bearing, enveloped in a cloak.—He wore a heavy moustache, and his complexion was very dark. He paid the most incessant attention to the boy, making him liberal presents of cake and fruit, and finally gave him a beautiful gold ring, ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... fault. But envy is a kind of punishment: for Gregory says (Moral. v, 46): "When the foul sore of envy corrupts the vanquished heart, the very exterior itself shows how forcibly the mind is urged by madness. For paleness seizes the complexion, the eyes are weighed down, the spirit is inflamed, while the limbs are chilled, there is frenzy in the heart, there is gnashing with the teeth." Therefore ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... and cocoa nuts, which they barter for iron; for, being free from the inconveniencies either of extreme heat or cold they want no clothing. Beyond these two islands is the sea of Andaman. The people on this coast eat human flesh quite raw; their complexion is black, with frizzled hair, their countenance and eyes frightful, their feet very large, almost a cubit in length, and they go quite naked. They have no sort of barks or other vessels, or they would seize and devour all the passengers they could ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... or commonplaces are the livery one likes to wear, when one has just had a real misfortune. He is going to Germany: I was glad to dress myself up in transitory Houghton, in lieu of very sensible concern. To-morrow I shall be distracted with thoughts, at least images of very different complexion. I go to Lynn, and am to be elected on Friday. I shall return hither on Saturday, again alone, to expect Burleighides on Sunday, whom I left at Newmarket. I must once in my life see him on his ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... clothes. The purpose of dress, after the primary object of warmth has been secured, is to adorn, to beautify the particular wearer. Yet not one woman in a thousand stops to consider what colours will go best with her complexion, what cut will best hide the defects or display the advantages of her figure. If it be the fashion, she must wear it. And so we have pale-faced girls looking ghastly in shades suitable to dairy-maids, ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... had then, as now, the reputation of being great beef-eaters; nor should we blame them, as the florid complexion the Englishman generally wears is mainly owing to the free use of this non-febrile and healthy food, washed down with a few potations of good old ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... absolutely sure that if their own views could be generally accepted, it would be a boon to mankind, that in fact the moral interests of the race are bound up, not with discovering what may chance to be true, but with discovering the truth to have a particular complexion. This predominant trust in moral judgments is in some cases conscious and avowed, so that philosophers invite the world to embrace tenets for which no evidence is offered but that they chime in with current aspirations or traditional bias. Thus the substance ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... two months it was safe to say that every drink he had he paid for. His eyes got brighter and his complexion clearer, nor was he as pleased as one of the other sex might have been when the self-satisfied Henshaw pointed out these improvements to his companions, and claimed entire responsibility for them. It is probable that Mr. Lister, under these circumstances, ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs
... a man apparently between fifty and sixty years of age, a trifle above medium height, thin and spare of body, with a bronzed complexion, and grey hair and moustache, both cut quite short. His eyes were dark and piercing; the expression of his features severe and cruel; and his beauty—if he ever had any—was completely destroyed by a great ghastly scar ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... inches short of the romantic six feet, in reality; but was the owner of a fine erect and well-rounded gymnastic form, not a little improved by frequent visits to the Seventh Regiment Gymnasium. A jolly round face with very fair complexion, a merry blue eye, short, curly brown hair and a full moustache somewhat darker,—made up the ensemble of the particular person destined to be the torment of Judge Owen—and of others. For Frank Wallace, be it understood, had other penchants besides his attachment to pretty ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... gods! why am I not the wife of some poor mountain goatherd of innocent and simple habits? He would not have suborned a goatherd like himself at the threshold of his cabin to profane his humble happiness! My lean figure, my unkempt hair, my complexion faded by the burning sun, would then have saved me from so gross an insult, and my honest homeliness would not have been compelled to blush. How shall I dare, after the scene of this night, to pass before ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... religion has been preserved pure and uncorrupted. The white elephant is considered sacred, and the flag of Siam exhibits a white elephant on a red field. The Siamese are of Mongolian origin, of medium, sturdy build, with a yellowish-brown complexion, but are not highly gifted. They are addicted to song, music, and games, and among their curious customs is that of ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... from regular, for his nose was flattish, his mouth tending to the larger size, and his complexion inclining to be more dark than was then thought consistent with masculine beauty. But, in despite of his having always breathed the air of a crowded city, his complexion had the ruddy and manly expression ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... handsome, either in face or in form. She was inclined to be stout—was rather short—and her complexion olive. But she lured with her eyes—great sphinx-like eyes of hazel-brown—that looked men through and through. Liszt has told us that "she had eyes like a cow," which is not so bad as Thomas Carlyle's remark that George Eliot had a face like a horse. George Sand was silent when other ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... exclaiming, "Where is the Dutchess? Why does she not come. She must be concealed at my house to-night. There are troops stationed at a league's distance from this to prevent her escape." Then observing the fair complexion of one of the ladies of our party, he cried out, "It is the Dutchess, it is my beloved Princess. Oh! why have you no avant garde; you must not proceed." The poor old man was in a state of extreme agitation, and his ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... which gave rise to the following poem, that stirs even the Dead Sea of our sensibilities. The lady appears to have carried on a furious flirtation with the bard—a cousin of her own—which she, naturally perhaps, but certainly cruelly, terminated by marrying an old East Indian nabob, with a complexion like curry powder, innumerable lacs of rupees, and a woful lack of liver. A refusal by one's cousin is a domestic treason of the most ruthless kind; and, assuming the author's statement to be substantially ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... tormented his sister Maud in a thousand impish ways. He disarranged her neatly combed hair. He threw mud on her dress and put carriage grease on her white stockings on picnic day. He called her "chiny-thing," in allusion to her pretty round cheeks and clear complexion, and yet he loved her and would instantly fight for her, and no one else dared tease her or utter a word to annoy her. She was fourteen years of age when Mr. Excell came to town, and at sixteen considered herself a young lady. As suitors began to gather about ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... in the midst of which Mr. Gresley, whose complexion had deepened, sprang to his feet and endeavored to attract Dick's attention, but Dick saw nothing but his audience. Mr. Gresley began to speak in his ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... also another possibility," continued Hillary in his gentle voice. "He struck me as suspiciously extravagant—supposing he has gone bankrupt? I noticed, too, that