In the good old days, there existed a trick in webkit for clamping lines using pure css:
display: -webkit-box; -webkit-line-clamp: 3; -webkit-box-orient:
The only cross-browser solution is to use js afaik. Several solutions to the problem of multi-line truncation with ellipsis are discussed here: http://css-tricks.com/line-clampin/
I hate them all, but welcome to web development.