United States or Pitcairn Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
'Four greys, and no white. 'Three, Nikolai Eremyitch. 'Three and a half, and not a farthing less. 'Three, Nikolai Eremyitch. 'You're not talking sense, Gavrila Antonitch. 'My, what a pig-headed fellow! muttered the merchant. 'Then I'd better arrange it with the lady herself. 'That's as you like, answered the fat man; 'far better, I should say.
There was nothing to break the silence, and nothing to break the never-ending stretches of sand, as the two, caught in the inevitable fingers of Fate, sat motionless, looking ahead beyond the oasis, beyond the stars, to the moment when the first wind blew a particle of sand to find its mate, with which to multiply and form the desert, the birthplace and burial ground of so many; whilst gnarled hands playing with Life's shuttlecock drew a golden thread to a brown, proceeding to weave them in and out with the blood-red silk of the pomegranate, the orange of the setting sun, the silver of the rising moon, and the purples of the bougainvillaea, until upon the background of dull greys and saffrons appeared an amazing pattern of that which is called Love.
He had, above all, a tower of strength in the talents of his illustrious brother. Those two men might have naturally guided the councils of an empire. That a man so gifted, so public, and so ambitious of eminent distinction, should ever have been the subordinate of the Liverpools, the Cannings, or the Greys, would be wholly incomprehensible, but for one reason.
Listen: 'Far as the eye could stretch rolled the mauve and purple billows of heather, lit up here and there with the glowing yellow of gorse and broom, and edged round with the delicate greys and silver and green of the young birch trees. Tiny blue and brown butterflies fluttered above the fronds of heather, revelling in the sunlight, and overhead the larks were singing as only larks can sing.
Then only faint blue water, faint blue mists, faint blues and greens and greys of peaks looming through varying distance, and beyond all, towering ghost-white into the east, the glorious spectre of Daisen. And my heart sinks a moment under the rush of those vivid memories which always crowd upon one the instant after parting memories of all that make attachment to places and to things.
I must observe, however, that we were never obliged to break either of our captains; for both Breece of ours, and Captain Cook of the other company of Greys, made themselves invariably beloved and respected. Cook has since risen to the rank of major-general, and is, or was the other day, quartermaster-general of the republic of Texas.
Both of these regiments were almost perfectly fresh, and of full strength, the Greys having been in reserve in the morning, and having lost but a small number of men in sweeping back that part of the attack which had proved successful in breaking the line of defence, on the occasion when I charged with them and was stunned for my pains.
James Kelly himself, as he sat by the fire declaiming at me, was all browns and greys, like the country outside his door; and his eyes were like brown streams running through that peaty mountain, with their movement and sparkle, and their dark depths. At other times easy, like that of all Irish peasants, his manner changed and grew rough and imperious when the business began.
The bugle cry of red, the limpid confidence of white, the repeated Hallelujahs of yellow, the virginal glory of blue, all the quivering crucible of glass was dimmed as it got nearer to this border dyed with rusty red, the tawny hues of sauces, the harsh purples of sandstone, bottle-green, tinder-brown, fuliginous blacks, and ashy greys.
Margaret was very fond of warm greys, and fawn tints, and dove colour, and she had lately got a very pretty dress that was exactly to her taste, and was made of a newly invented thin material of pure silk, which had no sheen and cast no reflections of light, and was slightly elastic, so that it fitted as no ordinary silk or velvet ever could.
Word Of The Day