his complexion was somewhat rubicund—supposing he has had an apoplectic fit? In that case, would his executors be bound by his verbal promise? Honestly, ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... of an hour since I was born." "Ten thousand cares are no more weight to my mind than ten thousand hairs are to my head." "I have never lost a night's sleep in my life." "His face was remarkably fine, his complexion fresh to the last week of his life, and his eye quick, keen, and active." He ceased not his labors till death. After the eightieth year of his age, he visited Holland twice. At the end of his eighty-second, ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... side in politics. He was born one hundred years before Christ, and received a good education, but was not precocious, like Cicero. There was nothing remarkable about his childhood. "He was a tall and handsome man, with dark, piercing eyes, sallow complexion, large nose, full lips, refined and intellectual features, and thick neck." He was particular about his appearance, and showed a studied negligence of dress. His uncle Marius, in the height of his power, marked him out ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... him, too, when he said that it was not his business to tell her. But the reason, let it be what it might, must, if known, be prejudicial to her love. Lord Nidderdale was, she thought, not at all beautiful. He had a commonplace, rough face, with a turn-up nose, high cheek bones, no especial complexion, sandy-coloured whiskers, and bright laughing eyes,—not at all an Adonis such as her imagination had painted. But if he had only made love at first as he had attempted to do it now, she thought that she would have submitted herself to be ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... and the sick with an affection that charmed and comforted them. She lived in strict solitude in a small, poor, abandoned apartment in {521} her father's house, and spent her time there in manual labor and prayer. Being very beautiful, she begged of God to change her complexion, and her face became so pale and thin, that she could scarce be known for the same person. Yet a certain majesty of virtue, shining in her countenance, gave her charms conducive to the edification of others by the sweetness, modesty, and air of piety and divine love ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... African to the very root of her genealogical tree. African from the soul of her broad foot to the end, I cannot say point, of her flat nose. Indeed, it is quite possible that Dolf's yellow skin went for something in her admiration; but unfortunately Dolf preferred the cafe-au-lait complexion also, and had a masculine weakness in favor ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... altogether. The Captain was inclined to be bald, but he brought a quantity of lank iron-grey hair over his pate, and had a couple of whisps of the same falling down on each side of his face. Much whisky had spoiled what complexion Mr. Costigan may have possessed in his youth. His once handsome face had now a copper tinge. He wore a very high stock, scarred and stained in many places; and a dress-coat tightly buttoned up in those parts where the ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... pie; "oh, if you could have seen the father!—such a mouth, such eyes, such a complexion; and he declares she's the living picture of himself! But what do you say, Mr. Reynard,—you, who have been so much in the world, have, perhaps, seen the ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... describes her at this time: "She was not very tall, but slight, and her figure was well proportioned. She had a dark, clear complexion, a gracious mouth, white and equal teeth, and well-marked features;... above all, her azure eyes, so placid and so bright, charmed you with an expression it is impossible to write; unless you had known her you could not understand ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... tall, full-formed young Hebe was Theodora Leigh, of that pure pink and white complexion that goes farther to make a beauty than even regularity of feature; her long, sleepy eyes were just the shade of the wild hyacinth; indeed, her English father always called her "Bluebell," after a flower that does not grow ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... intercommunication of ideas. But the physical marks of racial differences have invariably become the symbols of racial solidarity and racial exclusiveness. The problems of humanity are altogether different from what they would have been were all races of one complexion as they are ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... quickly—a short, narrow, meagre creature, flat-chested and square-shouldered, whose face was the hue of light-coloured clay, an almost corpse-like complexion. Her thin lips hissed out, "Ay, if thee takes thee money to the pothouse thee won't ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... starting. The natives crowded round as the canoe approached, full of curiosity and excitement, for never but once had a white man passed up the river. These Fans differed widely from the coast negroes. Their hair was longer and thicker, their figures were slight, their complexion coffee colored, and their projecting upper jaws gave them a rabbit mouthed appearance. They wore coronets on their heads adorned with the red tail feathers of the common gray parrot. Most of the men had beards, which were divided in the middle, red and white beads being strung up ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... should fall to their lot, not those whom they desire. This shrewdness, however, is not necessary among the inhabitants of the City of the Sun. For with them deformity is unknown. When the women are exercised they get a clear complexion, and become strong of limb, tall and agile, and with them beauty consists in tallness and strength. Therefore, if any woman dyes her face, so that it may become beautiful, or uses high-heeled boots so that she may appear tall, or garments with trains ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells
... I was the village smith, I worked all day But I retained the delicacy of my complexion Because I worked in the shade of the chestnut tree Instead of in the sun Like Nicholas Blodgett, the expressman. I was large and strong Because I went in for physical culture And deep breathing And all those stunts. I had the ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... Gillespie?" asked a low, mellow, musical voice by my side. I turned to face a tall, dark, wiry man, with the swarthy complexion and intensely black eyes of one having strains of native blood. Among the voyageurs, I had become accustomed to the soft-spoken, melodious speech that betrays Indian parentage; and I believe if I were to encounter a descendant of the ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... old, and seemingly healthy, he was so far from being able to walk, or stand, that he could not so much as move any one joint; his limbs were vastly long for his age, but smaller than an infant's of six months; his complexion was perfectly delicate, and he had the finest hair in the world; he never spoke, nor cried, eat scarce anything, and was very seldom seen to smile, but if any one called him a fairy-elf, he would frown and fix his eyes so earnestly on those who ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... interrupted in a shaking voice. "Look here, I'd like—" He stopped, unable to go on, his agitation was so great. His chest heaved as from hard running, and his complexion, pallid at first, had become mottled; fiery splotches appearing at his temples and cheeks. "What do you mean by telling me—telling me there's talk about—about—" He gulped, and began again: "What do you mean by using such words as 'reputation'? What do you mean, speaking of a 'question' ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... man of sandy complexion and probably under middle age, was in no very pleasant humor. Some of his orders had been misunderstood by the chief of his Indian allies, so that a premature exposure of his approach had ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... knew. Had he not watched the progress of events throughout the week? Had he not seen for himself how Jeff's fancy had