The
grayness of the whole immense surface, the wind furrows upon the faces of the waves, the great masses of foam, tossed about and waving, like matted white locks, give to the sea in a gale an appearance of hoary age, lustreless, dull, without gleams, as though it had been created before light itself.
He was submerged in the vast impersonal
grayness about him, and at intervals the sidelong roll of the boat measured off time like the ticking of a clock.
But the brilliant throng of kings and queens, of knights and ladies, of pilgrims and lovers, and all the make- believe people of storyland stood out all the brighter for the
grayness of the background.
It takes place in an impalpable
grayness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamor, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat, in a sickly atmosphere of tepid skepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary.
She watched it so long and steadily that the
grayness grew heavier and heavier before her eyes and she fell asleep.
The eyes of the man who sat there were perfectly wide-open, but there was something unnatural in their fixed stare,--something unnatural, too, in the drawn
grayness of his face.
The question was answered for him, and so oppressed was he by the
grayness of life that he forgot the tentative proposition she had made for him to go to work.
In fact, he had looked at twenty very much as he looked at sixty, lacking a little of the
grayness.
They glowed out of its quiet and
grayness like the throbbing, blood-red thoughts of a vivid soul imprisoned in a dull husk of environment.
He had been made a sub-lieutenant in 1802, but it was not until 1829 that he became a major, in spite of the
grayness of his moustaches.