been caught? And she was very beautiful, this town-bred woman, beautiful with that healthy, downy complexion which Bud found did not fit with his idea of city "raised" women. He almost felt he hated her, yet he knew he had no right to his antagonism. Jeff was unpledged, he was free. No woman had any claim on him. Not even Nan. Poor ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... and now Allah hath caused me happen on it with thee.' Saying these words, he took from me the amulet, O Commander of the Faithful, and went his ways. Such, then, is the cause of the wanness of my complexion. As for me, I repaired to Baghdad, carrying all my wealth with me, and took up my abode in the lodgings where I lived whilome. On the morrow, as soon as it was light, I donned my dress and betook myself to the house of Tahir ibn al-Alaa, that haply I might ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... of the Mongol arms, Bajazet had two years to collect his forces for a more serious encounter. They consisted of four hundred thousand horse and foot whose merit and fidelity were of an unequal complexion. We may discriminate the janizaries, who have been gradually raised to an establishment of forty thousand men; a national cavalry (the spahis of modern times); twenty thousand cuirassiers of Europe, clad in black and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... eyes were smiling. They were shining, too, in a curious, not altogether wholesome fashion. He had just finished talking to Nancy McDonald, and he was thinking of the vision of red hair, of the serious hazel eyes gazing out of their setting of fair, almost transparent complexion. ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... between contraries, such as hot and cold, wet and dry, and the like, of which the sense of touch has the perception; thus it is in potentiality with regard to contraries, and is able to perceive them. Therefore the more the organ of touch is reduced to an equable complexion, the more sensitive will be the touch. But the intellectual soul has the power of sense in all its completeness; because what belongs to the inferior nature pre-exists more perfectly in the superior, as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. v). Therefore the body to which the intellectual soul ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... of chums was completed by Katherine Harding, a damsel whose demure looks belied her character. Katherine's innocent grey eyes and doll-like complexion were the vineyards that hide the volcano. She could always be relied upon to support any enterprising project or interesting hoax that was presented for her approval. These seven comrades, close chums in the past, banded themselves together ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... where she was burned, are the same emblems, except the sword, for which a necklace is substituted. At each end of this range of tombs stands a temple dedicated to Baldeo, the brother of Krishna; and in one of them I found his image, with large eyes, a jet black complexion, and an African countenance. Why is this that Baldeo should be always represented of this countenance and colour, and his brother Krishna, either white, or of an azure colour, and the Caucasian countenance?[14] The inside of the tomb is ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... When Lady Tresco brought her four plain daughters to an "At Home" one night, Medhurst, in evening dress, disguised as a waiter, followed them each round the room with obtrusive ices, to satisfy himself just how much of their complexion was real, and how much was patent rouge and Bloom of Ninon. He doubted whether Simpson, Sir Charles's valet, was not Colonel Clay in plain clothes; and he had half an idea that Cesarine herself was our saucy White Heather in an alternative avatar. We pointed out to him in vain that Simpson ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... will be here, Mr. Ross. I shall be in the house myself, as Miss Trelawny will allow me, if my people in Scotland Yard will permit. That letter seems to put a different complexion on everything; though the mystery remains greater than ever. If you can wait here an hour or two I shall go to headquarters, and then to the safe-makers. After that I shall return; and you can go away easier in your mind, ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... of this school is an accomplished woman from Philadelphia. Another is from Newport, Rhode Island, where she had prepared herself for this work by benevolent labors in teaching poor children. The third is a young woman of African descent, of olive complexion, finely cultured, and attuned to all beautiful sympathies, of gentle address, and, what was specially noticeable, not possessed with an overwrought consciousness of her race. She had read the best books, and naturally and gracefully enriched her conversation with them. She had enjoyed the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... experience are the judges." The Fulis are settled on both sides of the river Senegal: Their country, which is very fruitful and populous, extends near four hundred miles from East to West. They are generally of a deep tawny complexion, appearing to bear some affinity with the Moors, whose country they join on the North. They are good farmers, and make great harvest of corn, cotton, tobacco, &c. and breed great numbers of cattle of all kinds. Bartholomew Stibbs, (mentioned ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... sounded nearer and nearer, thundering over the soft ground, clicking against the stones, like a charge of cavalry. Cousin Molly Belle was so white that a few freckles, never seen through her usually brilliant complexion, made a line of sallow dots across her cheek bones and the bridge of her nose. Clutching me more roughly than she had ever touched me before, she thrust me well into the heart of a tall cedar whose lowest boughs grew out ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... left an orphan at an early age, and was from his youth surrounded with such a population. In person he was handsome as an Apollo, broad-shouldered and muscular, with fair complexion and blue eyes, and was the natural chief of the dangerous men that were drawn to him by his personal magnetism. Moreover, he possessed so much native eloquence, and such an ability to make passionate appeals, as made him a fit ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... sanguine and deadly streams of tomato gravy, past sluggish mires of dreadful things en casserole, over hills of corned-beef hash, across shaking quagmires of veal glace, plunging into sloughs of slaw, until, haggard, weary, digestion shattered, complexion gone, he reaches the safe haven of roast beef, medium. Once there, he never again strays, although the pompadoured, white-aproned siren sing-songs in his ear the praises of Irish stew, and pork ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... be supposed naturally to imbibe from the mode of life they led, and the desolation which surrounded them. They wore no covering to the feet or head, and their arms and shoulders were equally bare; and though naturally of a very fair complexion, their faces had, by constant exposure to the sun, been tanned; but, lo! when they smiled, their coral lips, curved like the bow that shot the arrow through the heart of Psyche, parted to show a row of teeth as smooth and pure as the snows ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... based upon the character of the evidence adduced at the preliminary examination was that it would be impossible to sustain the charge of high treason; but the disclosure of the documents in the possession of the State Attorney put a different complexion upon the case. Then for the first time the members of the Reform Committee became aware of that factor in their case which has since become famous as 'de trommel van Bobby White'—Major Robert White's despatch-box—a veritable conjurer's hat, from which Mr. Kruger produced ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... indeed a twin, not only because he was the same age as Nan, but because he looked so very much like her. To be sure, he looked like a boy, while she looked like a girl, but he had the same dark complexion, the same brown eyes and hair, and his voice was very much the same, ...
— The Bobbsey Twins - Or, Merry Days Indoors and Out • Laura Lee Hope
... is intended for those who have a skin that either does not burn at all, or turns a beautiful smooth Hawaiian brown; but a woman whose creamy complexion bursts into freckles, as violent as they are hideous, at the first touch of the sun need no longer stay perpetually indoors in daytime, or venture out only when swathed like a Turk, if she knows the virtue in orange as a color that defies the sun's rays. A thin veil of red-orange is more ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... bad taste in so openly returning Mrs. van Cannan's interest, it had to be admitted that it was the form of bad taste that is a law unto itself and takes no thought of the opinion of others. Although Africa had spoiled Saltire's complexion, it was evident that she had never bowed his neck or put humility into his eye or made him desist from looking over his boldly cut nose as though he had bought the world ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... the play itself, we find many references to Othello's colour and appearance. Most of these are indecisive; for the word 'black' was of course used then where we should speak of a 'dark' complexion now; and even the nickname 'thick-lips,' appealed to as proof that Othello was a Negro, might have been applied by an enemy to what we call a Moor. On the other hand, it is hard to believe that, if Othello had been light-brown, Brabantio would have ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... to recognize beauty when you see it. She was the loveliest child I ever knew, with her pale complexion, her brilliant eyes and aristocratic profile. Georgy Lenox is a gaudy transparency beside her. But I forgot: I must come out and see you at your rooms. Only don't bore me: it is the fashion at universities to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... love of God, all would be well with me in perpetuity. He was still convinced that by intensely directing my thoughts, he could compel them to flow in a certain channel, since he had not begun to learn the lesson, so mournful for saintly men of his complexion, that 'virtue would not be virtue, could it be given by one fellow creature to another'. He had recognized, with reluctance, that holiness was not hereditary, but he continued to hope that it might be compulsive. ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... steel breastplate, with a crested helmet on the table before him. He stood bending over a chart, which several of his officers were also examining; and as he looked quickly up at our entry, I was surprised at the fairness of his complexion and the grave ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... in a long time a student of fresher complexion gets in—a novitiate with the first scholastic down upon his cheek—a tender stripling on his first high quest—a broth of a boy barely off his primer—but no sooner is he set than he feels unpleasantly conspicuous among his elders. Most of these youth bolt, offering to the doorman as a pretext ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... palace felt it long that he was not getting word as to how matters were going on for those down in the house of the strangers. "Go you, Gelban Grednach, son of Lochlin's King, go you down and bring me information as to whether her former hue and complexion are on Deirdre. If they be, I will take her out with edge of blade and point of sword, and if not, let Naois, son of Uisnech, have her for himself," ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... in build, she was yet graceful, and there was a lithe, elastic energy in her movements which drew attention to her even among more imposing figures. Possibly, also, she was too dark for the English ideal. Her black hair and large brown eyes, together with the unrelieved pallor of her complexion, gave her appearance something that was exotic but not unpleasing. Enfin, as most people admitted, she had her charm; and her moods, which ranged from the most light-hearted gaiety to the deepest gravity, ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... saw till he was old. Lamb I recollect coming to see the boys, with a pensive, brown, handsome, and kindly face, and a gait advancing with a motion from side to side, between involuntary consciousness and attempted ease. His brown complexion may have been owing to a visit in the country; his air of uneasiness to a great burden of sorrow. He dressed with a quaker-like plainness. I did not know him as Lamb: I took him for a Mr. "Guy," having heard somebody address him by that appellative, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... Barsoom knew that to me they owed the fall of their age-old spiritual supremacy. On the other hand my reputation as a fighting man might be sufficient to pass me by these two were their livers not of the right complexion to welcome ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and rarities; and the King's daughter became reconciled to her sojourn amongst them and forgot her kith and kin. At the end of the forty days, Hasan saw in a dream, one night, his mother mourning for him and indeed her bones were wasted and her body had waxed shrunken and her complexion had yellowed and her favour had changed the while he was in excellent case. When she saw him in this state, she said to him, "O my son, O Hasan, how is it that thou livest thy worldly life at thine ease ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... a Mr. David Howell of 105 Cheapside, and a thoroughgoing, unprincipled rascal he proved to be. He was a small, spare, undersized man, with little beady eyes, light complexion, red hair, and stubby beard, and when he spoke it was with a thin reedy voice. From first to last he managed our case in exactly the way the prosecution would have desired. He bled us freely, and altogether we paid him nearly $10,000, and our defense by our eight lawyers—four Queen's ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... or lame Jimmy, as he was often called, was a delicate-looking boy of ten, with a fair complexion and sweet face, but incurably lame, a defect which, added to his delicate constitution, was likely to interfere seriously with his success in life. But, as frequently happens, Jimmy was all the more endeared to his mother and brother by his misfortune and bodily weakness, and if either were ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... a private one from the First Lord of the Admiralty, reflecting the views and anxieties of the Government. "The circumstances in which we now find ourselves oblige us to take a measure of a more decided and hazardous complexion than we should otherwise have thought ourselves justified in taking; but when you are apprized that the appearance of a British squadron in the Mediterranean is a condition on which the fate of Europe may at this moment be stated ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... short fifteen minutes, long enough to imbibe the welcome cup of coffee or the glass of beer which he found waiting him in the kitchen. The Countess, although the mother of a young man twenty-four years of age, has a pink- and-white complexion and a fine, statuesque figure. She is a Russian lady by birth, and does a lot of kissing, as seems to be the custom in Russia. She told me that when a gentleman of a certain position kisses your hand ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... arrived at last, and her strong constitution enabled Herminia to live through it. Her baby was born, a beautiful little girl, soft, delicate, wonderful, with Alan's blue eyes, and its mother's complexion. Those rosy feet saved Herminia. As she clasped them in her hands—tiny feet, tender feet—she felt she had now something left to live for,—her baby, Alan's baby, the baby with a future, the baby that was destined ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... problems that confront us which we can only solve by the exercise of our utmost courage and wisdom. I do not want anything I say here this evening to have in the least degree the complexion of a political talk. I am like a friend of mine down in Virginia who told me that he never could talk politics with a man, "Because," he says, "I am that sort of a blanked fool that thinks if a man disagrees with ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... beautifully rounded arms and shoulders. She was hatless, too, in spite of the summer blaze. To his fired imagination she belonged to a canvas painted by some old master whose portrayals suggested a strength and depth of character rarely seen in life. Even the beautiful olive of her complexion suggested those southern climes whence alone, he had always been led to believe, ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... Spicer was upwards of six feet in height, very large boned, and must, when he was in his prime, have been a man of prodigious strength. When he was admitted to the hospital he was nearly sixty years of age; his hair was black and grey mixed, his complexion very dark, and his countenance fierce and unprepossessing. He went by the name of Black Sam, on account of his appearance. He had lost his right hand in a frigate action, and to the stump he had fixed a sort of socket, ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... wherein the dancers, raising their delicate feet, and curving their arms and fingers in seemingly impossible flexures, sway like withes of willow, and agitate all the muscles of the body like the fluttering of leaves in a soft breeze. Their eyes glow as with an inner light; the soft brown complexion, the rosy lips half parted, the heaving bosom, and the waving arms, as they float round and round in wild eddies of dance, impart to them the aspect of ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... — N. color, hue, tint, tinge, dye, complexion, shade, tincture, cast, livery, coloration, glow, flush; tone, key. pure color, positive color, primary color, primitive complementary color; three primaries; spectrum, chromatic dispersion; broken color, secondary color, tertiary color. local ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... department of North-Eastern France would now be represented at Paris not by four Monarchists and three Republicans, but by seven Monarchists. This may serve to show how exceedingly unsafe it is to assume that the nominal party complexion of the majority in a Chamber elected as the present French Chamber has been really gives foreign observers anything like an accurate notion of the state of public opinion and the drift of popular feeling in France ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... another coffee and prepared to make an afternoon of it. They discussed Bones from several aspects and in various lights, none of which revealed his moral complexion ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... the mutessarif's message, and who now advanced from his tent with salaams of welcome. As he stood before us in the glowing sunset, he was a rather tall, but well-proportioned man, with black eyes and dark mustache, contrasting well with his brown-tanned complexion. Upon his face was the stamp of a rather wild and retiring character, although treachery and deceit were by no means wanting. He wore a headgear that was something between a hat and a turban, and over his baggy Turkish trousers hung a long Persian ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... the virtues of port, and though he never exceeded a modest half-bottle, drank it steadily till the last. He was, I am told, and a portrait confirms the impression, a very handsome old man with a beautiful complexion, masses of white hair, and a keen thoughtful face. He died at Bath, October 10, 1832. He was buried at Stoke Newington by the side of his mother. There Wilberforce had promised to be buried by his friend; but for him Westminster Abbey was a ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... in the general complexion of its literary treasures, is that of MARCELLUS: while in the possession of numberless rare and precious volumes relating to the drama, and especially to his beloved Shakespeare, it must be acknowledged that Marcellus hath somewhat the superiority. ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... says in the matter of art he can only conceive one position: the highest. Certainly he might turn to science; to become a great mathematician, chemist, physicist, was a way of seeking glory as good as another; only he confessed that it had few attractions "for the Italian with the rosy complexion and the smile of a child." Ethical science interested him more, but this was to be pursued in retirement, not in great cities. "No, no," he writes, "it is not in flying from one's fatherland because it is unhappy that one can attain ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... this picture has reached us: "He is said to have been remarkably tall, with a light complexion and well-shaped limbs. His face was a little too full; his eyes black and brilliant. His health was excellent, but towards the latter end of his life he was subject to fainting fits and to frightful dreams at night. On two occasions also, when some public business was being ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... spite of her resolution to be strong, if she could only take to herself at once the one consolation and partnership which would satisfy her soul, how instantly would her depression pass away! How easily with one word could she change the whole current and complexion of life for the man who was bending over her! He was still only half-redeemed from ruin; he might fall a prey to despair again, if she shrank in the supreme moment from ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... cut and of a shade to give its full value to her complexion, a waxen complexion like old ivory or like a magnolia petal, in which the Mongolian yellow was ever so faintly discernible. It was a sweet little face, oval and smooth; but it might have been called expressionless if it had not been for a dimple which peeped and vanished ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... not posses the tall figure or striking countenance of her cousins, the Woodbournes, or the brilliant complexion of her brother, was one of those people who always look well. She was small and slightly made, and very graceful; and everything she wore was appropriate and becoming, so that, without bestowing much thought on the matter, she never looked otherwise ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was not a bad looking woman and in fact it was difficult to see how she expected to be improved by cosmetics that would lighten her complexion, bleaches that would flaxen her hair, tortures for this, that, and the ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... and representatives to the balcony. Around and behind him are his staff and distinguished patriots of the Revolution. Every eye is fixed on the stately, majestic man. A little over six feet high, his form perfect in outline and figure, a florid complexion, dark blue eyes deeply set, his rich brown hair now tinged with gray, firm jaws and broad nostrils, lighted by a benignant expression. Such was the Father of his Country. The brave soldier trembles with emotion as the chancellor ...
— Five Sermons • H.B. Whipple
... Carmichael and Marjorie to alight. Having asked the former's permission, the lawyer introduced Miss Graves, a young lady not unlike Miss Du Plessis in stature and carriage, but with larger, though handsome, features and lighter complexion. Then, Mr. Douglas, a fine-looking blonde man of masculine Scottish type, was made acquainted with his fair client, and with her nominal guardian on the box. Finally, the colonel, standing by his horse's head, bowed with genial dignity to the new arrivals, and warmly pressed the hand of his dear ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... seeing there was no help for it, ordered the princess to be laid on a bed, embroidered in gold and silver, in the most magnificent room in the palace. She looked as lovely as an angel, while thus lying in state, though not dead, for the roses of her complexion and the coral of her lips were unimpaired; and though her eyes remained closed, her gentle breathing showed she was only slumbering. The king ordered her to be left quite quiet, until the time should come when she was to awake. The good fairy ...
— Bo-Peep Story Books • Anonymous
... not even one drink of water was retained, not one dose of medicine, and it was not until several more days that water could be borne. When finally water could be retained my patient seemed brighter in mind, the complexion was clearer, and she seemed actually stronger. As for the tongue, which at first was heavily coated, the improvement was striking; while the breath, utterly foul at first, was strikingly less offensive. In every way the ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... like a deer; and, being young and active, gained the shelter of the stockade, within which, however, she fell exhausted, but was so preserved. Some time after I was ushered into life; and the darkness of my complexion was always referred to the chance of my mother having been thus frightened and followed by ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... we made up that blue for Mary. She's so tanned and sunburned that it seems to bring out all the red tints in her skin, and makes her look like a little squaw. I never realized how this climate has injured her complexion until I saw her in that shade of blue, and remembered how becoming it used to be. She was like an apple-blossom, all white and pink, when we ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... was only yawning! I came for what Laura calls the healing influence of solitude, but Laura thought as the place was so expensive, and treatment was included, we'd better take Turkish baths, massage, and electricity, they're so good for the complexion. I have a little table to myself in the convalescents' dining-room and haven't made any acquaintances. I can't stand their sweetbread complexions and their double chins. The patients are all so fat they might sing Isaac Watts' ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... and knew there was not a real thing about her except, indeed, her hair, which was wavy and abundant still, and of which she was very proud, often allowing it to fall on her neck, and always arranging it in the most negligent and girlish manner. Once her complexion had been her own, but the life she had led was not conducive to bloom, and much of her bright color and the pearly tint of her skin was now the work of art, so skillfully done, however, that few could detect it. Mrs. Browne did not. She never suspected anything, ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... sympathy, concealed under much roughness, was a loss to Susan Dixon. Susan was not yet thirty when this happened, but she looked a middle-aged, not to say an elderly woman. People affirmed that she had never recovered her complexion since that fever, a dozen years ago, which killed her father, and left Will Dixon an idiot. But besides her gray sallowness, the lines in her face were strong, and deep, and hard. The movements ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell
... than anything else will: but some people will perhaps be somewhat afraid thus to wet the surface, on account of the nature of the paints. The tongue may, however, be used at any rate for the flesh parts, and a small wet sponge can be employed for the rest of the picture. Wet the complexion over with the tongue, then wash in the shadows with some flesh shadow mixture, to which a little canvasine medium and water have been added, and wipe it off again at once. Pay attention to the shadows that they ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... illustrious namesake as little in celerity of movement as he did in complexion, was coming, the Surgeon prepared a paper, which he ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... hands, and empoysoned both the wife of the Physitian and her owne daughter: The child being young and tender dyed incontinently by force of the drinke, but the Physitians wife being stout and strong of complexion, feeling the poison to trill down into her body, doubted the matter, and thereupon knowing of certainty that she had received her bane, ran forthwith to the judges house, that what with her cryes, and exclamations, she raised up the people of the towne, and promising them ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... necessary to add manner of life, for that itself arises from them. The doctrine of unity demands as its essential postulate an admission of the paramount control of physical agents over the human aspect and organization, else how could it be that, proceeding from the same stock, all shades of complexion in the skin, and variety in the form of the skull, should have arisen? Experience assures us that these are changes assumed only by slow degrees, and not with abruptness; they come as a cumulative effect. They plainly enforce the doctrine that national type is ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... quite so generous with the Rev. Mr. Harding, apparently. Mr. Harding was about thirty years of age, tall and finely-built, with a slight, fair moustache, and a rather girlish complexion. He was evidently of a sentimental inclination, very sensitive, and a lovable person; but the sense of humor Thyrsis judged was underdeveloped. He was inclined towards social-reform, and had a club for working-boys ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... are the Mechis, often described as a squalid, unhealthy people, typical of the region they frequent; but who are, in reality, more robust than the Europeans in India, and whose disagreeably sallow complexion is deceptive as indicating a sickly constitution. They are a mild, inoffensive people, industrious for Orientals, living by annually burning the Terai jungle and cultivating the cleared spots; and, though so sequestered ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... referred to the impression of imbecility which we have in seeing a perfectly white tree in the woods among the deep green of the sturdier trees. He may have referred to the effect of sedentary habits on my complexion. However, I soon forgot the particulars of his insulting address, retaining only the impression that I had suffered, and that willingly, in ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... displays greater abundance of English compositions. I have already observed that our two chief sources of Goliardic literature have many elements in common; but the treasures of the Benedictbeuern MS. differ in complexion from those of the Harleian in important minor details; and it is probable that if French and Italian stores were properly ransacked—which has not yet been done—we should note in them ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... into the brook they launch; He lays his cloak upon a branch, To guarantee his Lady Blanche 's delicate complexion: He takes his rapier from his haunch, That beardless, doughty champion staunch; He'd drill it through the rival's ...
— English Satires • Various
... hang what goes in the Army," snarled the private, who was a man some twenty-eight years of age, dark of complexion and forbidding of feature. "You've had it in for me all along, Corporal Overton. Only yesterday morning ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... in Texas, is a fine soldierlike man, of about fifty-five, with broad shoulders, a florid complexion, and bright eyes. He wears his whiskers and mustaches in the English fashion, and he was dressed in the Confederate grey uniform. He was kind enough to beg that I would turn back and accompany him in his ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... as nearly as possible, the same with an old face. It has got stained, and weather-beaten, and worn; but if the organ of truth has been playing on inside the temple of the Lord, which St. Paul says our bodies are, there is in the old face, though both form and complexion are gone, just the beauty of the music inside. The wrinkles and the brownness can't spoil it. A light shines through it all—that of the indwelling spirit. I wish we all grew old like the ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... appearance, at least. He was two or three inches shorter than Harding, and much stouter, displaying a well-rounded leg through the folds of his loose pants of light-gray Melton cloth, and being quite well aware of that advantage of person. He had a smoothly rounded face, with a complexion that had been fair until hard work, late hours, and some exposure to the elements, had browned and roughened it; brown hair, with an evident tendency to curl, if he had not worn it so short on account of the heat ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... my surprise when the door opened, and I saw leaning upon the lock, a light animated figure, rather petite than otherwise, dressed in a nankeen hussar-braided jacket, trousers of the same material, with a white waistcoat; his countenance pale but the complexion clear and healthful, with the hair coming down in little curls on each side of his ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... a palimpsest, a tapestry of which the actual threads have served before, or like the animal frame itself, every particle of which has already lived and died many times over. Nothing but the life-giving principle of cohesion is new; the new perspective, the resultant complexion, the expressiveness which familiar thoughts attain by novel juxtaposition. In other words, the form is new. But then, in the creation of philosophical literature, as in all other products of art, ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... shillings' worth. He presumed on nothing at all, was confidential when he ought to have been silent, and gushing when he should simply have thanked you with a smile. Nothing, moreover, to look at. He had the kind of complexion that looks as though it would break into spots at the earliest opportunity. His clothes fitted him badly and were dusty at the knees; his hair was of no colour nor strength whatever, and he bit his nails. His eyes behind ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... two pieces of furniture were even remotely related to one another in style or age. The wall-paper hung here and there in strips; the windows were dim with dirt; dust lay thickly in every corner; a counterpane of dubious complexion had a dark, wide-spreading ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... she had nursed in France, she had assumed a slightly possessive manner toward the war, as if she had in some mysterious way brought it into the world and was responsible for its reputation. She was tall and very thin, with a perfect complexion, a long nose, and a short upper lip which showed her teeth too much when she laughed. Her hair was fair and fluffy; and Mrs. Culpeper, who could not praise her beauty, was very proud of her ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... from a musical-box, as cheap and as soulless. Forms innately beautiful thus become almost hateful, because hackneyed. If all the women we see were at once faultlessly beautiful and absolute duplicates of each other in the minutest details of feature, complexion, dress and figure, we should be in danger of conceiving an aversion to the sex. So there is a certain pleasure in tracing in a carven object, even though it be hideous, the patient, faithful, watchful work of the human hand guided at every instant by the human eye. And this Japanese tracery ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... supping a basin of broth when the door burst open with a bang, and like a tiny cascade which leaps and bubbles in the sunlight, a little maid of three, with violet eyes, golden complexion, and glossy black hair, came bounding into the room. She was trailing behind her a train of white nightdress, hobbling on the portion in front, and carrying under her arm a cat, which, being held out by the ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... sucked his cigar, and continued to smile. The men looked at him with aversion, but the women, although shocked, did not think him repulsive. Was he not a tall, broadshouldered, graceful lad, with a complexion like milk and blood, and eyes the colour of a bluebottle, and did he not trim his moustaches and beard like a nobleman? It was a pity he was not a foreman with plenty of opportunities of ordering the girls about! The men, however, ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... afterwards to take refuge in an opposite shop, which was one occupied by a linen-draper. She looked around her with the eye of a connoisseur, and perceived beneath the modest garb of a shopman one of those broad-shouldered youths, whose open smiling countenance and gently tinged complexion bespoke a person whose simplicity of character differed greatly from the vast energy of his physical powers: he resembled the Farnese Hercules upon a reduced scale. The princess approached him, and requested to see some muslins, from which she selected two gowns, and after having paid for ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... Texas. They were a hardy lot, taciturn and solemn-faced. The most silent man in the bunch, was Noisy Cooper, who scarcely ever spoke a word unless forced to do so by an insistent question. Bat Coyne had been a cattle man down in Texas, while Mary Johnson —so called because of his pink and white complexion, which no amount of sun or wind could tarnish—was said to have come from the East. He had left there for reasons best known to himself, working ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... is a little dull for you at present, and to think that this wicked agitation should have begun the very season you were coming out! Who could have foreseen such a thing? But come, my pet, I cannot allow you to ruin your beautiful complexion with foolish tears; you must get up; unfortunately I can't have you in the drawing-room, I have to talk business with Milord, but you can go out for a walk with Alice—it isn't ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... Sovereign, on the one hand, from being a mere state puppet, without giving him, on the other, too great a preponderance of executive power, we need not discuss the justice of an imputation which refers to the general complexion of the King's views rather than to any particular acts of arbitrary authority. That it was the great aim of His Majesty's life to preserve the royal prerogatives from encroachment is undeniable; but it should be remembered that when George III. ascended the throne, the ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... shaded by a profusion of light brown ringlets, a long, straight, and finely-formed nose, a full, sensitive, and well-chiselled mouth, and a pointed chin. His eyes were large, dark, and somewhat melancholy in expression, and his complexion possessed that rich clear brown tint constantly met with in Italy or Spain, though but seldom seen in a native of our own colder clime. His dress was rich, but sombre, consisting of a doublet of black satin, worked with threads of Venetian gold; hose of the same ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... with a thousand sweet tunes; cranes and herons of white, crimson, and carnation, perching on the river's side; the air fresh, with a gentle, easterly wind; and every stone we stooped to pick up promising either gold or silver by its complexion." ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... stately, handed Ballard the Statutes, which he had taken from Des Peres. The others were watching Ballard with gathering sullenness, as they had watched Hewley while he was winning Wingo's money, only now the sullenness was of a more decided complexion. ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... permitted to say, friend—of the late Jacob Herapath. She occasionally consulted him on matters of business. On November 12th last she consulted him on another affair—though it had, of course, a business complexion. Mrs. Engledew, by the death of a relative, had just come into possession of some old family jewels—chiefly diamonds. These diamonds, which, Mrs. Engledew tells me, had been valued by Spinks at about seven thousand pounds, were in very old, considerably worn settings. Mrs. Engledew wished ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... of proprietorship of the British Empire, khaki-clad Tommy Atkins comes down the pier, attended by the inevitable fox terrier. Following close on his heels is a towering man of ebon complexion, with three stripes of ashes and the wafer of humility on his forehead. He is barefooted, and his solitary garment is a piece of cotton with which he has girded his loins; he is abundantly lacquered with cocoanut oil, to protect him from contracting a cold from the too rigorous "spicy breezes" ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... of clouds passing quickly across a clear sky, and casting momentary glooms, and glances of light, on the ground below. These journals do not begin until a date seven years after "Fanshawe" was published; but it is safe to assume that they mirror pretty closely the general complexion of ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... there was no danger of his making up to them—that was clear; and Mrs Combermere, mother-like, felt a little mortified and chagrined at such palpable indifference. But when pretty Bab Norman appeared, the case was different: her brunette complexion and sparkling dark eyes elicited marked admiration from the patrician Mr Newton; and he remarked in an off-hand way—sotto voce, as if to himself: 'By Jupiter! how like she is to dear Lady Mary Manvers.' Bab felt very much flattered by the comparison, and immediately began to like ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... fool? No, fool. Not the ratafia, fool—grant me patience!—I mean the Spanish paper, idiot; complexion, darling. Paint, paint, paint, dost thou understand that, changeling, dangling thy hands like bobbins before thee? Why dost thou not stir, puppet? Thou ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... driving, and riding on the high-road. I only wished that some of the folks from our village, who had always said that I never would be worth anything, might happen to pass by and see me thus. The dressing-gown became my complexion, and suited me extremely well. So I sat there and pondered many things—the difficulty of all beginnings, the great advantages of an easier mode of existence, for example—and privately resolved to give up travel for the future, save money like other people, and in time do something really great ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... bored-looking young man, who cheered up at the sight of the iced drinks, greeted the two friends with a smile. She was attired in the smartest of garden-party frocks, her brown eyes were clear and attractive, her complexion freckled but pleasant, her mouth humorous, a suggestion which was further carried out by her slightly retrousse nose. She seemed to bring with her an agreeable atmosphere ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... saw more and more of the inhabitants—men, women, and children. They were evidently a fine race, tall, handsome, and of white complexion; but the men in general were darker than the women. From their gay dresses, and the condition of the land, we had set them down for savages; but on a nearer view, their lack of arms, the beauty of their homes, and their ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... allowed to look ill. But the expression is hardly admissible, Mrs. Weston, is it? Ladies can never look ill. And, seriously, Miss Fairfax is naturally so pale, as almost always to give the appearance of ill health.—A most deplorable want of complexion." ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... section, and although a very eccentric person, was much respected by all his neighbours. How plainly do I yet remember him, after the lapse of so many years. His tall figure, shoulders that slightly stooped, his florid complexion, clear blue eyes, and hair bleached by the frosts of time to snowy whiteness. The farm on which he resided had improved under the hand of industry, till since my earliest recollection, it was in a state of high cultivation. His dwelling was an old-fashioned ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... beards, and abundant hair. In their features they may have borne a resemblance, but probably not a very strong resemblance, to the Cypriots,[336] who were a mixed people recruited from various quarters.[337] In complexion they belonged to the white race, but were rather sallow than fair. Their hair was generally dark, though it may have been sometimes red. Some have regarded the name "Phoenician" as indicating that they were of a red or red-brown colour;[338] ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... "on the morning of the fourteenth, a gentleman named Hosmer Angel. About five ft. seven in. in height; strongly built, sallow complexion, black hair, a little bald in the centre, bushy, black side-whiskers and moustache; tinted glasses, slight infirmity of speech. Was dressed, when last seen, in black frock-coat faced with silk, black waistcoat, gold ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... than enough, to set me on fire. I understood in a moment the information conveyed to me by my emotion—the Well-Beloved had reappeared. This second form in which it had pleased her to take up her abode was quite a grown young woman's, darker in complexion than the first. Her hair, also worn in a knot, was of an ordinary brown, and so, I think, were her eyes, but the niceties of her features were not to be gathered so cursorily. However, there sat my coveted ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy |
