... forming the western boundary of Waveland, was a lovely inland lake, by the margin of which Clemence had been accustomed to spend many sad hours, since she had become a resident of the little village. A narrow foot-path, that led through the sombre woods, brought her to a sheltered spot upon the sloping shore, where she often came alone to pass an idle hour. She had come to regard this place as her own peculiar property, for no one had ever come here to interrupt her, or claim any portion ... — Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock Read full book for free!
... lived in London, I came to know children who went to school in Gower Street, and travelled backwards and forwards by omnibus—children who had no other recreation than an occasional visit to the Zoological Gardens, or a somewhat sombre walk up to Hampstead to see their aunt; and I have often regretted that they never had any experience of those perfect poetic pleasures which the boy enjoys whose childhood is spent in the country, and whose home is there. A country ... — The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford Read full book for free!
... break, saw the pass he was seeking several miles ahead. Reaching the mountain's edge at sunrise, they dismounted and began the perilous descent into the gorge. In two hours it was accomplished, and they entered the sombre shadows of the great canyon. They had begun to feel safe, when suddenly the man in front reined up his horse and pointed to several pony tracks in the sand. Souk dismounted and examined them, and, on looking ... — The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman Read full book for free!
... inapt. Round the edge are the ever-restless waves; on the surface the foam blown by fitful gusts of wind, the translucent play of sunbeams, and the clamour of storms lashing up the billows; but down in the sombre depths broods the resistless, immovable force which tinges with its reflection the dancing and play above, and is the genius and fascination, the mystery and tragedy of ... — Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars Read full book for free!
... slothful, kings earnest and kings frivolous, kings saintly and kings licentious, kings good and sympathetic towards their people, kings egotistical and concerned solely about themselves, kings lovable and beloved, kings sombre and dreaded or detested. As we go forward and encounter them on our way, all these kingly characters will be seen appearing and acting in all their diversity and all their incoherence. Absolute monarchical power in France was, almost in every successive ... — A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot Read full book for free!
... felt his heart sink. Where our new house had made such a brave show a year before on the surface of the Barrier, there was now no house at all to be seen. All that met the eyes of the visitor was a sombre pile of ruins. But his anxiety quickly vanished when a man emerged from the confusion. The man was Lindstrom, and the supposed ruin was the most ingenious of all winter-quarters. Lindstrom was ignorant of the Fram's arrival, and the face he showed on seeing ... — The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen Read full book for free!
... "Bourgtheroulde" remains a pleasing and fantastic architectural mystery. Close by, through the quaint old streets of the Epicerie and "Gross Horloge", walked no doubt in their young days the brothers Corneille, before they evolved from their meditative souls the sombre and heavy genius of French tragedy,—and not very far away, up one of those little shadowy winding streets and out at the corner, stands the restored house of Diane de Poitiers, so sentient and alive in its ... — The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli Read full book for free!
... year of Cesare's death. The Duchess of Valentinois withdrew to La Motte-Feuilly, and for the seven years remaining of her life was never seen other than in mourning; her very house was equipped with sombre, funereal furniture, and so maintained until her end, which supports the view that she had conceived affection and respect for the husband of whom she had seen ... — The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini Read full book for free!
... Answer, sombre beast and dreary, Where is Brown, the young, the cheery, Smith, the pride of all his friends and half the Force? You were at that last dread dak We must cover at a walk, Bring them back ... — Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling Read full book for free!
... palace outlined in fire, and alight from within like all other houses within view. The noise was bewildering. It was impossible to distinguish one sound from another. Voices, horns, drums, the tramp of a thousand footsteps on the rubber pavements, the sombre roll of wheels from the station behind—all united in one overwhelmingly solemn ... — Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson Read full book for free!
... He had now stood up. Craning his neck, so that the cords were tense and rigid, he remained motionless. His knees were bent, his underlip protruding. Only the eyes in his sombre countenance moved incessantly, peering in terror, like those of a hunted wild beast that itself is impatient to hunt its prey. The nostrils in his bull-dog face quivered, as if eager ... — The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various Read full book for free!
... now walking down the nave, preceded by the sombre figures with the pot flowers, who were just visible in the rays that reached them through the distant choir screen at their back; while above the grey night sky and stars looked in upon them through the ... — A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy Read full book for free!
... night-life around the Mansion House went on normally with its fascinating air of a dead commercial city of sombre walls through which the inextinguishable activity of its millions streamed East and West in a ... — Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad Read full book for free!
... mad fellow?" screeched the arch-priest, his black eyes bright as knife points. "Save Atlans—?" Fierce questioning was in his sombre, ... — Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various Read full book for free!
... any joy. Little then does he believe who life's pleasure owns, While he tarries in the towns, and but trifling ills, Proud and insolent with wine—how out-wearied I Often must outstay on the ocean path! Sombre grew the shade of night, and it snowed from northward, Frost the field enchained, fell the hail on earth, Coldest ... — Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner Read full book for free!
... clear of the sombre wood, and had to commence another fight in the hollow of the slope they had to climb, for here the brambles and furze grew in their greatest luxuriance, and had woven so sturdy a hedge that it was next ... — Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn Read full book for free!
... was really to be pitied. He could not look upon the azure vault without a sombre terror: when asleep, he felt oscillations that made his head reel; and every night he had visions of being swung aloft ... — Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne Read full book for free!
... fall of the year clothes itself in gay colors, it is deemed an evidence of immaturity for women in the fall time of life to sport crimson and scarlet and orange. Sober grays (which mean old, mature), quiet brown, and even sombre blacks, are rather what are looked for. To dress young when people are old, deceives no one. There is a beauty of age as well as a beauty of youth. Those who live to be old have had their share of the former: why ... — The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various Read full book for free!
... my father, quietly, and he left us staring in that heavy, sombre face before us—a face full of despair, but one to which we could not address ... — Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn Read full book for free!
... promptly answered, "Votes!" but he soon got going again. Ireland, he declared, was a unit. The Bill gave her dualism "with a shadowy background of remote and potential unity." The vaunted Council was "a fleshless and bloodless skeleton." He remarked upon "the sombre acquiescence of the Ulstermen," and wondered why they had accepted the Bill at all. "Because we don't trust you," came the swift ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various Read full book for free!
... his eyes but they burned no longer. A power, akin to that which had often made anger or resentment fall from him, brought his steps to rest. He stood still and gazed up at the sombre porch of the morgue and from that to the dark cobbled laneway at its side. He saw the word LOTTS on the wall of the lane and breathed slowly the ... — A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce Read full book for free!
... of girlish spirits. Their emotions came and went with quick vicissitude, and sometimes combined to form a peculiar and delicious excitement, the mirth brightening the gloom into a sunny shower of feeling, and a rainbow in the mind. My own more sombre mood was tinged by theirs. With now a merry word and next a sad one, we trod among the tangled weeds, and almost hoped that our feet would sink into the hollow of a witch's grave. Such vestiges were to be found within ... — Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne Read full book for free!
... instrument of conviction which none dared question. Heresy was blotted out from Spain,—and Spain was blotted out from the ranks of enlightened nations. Freedom of thought was at an end. The mind of the Spaniard was put in fetters. Spain, under the sombre shadow of this barbarity, was shut out from the light which was breaking over the remainder of Europe. Literature moved in narrow channels, philosophy was checked, the domain of science was closed, progress was at an end. Spain stood still while the ... — Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris Read full book for free!
... lowering over Durlstone Point, and dark clouds were seen chasing each other rapidly across the sky, rising from a dark bank which rested on the western horizon, while white-crested seas began to rise up out of the sombre green ocean, every instant increasing in number. The wind whistled mournfully among the bushes and the few stunted trees, with tops bending inland, which fringed the cliffs, and the murmur of the waves on the beach below changed ere ... — The Ferryman of Brill - and other stories • William H. G. Kingston Read full book for free!
... thirteenth of October, a day ever memorable in the annals of Canada, broke cold and stormy. Low hung clouds mantled the sky and made the late dawn later still, and cast still darker shadows on the sombre clumps of spruce and pines that clothed the sides of the gorge, and on the sullen water that flowed between. A couple of fishermen of the neighbourhood who were serving in the militia had been permitted by the officer ... — Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow Read full book for free!
... belong the kelu or deodar (Cedrus Libani), the glossy leaved mohru oak (Quercus dilatata), whose wood is used for making charcoal, and two small trees of the Heath order, Rhododendron arborea and Pieris ovalifolia. The former in April and May lightens up with its bright red flowers the sombre Simla forests. The kharshu or rusty-leaved oak (Quercus semecarpifolia) affects a colder climate than its more beautiful glossy-leaved relation, and may almost be considered sub-alpine. It is common on Hattu, and the oaks there present ... — The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie Read full book for free!
... movement, the resultant of the various forces within it, was headed towards the healthy progress of Judaism. The most substantial product of this movement was the Neo-Hebraic literary renaissance which had already appeared in faint outlines on the sombre background of external oppression and internal obscurantism during the preceding period. The Haskalah, formerly anathematized, was now able to unfold all its creative powers. What in the time of Isaac Baer Levinsohn had been accomplished stealthily by a few isolated conspirators ... — History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow Read full book for free!
... threaded its way through the crowded street she rarely smiled, but her sombre eyes took in everything, and she "said things," as the boy put it, which he recalled and quoted years afterward. Incidentally she talked of herself, though always without giving him a clew as to who she was and where she came from. Several times, as a face in the ... — Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan Read full book for free!
... tactless prelate made matters worse by an arrogant attitude, and afterward spoke of the King, who received him in sombre silence, as "that debaser of coinage, that proud and dumb image that knows nothing but to stare at ... — The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various Read full book for free!
... the carriage-wheels, as they rattled on, through the day, through the night, became as the wheels of a great clock, recording the hours. No change of weather varied the journey, after it had hardened into a sullen frost. In a sombre-yellow sky, they saw the Alpine ranges; and they saw enough of snow on nearer and much lower hill-tops and hill-sides, to sully, by contrast, the purity of lake, torrent, and waterfall, and make the villages look discoloured and dirty. But no snow ... — No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins Read full book for free!
... the sea. To the first opinion we may subscribe, but doubt whether the objection ought to extend to the latter, especially if we remember the great height of the cliff on which Napoleon stands, and the usual sombre appearance of the ocean towards the last minute of sunset. The lower part of the figure, particularly the left leg, ... — The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various Read full book for free!
... in the light, and that luxuriant influence passing on like a celestial presence, brightening everything! The wood, a sombre mass before, revealed its varied tints of yellow, green, brown, red: its different forms of trees, with raindrops glittering on their leaves and twinkling as they fell. The verdant meadow-land, bright and glowing, seemed ... — The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens Read full book for free!
... as awaking from his reverie, he stood opposite to that wild and magnificent gloom of Nature which frowned on him from the canvas, the very leaves on those gnome-like, distorted trees seemed to rustle sibylline secrets in his ear. Those rugged and sombre Apennines, the cataract that dashed between, suited, more than the actual scenes would have done, the mood and temper of his mind. The stern, uncouth forms at rest on the crags below, and dwarfed ... — Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton Read full book for free!
... timidly in the sombre frame of the doorway, looking far over our heads. Then old Leggett came in front of her. There was a word of presentation to Miss Berham, our teacher, the vision was escorted to a seat at my left front, and I was bade to continue the reading lesson if I ever expected ... — The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson Read full book for free!
... them amid the fallen leaves. The world beyond the orchard was in a royal magnificence of colouring, under the vivid blue autumn sky. The big willow by the gate was a splendid golden dome, and the maples that were scattered through the spruce grove waved blood-red banners over the sombre cone-bearers. The Story Girl generally had her head garlanded with their leaves. They became her vastly. Neither Felicity nor Cecily could have worn them. Those two girls were of a domestic type that assorted ill with the wildfire in Nature's veins. But when the Story ... — The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery Read full book for free!
... bier of sombre hue Adorned with broken lilies; crosses, tears; And on their beds a lost ... — The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini Read full book for free!
... of May came, the three started off together for Galway, happy in spite of their boycotting. The girls at least were happy, though Frank was still somewhat sombre as he thought of the edict which Rachel O'Mahony had pronounced against him. When the boat arrived at the quay at Galway, Captain Clayton, with one of the officers of the West Bromwich, was there to meet it. "He is a wise man," whispered Edith to Ada, ... — The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope Read full book for free!
... Roseate or sombre your humour as you patrol the reefs, it is liable to be changed in a flash into clashing tints by inadvertent contact with a warty ghoul of a sea-urchin, a single one of whose agonising spines never fails to bring ... — My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield Read full book for free!
... Hook found him. He stood silent at the foot of the tree looking across the chamber at his enemy. Did no feeling of compassion disturb his sombre breast? The man was not wholly evil; he loved flowers (I have been told) and sweet music (he was himself no mean performer on the harpsichord); and, let it be frankly admitted, the idyllic nature of the scene stirred him profoundly. Mastered by his better self ... — Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie Read full book for free!
... stealthy breezes, and betray the passing of a wind that even the tree-tops knew not of. Sometimes it is a breeze unfelt, but the stiff sedges whisper it along a mile of marsh. To the strong wind they bend, showing the silver of their sombre little tassels as fish show the silver of their sides turning in the pathless sea. They are unanimous. A field of tall flowers tosses many ways in one warm gale, like the many lovers of a poet who have a thousand reasons for their love; but the rushes, more strongly tethered, are swept into ... — The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell Read full book for free!
... with a more vehement will; he struck, and at the same instant every horror disappeared. The sky was cloudless; the forest was neither terrible nor beautiful, but heavy and sombre as of old—a natural gloomy wood, ... — Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt Read full book for free!
... children into whose existence the ceaseless round of fast and feast, of prohibited and enjoyed pleasures, of varying species of food, brought change and relief! Imprisoned in the area of a few narrow streets, unlovely and sombre, muddy and ill-smelling, immured in dreary houses and surrounded with mean and depressing sights and sounds, the spirit of childhood took radiance and color from its own inner light and the alchemy ... — Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill Read full book for free!
... cloak that hung loosely upon their shoulders, displaying their magnificent proportions somewhat freely. They were much handsomer than the men, having splendid solemn eyes, very white teeth, and a remarkable dignity of gait. Their faces, however, wore the same sombre look as those of their husbands and brothers, and they did not chatter after the manner of their sex, but contented themselves with pointing out the peculiarities of the strangers in a few brief words to their ... — The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard Read full book for free!
... is here!" said Frida, "and yet how unlike the sombre appearance of the trees in the dear ... — Little Frida - A Tale of the Black Forest • Anonymous Read full book for free!
... down in its fathomless depths the stars glow and sparkle, like the sheen of a million of diamonds. Of the old forests and trees of fabulous growth, stretching away and away on every hand, throwing their sombre shadows far out over the water, in whose tangled recesses countless deer and moose, and panthers, and bears range, and among whose branches birds of unknown melody carol. That one side of this beautiful ... — Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond Read full book for free!
... as he rounded a point, he thought he saw far down the lake, against the blue of the sky and above the sombre forest, a flutter of red. At the same moment be glanced behind him to see if he were still free from pursuit. Alas! He was not. Two canoes, each urged by half a dozen gleaming paddles, were following as swiftly and silently ... — At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore Read full book for free!
... wonderful forward strides in his art as did Wagner with "The Flying Dutchman" and "Tannhaeuser." But that was not the opinion when they were produced. The former, although it is now acknowledged to be an exquisitely poetic treatment of the weird legend, was voted sombre and dull, and "Tannhaeuser" was simply a puzzle. After listening to "Tannhaeuser," Schumann declared that Wagner was unmusical! Unless a person is familiar with Wagner's life, it is impossible to believe how bitter was the opposition ... — The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb Read full book for free!
... officers. The rest of the panorama was made up of an immense view of forest below them, and upright masses of mountains above them. Over these, heavy bodies of mist were slowly sailing, giving a sombre appearance to the primeval woods which, in general, covered both mountains and plains. The atmosphere indicated an inter-tropical morning during the rainy season, and the sun shone resplendently between dense ... — The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis Read full book for free!
... also I had seen pictures of him in the newspapers, and had studied them with some care, trying to imagine what sort of personage he might be. I knew that he was twenty-four, but the man who came towards us I would have taken to be forty. His face was sombre, with large features and strongly marked lines about the mouth; he was tall and thin, and moved with decision, betraying no emotion even in this moment of surprise. "What are you doing here?" were his ... — Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair Read full book for free!
... opposite park of Clavering were in the habit of putting on a rich golden tinge, which became them both wonderfully. The upper windows of the great house flamed so as to make your eyes wink; the little river ran off noisily westward and was lost in sombre wood, behind which the towers of the old abbey church of Clavering (whereby that town is called Clavering St. Mary's to the present day) rose up in purple splendour. Little Arthur's figure and his mother's cast ... — Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser Read full book for free!
... bounding water-falls and tranquil lakes; fertile lands and savage wastes; sunny plains and frigid plateaux. There were the most rugged forms and the most graceful outlines; low perpendicular cliffs and gentle undulating slopes; rocky mountains and snowy mountains, sombre and solemn, or glittering and white, with walls, turrets, pinnacles, pyramids, domes, cones, and spires. There was every combination that the world can give, and every contrast ... — Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various Read full book for free!
... out of his inflamed eyes at the five women who all wore the garbs of the Sisters of Mercy, their white coiffes and tabliers contrasting sharply with the sombre habits of the Russian nuns who had gathered in the ... — The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers Read full book for free!
... specimens of ecclesiastical architecture, we may read the world's later history, and to-day they breathe the sombre reverential influence of a faith which sought to satisfy itself with the visible symbolizing of those half-poetical, half-superstitious conceptions with which the religion of the Middle Ages ... — Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath Read full book for free!
... I said, as I glanced round and noted that the sombre reflection from the walls of the chasm gave the faces of my companions a ghastly and ... — Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn Read full book for free!
... vine-clad terrace there was a scurrying rush of little school-boys from a steep side-street. They ran down the slope, and passed me, going quickly like black blots on the road, yet their laughter was sunlight on the ripple of waters. The Portuguese are always children and are not sombre. Only in their graveyards stand solemn cypresses which rise darkly on the hillside where they bury their dead; but in life they laugh and are merry even after they have children ... — A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts Read full book for free!
... voices stretched to breaking, these clear sharp voices threw into the darkness of the chant some whiteness of the dawn, joining their pure, soft sounds to the resonant tones of the basses, piercing as with a jet of living silver the sombre cataract of the deeper singers; they sharpened the wailing, strengthened and embittered the burning salt of tears, but they insinuated also a sort of protecting caress, balsamic freshness, lustral help; they lighted in the darkness those brief gleams which tinkle in the Angelus at ... — En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans Read full book for free!
... for dinner. Gowns are provided for the student in the robing-room, for the use of which a small term-fee is paid, and, thus habited, he is introduced into the Hall. But it is now no longer hushed and sombre, but a scene of brightness and bustle. The tables are spread for dinner in close and orderly array; wax-lights in profusion blaze upon them; a multitude of gowned men are lounging on the seats, or talking ... — Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various Read full book for free!
... sailors pulled at the oar. They glided slowly past the sombre shores by the shimmering moonlight, the sound of the murmuring surf and the moaning pine-trees. In the gray of the morning, they came to the mouth of a river, probably the Nassau; and here a northeast wind set in with a violence that almost ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various Read full book for free!
... Mr. Utterson came home to his bachelor house in sombre spirits and sat down to dinner without relish. It was his custom of a Sunday, when this meal was over, to sit close by the fire, a volume of some dry divinity on his reading-desk, until the clock of the neighbouring church rang out the hour of twelve, when he would ... — Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Read full book for free!
... the most famous painters—Francis Hals, Jordaens, Rembrandt, Metsu, Van Mieris—all belong to this time, and in some of the fine interiors represented by these Old Masters, in which embroidered curtains and rich coverings relieve the sombre colors of the dark carved oak furniture, there is a richness of effect which the artist could scarcely have imagined, but which he must have observed in the houses of the rich burghers ... — Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield Read full book for free!
... which I was now reminded by the howling of the storm within its high walls. Mrs. Blakesley had extemporised a bed for me on the old sofa; and the fire was already blazing away splendidly. I sat down beside it, and the sombre-hued Past rolled ... — The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald Read full book for free!
... natural courage had needs have a good cause, and confidence in the weapon to be used. Florence Kearney possessed all three; and though it was his first appearance in a duel, he had no fear for the result. Even the still, sombre scene, with the long grey moss hanging down from the dark cypress trees, like the drapery of a hearse, failed to inspire him with dread. If, at times, a slight nervousness came over him, it was instantly driven off by the thought of the insult he had received—and, perhaps also, a little by the ... — The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid Read full book for free!
... trees lined the road, and the orange light came through the fretwork of their leaves and branches, and made the dust rising from the cattle and the people on the red roads and the deep shadows all aglow with warm, sombre colour; I would I could remember it exactly. One figure I can still see—there is an open space, green grass, and Corot like trees on either side reflected in water, and a girl carrying a black water-pot on her head, crosses the grass in the rays of the setting sun—a splash of ... — From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch Read full book for free!
... was very sombre and reserved," says Peytel; "he refused to call me in the morning, to carry my money-chest to my room, to cover the open car when it rained." The Prosecutor disproves this by stating that Rey talked with the inn maids and servants, ... — The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray Read full book for free!
... only by giving the horse his head that he was able to smell out the hoofs of his comrades in the partially covered grass of frozen swamp and moorland. No living thing stirred, save now and then a prairie owl flitting through the gloom added to the sombre desolation of the scene. At last the trail turned suddenly towards a deep ravine to the left. Riding to the edge of this ravine, the welcome glare of a fire glittering through a thick screen of bushes struck my eye. The guide had hopelessly lost his way, and after thirteen hours ... — The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler Read full book for free!
... "Zauberfloete," had just been completed when a strange commission was given him. One day a tall, haggard-looking man, dressed in gray, with a very sombre expression of countenance, called upon Mozart, bringing with him an anonymous letter. This letter contained an inquiry as to the sum for which he would write a mass for the dead, and in how short a time this could be completed. Mozart consulted his wife, and the sum of fifty ducats was mentioned. ... — Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various Read full book for free!
... very sombre smile. "If any of them should come this way," he said, "it is possible that they might not think it worth while to cease their search along the beach and come up to this particular spot, were it not that our boat ... — The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton Read full book for free!
... times, an evening sky— The twilight's gift—of sombre hue, All checkered wild and gorgeously With streaks of crimson, gold and blue;— A sky that strikes the soul with awe, And, though not brilliant as the sheen, Which in the east at morn we saw, Is far more glorious, I ween;— So glorious that, when night hath come ... — Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various Read full book for free!
... amidst the mist when we might rise into the clear blue above the obscuring pall? Only because we are still in some measure clinging to self, and still in some measure distrusting our Lord. If our faith were firm and full our 'glorying' would be constant. Do not be contented with the prevailing sombre type of Christian life which is always endeavouring, and always foiled, which is often doubting and often indifferent, but seek to live in the sunshine, and expatiate in the light, and 'rejoice in ... — Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren Read full book for free!
... ye sylvan gods that dwell Among these dim and sombre shades, Whose voices in the breezes swell And blend with noises of cascades, Watch over Sita, whom alone I leave, and keep her safe from harm, Till we return unto our own, I and my brother, arm ... — Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt Read full book for free!
... was John Williams, a hard-working, honorable Welshman, buried. His death furnished forth a sombre, dramatic entertainment such as he himself had ceremoniously attended many times. The funeral trotters whom he had seen at every funeral in the valley were now in at his death, and would be at each other's death, until the black and yellow earth claimed ... — Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland Read full book for free!
... it occurred to the great divine to rob death of its terrors by introducing the frying-pan into every household in Geneva. Thence it spread to all corners of the world, and has been of invaluable assistance in the propagation of his sombre faith. The following lines (said to be from the pen of his Grace Bishop Potter) seem to imply that the usefulness of this utensil is not limited to this world; but as the consequences of its employment in this life reach ... — The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce Read full book for free!
... ahead of her in a sombre reverie. "Don't think any more about it," she said, bitterly. "I will get over it. I am not worth troubling about. Don't you suppose I know how you feel about this world that I live in? And I'm part of it—I beat my wings, and try to get out, but I can't. I'm in it, and I'll ... — The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair Read full book for free!
... and the quiet English landscape seemed very fair to Clarissa Lovel in that serene light. She watched the shadowy fields flitting past; here and there a still pool, or a glimpse of running water; beyond, the sombre darkness of wooded hills; and above that dark background a calm starry sky. Who shall say what dim poetic thoughts were in her mind that night, as she looked at these things? Life was so new to her, the future such an unknown country—a ... — The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon Read full book for free!
... this brilliant fete of illuminations underwent a sensible abatement of splendour, then almost ceased. The walls assumed a crystallised though sombre appearance; mica was more closely mingled with the feldspar and quartz to form the proper rocky foundations of the earth, which bears without distortion or crushing the weight of the four terrestrial systems. We were immured ... — A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne Read full book for free!
... several new and therefore brilliantly red cart-wheels. The sun shone through the upper part of a high window, of which many of the panes were broken, right in upon the cart-wheels, which, glowing thus in the chimney under the sombre chimney-piece, added to the grotesque look of the whole assemblage of contrasts. The coffin and the carpenter stood in the twilight occasioned by the sharp division of light made by a lofty wing of the house that rose flanking the other window. The room was still wainscotted ... — Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald Read full book for free!
... the enchanted ear of the multitude, professional and unprofessional, the essential vitality was there, the vitality embodied to the enchanted eye by the white figure with its drooping, pearl-wreathed head and face sunken in sombre ecstasy. She gave them all they craved:—passion, stormy struggle, the tears of hopeless love, the chill smile of lassitude in accepted defeat, the unappeasable longing for the past. They listened, and their hearts ... — Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick Read full book for free!
... not speak. She seemed to choke with excess of feeling. For an instant she stood still, trembling with agitation, then she sat down suddenly on a great couch covered with soft deer-skins and buffalo robes. There was deep in her the habit of obedience to this sombre but striking woman. She had been ruled firmly, almost oppressively, and she had not yet revolted. Seated on the couch, she gazed out of the window at the flying snow, her brain too much on fire for thought, passion ... — Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker Read full book for free!
... purest water—judged by our standards. He was addicted to cleaning his nails, amongst other things, with a prong of his fork at meals. . . . But one morning down in the Hulluch sector—it was stand to. Dawn was just spreading over the sky—grey and sombre; and lying at the bottom of the trench just where a boyau joined the front line, was this officer. His face was whiter than the chalk around him, but every now and then he grinned feebly. What was left of his body had been covered with his coat: because you ... — Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile Read full book for free!
... rather of a size suited to the closeness of the councils that had place within its walls. The floor was tessellated with alternate pieces of black and white marble; the walls were draped in one common and sombre dress of black cloth; a single lamp of dark bronze was suspended over a solitary table in its centre, which, like every other article of the scanty furniture, had the same melancholy covering as the walls. In the angles of the room there were projecting ... — The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper Read full book for free!
... his feelings, wept bitterly, and resolved no longer to bear such treatment. Softly he undid the fastenings of the door, and looked abroad. It was a cold night. The stars seemed, to the boy's eyes, farther from the earth than he had ever seen them before; there was no wind; and the sombre shadows looked sepulchral and death-like, from being so still. He softly reclosed the door, and having availed himself of the expiring light of the candle to tie up in a handkerchief the few ... — Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser Read full book for free!
... there was a suggestion of character beyond her years. Her face was dreamy and wayward, and almost gipsy in type. There was something rather disconcerting in the contrast between her air of inexperienced youth and the sombre intensity of her dark eyes, which seemed mature and disillusioned, like those of an older person. The slim lines of her figure had the lissome development of a girl who spent her days out ... — The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees Read full book for free!
... their merry game, for the wily dwarf Alberich has emerged from one of the sombre chasms. He is a Nibelung, a spirit of night and darkness, and slowly gropes his way to one of the upper ridges, whence he can see the graceful forms of the nymphs, watch their merry evolutions, and overhear them repeatedly admonish each other to keep watch over the ... — Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber Read full book for free!
... not all Queen Charlotte's; they are catalogued to-day, and so are many manuscripts and autograph letters of royal persons which attract careful readers. From remarks which can be overheard in those sombre rooms, many visitors, I think, imagine the paintings of still life, of flowers in vases, odd representations of game and fruit, and so forth, to have been selected and hung in the house as specially suitable for ... — Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker Read full book for free!
... much larger inside than out. A gas-jet burnt in the hall, and sombre portieres gave large mysterious hints of rooms. I could hear, in the distance, the noise of frizzling over a fire, and of a child crying. Then a tall, straight, wellmade, energetic woman appeared like a conjuring trick ... — The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett Read full book for free!
... I fear their sombre yellow deeps, Their whirling fringe of black, And he who gives a passion-flower Always asks ... — The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse Read full book for free!
... himself, the sombre, brooding man felt interest and sympathy in the dejection that was evident in Frank's voice and countenance. "Another dupe to affection," thought he, as if in apology to himself,—"of course, a dupe; he is honest and artless—at present." ... — My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton Read full book for free!
... o'clock in the morning Julie sat up, sombre and moody, beside her sleeping husband, in the room dimly lighted by the flickering lamp. Deep silence prevailed. Her agony of remorse had lasted near an hour; how bitter her tears had been none perhaps can realize save women who have ... — A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac Read full book for free!
... when burned up by drought. Except scattered waving cocoanut palms which grew even on these hill-sides, no green thing was apparent, save in the ravines, where trees seemed to thrive, and so broke the monotony of tint with streaks of sombre verdure. Farther up, the peaks were thickly covered with a forest, which looked impenetrable. The abrupt contrast of the yellow lower land with this cap of tanglewood, itself at times covered, at times only dotted, with ... — From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan Read full book for free!
... similarity to Thukydides in style, arrangement, and emotional attitude. There remains one more bond of brotherhood,—the speeches. Just as the sombre story of the Peloponnesian conflict has for a prominent feature the pleas and counterpleas of contending parties, together with a few independent orations, so this Roman History is filled with public utterances of famous men, either singly or in pairs. Dio evinces ... — Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio Read full book for free!
... of its small size, and its warm appearance in other respects, was furnished under foot with layers of heavy Turkey carpets, one laid upon another (according to a fashion then prevalent in Germany), and on the walls with tapestry. In this mode of hanging rooms, though sometimes heavy and sombre, there was a warmth sensible and apparent, as well as real, which peculiarly fitted it for winter apartments, and a massy splendor which accorded with the style of dress and furniture in that gorgeous age. One real ... — Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey Read full book for free!
... noiseless use of the paddles, the light in their eye as they constantly stood up in the canoe to keep a hidden gaze upon the game ahead, watching its every movement as well as the local eddies and currents in the light evening breeze. All was so in keeping with the sombre leaden clouds overhead, and the grizzled sides of the ungainly brute, blending in with the background of weather-beaten tree trunks and the dull gray rocks. And so, silently and swiftly, stopping many times ... — American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various Read full book for free!
... days later. The banquet hoard and oleanders have been removed, every trace of the funeral has been carefully obliterated. Clear sunlight comes in from the garden windows in the background and lights up the spacious, sombre hall. The bushes and trees of the garden are coated with ice. The fire is burning as usual. Toward the end of the act the sunlight gradually vanishes and a light, gray dusk fills the hall. AUNT CLARA stands at the fireplace ... — The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various Read full book for free!
... (I forget what) to step into the court-yard, as I settled this account; and remember I walk'd down stairs in no small triumph with the conceit of my reasoning.—Beshrew the sombre pencil! said I, vauntingly—for I envy not its powers, which paints the evils of life with so hard and deadly a colouring. The mind sits terrified at the objects she has magnified herself, and blackened: reduce them to their proper size and hue, she overlooks ... — A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne Read full book for free!
... need Of loving hearts to strengthen and to lead, When first are opened to her wondering eyes The world's fair fields and seeming paradise. She only sees the beauty—hears the song, Knows not the hidden snares, nor dreams of wrong. 'Tis woman's happiest time, and yet 'tis true A sombre tinge may mar its brightest hue. For girlhood too will have its doubts and fears, Will lose the past and long for coming years, And sad indeed when youth is left alone To face the coming future all unknown. ... — Love or Fame; and Other Poems • Fannie Isabelle Sherrick Read full book for free!
... transition between the mediaeval Christianity of cell and cloister, and the modern Christianity that rejoices in the daylight, is depicted there, in the shadow that obscures the Book—in the scowl that is fixed upon the Book-diffuser;—that sombre musing face of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, with the beauty of Napoleon, darkened to the expression of a Fiend, looking far and anxiously into futurity, as if foreseeing there what antagonism was about to be created to the schemes ... — The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various Read full book for free!
... owned them used them entirely for his own purposes; they betrayed none of that changing instinctive relation towards the human being—any human being—within their range, which makes the charm of so many faces. But they were sadder, more sombre, more restless; they thrilled her more than they had already thrilled her once, in the first moment of ... — The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward Read full book for free!
... and distinct from her, unchanged outwardly to her, but underneath a solid power of antagonism to her. Of which she became gradually aware. And it irritated her to be made aware of him as a separate power. She lapsed into a sort of sombre exclusion, a curious communion with mysterious powers, a sort of mystic, dark state which drove him and the child nearly mad. He walked about for days stiffened with resistance to her, stiff with a ... — The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence Read full book for free!
... diffusing tints resembling the ruddy, soft, and melancholy hues of autumnal foliage; while these hues were further deepened by a richly carved ceiling of ebony, which, not reflecting but absorbing light, allayed the sunny radiance beneath, and imparted a sombre yet brilliant effect to the pictured walls, and glossy draperies, of the spacious apartment. Above the rich and lofty mantelpiece hung one of the last portraits of himself painted by the venerable Titian, and on the dark pannels around were suspended portraits of great ... — Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various Read full book for free!
... all to consider Ann from the barn standpoint. If she wanted the tragic and sombre she should have it—in the sunlight and surrounded with love. So she no longer was obliged to depend on the queer little girls who fluttered like blind bats in the crude of their adolescent years. Lynda, Betty, Truedale, and Brace read bloodcurdling horrors to her ... — The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock Read full book for free!
... her dusky gloom. All was silent, save the low rushing of the Derwent stream, purling its way through dense groves, and winding round the stupendous rock of Matlock's Vale. As I paced along, the grave, sombre hue of evening fell full on the rocks, which rose in magnificent grandeur, and seemed to look with contempt on all around them. These beauties, combined with the gray tint of the stone, the cawing of the rooks, which nestle in the crevices and underwood, with now and then the ... — The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various Read full book for free!
... to decipher in her countenance her sentiments at the omission. I wanted to find out whether in her existed a consciousness of her own talents. "If she thinks she did a clever thing in composing that devoir, she will now look mortified," thought I. Grave as usual, almost sombre, was her face; as usual, her eyes were fastened on the cahier open before her; there was something, I thought, of expectation in her attitude, as I concluded a brief review of the last devoir, and when, casting it from me and rubbing ... — The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell Read full book for free!
... Spanish: 'Come, caballero; come to one who will be able to answer you;' and she led the way down amongst the ruins towards one of the dens formerly occupied by the wild beasts, and disclosed to us a set of beings scarcely less savage. The sombre walls of this gloomy abode were illumined by a fire, the smoke from which escaped through a deep fissure in the massy roof; whilst the flickering flames threw a blood-red glare on the bronzed features of a group of children, of two men, and a decrepit ... — George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter Read full book for free!
... of morning was now apparent above, yet the thick growth of the trees, whose clustering branches mingled in one dense mass overhead, made it still dark and sombre below; and Joe, to divert Sneak from his unconscionable gait, which, in his endeavours to keep up, often subjected him to the rude blows of elastic switches, and many twinges of overhanging grape vines, essayed to engage his ... — Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones Read full book for free!
... and, as I went, I breathed an air sweet with the smell of thyme and lavender and a thousand other scents, an air fraught with memories of sunny days and joyous youth, insomuch that I clenched my hands and hasted from the place. Past sombre trees, mighty of girth and branch, I hurried; past still pools, full of a moony radiance, where lilies floated; past marble fauns and dryads that peeped ghost-like from leafy solitudes; past sundial and carven bench, by clipped yew-hedges and winding walks until, screened ... — Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol Read full book for free!
... Saul upon the throne Grew sorely dazed. Though brave the heart, the brain Swam in an ecstasy of wildering light— A helmless boat upon a troubled sea. Men nursed in gloom can rarely brook the sun; And many a life to sombre paths inured The sunshine of Prosperity hath quenched, As dewdrops glistening on the lowly sward Like priceless jewels ere the morning breaks, Melt into space when light and heat abound, As though they ne'er had been. Relentless fate! This ruthless law the ... — The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning Read full book for free!
... do it," he exclaimed, triumphantly, as he looked round at his admiring family; but no sooner had he said these words than a terrible flash of lightning lit up the sombre room, a fearful peal of thunder made them all start to their feet, and Mrs. ... — The Canterville Ghost • Oscar Wilde Read full book for free!
... before me. Under a glowing sky of summer, this air of the uplands has still a life which spurs to movement, which makes the heart bound. The dale is hidden; I see only the brown and purple wilderness, cutting against the blue with great round shoulders, and, far away to the west, an horizon of sombre heights. . ... — The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing Read full book for free!
... unstained light; the very mist on the Essex marsh was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooded rises inland, and draping the low shores in diaphanous folds. Only the gloom to the west, brooding over the upper reaches, became more sombre every minute, as if angered by the ... — Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad Read full book for free!
... divinity. The Chinese themselves claim that she was worshipped six thousand years ago, and that she was the first deity made known to mankind. The brave Jesuit missionaries found her there, and it matters not her age; she is a credit to herself and her sex, and aids in cheering the sorrowful and sombre lives of millions in the far East." We also find "the saintly infant Zen-zai, so often met with in the arms of female representations of ... — The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain Read full book for free!
... reges libero egressu memorabant; nobis in arcto et inglorius labor. Immota quippe aut modice lacessita pax maestae urbis res et princeps proferendi imperii incuriosus;"—[53] but he certainly had no cause to complain. The sombre annals of the Empire were not less amenable to a powerful dramatic treatment than the vigorous and aggressive youth of the Republic had been. Nor does the story of guilt and horror depicted in the Annals fall below ... — A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell Read full book for free!
... sweetest perfumes; their sanctity is revealed almost in spite of themselves; they are born saints as others are born kings or slaves, their life is set out against the golden background of a tryptich, and not against the sombre background of reality. ... — Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier Read full book for free!
... Nature wore a hardy countenance, as wild and as untamed as the savage landholders. Manhattan's twenty-two thousand acres of rock, lake and rolling table land, rising at places to a height of one hundred and thirty-eight feet, were covered with sombre forests, grassy knolls and dismal swamps. The trees were lofty; and old, decayed and withered limbs contrasted with the younger growth of branches; and wild flowers wasted their sweetness among the dead leaves and uncut herbage ... — Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley Read full book for free!
...sombre summer morning in which the grandfather and grandchild departed from the friendly roof of Mr. Merle, very dull and very sombre were the thoughts of little Sophy. She walked slowly behind the gray cripple, who had need to lean so heavily on his staff, and her eye ... — What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton Read full book for free!
... In sombre black, and standing outside the scene, Signorelli has painted the portrait of himself, with fingers interlaced and firmly-planted feet, and behind, the milder, but still ... — Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell Read full book for free!
... his glass and turned it toward the island. The sombre shades of twilight had already gathered over the scene; but he saw through them quite distinctly a boat pulled by four men, while a fifth sat in the stern holding the tiller. The steersman kept the small island between them and the ... — Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick, Read full book for free!
... the meaning of happiness,' he said, extending his hand to Malkin; and, in spite of the smile, his face had a sombre cast. ... — Born in Exile • George Gissing Read full book for free!
... Coeur-de-Lion; with what energy, the progress he had made in that Work, and in the art of Poetic composition generally, amid so many sore impediments, best testifies. I perceive, his life in general lay heavier on him than it had done before; his mood of mind is grown more sombre;—indeed the very solitude of this Ventnor as a place, not to speak of other solitudes, must have been new and depressing. But he admits no hypochondria, now or ever; occasionally, though rarely, even flashes of a kind of wild gayety break through. ... — The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle Read full book for free!
... represents a rich landscape, in which noble tree-forms show sombre against a tumultuous sky—the latter an architectural mass of pale cloud, spanned by a vivid rainbow. Across the lower part of the picture is a scroll, on which are written, in musical notation, two bars from Chopin's Twentieth Prelude. ... — The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various Read full book for free!
... was already fading into the sombre shadows of night, when two travellers might have been observed swiftly—at a pace of six miles in the hour—descending the rugged side of a mountain; the younger bounding from crag to crag with the agility of a fawn, while his companion, whose aged limbs ... — A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll Read full book for free!
... not unwilling to comply with the request, and so they sat on, the boy's red-gold curls making a gleam of brightness on the sombre black garments of widowhood ... — Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall Read full book for free!
... the neighborhood; a little below it ran a small stream, which was now swollen above its banks, and rushing with mimic roar over the flat meadows beside it. The appearance of the bare slated building in such a night was particularly sombre, and to those, like me, who knew the purpose to which it was usually devoted, it was or ought to have been peculiarly so. There it stood, silent and gloomy, without any appearance of human life or enjoyment about or within ... — Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton Read full book for free!
... imperial purple of the night Is spread, wine-dark, above, But glistens with no gems of light, To hint of Heaven's love. A sombre pall hangs overhead, Fringed with lurid clouds of lead,— O'er the sleeping earth below One long, wide waste of silent snow, And the wind moans drearily As it wanders by, And the night wanes wearily In the ... — In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various Read full book for free!
... and dignified, where maids were already moving noiselessly about the business of dinner. Here in the hall was the pleasant shade and coolness, the subtle drifting scent of early summer flowers, space, and the simplicity of dark polished floors and sombre rugs. The whole house seemed empty, lovely, silent, after the confusion of the terrace and the heat ... — Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris Read full book for free!
... proof that its author could handle a great theme in a manner that was worthy of its greatness. The work was one of the novelist's later writings—it was published in 1859—and is in many respects distinct from all his others. It stands by itself among Dickens's masterpieces, in sombre and splendid loneliness—a detached glory to its author, and ... — The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds. Read full book for free!
... perfect of the artist's works, is subdued and sober; in the latter a scheme of soft and delicate tints was attempted, not with entire success. A similar temperance of colours marks the "Golden Stairs," first exhibited in 1880. In 1884, following the almost sombre "Wheel of Fortune" of the preceding year, appeared "King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid," in which Burne-Jones once more indulged his love of gorgeous colour, refined by the period of self-restraint. This masterpiece is now in the National collection. He next turned to two important ... — Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various Read full book for free!
... man of forty-six, and a tale writer of some twenty-four years' standing, when "The Scarlet Letter" appeared. He was born at Salem, Mass., on July 4th, 1804, son of a sea-captain. He led there a shy and rather sombre life; of few artistic encouragements, yet not wholly uncongenial, his moody, intensely meditative temperament being considered. Its colours and shadows are marvelously reflected in his "Twice-Told Tales" and other short stories, ... — The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne Read full book for free!
... lips with such joyous confidence that the grave musician's sombre face brightened; but it swiftly darkened again, and he exclaimed, "We don't give such hasty work!" When the knight tried to tell him what he had in mind, the other brusquely interrupted with the request that ... — Uarda • Georg Ebers Read full book for free!
... to the further end of the room, leaving a wave of artificiality behind, or was it, Andrew Wilmore wondered, in a moment of half-dazed speculation, that it was they and the rest of the gay company who represented the real things, and he and his companion who were playing a sombre part in some unreal and gloomier world. Francis' voice, however, when he recommenced his diatribe, ... — The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim Read full book for free!
... only left him, as she went to the window, sitting there sombre. "I like, you know," he brought out as his eyes followed her, "your saying you're not proud! Thank God you ARE, my dear. ... — The Awkward Age • Henry James Read full book for free!
... destiny. Then he proceeded to tell us of the great raptor in its life of hopeless captivity; his stern, rugged countenance, deep bass voice, and grand mouth-filling polysllables suiting his subject well, and making his description seem to our minds a sombre magnificent picture never to be forgotten—at all events, ... — Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson Read full book for free!
... angel children must be troopin' down the way, Singin' heavenly songs of welcome an' preparin' now to greet The soul that God had tinctured with an ever-lasting sweet; The world is robed in sadness an' is draped in sombre black; But joy must reign in Heaven now that Riley's ... — A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest Read full book for free!
... bright-burning fire, mending his moccasins. Something in his attitude made me pause. He was bareheaded, and his long, unkempt hair hung half way down to his shoulders. As he sat there in the red glow of the fire, with the sombre woods beyond and the lonely stretch of lake below, and I took note of his emaciated form and his features so haggard and drawn, I seemed for the first time to realise fully the condition to which the boy had been brought ... — The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace Read full book for free!
... against Popery, the Rev. Bernard Brimstone, and the Rev. Phineas Lucre, with many more on the side of truth. On that of Popery and falsehood there's the Rev. Father M'Stake, the Rev. Father O'Flary, the Rev. Father M'Fire, and the Rev. Nicholas O'Scorch, D.D. Dr. Sombre is to be second on our side; and Father M'Fud on the part of ... — Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton Read full book for free!
... but one prevailing colour, to which all others should be adapted, either by harmonising with it, or by contrast; in the latter case the relieving color should be in small quantity, or it would overpower the other in effect, as a general rule, sombre negative colours show off a woman to the greatest advantage, just as the beauties of a painting are enhanced by being set in a dull frame; still, there are some occasions with which the gayer tints accord better, and as propriety and fitness are matters of high consideration, ... — The Jewish Manual • Judith Cohen Montefiore Read full book for free!
... affectionate words of parting. The funeral train left Washington on the 21st. Its passage through the principal Eastern States and cities of the Union was a most mournful and impressive spectacle. The heavily craped train, its sombre engine swathed in black, moved through the land like an eclipse. At every point vast crowds assembled to gain a tearful glimpse ... — The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne Read full book for free!
... of Edina cares for these transatlantic gibes, and where is the dweller within her royal gates who fails to succumb to the sombre beauty of that old gray town of the North? "Gray! why, it is gray, or gray and gold, or gray and gold and blue, or gray and gold and blue and green, or gray and gold and blue and green and purple, according as the heaven pleases and you choose your ground! But take ... — Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin Read full book for free!
... would know her by sight, though she had been in Guernsey; and it would excite less notice for a lady to be inquiring after Olivia. We immediately turned our steps toward Hanover Street, where we found her and Julia seated at some fancy-work in their sombre drawing-room. ... — The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton Read full book for free!
... at each other. Hilda's face flushed to a sombre red. Mrs. Lessways brusquely left the room. Then Hilda could hear her rattling fussily at the kitchen range. After a few minutes Hilda followed her to the kitchen, which was now nearly in darkness. The figure of Mrs. ... — Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett Read full book for free!
... life for months on end. In his eyes glowed the fire of an intense and honest, but fierce and narrow piety, and with that expression was mingled another, not of anger nor of sorrow, but of reproach, of judgment and of sombre triumph. His hands were strapped in front of him with a stirrup leather, and his head was bare. As the moon shone more clearly, Claverhouse saw other stains than those of peat upon his chest, and while he looked the red blood seemed to rise from wounds ... — Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren Read full book for free!
... passing through various chambers of the palace, now silent and sombre, but which I had traversed in former days, on grand court occasions in the time of Ferdinand VII., when they were glittering with all the splendor of a court, we paused in a great saloon, with high-vaulted ... — Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner Read full book for free!
... styled broad and shallow stairs—they were crowded with bronzed men in varied Eastern costume; Moors in fez and gay vest and red morocco slippers; Turks with turban and pipe; Cabyles from the mountains; Arabs from the plains; water-carriers with jar on shoulder; Jews in sombre robes; Jewesses with rich shawls and silk kerchiefs as headgear; donkeys with panniers that almost blocked the way; camels, and veiled women, and many other strange sights that our hero had up to that time only ... — The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne Read full book for free!
... distant only twenty or thirty miles. All around to the southeast the country is flat, and covered with forest, but near Senna a number of little abrupt conical hills diversify the scenery. To the west and north the country is also flat forest, which gives it a sombre appearance; but just in the haze of the horizon southwest by south, there rises a mountain range equal in height to Morumbala, and called Nyamonga. In a clear day another range beyond this may be seen, which is Gorongozo, once a station of the Jesuits. Gorongozo is famed for ... — Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone Read full book for free!
... life's roses Will the sombre cypress be twined, And wherever a joy reposes, A dream ... — The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms Read full book for free!
... prayer of midday, the Shah, on foot, escorted by an immense concourse of attendants, priests, and of the people, entered the precincts of the sanctuary. He was dressed in a dark suit, the sombre colours of which were adapted to the solemn looks of his face, and he held in his hand a long enamelled stick, curiously inlaid at the pommel. He had put by all ornament, wearing none of his customary jewellery, ... — The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier Read full book for free!
... one of those long Irish faces, all in a straight line, with flat, slightly hollow cheeks, and a long chin. It was clean shaven, and a heavy lock of black hair was always falling over his eyes. It was his eyes that gave its sombre ecstatic character to his face. They were large, dark, deeply set, singularly shaped, and they seemed to smoulder like fires in caves, leaping and sinking out of the darkness. He was a tall, thin young man, and he wore a black jacket and a large, blue necktie, ... — Evelyn Innes • George Moore Read full book for free!
... the crowd, John and his followers made their way through the Damascus Gate into Jerusalem, and followed the Damascus Street to the Gate of Ephraim. An air of sombre misery pervaded the whole population. In their hearts the greater portion of the population had, for many months, been longing for the approach of the Romans. Even death would be preferable to the misery which they suffered. There were but few people in the ... — For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty Read full book for free!
... All longings and regrets had been put off with the Paris-made gown which the maid at that moment was carefully packing away. The order of nature seemed reversed; the butterfly had abandoned its gorgeous wings of gauze, and was habited in the sombre working garb of the grub. With her hands clasped behind her, the girl paced up and down the room, pouring forth words, two hundred to the minute, and sometimes more. Silently one stenographer, tiptoeing in, replaced ... — Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr Read full book for free!
... southward. On the east the silvery river was seen glancing through the shrubbery that adorned its banks. To the west lay a beautiful park and pleasure ground, while far away to the northward stretched the deep, dense forest, tall, dark and sombre. ... — Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton Read full book for free!
... a long array of little girls in white muslin, with sashes blue or red. Half a dozen nuns kept watch over them, pacing sombre in white head-dresses and black gowns by the side of all that smiling troop of glad hearts and childish faces. All the little girls carried bannerets of bright colour, and all went bareheaded, after the manner of the district, where no ... — Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray Read full book for free!
... plays on the varying surface of the tree-tops, one sombre and little-varied hue colors the earth. Dead and moss-covered logs; mounds covered with decomposed vegetable substances, the graves of long-past generations of trees; cavities left by the fall of some uprooted trunk; dark fungi, that flourish around the decayed roots ... — The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper Read full book for free!
... however, the aspect of our surroundings changes. We leave this varied forest behind, and enter the region of the balsam, from the dark color of which the mountain takes its name. Above a certain line of elevation no trees are found save these beautiful yet sombre firs. They grow to an immense height and stand so thickly together that one marvels how any animal larger than a cat can thread its way among their stems. Overhead the boughs interlock in a canopy, making perpetual shade beneath. No shrubs of any kind ... — Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly Read full book for free!
... precisely the extent of the mischief threatened there. On my way to the Strand I met an old friend, one of my links with whom is his love of the Adams' work. He had not read the news, and I am sorry to say that I, in my selfish agitation, did not break it to him gently. Rallying, he accompanied me on my sombre quest. ... — And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm Read full book for free!
... A sombre youth, glowering, and speaking only at the rarest times, Felipe was but negatively "loco." On shore he generally refused all conversation. He seemed to know that he was badly handicapped on land, where so many kinds of understanding are needed; but on the water his one talent set ... — Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry Read full book for free!
... was poetical in the lives of the early New-Englanders had something shy, if not sombre, about it. If their natures flowered, it was out of sight, like the fern. It was in the practical that they showed their true quality, as Englishmen are wont. It has been the fashion lately with a few feeble-minded persons to undervalue ... — Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell Read full book for free!
... intense frost. The early morning then exhibits columns of white vapour, like millions of Geysers spouting up to the sky, curling, twisting, shooting upwards, gracefully forming spirals and pyramids, amid the dark ground of the sombre heavens, and occasionally giving a peep of little lanes of the dark waters, all else ... — Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle Read full book for free!
... statue's built tell the gazer 'twas a cricket helped his crippled lyre; that when one string which made "love" sound soft, was snapt in twain, she perched upon the place left vacant and duly uttered, "Love, Love, Love", whene'er the bass asked the treble to atone for its somewhat sombre drone? ... — Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson Read full book for free!
... raised his arm with a more vehement will; he struck, and at the same instant every horror disappeared. The sky was cloudless; the forest was neither terrible nor beautiful, but heavy and sombre as of old—a natural gloomy wood, ... — Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt Read full book for free!
... place apart in this group of Catholic reformers. His mysticism is of a kind peculiar to himself. His Cathechisme chretien pour la Vie interieure, which is scarcely ever read outside St. Sulpice, is a most remarkable book, full of poesy and sombre philosophy, wavering from first to last between Louis de Leon and Spinoza. Olier's ideal of the Christian life is what he calls "the state ... — Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan Read full book for free!
... Its Saracenic architecture, the rows of precious but useless little columns that load its front, the low Asiatic domes which rest upon its walls in the repose of a thousand years, the rude and gaudy mosaics, and above all the captured horses of Corinth which start from out the sombre mass in the glory of Grecian art, received from the solemn and appropriate light, a character of melancholy and mystery, that well comported with the thick recollections which crowd the mind as the eye gazes at this rare relic of ... — The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper Read full book for free!
... sound sense and genial feeling, we find the daughter worthy of such a father. Some of our more zealous Protestants professed at one time not a little alarm lest the lady nurses might be Papists in disguise; and certainly their 'regulation dresses,' all cut after one fashion, and of one sombre hue, did seem a little nun-like, and perhaps rather alarming. But the following passage—which, from the amusing mixture which it exhibits of strong good sense and half-indignant womanly feeling, our readers will, we are sure, ... — Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller Read full book for free!
... their ways. It may be something in the color of the water: it may be something in the color of the banks: experience is too uniform to allow the fact itself to be questioned. Under Jack's direction, I select small flies about the size of green drakes: one a sombre gray, with a silver twist about him, a claret hackle, [Footnote: Claret hackle. A hackle is an artificial fly made of feathers.] a mallard wing, [Footnote: Mallard wing. A mallard is the drake of the wild duck. The artificial fly imitates its wing.] streaked faintly on the lower side with red ... — Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker Read full book for free!
... one arm toward her, and that obeying the gesture which was all but a command she came on down those four remaining steps. Jefferson Craig led her into the library, where a great fire sparkled and leaped and filled the room, otherwise sombre with books, full of welcoming cheer. He closed the door, then led her ... — Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond Read full book for free!
... a sombre dining-room with decanters and glasses, bedrooms with satin down quilts spread over the foot of the bed, and adjoining one of them a dressing-room with pomades and perfumes and rows of boots just as ... — Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl Read full book for free!
... they could keep out of his way. Dragut was not going to fight a general action at sea merely to please Doria; in this summer his luck stood to him, and he never came across this man, who, with a sombre hatred in his heart, was seeking him high and low. If the corsair were bold as a lion when occasion offered, he was no less as slippery as an eel when he desired to escape; to face twenty-two royal galleys ... — Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey Read full book for free!
... audience waited impatiently for his presence. The big and rather sombre house was quick with colour and with beauty. The celebrated "Diamond Horseshoe," the tiers of the galleries, and the floor of the house were vivid with dresses, shimmering and glinting with all the evasive shades of the spectrum, ... — Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton Read full book for free!
... eighty-four pieces of cannon. The duke's headquarters were at Brussels; and on his left, in and around Namur, lay Marshal Blucher, with about 80,000 men and two hundred cannon. Napoleon commenced operations by crossing the Sombre and taking Charleroi, which was garrisoned by Prussians. This accomplished, Napoleon hastened towards Brussels, resolving to strike a signal blow against the British. The Duke of Wellington was at a ball when ... — The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan Read full book for free!
... toward me, and I saw the faintest gleam of pleasure tremble in the sombre stillness of her face, and then the match went out in my hand, and we were again in complete darkness. But the little wail, which at the same instant rose from between her arms, filled up the pause as her sweet ... — Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green Read full book for free!
... Breslau was of secluded, silent, sombre character, this time; nothing of stir in it but from work only: in marked contrast with the last, and its kindly visitors and gayeties. A Friedrich given up to his manifold businesses, to his silent sorrows. "I have passed my winter like ... — History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle Read full book for free!
... summit of Koralay, we had a fair view of the surrounding country. At least forty kraals, many of them deserted, lay within the range of sight. On all sides except the north-west and south-east was a mass of sombre rock and granite hill: the course of the valleys between the several ranges was denoted by a lively green, and the plains scattered in patches over the landscape shone with dull yellow, the effect of clay and stubble, whilst a light mist encased the prospect in a circlet of blue and silver. ... — First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton Read full book for free!
... near it was observed that the bridegroom became more sombre and silent even than usual. He never left the House of Commons as long as it was open to him as a refuge. His Saturdays and his Sundays and his Wednesdays he filled up with work so various and unceasing that there was no time left for those pretty ... — Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope Read full book for free!
... a spade, he took her from the wall, and looked from his door into the wood, pondering where her grave should be. A whitebeam at a little distance made a vivid conflagration of green amid the sombre boles of the pines. Pinewoods rely on their undergrowth—bracken and whortleberry and occasional bushes—for their spring illuminations, and the whitebeam shone as bright in that wood as a ... — The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne Read full book for free!
... night, except when the full moon shone, was sombre, with nothing doing. The street lamps burnt but indifferent gas; people stayed indoors, and read the piquant paragraphs of The Pioneer Bushman, Timber Town's evening journal, or fashioned those gay dresses which by day helped to make the town so ... — The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace Read full book for free!
... permanently installed; and for the future the indignity of opening doors, and "just stepping out" into Chancery Lane, would not await him. Lady Mason was dressed all in black,—but this was usual with her when she left home. To-day, however, there was about her something blacker and more sombre than usual. The veil which she wore was thick, and completely hid her face; and her voice, as she asked for Mr. Furnival, was low and plaintive. But, nevertheless, she had by no means laid aside the charm of womanhood; or ... — Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope Read full book for free!
... language of the flowers, the voices of the stars and to love and understand the lowliest things that God has made, bore him straight to the heart of England as surely as it swept his name into the holy of holies of artistic France, spoke to Russia's sombre soul and temporarily revolutionised the literature of the United States. His work belonged to no "school," and its charm was not due to "style"; therefore his books lost little in translation, for true genius speaks to every man ... — The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer Read full book for free!
... hastening toward at the express speed of sixty minutes an hour!" He stood looking down at the face and tasting this sombre reflection for a long time. When it palled on him, he roused ... — An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw Read full book for free!
... water gurgled musically. On the right bank, very far off, a cock crew. Swaying lightly under their feet, the raft floated on toward a point where the darkness dissolved into lighter tones, and the clouds took on themselves clearer shapes and less sombre hues. ... — Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky Read full book for free!
... the steep hill-sides are brought out in the brightest coloring of delicate light and shade by the golden orb of early morn; towering majestically sunwards, sheer up in front of me, high above all else, still more sombre heights stand out powerfully in solemn contrast against the pale blue of the spring sky, the effect in the distance being antithetical and weird, with the magnificent Ts'ang Shan[AY] standing up as a beautiful background of perpendicular ... — Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle Read full book for free!
... driver, backed his creaking vehicle to the sidewalk across which the slow procession of mourners filed. A minute later I was caught up by my mother's hand, and borne into a carriage, where I sat tightly wedged between two sombre females. ... — The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow Read full book for free!
... the kelu or deodar (Cedrus Libani), the glossy leaved mohru oak (Quercus dilatata), whose wood is used for making charcoal, and two small trees of the Heath order, Rhododendron arborea and Pieris ovalifolia. The former in April and May lightens up with its bright red flowers the sombre Simla forests. The kharshu or rusty-leaved oak (Quercus semecarpifolia) affects a colder climate than its more beautiful glossy-leaved relation, and may almost be considered sub-alpine. It is common on Hattu, and the oaks there ... — The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie Read full book for free!
... he was alone. The shadows crept up the mountain peaks that stand up like grim giants away off in the East, and twilight began to throw its grey mantle over the lake; still he was alone. The darkness began to gather around him; the forests along the shore to lose their distinctness and to stand in sombre and shadowy outline above the water; still no prospect of relief presented itself. The twilight faded from the West, the stars stole out in the heavens, the milky way stretched its belt of light across the sky, and there he ... — Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond Read full book for free!
... of ladders as old as Man, by slippery edges of the dreaded abyss, with an ominous dizziness about my heart and a feeling of horror in the soles of my feet, I clambered from tower to tower till I found the door that I sought; and it opened on to one of the upper branches of a huge and sombre pine, down which I climbed on to the floor of the forest. And I was glad to be back again in the forest from ... — The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany Read full book for free!
... the sombre alcoves of the shop. "I do think it's adorable of you to take me in," she said. "Dad has told me so much about you. He says I'm impossible. I suppose this is the literature he talks about. I want to ... — The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley Read full book for free!
... flashed over the sombre scene,—a rosy radiance deepening to brilliant streaks of fire. The dark heavens were torn asunder, and through them streamed flaring pennons of light,—waving, trembling, dancing, luminous ribbons ... — Thelma • Marie Corelli Read full book for free!
... conjecture as to what his business could have been. Arriving at my room, I threw a lump of cannel coal upon the grate, lighted a cigar, and spent an hour in musings of every hue, from the brightest to the most sombre; being, in truth, not so very confident as at some former periods that this final step, which would mix me up irrevocably with the Blithedale affair, was the wisest that could possibly be taken. It was nothing short of ... — The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne Read full book for free!
... shared the antipathy felt for him by Sir Walter Scott; and although he would undoubtedly have sufficiently respected his genius to admit him into his Pantheon, yet he would certainly have drawn a veil between his mental eye and the grand but sombre figure of the exiled seer, who dreamed of the future empire of the world for his country, and of the world's harmonious development under her guidance. Byron loved and drew inspiration from Dante. He also loved Washington and Franklin, and ... — Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various Read full book for free!
... served no other purpose than to assemble the whole male population of Permatang Pasir on the shore—a sombre-faced throng, with an aloofness of manner and expression far from pleasing. The thatched piers were crowded with turbaned Mussulmen in their bajus or short jackets, full white trousers, and red sarongs or plaitless ... — The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop) Read full book for free!
... colony of Victoria; a good deal of a journey, if I remember rightly, but pleasant. Horsham sits in a plain which is as level as a floor—one of those famous dead levels which Australian books describe so often; gray, bare, sombre, melancholy, baked, cracked, in the tedious long drouths, but a horizonless ocean of vivid green grass the day after a rain. A country town, peaceful, reposeful, inviting, full of snug homes, with garden plots, and plenty of ... — Innocents abroad • Mark Twain Read full book for free!
... always at flood-tide. Faithful to her experience and convictions, the Queen smiled gladly on the marriage of affection between this gentle princess and the heir to the throne, and was present as a spectator, though still wearing her sombre weeds, at the splendid show of her son's wedding on March 10th, 1863. "Two things have struck me much," writes Dr. Macleod, from whose Journal we again quote: "one was the whole of the royal princesses weeping, though concealing their tears with their bouquets, as they saw their brother, ... — Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling Read full book for free!
... flowed the tide of years, Now chilled with snows, now bright with roses, And many smiles were turned to tears, And sombre morns ... — The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various Read full book for free!
... a fantastic "rockery" of skulls and shanks and ribs, and filled it in with earth, enough to furnish growth for trailing nasturtiums, whose bright red and yellow blossoms were strangely at variance with their sombre setting. ... — The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung Read full book for free!
... constitution has been violently disturbed, and whose monarchy is situated in the far-off regions of unlimited space. The erratic course of Republican rule is proverbial. There is no stability, no regularity. To-day we may observe its brilliancy, which seems to laugh at and eclipse the sombre shining of more steady and enduring worlds; but ere to-morrow's moon has risen, it may have vanished into the regions of eternal night, and we look for its bright shining light in the councils of the nations, but it has ceased to shed its ... — The Romance of Mathematics • P. Hampson Read full book for free!
... Angela that Hugo's disgrace was to be no transient one. Her heart sank; she did not find that Richard's wrath was easy to appease when once thoroughly aroused. Again she looked at Brian, and it seemed to her that his face was paler and more sombre than she had ever ... — Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant Read full book for free!
... Arizona's sombre face was unrelieved by any change of expression while he was speaking. There was no anger in his tone; just cold, calm purpose, and some contempt. And whatever feelings the half-breed may have had he seemed incapable of showing them, except in the ... — The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum Read full book for free!
... Johnson remained indifferent. He knew everybody's poetry, and was always ready to write anybody's Life. If he knew the facts of a poet's life—and his knowledge was enormous on such subjects—he found room for them; if he did not, he supplied their place with his own shrewd reflections and sombre philosophy of life. It thus comes about that Johnson is every bit as interesting when he is writing about Sprat, or Smith, or Fenton, as he is when he has got Milton or Gray in hand. He is also much less provoking. My own favourite Life is that of ... — Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell Read full book for free!
... erected to fence out the curious. The side furthest from the roadway, with its clumps of hazels, alder thicket, and chestnut wood in the distance was left open. Here, amid surroundings which lent a sombre realism to the pretence, Charlemagne could carve out a kingdom, Roland sound the horn of Roncesvalles, or the Maid herself win back to France the crown the ... — The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond Read full book for free!
... made matters worse by an arrogant attitude, and afterward spoke of the King, who received him in sombre silence, as "that debaser of coinage, that proud and dumb image that knows nothing but to stare at ... — The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various Read full book for free!
... more heavily veiled than usual. Her dress and hat were of sombre black, and her manner nervous and disturbed. She came slowly to-wards their end of the table, although she was obviously in search ... — The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim Read full book for free!
... which is very well able to take care of itself. A wild, night-roaming gipsy like me is not expected to be a model, but one might certainly expect better things from folks who are so insultingly, aggressively righteous. One sombre and thoughtful Romany of my acquaintance said, "My brother, there are many things that I try to fight, and they knock me out of time in the first round." That is my own case exactly when I observe comfortable personages who deplore vice, and fill their pockets to bursting by shoving the vice ... — The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman Read full book for free!
... to him who now holds the title, and that his other great estates, added to this territory, make him the largest landowner in Great Britain and probably in Europe. Just before reaching Golspie, a lofty, sombre mountain, with its bald head enveloped in the mist, and which I had been two hours apparently in passing, cleared away and revealed its full stature—and more. Towering up from its topmost summit, ... — A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt Read full book for free!
... the line of Martians moving along the road, away from the City. Behind them the City was losing itself in the sombre tones of night, its black spires ... — The Crystal Crypt • Philip Kindred Dick Read full book for free!
... creepers, and tangled underscrub at gradually widening distances from them. Whereupon they charged and lighted their pipes afresh, extinguished their torches, and, after allowing themselves a few minutes longer to enable their eyes to become accustomed to the dim, sombre twilight that alone pervaded those illimitable forest aisles, set out upon a course which they agreed would ultimately lead ... — With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood Read full book for free!
... was a good time coming! The doctor's sombre face relaxed to a smile. His own life seemed almost worth living now just because he had been able to take a hand—yes, and play a few good cards—in this little game. Those things Karl had shown him today made it seem there was ... — The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell Read full book for free!
... of the column there rode a score or more of grave ironfaced men, clad in sombre homespun garments and armed with rifles. On reaching the base of the bluff they halted, and held ... — A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle Read full book for free!
... "Flying-fox," as it is usually called by Europeans) measures from three to four feet from point to point of its extended wings, and some of them have been seen wanting but a few inches of five feet in the alar expanse. These sombre-looking creatures feed chiefly on ripe fruits, the guava, the plantain, and the rose-apple, and are abundant in all the maritime districts, especially at the season when the silk-cotton tree, the pulun-imbul,[3] is putting forth its flower-buds, of which they are singularly fond. By ... — Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent Read full book for free!
... for Braddyll's allusion conjured up a sombre train of thought within his breast, awakening apprehensions which he could neither account for, nor shake off. Meanwhile, the cavalcade slowly approached the north-east gateway of the abbey—passing through crowds of kneeling and sorrowing bystanders;—but so deeply was the abbot engrossed ... — The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth Read full book for free!
... with an irresistible force. The great empires which followed each other in Western Asia, in destroying its hope of a terrestrial kingdom, threw it into religious dreams, which it cherished with a kind of sombre passion. Caring little for the national dynasty or political independence, it accepted all governments which permitted it to practise freely its worship and follow its usages. Israel will henceforward have no other ... — The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan Read full book for free!
... complexion more bronzed; place a few furrows on the brow, slightly dim the look, sadden the lips, give height to the figure, and throw out the muscles in bolder relief; let the Italian costume of the days of Leo X. be exchanged for the sombre and plain uniform of a youth bred in the simplicity of rural life, who seeks no elegance in dress,—and, if the pensive and languid attitude be retained, you will have the striking likeness of our "Raphael" at the age ... — Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine Read full book for free!
... down its rough features to an almost delicate softness. The young maize—planted in a soil that has lain fallow, perhaps for a thousand years—is rapidly culming upward; and the rich sheen of the long lance-like leaves, as they bend gracefully over, hides from view the sombre hues of the earth. The forest trees appear with their foliage freshly expanded—some; as the tulip-tree, the dogwood, and the white magnolia, already in the act of inflorescence. The woods no longer maintain that ... — The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid Read full book for free!
... hills which encircle Florence smile cheerfully in the sunshine, clapping their hands and skipping like lambs, if little hills ever did make such a demonstration. These environs of the town are like a frame of golden filigree, almost too fantastic a one for so shadowy and sombre a city. The green hill-sides and plains are sown thickly with palaces and villas glancing whitely through silvery forests of olives and myrtle; while the distant Apennines, like guardian giants, lift their icy shields ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various Read full book for free!
... creatures—found only among women—who will, for pure love and admiration, bind themselves willing slaves, to youth when they have lost it, to beauty that they never had, to accomplishments that they were never fortunate enough to gain, to bright hopes that never shone upon their own sombre lives. He knew enough of the world to know that there is nothing in it better than the faithful service of the heart; so rendered and so free from any mercenary taint, he had such an exalted respect for it, that in the retributive arrangements made by his own mind—we all make such arrangements, ... — A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens Read full book for free!
... some seconds he was silent. When he spoke his voice was grave and sombre, as if he were burdened by a ... — The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh Read full book for free!
... an even line between daintiness and negligence in costume, to have no exaggeration in anything, is what Augustin aimed at. The poet Rutilius Numatianus, who about that time was attacking the sordid and culture-hating monks with sombre irony, would have had a chance to admire a restraint and decorum in the Hippo monastery which recalled what was best in the manners of the ancient world. At table, a like moderation. Vegetables were generally provided, and sometimes meat when any one was sick, ... — Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand Read full book for free!
... "we find that the self-sacrificial vagaries of the rejected lover and of the religious devotee own a common origin and nature. The hook and spiny kennel of the fakir, the pillar of St. Simeon Stylites, the flagellum of the monk, the sombre garments of the nun, the silence of the Trappists, the defiantly hideous costume of the hallelujah lass, and the mortified sobriety of the district visitor, have at bottom the same origin as the rags of Cardenio, the cage of Don Quixote de la Mancha, ... — Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen Read full book for free!
... the sergeant's face underwent an extraordinary change. It filled with wonder, and then a grim alertness sprang to life all over him. He dropped his hand to his holster, and whipped out a big regulation 455 revolver, blue and sombre. The boys formed behind as under cover of a tower of strength, and the spy dashed ... — The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore Read full book for free!
... in his surmise. Such was the exact nature of the assistance which Gaspar Ruiz, peasant son of peasants, received from the Royalist family whose daughter had opened the door of their miserable refuge to his extreme distress. Her sombre resolution ruled the madness of her father and the trembling bewilderment ... — A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad Read full book for free!
... would offer but a neutral tint in the landscape, here constitutes high lights as compared with the impenetrable shadows of the woods; and even the sky above, generally seen through the thick masses of evergreen, seems to be of a more sombre blue. In the deep gorges the black water of the Nagold foams and tumbles among the hollow rocks, or glides smoothly over the long and shallow races by which the jointed timber rafts are shot down to the Neckar, ... — Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford Read full book for free!
... the Thames with its fleet of steamers; thus, as it were, bringing the substantial piers of London Bridge within a stone's throw—if we may be allowed to pitch it so remarkably strong—of the once remote regions of the Beach[3], and annihilating, as it were, the distance between sombre southwark ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various Read full book for free!
... was grand. The heights, the slopes, the fields, and the rugged crest opposite, were enveloped in smoke and fire from the bursting shell. The sombre roar ascended like the bellowing of a thousand bulls, leaped back from the rocks, and rolled away, in wild echoes through the hills. All the furies seemed let loose, and yet ... — Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke Read full book for free!
... 1872, reoccupied by the military in 1875, and finally abandoned and sold to private parties in 1877. In the fort and about it there were a few good, clean homes, which shone all the more brightly in their sombre surroundings. The ground occupied by the fort, by being carefully leveled and drained, was dry, though formerly a portion of the general swamp, showing how easily the whole town could have been improved. But in spite of disorder and squalor, shaded with clouds, washed and ... — Travels in Alaska • John Muir Read full book for free!
... always wore dark sombre dresses. But one day Jims found her in a pretty gown of pale primrose silk. It was very old and old-fashioned, but Jims did not know that. He capered round ... — Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery Read full book for free!
... into the world to seek for fortune, taking with him his dear horse, Baunwa-iraki, his parrot, Kilkila, who had lived with him since he was born, besides the Carpenter-lad and the Goldsmith-lad, who had sworn never to leave their young master. So he journeyed north to a lonely place, all set with sombre trees. And the night was dark, so he set a watch, and the goldsmith took the first, while the young prince slept by the Carpenter-lad, on a couch of clean, sweet leaves. And lest the heart of the prince should sink, they sang ... — The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel Read full book for free!
... talked, in all, for a couple of hours. When she rose to leave, Alma, but for her sombre drapings, was totally changed from the limp, woebegone, shrinking girl who had at ... — The Whirlpool • George Gissing Read full book for free!
... of the city and country around Manila partakes both of a Spanish and an Oriental character. The sombre and heavy-looking churches with their awkward towers; the long lines of batteries mounted with heavy cannon; the massive houses, with ranges of balconies; and the light and airy cottages, elevated on posts, situated in the luxuriant groves of ... — Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various Read full book for free!
... night diffused its starry shadows over the quiet sea, which with subdued murmur lulled in their sleep the great summer homes along the shore. The ship departed, carrying toward her sombre destiny Agrippina, absorbed in her smiling dreams. When the moment came and the wrecking machine was set to work, the vessel did not sink as fast as they had hoped: it listed, overturning people and things. ... — Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero Read full book for free!
... oleanders abloom, the wonderful glow of colour everywhere and upon all things. And then as the eyes of the mind recalled these vivid images her bodily eyes looked out upon the rain-blotted scene, the mountains rising in a dark and dismal circle round that sombre pool below, walling her ... — Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon Read full book for free!
... on his head, carrying Hardee's Tactics, from which to read the burial service. All had in their hands a bayonet, from which burned a tallow candle, in place of tapers. The procession marched up the steps in single file, all bearing themselves with the greatest solemnity and sombre dignity, followed by the sexton, with a frying-pan as a shovel, and took their places around the supposed corpse. Maffett began the duties by alluding to that part of the service where "it is allotted that all men shall die," etc., waving his hand in due ... — History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert Read full book for free!
... common throughout the northern world, is distinguished from its congener, the following, not only by the episporic character, but generally by its different peridium and more sombre colors. It never shows at maturity the brilliant golden yellow fluff that hangs in masses about the open and empty vases of T. favoginea, a fact not unnoted by Batsch, and rendering his figure and description ... — The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride Read full book for free!
... the third line was reviewed. The President was followed by a large staff dressed in full uniform, which contrasted strongly with his own severely plain black. He wore a high silk hat and a plain frock coat. His face wore that peculiar sombre expression we see in all his photographs, but it lighted up into a half-smile as he occasionally lifted his hat in acknowledgment of ... — War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock Read full book for free!
... dining-hall with its white-washed walls—and the glare of the sun which pours in from numerous windows and open doors—the scene is enlivening, to say the least of it; while a singular contrast is supplied by the sombre appearance of the slaves who serve round ... — The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman Read full book for free!
... enough, except a few of the large ones, that still find some sugar in the flowers of the ivy. The finest show of ivy flower is among some yew trees; the dark ivy has filled the dark yew tree, and brought out its pale yellow-green flowers in the sombre boughs. Last night, a great fly, the last in the house, buzzed into my candle. I detest flies, but I was sorry for his scorched wings; the fly itself hateful, its wings so beautifully made. I have sometimes picked a feather from the dirt of the road and ... — The Open Air • Richard Jefferies Read full book for free!
... was no lift—and rang her three short rings, which Peter, the Russian servant, was accustomed to expect. The door was opened at once, and she was taken through the quaint square hall into the master's own sitting-room, a richly sombre place of oak ... — The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn Read full book for free!
... pastures. It moved on, noiselessly but quickly. We descended the hillock, and met it on the way,—a sable litter, borne by four men, in unfamiliar Eastern garments; two other servitors, more bravely dressed, with yataghans and silver-hilted pistols in their belts, preceded this sombre equipage. Perhaps Margrave divined the disdainful thought that passed through my mind, vaguely and half-unconsciously; for he said, with a hollow, bitter laugh that had replaced the lively peal of his once ... — A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton Read full book for free!
... came of age, and as he and Lucy were now man and wife, it was decreed that they must return to the old home. Art changed that sombre house into a comfortable and splendid mansion, and when Lucy brought forth a son, the place seemed under a blessing, and no longer under a curse. But it was not until the christening feast of the young heir was celebrated with due honour that the secret of Sir Massingberd's disappearance ... — The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various Read full book for free!
... the traveller's ever-present hope of seeing the beauties of a typical Northern sunset, and by some happy chance I placed my deck stool near an old tillicum, who was leaning on the rail, his pipe between his thin curved lips, his brown hands clasped idly, his sombre eyes looking far out to sea, as though they searched the future—or was it that they were ... — Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson Read full book for free!
... craving For life ... life! Oh, wonderful, the vision that glows About me in such radiance, the light, the strife Of music, hue and perfume of the rose. Oh garden of desire, where one awaits My coming with the sudden knowledge glowing Deep in my eyes, made sombre as the day Is somber in the summer noon of light. Now I perceive I am a sacred temple Long closed about the hidden flame of life, Closed with white ivories and gliding shapes Of river waves, and waves upon the sea Rising and gliding. Every magic ... — Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various Read full book for free!
... certainly, was significant foreshadowing of the general wrath to come, and it was therefore of less consequence that the portraits painted by him of Berghen, Horn, Montigny, and others, were so rarely relieved by the more flattering tints which he occasionally mingled with the sombre coloring of his other pictures. Especially with regard to Count Egmont, his conduct was somewhat perplexing and, at first sight, almost inscrutable. That nobleman had been most violent in opposition to his course, had drawn a ... — The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley Read full book for free!
... a point, he thought he saw far down the lake, against the blue of the sky and above the sombre forest, a flutter of red. At the same moment be glanced behind him to see if he were still free from pursuit. Alas! He was not. Two canoes, each urged by half a dozen gleaming paddles, were following as swiftly and silently as ... — At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore Read full book for free!
... oui! He loves her so well that he will strangle her one of these days when she says a word too much and he is in his sombre mood! Quiet as he is, I would not go too far with him, ce beau monsieur! He will not be patient ... — Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant Read full book for free!
... she became quiet, and picked up her sewing. She stitched quietly, wistfully, for some time. Then she looked up at him—a long look of reproach, and sombre accusation, and wifely tenderness. He turned ... — Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence Read full book for free!
... the deepening shadows was only broken by the ringing strokes of the axe and the crack of the splitting wood. When he ceased the valley had faded into darkness, and the range with its sharp outlines was only faintly discernible against the sombre gray pall that ... — Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various Read full book for free!
... consequences of such an event—and especially on their own interests. Few words passed in conversation—here and there an exclamation wrung from grief was answered by some neighbouring grief—a word every quarter of an hour —sombre and haggard eyes—movements quite involuntary of the hands— immobility of all other parts of the body. Those who already looked upon the event as favourable in vain exaggerated their gravity so as to make it resemble chagrin and severity; ... — Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre Read full book for free!
... "Yes, they are sombre and melancholy, but, to my mind, it is much more interesting to live amongst them than in new places. One cannot help thinking of the past, and the strange scenes that ... — Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope Read full book for free!
... Some sombre evening, when I sit And feed in solitude at home, Perchance an ultra-bilious fit Paints all the world ... — Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various Read full book for free!
... Sakoontala].—But the lady there— Who can she be, whose form of matchless grace Is half concealed beneath her flowing veil? Among the sombre hermits she appears Like a fresh bud ... — Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson Read full book for free!
... grassy cape we passed, And every reedy island, Even the bank'd cloud in the west That loomed a sombre highland; ... — Songs, Merry and Sad • John Charles McNeill Read full book for free!
... small size, and its warm appearance in other respects, was furnished under foot with layers of heavy Turkey carpets, one laid upon another (according to a fashion then prevalent in Germany), and on the walls with tapestry. In this mode of hanging rooms, though sometimes heavy and sombre, there was a warmth sensible and apparent, as well as real, which peculiarly fitted it for winter apartments, and a massy splendor which accorded with the style of dress and furniture in that gorgeous age. One real disadvantage, however, it had as often ... — Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey Read full book for free!
... her low white forehead over which her full hair was simply parted, like a brown curtain, was slim and gentle-womanly. In spite of her plain lustreless silk dress, in spite of the formal frame of sombre heavy horsehair and mahogany furniture that seemed to set her off, she diffused an atmosphere of cleanly grace and prim refinement through the apartment. The priestess of this ascetic temple, the femininity of her closely covered arms, her pink ears, and a little serviceable morocco ... — The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte Read full book for free!
... and, under all, a new, vague dread, unknown before, smothered down, kept under, but still there? It left him but once during the night, when, for the second time in his life, he entered a church. It was a sombre Gothic pile, where the stained light lost itself in far-retreating arches; built to meet the requirements and sympathies of a far other class than Wolfe's. Yet it touched, moved him uncontrollably. The distances, the shadows, the still, marble figures, the ... — Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis Read full book for free!
... His voice had grown sombre, and to Jimmie, gazing at him, it seemed that all the sorrows of the world were in his tired grey eyes. "Perhaps I'd ... — Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair Read full book for free!
... wore her mourning for more than a year, and in her sombre trailing weeds was a wonder to behold. She lived in her father's house, and saw no company, but sat or walked and drove with her sister Anne, and visited the poor. The perfect stateliness of her decorum was more talked about than any ... — A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett Read full book for free!
... hill and down, across wild meadows and frozen swamps. Most of the time they travelled through great forest tracts, unharmed as yet by fire or axe. The trees, thick-set and tall, reminded Jean of great masts. A brooding silence reigned in these sombre depths, broken only by an occasional chatter of a surprised squirrel, the whirr of a partridge, or the cheepings of the little chickadees as they hopped from branch to branch. Once during the afternoon they stopped and ate a little of the cooked food Kitty ... — The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody Read full book for free!
... Scot was really to be pitied. He could not look upon the azure vault without a sombre terror: when asleep, he felt oscillations that made his head reel; and every night he had visions of being swung aloft at ... — Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne Read full book for free!
... followers was indeed extraordinary. Every man was attired in the gorgeous vestments of the plundered churches — in gold and embroidered cassocks, glittering robes, or the sombre cowls and garments of Capuchin friars. As they sailed along their wild sea songs rose in the air, mingled with shouts for vengeance on the Spaniards ... — By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty Read full book for free!
... republican cause had almost expired, and the sun of liberty for his country appeared to be setting among the clouds of utter despondency, must have created the most lively sensations of joy in his bosom. Memory with its sombre pencil drew the picture of the past, while present perception with its brilliant pencil portrayed passing events, that quickened the pulse and made the heart ... — Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing Read full book for free!
... weather about the line was often calm, but had pictured to ourselves a gorgeous sun, golden sunsets, cloudless sky, and sea of the deepest blue. On the contrary, such weather is never known there, or only by mistake. It is a gloomy region. Sombre sky and sombre sea. Large cauliflower-headed masses of dazzling cumulus tower in front of a background of lavender-coloured satin. There are clouds of every shape and size. The sails idly flap as the sea rises and falls with a heavy regular but windless swell. Creaking yards and ... — A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler Read full book for free!
... demonstration that the Gospel is the revelation of 'the righteousness of God from faith to faith,' and is thereby 'the power of God unto salvation.' What a contrast there is between the beginning and the end of his argument! It started with sombre, sad words about man's sinfulness and aversion from the knowledge of God. It closes with this sunny outburst of triumph; like some stream rising among black and barren cliffs, or melancholy moorlands, and foaming through ... — Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren Read full book for free!
... interested and as gracious. There was Pete, tall and very black, and very grave, as Darry was also. There was Jem, full of life and waggishness, and bright for any exercise of his wits; and grave shadows used to come over his changeable face often enough too. There was Margaret, with her sombre beauty; and old Theresa with her worn old face. I think there was a certain indescribable reserve of gravity upon them all, but there was not one whose lips did not part in a white line when looking at me, nor whose eyes and ears did not ... — Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell Read full book for free!
... enthusiastic, young in heart and mind, a thoroughly open nature. Her husband, on the other hand, was of a morose, sombre, melancholy, reserved nature. In spite of her superior intelligence Hortense had a sort of childlike air; but Louis, though young in years, had the character and appearance of an old man. As much as Hortense loved liberty, her suspicious husband wished to hold firmly the reins ... — The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand Read full book for free!
... fallen snow seizes him at such times. He is homesick for the hale rough weather; for the tracery of the frost upon his window-panes at morning, the reluctant descent of the first flakes, and the white roofs relieved against the sombre sky. And yet the stuff of which these yearnings are made is one of the flimsiest: if but the thermometer fall a little below its ordinary Mediterranean level, or a wind come down from the snow-clad Alps behind, the spirit of his fancies changes upon ... — The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson Read full book for free!
... out on the garden dreamy, And knew not that it was old; Looked past the gray and the sombre, And saw but the green and ... — Donal Grant • George MacDonald Read full book for free!
... Valencia enrolled himself among the supporters of the Perronean Ultramontanism, and became, as was natural, considering his character, a furious authoritarian. This sombre man, whose vocation was repugnant to him, who had not the least religious feeling, who could perhaps have been a good soldier, took a long time to make himself perfectly at home in monastic life, struggled against the chains ... — Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja Read full book for free!
... incident, learning, and illustration, wit, wisdom, humor, and philosophy, insight into the complex abysses of human passion, familiarity with the secret motives of human conduct, and profound meditation upon the most sombre problems of human destiny, mark the highest elevation yet ... — Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne Read full book for free!
... did not seem to appeal to my uncle any more than prize-fighters. He looked very sombre indeed, so much so that I was quite impressed, but I had taken this job in hand and really had to see it through. So I talked, and I won in the way all my few triumphs have been won, by talking until the other man ... — Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley Read full book for free!
... a certain sombre satisfaction in reflecting that her traits of frailty should call forth such enthrallingly sinister comments. "Lets any wild enthusiasm carry her off her feet"—"before, it's too late"—"must learn ... — Missy • Dana Gatlin Read full book for free!
... moors in the evening, the wind was blowing in short, angry puffs, and the western horizon was heaped with sombre clouds which stretched their long, ragged tentacles right up to ... — The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle Read full book for free!
... beard, as with the supernumerary taper he prepared to light the wax candles in the nine-branched candlestick of silver. He wore a long, hooded mantle reaching to the feet, and showing where it fell back in front a brown gaberdine clasped by a girdle. These sombre-colored robes were second-hand, as the austere simplicity of the Pragmatic required. The Jewish Council of Sixty did not permit its subjects to ruffle it like the Romans of those days of purple pageantry. The young bloods, forbidden by ... — Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill Read full book for free!
... distinction—God is present, and nature and spirit interpenetrate in His presence. We hear much in other connections of the sacramental principle, and its importance for the religious interpretation of nature. It is a sombre illustration of this principle if we say that death is a kind of sacrament of sin. It is in death, ultimately, that the whole meaning of sin comes home to the sinner; he has not sounded it to its depths till he has discovered that this comes into it ... — The Atonement and the Modern Mind • James Denney Read full book for free!
... communion-rails. The Stations of the Cross, along the walls, were commemorated by paintings, evidently by a native artist—to suit the same barbaric taste; while a larger picture of San Francisco d'Assisis, under the choir, seemed to belong to an older and more artistic civilization. But the sombre half-light of the two lamps mellowed and softened the harsh contrast of these details until the whole body of the church appeared filled with a vague harmonious shadow. The air, heavy with the odors of past incense, seemed to be a part of that expression, as ... — The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte Read full book for free!
... a mystery profound. But in my desire to see, to be just like other children, I resolved to learn all I could about color, and so I memorized the list of colors, which ones harmonized, which were most pleasing to the eye, which were bright, which produced a sombre impression. Thus I soon learned to speak of color with a degree of intelligence, and to select my gowns with a view to pleasing the eyes of my friends. I soon learned to associate certain phrases with certain colors—for instance, blue as the sky, green as grass, ... — Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley Read full book for free!
... level of his knees, on a neck of colossal strength, which was draped, together with the forelegs down to the knees, in a flowing brown mane tipped with black. His head, too, to the very muzzle, wore the same luxuriant and sombre drapery, out of which curved viciously the keen-tipped crescent of his horns. Dark, huge, and ominous, he looked curiously out of place in the secure and familiar tranquillity of his ... — Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts Read full book for free!
... inconstant, sometimes good, sometimes wicked, and in this way, instead of exciting our love, He must produce suspicion, fear, and uncertainty in our hearts. There is no real difference between natural religion and the most sombre and servile superstition. If the Theist sees God but on the beautiful side, the superstitious man looks upon Him from the most hideous side. The folly of the one is gay of the other is lugubrious; but ... — Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier Read full book for free!
... clerics fight might make the sourest laugh! They meet, they shock, full many a knight is smitten on the crown, So keep us good St. Genevieve, Umslopogaas is down! About the mace of David Grieve his blood is flowing red, Alas for ancient chivalry, le brave Bussy is sped! Yet where the sombre Templar rides the Modern caitiffs fly, The Mummer (of The Mummer's Wife) has got it in the eye, From Felix Holt his patent Colt hath not averted fate, And Silas Lapham's smitten fair, right through his gallant pate. There Dan Deronda reels and falls, a hero ... — Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang Read full book for free!
... in a nook of one of the small cottages here lived Mrs. Roberts for a number of years, who has been described to us by one who long enjoyed her acquaintance as 'a very superior woman, intelligent and happy Christian.' So that she must indeed have shone in that humble and sombre spot as a 'gem of purest ray serene,' though not exactly ... — Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith Read full book for free!
... deep lines and severe set, who yet somehow shed kindness, as if he held a spirit of light prisoned within his darkness, so that, while only now and then could a visible ray of it escape through the sombre eye or through a sudden winning quality in the harsh voice, it nevertheless radiated from him sensibly at all times, to belie his sternness and puzzle ... — The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson Read full book for free!
... of your friends," laconically responded the voice, now quite familiar. Her eyes swept the room in search of the priest. His robes lay in a heap across her feet. "Where is Father Paul?" she demanded. "He is no more," said the man, in sombre tones. "I was he until an ... — Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon Read full book for free!
... lamplight of a Smyrna Caf, He saw them, seven solemn negroes dancing, With faces rapt and out-thrust bellies prancing In a slow solemn ceremonial cakewalk, Dancing and prancing to the sombre tom-tom Thumped by a crookbacked grizzled negro squatting. And as he watched ... within the steamy twilight Of swampy forest in rank greenness rotting, That sombre tom-tom at his heartstrings strumming ... — Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various Read full book for free!
... the nave, preceded by the sombre figures with the pot flowers, who were just visible in the rays that reached them through the distant choir screen at their back; while above the grey night sky and stars looked in upon them through the ... — A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy Read full book for free!
... through the sombre forests faint echoes of the strife the men of the seacoast had just begun against the British king. The rumors woke to passionate loyalty the hearts of the pioneers; and a roaming party of hunters, when camped on ... — The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt Read full book for free!
... family removed to Germantown, where her father had charge of the Manual Labor School, and Margaret enjoyed the advantages at that time afforded by the city of Philadelphia, gathering bright memories which irradiated her somewhat sombre life then and lightened her ... — Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett Read full book for free!
... dismal looking Baku—a town of recent creation, approached through a desert of sand and stones, where neither vegetable nor animal life can possibly find an existence. Viewed from the sea, Baku presents a distinctly picturesque appearance, with its sombre citadel, numerous minarets, and the palace of the princes of bygone days towering above the old town, where the houses look as if they were piled the one above the other—the new or Russian quarter being at the base, and lining the shore of the pretty little bay. ... — Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various Read full book for free!
... absolutely set, it had withdrawn its direct rays from the valley; and the hues of evening were beginning to gather around objects that stood uncovered, rendering those within the shadows of the woods still more sombre and gloomy. ... — The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper Read full book for free!
... characteristic in the indolence of these sombre beings. They will travel immense distances; but to steady labour they are, generally speaking, not prone. It is told of them, that in one of the most fertile districts (the Baxio) it is not unusual for an Indian, on receiving his wages, to get thoroughly drunk, go to sleep, and ... — The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 372, Saturday, May 30, 1829 • Various Read full book for free!
... again, in this section of a tragedy we find humorous or semi-humorous passages. On the whole such passages occur most frequently in the early or middle part of the play, which naturally grows more sombre as it nears the close; but their occasional introduction in the Fourth Act, and even later, affords variety and relief, and also heightens by contrast the tragic feelings. For example, there is a touch of comedy in the conversation of Lady Macduff ... — Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley Read full book for free!
... the breeze sank, the moon set, and a sombre quiet succeeded, with only that grim figure in outline dimly visible. Owing to the motion still retained by the waves, it seemed to nod and rear, and be ever preparing ... — A Simpleton • Charles Reade Read full book for free!
... significance of the gold and silver spots and the glancing iridescent hues. The trout is dark and obscure above, but behind this foil there are wondrous tints that reward the believing eye. Those who seek him in his wild remote haunts are quite sure to get the full force of the sombre and uninviting aspects,—the wet, the cold, the toil, the broken rest, and the huge, savage, uncompromising nature,—but the true angler sees farther than these, and is never thwarted of ... — In the Catskills • John Burroughs Read full book for free!
... Maeterlinck; the grave and simple diction, at times direct and homely in phrasing and imagery, at times rapturous, subtle, and evasive; the haunting mise-en-scene: the dim forest, the fountain in the park, the luminous and fragrant nightfall, the occasional glimpses, sombre and threatening, of the sea, the silent and gloomy castle,—all these unite to form a dramatic and poetic and pictorial ensemble which completely fascinates and enchains the mind. The result would have been as inconceivable before Maeterlinck undertook the ... — Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman Read full book for free!
... over the form that knelt so lonely there; when the woman lifted her head, and slowly rising, turned and came up the church; when our looks met, and I found my eyes searching the grave face and sombre eyes of Virginia, that unhappy child for whom I had spent my last gold piece—I was neither startled nor disappointed, but felt rather that I had known all along ... — The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett Read full book for free!
... lakes and streams of the valley which was first discovered and explored by France, and in which her statesmen saw the elements of empire. We see the tinned roofs, spires and crosses of quaint churches, hospitals and convents, narrow streets winding among the rocks, black-robed priests and {2} sombre nuns, habitans in homespun from the neighbouring villages, modest gambrel-roofed houses of the past crowded almost out of sight by obtrusive lofty structures of the present, the massive buildings of the famous seminary and university which bear the name of Laval, the first great bishop ... — Canada • J. G. Bourinot Read full book for free!
... she was going; to receive the reward of her prudent patience, and she said to herself, "How good it is to be discreet!" With an intense desire and interest she looked at the beautiful beads, but madame's face was troubled and sombre, and she ... — The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr Read full book for free!
... "Dr. Trip ain't in it." But the surgeon's face wore a preoccupied, sombre look, irresponsive to the nurse's admiration. While she helped the interne with the complicated dressing, the little nurse made ready for removal to the ward. Then when one of the ward tenders had wheeled the muffled figure ... — The Web of Life • Robert Herrick Read full book for free!
... a certain twig at the extremity of one of those broad solemn immovable branches. Gerald, however, saw not the twig, but one of his hardest difficulties which was twined and twined in the most inextricable way round that little sombre cluster of spikes; and so kept looking out, not at the cedar, but at the whole confused yet distinct array ... — The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant Read full book for free!
... seeking the solution of mysteries, wrapt in celestial reveries, yet going forth from dreary cells to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, and still more, to give spiritual consolations to the poor and miserable. It was a great scheme of philanthropy, as well as a haven of rest. It was always sombre in its attire, ascetic in its habits, intolerant in its dogmas, secluded in its life, narrow in its views, and repulsive in its austerities; but its leaders and dignitaries did not then conceal under their ... — Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord Read full book for free!
... good friend," said Ellieslaw to the sombre baronet; "I have something for your private ear, with which I know ... — The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott Read full book for free!
... end china vases filled with sprays of plumy grass. Above was the marriage certificate, neatly framed. On the centre-table were sundry piteous ornaments, deeply rooted in her affections. The chairs and the single sofa, angular and sombre, were set about with proud precision. They had been the result of years of careful hoarding of egg-money, and were, to Elizabeth, the achievement ... — Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various Read full book for free!
... but it is against nature to take an interest in familiar things. The gorse and the broom were a fine accent in the landscape. Here and there they burst out in sudden conflagrations of vivid yellow against a background of sober or sombre color, with a so startling effect as to make a body catch his breath with the happy surprise of it. And then there was the wattle, a native bush or tree, an inspiring cloud of sumptuous yellow bloom. It is a favorite with the Australians, and has a fine fragrance, ... — Innocents abroad • Mark Twain Read full book for free!
... from the sea; it lies in the valley of the Arno, and is built on both sides of the river, but chiefly on the N.; the outlying suburbs are singularly beautiful, and are surrounded by finely wooded hills, bright with gay villas and charming gardens; the old city itself is characterised by a sombre grandness, and is full of fine buildings of historic and artistic interest; chief amongst these is the cathedral, or Duomo, begun in 1298, with its grand dome and campanile (293 ft.), by Giotto. It is the city of Dante, Petrarch, ... — The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood Read full book for free!
... O sombre heart of earth and swoln with grief, That in thy time wast as a bird for mirth, Dim womb of life and many a seed and sheaf, And full of changes, ancient heart of earth, From grain and flower, from grass and every ... — Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne Read full book for free!
... beautiful child of Spring, once more smiled upon the bleak shores and sterile plains which, when we last beheld them, were encompassed by the chilling atmosphere, and loomed bleak and desolate beneath the sombre sky of, to that land at ... — Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert Read full book for free!
... be an easy task, methinks; for I see that instead of being polished and bright, as were ours at Dunbar, the others keep their steel caps and back pieces painted a sombre colour." ... — Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty Read full book for free!
... resort of foreigners and provincials, also affords that convenience. Although Paris on the whole is not so regularly built as London, yet there is a sombre grandeur about it which has a fine effect, owing in some degree to the large lofty houses of which it is composed; the straightness, width, and neatness of the streets of London form its beauty, but it is astonishing how foreigners when they first behold ... — How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve Read full book for free!
... working of these thoughts, Mr. Carleton sometimes forgot to talk to his little charge, and would walk for a length of way by her side, wrapped up in sombre musings. Fleda never disturbed him then, but waited contentedly and patiently for him to come out of them, with her old feeling, wondering what he could be thinking of, and wishing he were as happy as she. But he never ... — Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell Read full book for free!
... and watching, from an overlooking standpoint on a rock or little upswelling hill-top, will be its shepherd: a tall muffled figure showing black against the loom of the sky. And it all is touched, in the star-haze of those sombre solitudes, with the poetic realism of unreality; while its deeper meaning is aroused by the stone crosses, telling of Calvary, which are found at every parting of the ways. Told to simple dwellers in such a land the Bible story was neither vague nor remote. They knew its setting because ... — The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier Read full book for free!
... brilliant sky, Shaded from brightest gold to softest rose. Then, after supper, back and forth he paced Upon the narrow rock before his cave, Seeking to ease his numbed and stiffened limbs; While evening's sombre shadows slowly crept From plain to hill and highest mountain-top, And solemn silence settled on the world, Save for the night-jar's cry and owl's complaint; While many lights from out the city gleam, And thickening stars spangle the azure vault, Until ... — The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles Read full book for free!
... case with the Rev. Mr. Whittle and his deacons. In their ordinary intercourse with their fellow-creatures, these good people had taken up the idea that, in order to be religious, their countenances must be sombre, and that care and anxiety should be stamped on their faces, just as if they had no confidence in the efficacy of the redemption. Few, indeed, are they who vindicate their professions by living at peace with God and man! At Oyster Pond, it was much the fashion to imagine ... — The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper Read full book for free!
... naturally dealt in skins and furs, which, before the days of sombre black coats and tweed suits, were in great request, and were the distinguishing badge of rank and high estate. The Haberdashers united into one guild the Hat Merchants; the Haberdashers of Hats including ... — Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various Read full book for free!
... assoupis sous les bois, Dans plus d'une ame on voit deux choses a la fois: Le ciel, qui teint les eaux a peine remuees Avec tous ses rayons et toutes ses nuees; Et la vase, fond morne, affreux, sombre et dormant, Ou des reptiles noirs ... — Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley Read full book for free!
... of paradise, and I remembered Mr Hooker speaking of one which he called the red bird of paradise. This, I had little doubt, was the bird before us. Away he flew, however, followed by a smaller bird of a sombre brown plumage, which I could scarcely have supposed was his mate, had I not known that the wives of these gay-plumaged gentlemen are nearly always robed in Quaker-like simplicity. As he went, he appeared to be pecking away at the fruit of various trees over ... — In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston Read full book for free!
... the fixed, sombre light in the eyes, and the pallor of death stealing over the face of the chief. He turned his eyes away from the sad spectacle, and when he looked again the majestic figure ... — Betty Zane • Zane Grey Read full book for free!
... as he was bid, and the pair entered together a large hall, or rather a cave, which presented a singular spectacle. It was lighted up by links fixed to the sombre walls, which threw a smoky glare over the place, and the contrast after the deep darkness reminded Randhir of his mother's descriptions of Patal-puri, the infernal city. Carpets of every kind, from the choicest tapestry to the coarsest ... — Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton Read full book for free!
... so vividly the power of one little incident to change the tone of one's feelings and the humor of the occasion. As a few drops of oil, cast upon the surface of the waters, will quiet the troubled waves, so did the glad voice of this merry bird suddenly dispel all those sombre feelings which had been fostered by dismal scenes and a lonely journey. Nature never seemed so lovely as when the rising dawn, with its tearful beams and purple radiance, was greeted by this warbling salutation, as from some messenger of light, ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various Read full book for free!
... his outward serenity into an impression of severity. But truth keeps one from being hysterical. Is a demagogue a friend of the people because he will lie to them to make them cry and raise false hopes? A search for perfect truths throws out a beauty more spiritual than sensuous. A sombre dignity of style is often confused by under-imagination and by surface-sentiment, with austerity. If Emerson's manner is not always beautiful in accordance with accepted standards, why not accept a few other standards? ... — Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives Read full book for free!
... dense, is very low and even, not more than a foot or so off the ground; and in the Hunting Moon the leaves of this undergrowth have turned to purest yellow, without touch or trace of red, so that the sombre forest is carpeted with gold. Here and there shows a birch or aspen, also bright, pure light yellow, as though a brilliant sun were striking down through painted windows. Groups of yellow-leafed larches add to the splendour. And close to the ground grow little flat plants decked out with red ... — The Killer • Stewart Edward White Read full book for free!
... existence. As one drew near it and could make out the remains of the square tower, half in ruins, which still stood by its side, though without rivalling it in height, one was struck, first of all, by the tone, reddish and sombre, of its stones; and on a misty morning in autumn one would have called it, to see it rising above the violet thunder-cloud of the vineyards, a ruin of purple, almost the colour ... — Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust Read full book for free!
... dim down in the cellar, and before I knew it some other man had thrust a pannikin into my other hand. Then I stumbled on to a still darker room, where were benches and tables and men. The place smelled vilely, and the sombre gloom, and the mumble of voices from out of the obscurity, made it seem more like some anteroom to the ... — The People of the Abyss • Jack London Read full book for free!
... dramatic genius. With all its achievements in lyric and psychologic poetry, it has hardly attempted to scale the empyrean of song. In the seventy-six years that have passed since Shelley conceived his Prometheus, as he sat gazing over the sombre ruins of the Campagna, no one has ever ventured into that seventh heaven of invention. Since the School for Scandal (1777) no English drama has been produced which has anything like the same hold on the stage. For more than sixty years the English stage ... — Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison Read full book for free!
... heavily veiled than usual. Her dress and hat were of sombre black, and her manner nervous and disturbed. She came slowly to-wards their end of the table, although she was obviously in search of ... — The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim Read full book for free!
... imagine for yourself about six miles of road, and then—then in the increasing heat, the dust rising in spite of the morning rain, and the road most wearisome, I heard again the sound of bugles and the sombre excitement of ... — The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc Read full book for free!
... had a rather surprising summons to perform his priestly functions. The summoner was Rebecca Mary. She appeared like a sombre little shadow in his sunny sermon room. The minister's wife ushered her in, and in the brief instant of opening the door and announcing her name flashed him a warning glance. He had been acquainted so long with her glances that he was able to interpret this one with considerable accuracy. ... — Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell Read full book for free!
... the army of the Sombre-et-Meuse in 1796, and by Bagration in 1812, were secondary lines, as the former were merely secondary to the army of the Rhine, and the ... — Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck Read full book for free!
... and there, the little rays are darting, lighting up a dusty corner here, a hidden heap of books there. It is, as yet, early in the afternoon, and the riotous beams, who are no respecter of persons, and who honor the righteous and the ungodly alike, are playing merrily in this sombre chamber, given so entirely up to science and its prosy ways, daring even now to dance lightly on the professor's head, which has begun to grow a ... — A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford Read full book for free!
... Horrors, I say, for in the fires and forks Of a new hell — if one were not enough — I doubt if a new horror would have held him With a malignant ingenuity More to be feared than his before he died. You smile, as if in doubt. Well, smile again. Now come into his house, along with me: The four square sombre things that you see first Around you are four walls that go as high As to the ceiling. Norcross knew them well, And he knew others like them. Fasten to that With all the claws of your intelligence; ... — The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson Read full book for free!
... houses have been equally favored: in fact, there is scarcely an ancient family in the kingdom without a boding sign. For instance, the Breretons of Brereton, in Cheshire, were warned by the appearance of stocks of trees floating, like the swollen bodies of long-drowned men, upon the surface of a sombre lake—called Blackmere, from the inky color of its waters—adjoining their residence; and numerous other examples might be given. The death-presage of the Breretons is alluded to ... — Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth Read full book for free!
... Siligoree, where I arrived at 6 a.m. on the 13th. Hitherto I bad not seen the mountains, so uniformly had they been shrouded by dense wreaths of vapour: here, however, when within eight miles of their base, I caught a first glimpse of the outer range—sombre masses, of far from picturesque outline, clothed ... — Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker Read full book for free!
... do she supposed. She did not know when he was coming again. She rang languidly when we rose to take leave, and sank back on her sofa, where lay a heap of French novels. "She has chosen some pretty books," says Paul, as we drove through the sombre avenues through the grey park, mists lying about the melancholy ornamental waters, dingy herds of huddled sheep speckling the grass here and there; no smoke rising up from the great stacks of chimneys ... — The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray Read full book for free!
... at was a sombre-looking chasm, the mouth of which opened into the little valley where they were, at a distance ... — The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard Read full book for free!
... Jackman, the nurse, a mixture of Mother and Aunt Emily; and there was Weeden, the Head Gardener, an evasive and mysterious personality, who knew so much about flowers and vegetables and weather that he was half animal, half bird, and scarcely a human being at all—vaguely magnificent in a sombre way. His power in his own department was unquestioned. He said little, but it "meant an awful lot"—most of which, perhaps, ... — The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood Read full book for free!
... in reaching them. The large man stood with his back to the bar, his elbows spread out on it, so that there was a little space left on either side of him. No one cared to press too close to this sombre-faced giant. Purvis stood before him and Bill and Lee were instantly at his side. The two leaned on the bar, facing him, yet the four did not seem to make a group ... — The Untamed • Max Brand Read full book for free!
... mob, and cost the lives of all within the Tower. So the princess gave orders for all to leave her save her maids, and to scatter to their own apartments, and remain quiet there. As soon as we reached my mother's room we besought her to put on that sombre dress, and prayed her similarly to attire Aline, so that they might pass with us unnoticed through the crowd. While they were doing this we went up to the platform above, and there witnessed the murder of the archbishop, treasurer, and priest—at ... — A March on London • G. A. Henty Read full book for free!
... The sombre looking prison, the soldier on guard, the lantern behind the gate, notwithstanding the pure white layer of snow which had covered everything—the sidewalk, the roof and the walls—made a gloomy impression. The proud looking superintendent, walking out to the gate ... — The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy Read full book for free!
... mass of this fierce cavalry was wretchedly clothed and disgustingly dirty. Even the showy Mexican costume of Manga Colorada was ripped, frayed, stained with grease and perspiration, and not free from sombre spots which looked like blood. Every one wore the breech-cloth, in some cases nicely fitted and sewed, in others nothing but a shapeless piece of deerskin tied on anyhow. There were a few, either minor ... — Overland • John William De Forest Read full book for free!
... its high, narrow, solid streets, dominated by a sombre Spanish cathedral, upon the side of the acropolis of the antique Agrigentum. I can see from my windows, half-way on the hillside towards the sea, the white range of temples partially destroyed. The ruins alone have some aspect of coolness. All the rest ... — The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France Read full book for free!
... to be found in such groups—stranded folks, who for the most part have lost hope in life. The quiet, pretty woman who kept the house was of an ancient Quaker stock which had come over long ago in a sombre Quaker Mayflower, and had by and by gone to decay, as the best of families will. When I first saw her and some of her inmates it was on a pleasant afternoon early in September, and I recall even now the simple and quiet picture of the little back parlor where I sat down among ... — Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various Read full book for free!
... asked Jabez, bewildered, and suddenly realizing that their sombre faces and manner meant something more ... — Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch Read full book for free!
... hunger and exhaustion. They had not the strength to resist the wind, and at times its buffets hurled them off their feet. On several occasions the sled was overturned, and they were compelled to reload it with its sombre freight. The last hundred feet to the graves was up a steep slope, and this they took on all fours, like sled-dogs, making legs of their arms and thrusting their hands into the snow. Even so, they were twice ... — Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London Read full book for free!
... with the Paris-made gown which the maid at that moment was carefully packing away. The order of nature seemed reversed; the butterfly had abandoned its gorgeous wings of gauze, and was habited in the sombre working garb of the grub. With her hands clasped behind her, the girl paced up and down the room, pouring forth words, two hundred to the minute, and sometimes more. Silently one stenographer, tiptoeing in, replaced another, who as silently departed; and from the adjoining room, the subdued, nervous, ... — Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr Read full book for free!
... Gaga lay groaning in bed, and there was a faint smell of sickness in the air. Sally instinctively recoiled, and went back into the sitting-room. Her hands came together and jerked in a gesture of despair. Everything was against her. The white face was whiter; the mischievous eyes were sombre. She was a lonely and frightened child without any support in her life. She was too young, in spite of her vivacity, to endure such trials unbroken; and in this situation she ... — Coquette • Frank Swinnerton Read full book for free!
... It is a sad-coloured country she writes of, gray and brown; sodden brown with bog water, gray with rock cropping up through the fields; the only brightness is up overhead in the heavens, and even they are often clouded. These sombre hues, with the passing gleam of something above them, reflect themselves in every page of her books. She renders that complete harmony between the people and their surroundings which is only seen in working folk whose clothes ... — Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn Read full book for free!
... home, in a fine drizzle of rain, through a gray landscape; and surely no landscape can be more perfectly gray than that of France when it is pleased to put on sombre tints, and no other could have been as well suited to the ... — In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton Read full book for free!
... blushed more than common during this interview, but it is certain she did not smile less; and the earl, Lady Marian assured Sir Edward, was so very different a creature from what he had recently been, that she could hardly think it was the same sombre gentleman with whom she had passed the last few months in Wales ... — Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper Read full book for free!
... scenery somewhat resembles that of the Blue Mountains, and is even more beautiful. The exquisite effects produced by the waning daylight lent a peculiar charm to this landscape. The forest close to us looked dark and sombre, whilst the valley further off was bathed in sunlight, and in the dim distance the mountains over which we had passed early in the day faded into a delicious pale blue chiaroscuro. The banks beneath or above us were cleft by little gullies, with struggling rivulets, ... — The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey Read full book for free!
... a higher order, stood Like an extinct volcano in his mood; 140 Silent, and sad, and savage,—with the trace Of passion reeking from his clouded face; Till lifting up again his sombre eye, It glanced on Torquil, who leaned faintly by. "And is it thus?" he cried, "unhappy boy! And thee, too, thee—my madness must destroy!" He said, and strode to where young Torquil stood, Yet dabbled with his ... — The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron Read full book for free!
... Then he proceeded to tell us of the great raptor in its life of hopeless captivity; his stern, rugged countenance, deep bass voice, and grand mouth-filling polysllables suiting his subject well, and making his description seem to our minds a sombre magnificent picture never to be forgotten—at all events, ... — Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson Read full book for free!
... etiquette, between the death of one husband and the wedding of another, and even that was so short as to be barely decent. Six months—yet in that space of time much might happen—things undreamed of and undesired—slow tortures carefully measured out, punishment sudden and heavy! Wrapped in these sombre musings I walked beside him in profound silence. The moon shone brilliantly; groups of girls danced on the shore with their lovers, to the sound of a flute and mandoline—far off across the bay the sound of sweet and ... — Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli Read full book for free!
... hour the sailors pulled at the oar. They glided slowly past the sombre shores by the shimmering moonlight, the sound of the murmuring surf and the moaning pine-trees. In the gray of the morning, they came to the mouth of a river, probably the Nassau; and here a northeast wind set in with a violence that almost ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various Read full book for free!
... one hundred and two in number, are now placed for safe-keeping in what was the infirmary of the adjoining college. Possibly, when the work going on pian piano in the church is completed, they may be restored to their original place. Their sombre richness would show well in ... — Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various Read full book for free!
... reached the wall that barred her dungeon, and the Wizard struck upon it as he had the other. It yawned apart in its turn, and with such impetuous zeal did Prince Ember hasten toward the opening that he entered before the rest the sombre prison that lay within. ... — The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield Read full book for free!
... gloom of the forest shut in above their heads once more. They put the horses to a canter as soon as the ridge was cleared, for there were still ten miles to go and the light was waning. Jeremy was very much at home in the woods, but the chill, sombre depths that appeared and reappeared on either hand seemed to warn him to be prepared. He reached to the saddlebow, undid the flap of the pistol holster, and made sure that his weapon was loaded, then put it back, reassured. The footing was bad, ... — The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader Read full book for free!
... He and the sombre, silent Spirit met— They knew each other both for good and ill; Such was their power, that neither could forget His former friend and future foe; but still There was a high, immortal, proud regret ... — The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron Read full book for free!
... cassock—once black, but now of a greeny brown. He was a singularly tall man, gaunt and grey, with deep lines drawn downwards from eye to chin. His mouth was large and tender, with a humorous corner ever awaiting a jest. His eyes were sombre and deeply shaded by grey brows, but one of them had a twinkle lurking and waiting, as in ... — In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman Read full book for free!
... von Ense, "Ausgewaehlte Schriften," III., 177. (Audience of July 10, 1810): "I never heard a harsher voice, one so inflexible. When he smiled, it was only with the mouth and a portion of the cheeks; the brow and eyes remained immovably sombre,... This compound of a smile with seriousness had in it something terrible and frightful."—On one occasion, at St. Cloud, Varnhagen heard him exclaim over and over again, twenty times, before a group ... — The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine Read full book for free!
... came to another halt, glancing first at the two men, now well up the street, and then at the somewhat sombre front of ... — The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher Read full book for free!
... and appeared to be prevented from doing so altogether by the thick matting of creeping-plants and the interlaced branches which years of neglect had allowed to cover it almost entirely; while the thick, luxuriant branches of the bread-fruit and other trees spread above it, and flung a deep, sombre shadow over the spot, as if to guard it from the heat and the light of day. We conversed long and in whispers about this strange habitation ere we ventured to approach it; and when at length we did so it was, at least on my part, with ... — The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne Read full book for free!
... kerchief; perhaps she heard her name, and echoed the parting prayer that was sent back to her on the still breath of the morning. If so, her voice was drowned by the tread of my chafing horse, that, wheeling suddenly, bore me off into the sombre... — The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid Read full book for free!
... of Van Roon, when that ill-fated genius was in Chelsea, Mac had caught the salient curves and angles of Mrs. Carville as she stooped over her scaldino, had caught to a surprising degree the sombre expression of her face and the tigerish energy of her crouched body. I studied it with great pleasure for a moment, and then it recurred to me that he had not been with us at the window. I say recurred, though I had known ... — Aliens • William McFee Read full book for free!
... meticulous pedagogue"—I do not think that a little criticism of these potentates will do them the smallest harm. In "The Castigator" "ORBILIUS" gives a laughable sketch. The inventor of a flogging machine is soundly beaten by his own instrument, and he would be a sombre man indeed who could read it without a desire to witness such a chastening performance. By no means the least merit of this book is that it contains ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various Read full book for free!
... from his eyes. An elegant gentleman was Mr. Wilding, tall, and seeming even taller by virtue of his exceeding slenderness. He had the courage to wear his own hair, which was of a dark brown and very luxuriant; dark brown too were his sombre eyes, low-lidded and set at a downward slant. From those odd eyes of his, his countenance gathered an air of superciliousness tempered by a gentle melancholy. For the rest, it was scored by lines that stamped it with the appearance of an age ... — Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini Read full book for free!
... two think the happy soldier mad. We are left wondering what the reaction will be from this height of joyful release to the harsh and sombre conditions of workingmen's life ... — The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various Read full book for free!
... answer for them and testify loudly enough. I confess that at first sight the negatives seem for the moment the more numerous. They include many groups, which I shall not enumerate here. I range with them the charming uncertain ones, like M. Renan and his melodious disciples, the sombre and nihilistic Buddhists; all those to whom the law of the completion of man through the good is indeed foolish and chimerical, since their lives imply the negation of it: I mean to say the immense multitude of those who live in any kind of way, good easy people, refined possibly, ... — Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various Read full book for free!
... difference being the thirty years that divided their ages. For a few moments the young man did not distinguish Elsa in the throng, then a glad cry of recognition escaped him, and the cloud cleared from his face as if a burst of sunshine had penetrated the sombre-coloured windows and had thrown its illuminating halo around his head. He spoke impetuously, ... — The Strong Arm • Robert Barr Read full book for free!
... imperial sway of dull maroons, sullen Pompeiian reds, and sombre murky olives had never cast encroaching shadows upon the dainty brightness of tender rose and blue, nor toned down the silvery reflection of the great sea of waters that flashed under the sunshine like some vast ... — At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson Read full book for free!
... of a provincial gentleman would be likely to be. The wall-paper was gloomy, and the furniture was of dark mahogany upholstered in faded blue nankeen, but there were numerous candles in candelabra upon the tables and in sconces upon the walls which gave an air of festivity even to these sombre surroundings. Out of the large central room were several smaller ones in which card-tables had been laid out, and the doorways between had been draped with Oriental chintz. A number of ladies and gentlemen were standing about, the former in ... — Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle Read full book for free!
... things as these I mean to do When Peace once more resumes her sway; To walk barefooted through the dew And while the sunlit hours away, If haply I may find some gay Conceit to light a sombre mind, As gracious as a Summer day, As wayward ... — Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various Read full book for free!
... Priest, although still Miss Priest, cut up her own bridecake with a serene equanimity that proved the charming sweetness of her disposition. There was no marriage-bell yet all went merry as a marriage-bell, which is occasionally rather a sombre tintinnabulation; and the debris of the bridecake finally fell to ... — Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes Read full book for free!
... that Mrs. Howard and Mrs. Winship could sit there if they liked; but the young people preferred to lie lazily on their cushions and saddles under the oak- tree, a little distance from the blaze. The clear, red firelight danced and flickered, and the sparks rose into the sombre darkness fantastically, while the ruddy glow made the great oak an enchanted palace, into whose hollow dome they never tired of gazing. When the light streamed highest, the bronze green of the foliage was ... — A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin Read full book for free!
... darkening heath, while overhead some belated bird, vexed with itself for being out so late, scurries across the dusky sky, screaming angrily. I love the lonely, sullen lake, hidden away in mountain solitudes. I suppose it was my childhood's surroundings that instilled in me this affection for sombre hues. One of my earliest recollections is of a dreary marshland by the sea. By day, the water stood there in wide, shallow pools. But when one looked in the evening they were pools of blood that ... — John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome Read full book for free!
... sorts, from the tragic adventure of "An Accident" to the pendent portraits of the "Two Clowns," cutting in its sarcasm, but not bitter—from "The Captain's Vices," which suggests at once George Eliot's Silas Marner and Mr. Austin Dobson's Tale of Polypheme, to the sombre revery of the poet "At Table," a sudden and searching light cast on the labor and misery which underlies the luxury of our complex modern existence. Like "At Table," "A Dramatic Funeral" is a picture more than it is a story; it is a marvellous reproduction ... — Ten Tales • Francois Coppee Read full book for free!
... up there"—Hamilton waved his hand towards the dark green forest, sombre in the shadows of the evening—"a palaver I don't quite get the hang of. If I could only ... — Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace Read full book for free!
... is a fluent and graceful colloquial sketch. "Mother and Child", by J. E. Hoag, is a sombre and thoughtful poem having a certain atmosphere of mysticism. The metre, which is well handled, consists of regular iambic pentameter quatrains with a couplet at the conclusion. An annoying misprint mars the first stanza, where "sigh" ... — Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft Read full book for free!
... these plays should commence with a "Midsummer Night's Dream" and end with a "Tempest." In the interval the great sombre passions of our race are sounded and dismissed; but as he began with Titania, so he ends with Ariel. From the fairy forest to the enchanted island; from a dream to a dream. With Shakespeare there is no Wagnerian, Euripidean "apologia." There is no "Parsifal" or "Bacchanals." From the meaningless ... — Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys Read full book for free!
... gathering of the distant thunder-clouds, which cast a deeper, more sombre shade upon the pines that girded the northern shores of the lake as with an ebon frame. Insensibly her thoughts wandered far away from the lonely spot whereon she sat, to the stoup [FN: The Dutch word for verandah, which is still in common ... — Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill Read full book for free!
... dark side, the dead being our antipodes. In the Odyssey, Ulysses reaches Hades by sailing across the ocean stream and passing the eternal night land of the Cimmerians, whereupon he comes to the edge of Acheron, the moat of Pluto's sombre house. Virgil also says, "One pole of the earth to us always points aloft; but the other is seen by black Styx and the infernal ghosts, where either dead night forever reigns or else Aurora returns thither from us and brings them back the day."1 But the prevalent notion evidently was that Hades ... — The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger Read full book for free!
... afternoon sun streamed in through the window of his little chamber, a relief from the sombre gloominess of the lofty library, where the straggling rays seemed to make the great hall more shadowy by contrast. But Meschini did not stop to look about him. In a closet in the wall he kept his stores, his chemicals, his carefully-composed inks, his bits of prepared parchment, ... — Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford Read full book for free!
... Crushes the laurel near the house immortal, And with her head, as Paul talks on again, Touches the crown of filigrane Suspended from the low-arched portal, No more restrained, no more afraid, She walks, as for a feast arrayed, And in the ancient chapel's sombre night They both are lost ... — The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Read full book for free!
... could pay but little, and among them some of the luckless ones who are always to be found in such groups—stranded folks, who for the most part have lost hope in life. The quiet, pretty woman who kept the house was of an ancient Quaker stock which had come over long ago in a sombre Quaker Mayflower, and had by and by gone to decay, as the best of families will. When I first saw her and some of her inmates it was on a pleasant afternoon early in September, and I recall even now the simple ... — Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various Read full book for free!
... have at our feet the richest and most beautifully wooded part of Strathearn—the valley interspersed in the most picturesque fashion, with knolls richly clad with larch, oak, or hazel; while here and there the gleam of the River Earn betrays her course, where she has emerged from sombre wood, or deep and rocky gorge. In spring-time the eye is delighted and refreshed with the varieties of green—from the deep and sombre shade of the Scotch pine and the almost yellow and brown of the young oak to the ... — Chronicles of Strathearn • Various Read full book for free!
... darkening to the opaque where a tiny distant rain squall started; lightening in the nearer shadows to reveal half-guessed peaks; brightening unexpectedly into broad short bands of misty gray light slanting from the gray heavens above to the sombre tortured immensity beneath. It was such a thing as Gustave Dore might have imaged to serve as an abiding place for the fierce chaotic spirit ... — The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White Read full book for free!
... Indians in their normal state, with their dress, habitations, and implements, so picturesque and unique, as well as the gallant gentlemen in the costume of that picturesque age, it seems almost to border on romance. But there is a dark side to the picture. The sombre veil of uncertainty hangs over the fate of two entire colonies, which, if lifted, would consecrate this spot to the extremes of suffering and bloodshed. It was, no doubt, better to have these scenes buried in ... — Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various Read full book for free!
... from this point of view, the careless attitude of the American people toward General Grant's administration, when in 1871 it obtained the reversal of Hepburn v. Griswold by appointments to the bench, assumes a sombre aspect. ... — The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams Read full book for free!
... each other. Hilda's face flushed to a sombre red. Mrs. Lessways brusquely left the room. Then Hilda could hear her rattling fussily at the kitchen range. After a few minutes Hilda followed her to the kitchen, which was now nearly in darkness. The figure of Mrs. Lessways, ... — Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett Read full book for free!
... wrought a great change in Alice Lancaster. Alice had missed what she had once begun to expect, romance and all that it meant; but she had filled with dignity the place she had chosen. If Mr. Lancaster's absorption in serious concerns left her life more sombre than she had expected, at least she let no one know it. Association with a man like Mr. Lancaster had steadied and elevated her. His high-mindedness had lifted her above the level of her worldly mother and of many of those who constituted the ... — Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page Read full book for free!
... will walk, And hear him rail and rave against the East. I stay behind—for these bare silences, These hills that in the sunset melt and burn, This proud stern people, these dead seas and lakes, These sombre cedars, this intense still sky, To me, o'erwearied with life's din and strain, Are grateful as the solemn blank of night After the fierce day's irritant excess; Besides, a deep absorbing interest Detains me here, fills up my mind, and sways My ... — A Roman Lawyer in Jerusalem - First Century • W. W. Story Read full book for free!
... desolate and plague-stricken Irish and Germans, receiving them unquestioned, until at times the very floors were covered with the sick and dying, and the sawing and hammering in the coffin-shop across the inner court ceased not day or night. Sombre monument at once of charity and sin! For, while its comfort and succor cost the houseless wanderer nothing, it lived and grew, and lives and grows still, upon the licensed vices of the ... — Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable Read full book for free!
... their mother or Tom was with them, they would often linger until the stars came out or the moon rose. How glorious the water looked then, bathed in silvery radiance, like an enchanted lake! How dark and sombre the woods! What strange shadows used to lurk among the trees! Hatty would creep to Bessie's side, as they walked, especially if Tom indulged in one ... — Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey Read full book for free!
... that he did not enjoy his rides. He used to return from them with a resentful, sombre look, as if his reflections had not been pleasant company for him. In truth they were not pleasant company. He was beset by thoughts he did not exactly care to be beset by—thoughts which led him farther than he really cared to go, which did not incline him ... — Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett Read full book for free!
... Spectroscope — Colour by Absorption: Solutions and Dyed Fabrics; Dichroic Coloured Fabrics in Gaslight — Colour Primaries of the Scientist versus the Dyer and Artist; Colour Mixing by Rotation and Lye Dyeing; Hue, Purity, Brightness; Tints; Shades, Scales, Tones, Sad and Sombre Colours — Colour Mixing; Pure and Impure Greens, Orange and Violets; Large Variety of Shades from few Colours; Consideration of the Practical Primaries: Red, Yellow and Blue — Secondary Colours; Nomenclature of Violet and Purple Group; Tints and Shades of Violet; Changes in Artificial ... — The Dyeing of Woollen Fabrics • Franklin Beech Read full book for free!
... says it is beautiful and has a vague sense of enjoyment, and will carry away with her little more than this. Point out to her that the trees above are some of them deciduous poplars, or maples, and others sombre groups of pines and silky tamarack with a wonder of delicate tracery. Show her that the sun against the sloped yellow bank has covered the water with a shining changeful orange light, through which gleam the mottled stones below, and that the concave curve of every wave which faces us concentrates ... — Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell Read full book for free!
... Utterson came home to his bachelor house in sombre spirits and sat down to dinner without relish. It was his custom of a Sunday, when this meal was over, to sit close by the fire, a volume of some dry divinity on his reading-desk, until the clock of the neighbouring church ... — The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson Read full book for free!
... class, through their superior wealth, education, and influence; and the non-slaveholders are as virtually the subject class, since slavery, being the great, paramount, leading interest, overtopping and overshadowing all things else, tinging every other social element with its own sombre hue, is fatal to any movement adverse to it on the part of the non-slaveholder. Everything must drift in the whirl of its powerful eddy, a terrible maelstrom, into which the North was fast floating, when the thunder of the Fort Sumter bombardment ... — The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various Read full book for free!
... turned suddenly on him and caught a glimpse of a hard-set jaw and a mouth about which strong lines of determination had woven themselves. Yet, as soon as Cumshaw fancied he was observed, the mask of his face melted into a smile, and the sombre eyes sparkled with a humor that somehow seemed too real to ... — The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh Read full book for free!
... sun, Or see the stars born, one by one, Out of the darkening sky. Nor would she leave that hill till night Trembled from pole to pole with light; Even then, upon her homeward way, Long—long her wandering steps delayed To quit the sombre forest shade, Through which her eerie pathway lay. You ask if she had beauty's grace? I know not—but a nobler face My eyes have seldom seen; A keen and fine intelligence, And, better still, the truest sense Were in her speaking mien. But bloom ... — Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell Read full book for free!
... at a rear door and took her seat upon the platform. Martha was dressed in white; for once she had laid aside the sombre garb in which alone she had been seen since her arrival at Patesville. She wore a yellow rose at her throat, a bunch of jasmine in her belt. A sense of responsibility for the success of the exhibition had deepened the habitual seriousness of her face, yet she greeted the ... — The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt Read full book for free!
... boast the sustained grandeur of the stern face that England turns to the Atlantic waves, the romantic arch of Durdle Door, the majestic hill-cliff that rises above the green cleft of Arish Mel, and the sombre precipices of St. Aldhelm's, with the smiling loveliness of the Wessex lanes and hamlets behind ... — Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes Read full book for free!
... Above her, the gay-coloured Chinese lanterns swayed to and fro in the little breeze that drifted up the street, and above again, far off in the sombre sky, the stars looked down—pitiless, unmoved, as they have looked down through all the ages upon the pigmy joys and ... — The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler Read full book for free!
... Battle of Ayacucho, completely defeating the Royalist forces. This proved to be the final action of the war; the last shred of Spanish authority had been torn from the Continent, the last of the Spanish garrisons were now ploughing their sombre course back to Europe, and it was left to Spanish America to ... — South America • W. H. Koebel Read full book for free!
... and all the pleasure he received from that high mark of the appreciation of his country did not compensate him for the hardship of leaving home. During this third visit to Europe "it is easy to see that life has grown rather sombre to Irving,—the glamour is gone, he is subject to few illusions. The show and pageantry no longer enchant; they only weary." He writes home: "Amidst all the splendors of London and Paris I find my imagination refuses ... — Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold Read full book for free!
... met Jenny he was clear of Wagner, had glanced a little patronisingly at Beethoven, turned aside and enwrapped himself in the sombre splendour of Bach, right away from the world; then, harking back, with a fresh vision, a sudden sense of the inevitable, had anchored himself in the solemn, wide-stretching harbourage ... — The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various Read full book for free!
... this cold, tranquil demeanor, this humble reserve, this pale and gloomy countenance that seemed to strike the spectators and fill them with a feeling of strange delight and wondering awe. In this pale, cold, sombre, and imposing face there was scarcely a feature that seemed to belong to a mortal, earth-born being. It seemed as though the spectre of one of the old Roman imperators, as though the shadow of Julius Caesar had taken a seat in that carriage, ... — LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach Read full book for free!
... twilight melted into a fair tranquil night. The moon rose early; and the quiet English landscape seemed very fair to Clarissa Lovel in that serene light. She watched the shadowy fields flitting past; here and there a still pool, or a glimpse of running water; beyond, the sombre darkness of wooded hills; and above that dark background a calm starry sky. Who shall say what dim poetic thoughts were in her mind that night, as she looked at these things? Life was so new to her, the future such an unknown ... — The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon Read full book for free!
... it was a slice of fairyland and sat with her chin on her shoulder, till the road curled up into the depths of a broad pine-wood, through which it cut, thin, and dead straight, and cool, and strangely solemn. In a flash it had become the nave of a cathedral, immense, solitary. Sombre and straight and tall, the walls rose up to where the swaying roof sobered the mellow sunshine and only let it pass dim and so, sacred. The wanton breeze, caught in the maze of tufted pinnacles, filtered ... — Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates Read full book for free!
... quiet. The bedroom had an evil look and this, combined with the dank air from the canal, gave my thoughts a sombre tinge. ... — The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams Read full book for free!
... could scarcely keep back a smile at sight of her incongruous attire. Her gown was a cotton one of a washed out indigo-blue, with large polka spots that had once been white, before the other color had beclouded them. Over this, as if apologizing and condoning, streamed the sombre veil, more suitable for a widow than for that round-faced child. But Lucy drew it about her with a tender touch, as she sat apart, and Camille could plainly note her satisfaction in ... — Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry Read full book for free!
... the ancient seat of the Leghs, high up in the wall of the hall is a sombre portrait which by ingenious mechanism swings out of its frame, a fixture, and gives admittance to a room on the first floor, or rather affords a means of looking down into the hall.[1] We mention this portrait more especially ... — Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea Read full book for free!
... without struck midnight, but Mr. Ravenslee sat there long after the silvery chime had died away, his chin sunk upon his broad chest, his sombre eyes staring blindly at the fading embers, lost in profound and gloomy meditation. But, all at once, he started and glanced swiftly around toward a certain window, the curtains of which were only partly drawn, ... — The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol Read full book for free!
... that Pearl spoke in the school-house, there sat in one of the seats listening to her, a sombre-faced woman, who rarely came to any of the neighborhood gatherings. The women of the neighborhood, having only the primary hypothesis of human conduct, said she was "proud." She did not join heartily in their ... — Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung Read full book for free!
... waits for dinner. Gowns are provided for the student in the robing-room, for the use of which a small term-fee is paid, and, thus habited, he is introduced into the Hall. But it is now no longer hushed and sombre, but a scene of brightness and bustle. The tables are spread for dinner in close and orderly array; wax-lights in profusion blaze upon them; a multitude of gowned men are lounging on the seats, or talking in groups, or busily looking out for the most agreeable places, which are secured by ... — Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various Read full book for free!
... morality and proverbial wisdom, and although this last axiom was very characteristic of my friend Hop Sing, who was that most sombre of all humorists, a Chinese philosopher, I must confess, that, even after a very free translation, I was at a loss to make any immediate application of the message. Luckily I discovered a third enclosure in the shape of a little note in English, ... — Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte Read full book for free!
... expanses, more variable than the skin of a serpent; project clearly against an azure horizon the Gothic profile of this ancient Paris. Make its contour float in a winter's mist which clings to its numerous chimneys; drown it in profound night and watch the odd play of lights and shadows in that sombre labyrinth of edifices; cast upon it a ray of light which shall vaguely outline it and cause to emerge from the fog the great heads of the towers; or take that black silhouette again, enliven with shadow ... — Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo Read full book for free!
... picture Rod would often recall in days to come. It was stamped on his memory in imperishable colors—the bright sunlight, the hovering clouds of billowy powder smoke, the gay uniforms of the charging Frenchmen, the sombre, oppressive silence hovering over the opposite bank of the river—all these things had a ... — The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow Read full book for free!
... bounding sleighs, and hands that clasp the hands they love, though wrapped in countless furs and muffs. Gay steeds dash on with steaming nostrils, as if their toil were sport; and their bells, as they ring cheerily out in the sombre night, give ... — The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various Read full book for free!
... the strange lilt of those unequal measures. We can imagine the scheme of colour to be white and gold, framed by the deep-blue arch of the sky, the amethyst sea flecked with glittering silver foam, and the dark, sombre rocks of the Cretan coast bringing a suggestion of fate into this dancing, soulless vision. Turning now to Rome, we see that this same music has fallen to a wretched slave's estate, cowering in some corner ... — Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell Read full book for free!
... growing timid when he saw before him a face as sombre as Othello's. "My name is Ernest de La Briere, related to the family of the late cabinet minister, and his private secretary during his term of office. On his dismissal, his Excellency put me in the Court of Claims, to which I am legal ... — Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac Read full book for free!
... flat-footed stride, was a stiff one, but the Boy, who was lean and hard, and used his feet straight-toed like an Indian, had no fault to find with it. Neither spoke a word, as they swung along single file through the high-arched and ancient forest, whose shadows, so sombre all through summer, were now shot here and there with sharp flashes of scarlet or pale gleams of aerial gold. Once, rounding a great rock of white granite stained with faint pinkish and yellowish reflections from the bright leaves glowing over it, they came face to face with a tall bull moose, ... — The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts Read full book for free!
... grave and simple diction, at times direct and homely in phrasing and imagery, at times rapturous, subtle, and evasive; the haunting mise-en-scene: the dim forest, the fountain in the park, the luminous and fragrant nightfall, the occasional glimpses, sombre and threatening, of the sea, the silent and gloomy castle,—all these unite to form a dramatic and poetic and pictorial ensemble which completely fascinates and enchains the mind. The result would have been as inconceivable before ... — Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman Read full book for free!
... pastures nearly to the crest, with garments of purple heather lying under the sky upon their ridges. Yet for all this roundness of outline there will be, towards the Atlantic end of either army, a growing sternness of aspect, a more sombre ruggedness in the outline of the hills, with cliffs and steep ravines setting their brows frowning against ... — Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston Read full book for free!
... little can be found out. Who can give a dead date, much less a living fact, concerning the life of that Gervais who conceived the great Gothic height of Narbonne? Who can tell even the name of him who planned the sombre, battlemented walls of Agde, or of that great man who first saw in poetic vision the delicate choir of Saint-Nazaire in Carcassonne? Artists have a well-preserved personality,—cathedral-builders, none. Robert of Luzarches who conceived the "Parthenon ... — Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose Read full book for free!
... "Too sombre Spirit, hath the opening year No scenes of gayer hope and gentler cheer? Is all beneath night's curtain In this vast city void of promise glad? Are all the guests of midnight spectres sad, And ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various Read full book for free!
... this picture, he almost seems to hear the old familiar strains, and homesickness steals over him. . . . In these ballads one feels the beating of the German popular heart. Here is revealed all its sombre merriment, all its droll wit. Here German wrath beats furiously the drum; here German satire stings, here German love kisses. Here we behold the sparkling of genuine German wine, ... — A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers Read full book for free!
... the Northwest Arm, a beautiful inlet of the sea stealing up from the entrance of the harbour for three or four miles into the land behind the city of Halifax. A 'lawn with oak-trees round the edges,' a little garden and orchard with apple and cherry trees, surrounded the house. Behind, sombre pine-groves shut it out from the world, and in front, at the foot of the hillside, the cheery waters of the 'Arm' ebbed and flowed in beauty. On the other side of the water, which is not much more than a quarter of a mile wide, rose knolls clothed with almost ... — The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant Read full book for free!
... now under the Prince's view, was frequently broken, advancing here, retreating there; one section severely plain and sombre; another relieved by porticos with figured friezes resting on tall columns. The irregularities were pleasing; some of them were stately; and they were all helped not a little by domes and pavilions without which the roof lines would ... — The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace Read full book for free!
... off gaily, in spite of the sombre Couriol; and after two hours' conviviality, they adjourned to the Palais Royal, where, after taking their cafe at the Rotonde ... — Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various Read full book for free!
... dusk, and Jocelyn sat musing beside the corpse of Mrs. Pierston. Avice having gone away nobody knew whither, he had acted as the nearest friend of the family, and attended as well as he could to the sombre duties necessitated by her mother's decease. It was doubtful, indeed, if anybody else were in a position to do so. Of Avice the Second's two brothers, one had been drowned at sea, and the other had emigrated, while her only child besides ... — The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy Read full book for free!
... except when the full moon shone, was sombre, with nothing doing. The street lamps burnt but indifferent gas; people stayed indoors, and read the piquant paragraphs of The Pioneer Bushman, Timber Town's evening journal, or fashioned those gay dresses which by day helped to make the town so bright, and went to bed early and ... — The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace Read full book for free!
... presented himself punctually at eight o'clock that evening, had a sombre, almost a deserted appearance. The great bell which he pealed seemed to ring through empty spaces. His footsteps echoed strangely in the lofty white stone hall as he followed the butler into ... — The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim Read full book for free!
... glowing coals of the campfire, which cast a red reflection on the tall, sombre pines in back of them, they voted Dick a capital cook, and the supper one of the best they had eaten since they left the station where they ... — The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle Read full book for free!
... haunted the fatal tower, first as a sleep-walker, then as a restless ghost—moaning and gibbering to himself, and tearing at a walled-up door with bleeding hands. The train of thought thereby suggested was so very sombre, that I preferred returning to my cabin, and climbing into an unfurnished berth, to spending more minutes in that weird company. I never made the man out satisfactorily afterwards. It is possible that he was one of the few ... — Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence Read full book for free!
... distinct from her, unchanged outwardly to her, but underneath a solid power of antagonism to her. Of which she became gradually aware. And it irritated her to be made aware of him as a separate power. She lapsed into a sort of sombre exclusion, a curious communion with mysterious powers, a sort of mystic, dark state which drove him and the child nearly mad. He walked about for days stiffened with resistance to her, stiff with a will to destroy her as she was. Then suddenly, ... — The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence Read full book for free!
... remember,' I said, 'a visit paid by the Nawab of Puttyputty when I was one of the masters at the college at Longbourne. He was magnificently dressed, a most picturesque figure amongst the gentlemen, who in their sombre black looked like so many waiters. I remember he wore a resplendent belt, the clasps of which were formed of gigantic emeralds engraved with Eastern characters—Sanskrit, I believe, though I never had them in my hand.' And the boy proudly ... — Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn Read full book for free!
... benefit. What have we done, we and the insects, to be ground with sovran indifference under the mill-stone of such wretchedness? Oh, what terrible, what heart-rending questions the Mason-bee's misfortunes would bring to my lips, if I gave free scope to my sombre thoughts! But let us avoid these useless whys and keep within the province ... — The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre Read full book for free!
... especially her deep, dark and restless eyes. It was by sense rather than by anything his eyes could base conclusions upon that Peter realized her spirited personality, knew instinctively that radiant and destructive fires burned behind the sombre, questioning eyes. The full, red lips might have told ... — Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts Read full book for free!
... Sucy quivered; his broad brow contracted; his face became as sombre as the skies above them. Some memory of awful bitterness distorted for a moment his features, but he said nothing. Like all strong men, he drove down his emotions to the depths of his heart; thinking perhaps, ... — Adieu • Honore de Balzac Read full book for free!
... parlour." Here her active fingers came upon the glittering diamond pendant in the shape of a dove that hung by its slender gold chain round Innocent's neck. She unclasped it, looking at it wonderingly—then she handed it to Robin who regarded it with sombre, grudging eyes. Was it a love- gift?—and ... — Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli Read full book for free!
... by the sombre and taciturn character of their leader, the party of officers had been riding for some time in silence, when they came in sight of a house situated at a short distance from the road, and of a superior description ... — Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various Read full book for free!
... now proceeded to compose their quarrels. They saw themselves forgotten of the people, but they were resolved apparently that the people should not forget them. They took their cue from a country no longer divided over sombre futilities, and unable to make up their minds for themselves they accepted the judgment of the country once they were aware that it was irrevocably come to. Mr Dillon after his re-election to the chair of his section in 1900 immediately ... — Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan Read full book for free!
... large lids serene Lay heavy on the sombre eyes, As though to veil some vision seen ... — Silhouettes • Arthur Symons Read full book for free!
... inspiration through the bright links of suggestion by which one art lends itself to another. The two great Polish poets, Nierncewicz and Mickiewicz (the latter the Dante of the Slavic race), exiles from their unhappy land, feed their sombre sorrow, and find in the wild, Oriental rhythms of the player only melancholy memories of the past. Perhaps Victor Hugo, Balzac, Lamartine, or the aged Chateaubriand, also drop in by-and-by, to recognize, in the music, echoes of the daring romanticism which they opposed to the classic ... — The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris Read full book for free!
... 1808, of a fever, it is thought, and left his widow stricken with a lifelong grief, his family suddenly overwhelmed with sorrow and solitude. I think I cannot convey the sadness of this more fully than by simply saying it. Yet sombre as the event is, it seems a fit overture to the opening life of this spirit so nobly sad whom we are about to study. The tradition seems to have become established that Captain Nathaniel was inclined to melancholy, and very reticent; also, that though he was an ... — A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop Read full book for free!
... General Castro, a man of fine military bearing, with classic features, but dark and stern. His eyes were as sombre as Alvarado's: doubtless both knew that their day would be short, their great gifts wasted in this far-away land, as remote from the great civilisations where lasting reputations are made as had it ... — The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton Read full book for free!
... church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, which, if only brick without, was all glorious within, "in raiment of needlework" and "wrought gold." And outside, the delicate tracery of the cornice was like a border of embroidery upon the sombre surface; the sculptured marble doorway was of surpassing richness, and the airy grace of the campanile detached itself against the entrancing blue of the sky, as one of those points of beauty for which Venice ... — A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull Read full book for free!
... darkness cast a sad gloom over the scene, which a few hours before had been "leaping in light, and alive with its own beauty." The yellow bank rose high on either side of the river, and formed a sombre wall, which seemed to keep the sojourner on the tide a prisoner from the ... — Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton Read full book for free!
... having the least doubt in my mind that the only thing he could do was to descend once more from the throne. I communicated to him all the particulars I had just received, and I did not hesitate to advise him to follow the only course worthy of him. He listened to me with a sombre air, and though he was in some measure master of himself, the agitation of his mind and the sense of his position betrayed themselves in his face and in all his motions. 'I know,' said I, 'that your Majesty may ... — The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton Read full book for free!
... in corners, meditated on the consequences of such an event—and especially on their own interests. Few words passed in conversation—here and there an exclamation wrung from grief was answered by some neighbouring grief—a word every quarter of an hour —sombre and haggard eyes—movements quite involuntary of the hands— immobility of all other parts of the body. Those who already looked upon the event as favourable in vain exaggerated their gravity so as to make it resemble chagrin and severity; ... — Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre Read full book for free!
... charm of Moore's acquaintance, and so dear to him became the latter's society through that kind of electric current which appears to run through some people and forms between them an unbounded sympathy, that it actually succeeded in dispelling the sombre ideas which ... — My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli Read full book for free!
... the basset horn is extremely reedy and rich, especially in the medium and low registers; the tone colour is similar to that of the clarinet without its brilliancy; it is mellow and sensuous, but slightly sombre, and therefore well adapted for music of an ... — Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various Read full book for free!
... worry yourself over having shot that black fellow? If you hadn't, where should we all have been? and anyhow there are plenty more like him in the country.' This comforter was himself to need comfort, by and by, on a less sombre subject. He dashed in upon Sir George, crying, 'Sir, I have seen the Old Gentleman,' and with his frame shaking as if he had. It was the Australian bat on midnight circuit, a strange serenade to the European. Another of nature's ... — The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne Read full book for free!
... through the night the dull throbbing of a horse's feet, and the man who sat waiting raised his head. A gleam of expectancy shone in his sombre eyes. Some of the rigidity went out of ... — The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell Read full book for free!
... own. He is happiest in his descriptions of the artistic side of the people, with which he is in fullest sympathy. So he took us to see the flower pageants. The joyful festivals of the cherry blossom, the wistaria, the iris and chrysanthemum, the sombre colours of the beech blossom and the paths about the lotus gardens, where mankind meditated in solemn mood. We had pictures, too, of Nikko and its beauties, of Temples and great Buddhas. Then in more touristy strain of volcanoes and their craters, waterfalls and river gorges, tiny tree-clad islets, ... — Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott Read full book for free!
... forward, Mr. Whitmore had instantly shot out his right hand to the door—against which Mr. Rogers, however, had planted his foot—with a gesture as if to slam it in our faces. But the sombre apparition of the Rector seemed to freeze him where he stood—or all of him but his left hand which, grasping the candlestick, slowly and as if involuntarily lifted it above the level of his eyes. Then, before the Rector had concluded, he lowered ... — The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch Read full book for free!
... became the personification of the nation under his authority, and, in the main, the history of the country may be summed up in the biography of Mehemet Ali. If we consider the events of his life, and the diverse roads by which he reached the apogee of his fortunes, reviewing the scenes, now sombre, now magnificent, of that remarkable fate, we obtain a complete picture of Egypt itself, seen from the most intimate, real, and striking point ... — History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport Read full book for free!
... just a very unsatisfactory sort of a proposition. It was a game that wasn't worth the players' serious attention, a game all of chance and not in the least of skill, and not even interesting! So, in the sombre depths of his soul Steve Packard admitted freely. And, until a certain night only some six months ago, he had never divined ... — Man to Man • Jackson Gregory Read full book for free!
... I—the most commonplace human snail that ever occupied a commonplace ten-roomed shell. And now the house and its useless books and its million-fold more useless manuscript "History of Renaissance Morals," all its sombre memories and its haunting ghosts of ineffectualities, became an unwholesome prison in which I was wasting away a feeble existence. I resolved to quit it, to leave my books, to abjure Renaissance morals, and to go forth with Carlotta into the wilderness and the sunshine, there to fulfil ... — The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke Read full book for free!
... exclaimed Black, a gleam of joy lighting up his sombre visage. "Eh, but I am gled to see that ... — Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne Read full book for free!
... woman who was slowly making the circuit of the hall with a noiseless step, like a bird of night flying in a circle. A black hat, of the hue of charred paper, confined her bandeaux of grizzled hair. From her square, high masculine shoulders, hung a sombre-hued Scotch tartan. When she reached the door, she cast a last glance about the hall, that embraced everyone therein, with the eye of a vulture seeking in ... — Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt Read full book for free!
... the pool—now very sombre in the shadow of the wooded hill—I crossed a ridge separating me from the Gouffre de Cabouy, out of which flows a tributary of the Ouysse. Thence I reached the deep and singularly savage gorge of the Alzou, which brought me to Roc-Amadour, when the after-light of sunset was lingering ... — Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker Read full book for free!
... woman! but—here is a stone of stumbling to many. Let's see if it can't be moved out of other women's way. And she calls people to come and help. No mortal man, let alone a woman, by herself, can move that rock of offence. But,' she ended with a sudden sombre flare of enthusiasm, 'if many help, Geoffrey, ... — The Convert • Elizabeth Robins Read full book for free!
... each elbow. To his knees, or just above them, fell a scant, gay, pink flannel nightshirt, his sole garment. It was one of many warm, gay nightshirts, pink and cheerful, that some women of America had sent over to the wounded heroes of France. It made a bright spot of colour in the sombre ward, and through the open window, one caught glimpses of green hop fields, and a windmill in the ... — The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte Read full book for free!
... to the canvas that portrayed Louis de Nevers. In contrast, too, were the very garments of the two men, for the dead duke affected light, airy, radiant colors—clear blues, and clear pale-yellows, and delicate reds with subtle emphasis of gold and silver; but the splendor of Gonzague's apparel was sombre, like his beauty, with black for its dominant note, and only deep wine-colored crimsons or fierce ambers to lighten ... — The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy Read full book for free!
... after having perused this epistle, brightened up as much as any face of such sombre and repulsive expression could be supposed to do; but, again, upon taking into consideration what he looked upon as the unjustifiable obstinacy of his daughter, it became once more stern and overshadowed. He ground his teeth with vexation as he paced to ... — The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton Read full book for free!
... attracted great attention at the time before Delhi was under the English dominion, by her intelligence, enterprise, and bravery. She was a Hindoo by birth, and became acquainted in her youth with a German named Sombre, with whom she fell in love, and turned Christian in order to marry him. Mr. Sombre formed a regiment of native troops, which, after they were well trained, he offered to the emperor. In the course of time, he so ingratiated himself with the emperor, that the ... — A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer Read full book for free!
... in the chair, he marked behind him, where in the reflection of the studio should have been the door, heavy black curtains hanging in sombre folds. And, even as Ronnie noticed these, they parted; and the lovely face of a woman ... — The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay Read full book for free!
... Mike nodded. A sombre nod. The nod Napoleon might have given if somebody had met him in 1812, and said, "So you're back from Moscow, eh?" Mike was feeling thoroughly jaundiced. The future seemed wholly gloomy. And, ... — Mike • P. G. Wodehouse Read full book for free!
... The late Professor Stewart (who has left the learned ring) is acknowledged to be clever in philosophy, but he is a left-handed metaphysical fighter at best, and cannot be relied upon at closing with his subject. Lord Byron is a powerful poet, with a mind weighing fourteen stone; but he is too sombre and bitter, and is apt to lose his temper. Randall has no defect, or at best he has not yet betrayed the appearance of one. His figure is remarkable, when peeled, for its statue-like beauty, and nothing can equal the alacrity with which he uses either ... — George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas Read full book for free!
... I am hastening toward at the express speed of sixty minutes an hour!" He stood looking down at the face and tasting this sombre reflection for a long time. When it palled on him, he roused himself, and exclaimed ... — An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw Read full book for free!
... a land of dark woods. In ancient times it was probably covered with sombre firs. One of its early kings was Dan the Famous. ... — ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth Read full book for free!
... country, from man to man, absorbing all that was in them for him. He had no time to look backward. He had no leisure for camaraderie. He drank life to the lees, but at the banquet table where other men took their ease and jested over their wine, he stood a dark and silent figure, sombre as Poe himself, not wishing to be understood; and he took his portion in haste, with his loins girded, and his shoes on his feet, and his staff in his hand, like ... — A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather Read full book for free!
... difficult in these modern days to realize how young were some amongst those who took part in the great battles of the past. The Black Prince, as he was afterwards called from the sombre hue of the armour he wore, was not yet fifteen when the Battle of Crecy was fought; and when the King had summoned his bold subjects to follow him to the war, he had called upon all knights and gentlemen between the ages of sixteen and twenty to join themselves to him ... — In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green Read full book for free!
... committed her to the charge of Mrs. Milton. It seemed cruel to demand any further explanation from her just then; so brave a girl, who had gone so far with him, would be sure to tell him sooner or later. Meantime he sat sombre and agitated, oppressed by a strange sense of awe and mystery, and vague misgiving. While he brooded thus, a footman brought him in a card upon a salver: "The Reverend Alleyn Meredith." "Do I know this ... — A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade Read full book for free!
... was a very quiet and timid Smiles who sat beside Donald in his coupe at four that afternoon, as he drove to the richly sombre home on Beacon Street, where had dwelt many generations of Thayers. He, too, although he attempted to be jovial, was ... — 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson Read full book for free!
... great calm settled on Jeanne's face. The lamp cast a sunny light upon it, and it regained its exquisite though somewhat lengthy oval. Jeanne's fine eyes, now closed, had large, bluish, transparent lids, which veiled—one could divine it—a sombre, flashing glance. A light breathing came from her slender nose, while round her somewhat large mouth played a vague smile. She slept thus, amidst her outspread ... — A Love Episode • Emile Zola Read full book for free!
... facts of life which they desired to forget and the consoling homesickness of the infinite. Although it was nearly eleven o'clock, a yellowish twilight brimmed the nave like the oil of a sacred cruet. From on high and from a great distance came strange gleams, the sombre purple of a window, a red pool on violet ones, indistinct figures encircled by their black settings. Against the high wall of night the blood-like gleam of light made ... — Pierre and Luce • Romain Rolland Read full book for free!
... the great divine to rob death of its terrors by introducing the frying-pan into every household in Geneva. Thence it spread to all corners of the world, and has been of invaluable assistance in the propagation of his sombre faith. The following lines (said to be from the pen of his Grace Bishop Potter) seem to imply that the usefulness of this utensil is not limited to this world; but as the consequences of its employment in this life reach over into the life to come, ... — The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce Read full book for free!
... always something unpleasantly different. We are the Great Enigma of the war, and in our mystery lies our greatest strength. Let us be careful not to lose it. Those who would have us simplify ourselves upon the continental model, and present to the world a picture of sombre seriousness, are asking us to change our national character. Cromwell asked the painter to paint him, "warts and all." Bairnsfather sketches us—smiles and all. And who would take the smiles off the "dials" of the figures you will see on the ... — Fragments From France • Captain Bruce Bairnsfather Read full book for free!
... Dr. Renton was in a bad humor. The very library caught contagion from him, and became grouty and sombre. The furniture was grim, and sullen, and sulky; it made ugly shadows on the carpet and on the wall, in allopathic quantity; it took the red gleams from the fire on its polished surfaces, in hom[oe]opathic globules, and got no good ... — The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor Read full book for free!
... end. In his eyes glowed the fire of an intense and honest, but fierce and narrow piety, and with that expression was mingled another, not of anger nor of sorrow, but of reproach, of judgment and of sombre triumph. His hands were strapped in front of him with a stirrup leather, and his head was bare. As the moon shone more clearly, Claverhouse saw other stains than those of peat upon his chest, and while he looked the red blood seemed to rise from ... — Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren Read full book for free!
... said that his master had been absent since dawn, but Basil none the less entered, and, in the room where he and his friend were wont to talk, threw himself upon a couch to wait. He lay sunk in the most sombre thoughts, until at the door appeared Sagaris, who with the wonted suave servility, begged permission to speak ... — Veranilda • George Gissing Read full book for free!
... disappointed, and disconcerted. For Jenny Atherly, the sober recluse of Santa Clara, hidden in her sombre draperies at the funeral, was no longer to be recognized in the fashionable, smartly but somewhat over-dressed woman he saw before him. In spite of her large features and the distinguishing Roman nose, like his own, ... — Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte Read full book for free!
... held the flame under the right breast of the statue of clay, cannot thus be kept hidden in the chill shadow of the gynaeceum. Were I to die, then the secret of this beauty would for ever remain shrouded beneath the sombre draperies of widowhood! I feel myself culpable in its concealment, as though I had the sun in my house, and prevented it from illuminating the world. And when I think of those harmonious lines, those divine contours which I dare scarcely touch with a timid kiss, I feel my heart ready ... — King Candaules • Theophile Gautier Read full book for free!
... manner of the king that the sombre suit hid a secret, and he thought it wise to allow the king to take his ... — Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach Read full book for free!
... everybody is elated to-day. Casting aside the sombre garb that was suitable to retirement, ladies have come forth clad in raiment that is festively bright to go a-shopping, as if there were no such things as shells to disturb them, and no cares greater than feminine frivolities. ... — Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse Read full book for free!
... space is occupied by Abbot Vinnicomb's window, with its double transoms and infinite subdivisions of tracery. Thus is produced a curious contrast, for, while the light in the rest of the church is subdued to sadness by the smallness of the windows, and while the north transept is the most sombre part of all the building, the south transept, or Blandamer aisle, is constantly in clear daylight. Moreover, while the nave is of the Norman style, and the transepts and choir of the Early English, this window is of the latest Perpendicular, complicated in its scheme, ... — The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner Read full book for free!
... making excellent progress towards that end. Sir J. French, indeed, took a sombre view of our losses at Le Cateau, and apparently it needed a visitation from Lord Kitchener on 1st September to retain the British Army in co-operation with the French. The fall of Namur, the battles of Charleroi and Mons, and the defeat of the French ... — A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard Read full book for free!
... mortals are spoilt and petted children—the more gifts we have the more we crave; and when we burn or wound ourselves by our own obstinacy or carelessness, we are ungratefully prone to blame the Supreme Benefactor for our own faults. We don black mourning robes as a sort of sombre protest against Him for having removed some special object of our choice and love, whereas, if we believed in Him and were grateful to Him, we should wear dazzling white in sign of rejoicing that our treasure is safe in the land of perfect joy where we ourselves desire to be. Do we suffer ... — A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli Read full book for free!
... however, before sailings Almost at the last moment Jane was approached by Teresa Velasquez, now partly dressed as a Red Cross nurse. The Spanish girl was nervous and uneasy. Her dark eyes held two ever changing lights—one sombre, the other ... — Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon Read full book for free!
... itself is remarkably beautiful. Its undergrowth, though dense, is very low and even, not more than a foot or so off the ground; and in the Hunting Moon the leaves of this undergrowth have turned to purest yellow, without touch or trace of red, so that the sombre forest is carpeted with gold. Here and there shows a birch or aspen, also bright, pure light yellow, as though a brilliant sun were striking down through painted windows. Groups of yellow-leafed larches add to the splendour. ... — The Killer • Stewart Edward White Read full book for free!
... my tree is felled I must depart into a sombre land wherein there is no laughter at all; and where the puzzled dead go wandering futilely through fields of scentless asphodel, and through tall sullen groves of myrtle,—the puzzled quiet dead, who may not even weep as I do now, but ... — Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell Read full book for free!
... l'homme sombre arriva Au bas d'une montagne en une grande plaine; Sa femme fatiguee et ses fils hors d'haleine; Lui dire: 'Couchons-nous sur ... — The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine Read full book for free!
... had fallen away into pine-clad slopes, and vari-colored rocks flung notes of scarlet and gold through the sombre green of the pines—like the riotous treble cries of an organ pricking the sullen murmur of the bass. So still were the clean waters that we seemed ... — The River and I • John G. Neihardt Read full book for free!
... Street, which was destined to be the scene, nearly a century afterward, of another encounter between the troops of Britain, and a people struggling against her tyranny. Though more than sixty years had elapsed since the pilgrims came, this crowd of their descendants still showed the strong and sombre features of their character perhaps more strikingly in such a stern emergency than on happier occasions. There were the sober garb, the general severity of mien, the gloomy but undismayed expression, ... — Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie Read full book for free!
... shudder would go to the very deeps of his heart, and he would lay himself silent before the presence for a time; or make haste into the solitudes—not where the sun shone and the water ran, but where the light was dim and the wind low in the pine woods. There, where the sombre green vaults were upheld by a hundred slender columns, and the far-receding aisles seemed to lead to the ancestral home of shadows, there, his own soul a shadow of grief and fear among the shades of the gloomy temple, he ... — Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald Read full book for free!
... sprang radiating upward from a point below the horizon; and in another moment the upper edge of a great golden disc rose into view, flooding the laughing waves with shimmering radiance, and transforming in a moment the hitherto silent and sombre scene into one of joyousness and life. Sea birds hovered screaming high in the air, on the look-out for breakfast; flying-fish sparkled like glittering gems out of the bosom of the heaving deep; dolphins ... — The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood Read full book for free!
... rendered still darker from the contrast with the flood of light which poured to a certain distance from the scene of festivity. Groups of characters and dominos were walking to and fro in every direction; most of them retracing their steps when they arrived at the sombre walks and alleys, some few pairs only continuing their route where no ... — Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat) Read full book for free!
... the cut-water stretches, with a graceful curve, far out beyond them toward the long sweeping martingal, and is surmounted by a gilt scroll, or, as the sailors call it, a fiddle-head. The black stern is ornamented by a group of white figures in bas relief, which give a lively air to the otherwise sombre and vacant expression, and beneath the cabin-windows is painted the name of the ship, and her port of register. The lower masts of this vessel are short and stout, the top-masts are of great height, the extreme points of the fore and mizzen-royal poles, are adorned with gilt balls, and over all, ... — Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various Read full book for free!
... warning, and as I scrambled from the doorstep, my enemy, the merry driver, backed his creaking vehicle to the sidewalk across which the slow procession of mourners filed. A minute later I was caught up by my mother's hand, and borne into a carriage, where I sat tightly wedged between two sombre females. ... — The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow Read full book for free!
... in this section of a tragedy we find humorous or semi-humorous passages. On the whole such passages occur most frequently in the early or middle part of the play, which naturally grows more sombre as it nears the close; but their occasional introduction in the Fourth Act, and even later, affords variety and relief, and also heightens by contrast the tragic feelings. For example, there is a touch of comedy in the conversation of Lady Macduff ... — Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley Read full book for free!
... counting the slabs therein, and consider my time well spent." Saying which he rises and points to the sky. The purple fringes of the clouds are gone to sable; the lilac tints on the mountains are waxing grey; and the sombre twilight with his torch—the evening star had risen—is following in the wake of day; 'tis ... — The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani Read full book for free!
... of forced jollity in his voice that made me look up quickly into his eyes. As they looked into mine, I caught a glimpse of something half-hidden, half-revealed, something fiercely sombre, which frightened me. ... — Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison Read full book for free!
... litigation over her property. The younger woman, whose chin-cloth is dropped in the painting though worn like the others in the drawing for her portrait, is Meyer's second wife, Dorothea Kannegiesser, whom he married about 1512, and with whom he was painted by Holbein in 1516. The sombre garments of both women are echoed by the black of Meyer's hair and coat, the latter lined with light-brown fur. Meyer's face, in its manly intensity of devotional feeling, is a wonderful piece of psychology in ... — Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue Read full book for free!
... change had come into his face; its leanness struck her for the first time; that, and an utter detachment from his surroundings, a sombre... — The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers Read full book for free!
... characteristic, was a constant endeavor to make striking effects. The reader may be sure to find nothing commonplace in his writings. Every scene and every character is painted in the brightest of colors. If the background be sombre, it will simply throw out more brilliantly the figures in the foreground. It is said that most men have a favorite word. That of d'Israeli was "wondrous." He took his reader into wondrous baronial halls, filled with wondrous ... — A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman Read full book for free!
... species of vitis; there thick brakes of cane (Arundo gigantea), grow among the trees; while from their branches is suspended in long festoons that singular parasite, the "Spanish moss" (Tillandsia usneoides), imparting a sombre... — The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid Read full book for free!
... he who always knew That being lovely was a duty, Should have gold halls to wander through And should himself inhabit beauty. How like his old unselfish way To leave those halls of splendid mirth And comfort those condemned to stay Upon the dull and sombre earth. ... — The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various Read full book for free!
... the tepid rains to bleach into dazzling whiteness. The coral drift has swept up among the dull grey rocks and made a ridge beneath the pendant branches of the trees, as if to establish a contrast between the sombre tints of the jungle and the blueness of the sea. Midway along the curve of vegetation a bingum flaunts its mantle—a single daub of demonstrative colouring. Away to the north stand out the Barnard Islands, and ... — The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield Read full book for free!
... Answer, sombre beast and dreary, Where is Brown, the young, the cheery, Smith, the pride of all his friends and half the Force? You were at that last dread dak We must cover at a walk, Bring them back ... — The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling Read full book for free!
... were points ou nos ames sont unies. The feudal dogmas of Boswell and his rigid adherence to his pet idea of 'the grand scheme of subordination' were of course not likely to be pleasing to the sceptical aqua fortis of the sombre Genevese, with his belief in the fraternity of mankind and the greatness of ... — James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask Read full book for free!
... of Spring, once more smiled upon the bleak shores and sterile plains which, when we last beheld them, were encompassed by the chilling atmosphere, and loomed bleak and desolate beneath the sombre sky of, to that ... — Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert Read full book for free!
... mountains that make early twilight upon its swiftly rolling waves, the castled crags and precipices that rise up sheer and majestic from its margin, the wooded rocks that hang with threatening frown above its sombre depths, the ruined towers and turrets that cap each point along its shores, the pleasant isles that stud like gems its ... — Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome Read full book for free!
... the sea when the sun is sideways on the wave, and it seemed full a mile long, the whole blade sheening like an arrested lightning from the end to the hilt; the hilt two large live serpents twined together, with eyes like sombre jewels, and sparkling spotted skins, points of fire in their folds, and reflections of the emerald and topaz and ruby stones, studded in the blood-stained haft. Then the seven young men, sons of Aklis, ... — The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith Read full book for free!
... to be mentioned is his "Defence of Poesie." Amid the gayety and splendor of that reign, there was a sombre element. The Puritans took gloomy views of life: they accounted amusements, dress, and splendor as things of the world; and would even sweep away poetry as idle, and even wicked. Sir Philip came to its defence with ... — English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee Read full book for free!
... country, too, often steadily cultivates his national peculiarities. James Lorimer was a Scot of this type. As far as it was possible to do so in that sunshiny climate, he introduced the grey, sombre influence of the land of mists and east winds. His household was ruled with stern gravity; his ranch was a model of good management; and though few affected his society, he was generally relied upon and esteemed; ... — Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr Read full book for free!
... her with the rapidity of a sick dream; and her start into resistance was very much like a waking. Suddenly from out the gray sombre morning there came a stream of sunshine, wrapping her in warmth and light where she sat in stony stillness. She moved gently and looked round her—there was a world outside this bad dream, and the dream proved nothing; she rose, stretching her arms upward and clasping ... — Daniel Deronda • George Eliot Read full book for free!
... his own thoughts, sombre or glad, they continued to walk shoulder to shoulder, absorbed and so absent in mind that the Place Vendome, silent and bathed in a blue and chilly light, rang under their steps before a word had ... — The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet Read full book for free!
... comrades' praise— All that romance that seemed so fair Grows dim, and you are left to bear The prose of duty's sombre ways And labour of ... — Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various Read full book for free!
... liver-coloured hound that lay stretched before the fire growled lazily, and showed the whites of his eyes. Paying little attention to the dog, Garnache looked about him. The apartment was handsome beyond praise, in a sombre, noble fashion. It was hung with pictures of departed Condillacs—some of them rudely wrought enough—with trophies of ancient armour, and with implements of the chase. In the centre stood an oblong table of black oak, very richly carved about its ... — St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini Read full book for free!
... Eleventh Corps, exhausted and bleeding with the previous day's losing battle, and the countenance of the Second, Third, and Twelfth Corps, getting into position to meet the next onset, which everybody knew was immediately impending, you would have said that it was a sombre community—that Army of the Potomac—with a good deal of grimness in the face of it; with a notable lack of the playful element, and no fiddling or other ... — Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various Read full book for free!
... rippled streams— Where the pariah[113] howls with fear, If the white man passeth near— Where the beast that mocks our race With taper finger, solemn face, In the cool shade sits at ease Calm and grave as Socrates— Where the sluggish buffaloe Wallows in mud—and huge and slow, Like massive cloud of sombre van, Moves the land leviathan—[114] Where beneath the jungle's screen Close enwoven, lurks unseen The couchant tiger—and the snake His sly and sinuous way doth make Through the rich mead's grassy net, Like a miniature ... — Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson Read full book for free!
... to piece in his awakening and to revive the meditative interval of the Silent Rooms. At first his memory leapt these things and took him back to the cascade at Pentargen quivering in the wind, and all the sombre splendours of the sunlit Cornish coast. The contrast touched everything with unreality. And then the gap filled, and he ... — The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells Read full book for free!
... any of this if she heard it. She has a robust and coarse-textured mind curiously contrasted with her pale, delicate features and sombre black eyes. She was one of those people who seem suddenly to transmute themselves into totally different beings the moment one speaks to them. As the author did one evening, after peering absently through the window ... — An Ocean Tramp • William McFee Read full book for free!
... the rest, her dress was severely plain in its simplicity: the snow-white kerchief, crossed in front and made fast behind; the under-petticoat of gray homespun, just showing the black hose and buckled shoes beneath; and the over-dress of sombre black or dark brown, puffed out a little over the hips in the pannier fashion, but without any pretence at following the extravagances of the day. The sleeves buttoned tightly to the lower arm, though wider at the cuff, and rose high upon the shoulder with something of a puff. It ... — The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green Read full book for free!
... could have caught no glint of any smoldering spark of the long ago. Grant found himself thinking of this dissembling quality as one of nature's provisions designed for the protection of women, much as the sombre plumage of the prairie chicken protects her from the eye of the sportsman. For after all the hunting instinct runs through all men, be ... — Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead Read full book for free!
... the evening and all the next day her mood remained thus—indrawn and sombre. The people going on the promenade passed by her like marionettes, and she like another marionette responded, but there was no feeling in it at all. She might equally well have seen the whole lot of them, herself included, jerked by wires from ... — The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose Read full book for free!
... no access. Her teachers complain of her temper and her caprice. And yet she dazzles and fascinates as much as ever. I suspect she doesn't sleep—she has a worn look quite unnatural at her age—but it makes her furious to be asked. Sometimes, indeed, she seems to melt toward me; the sombre look passes away, and she is melancholy and soft, with tears in her eyes now and then, which I dare ... — The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward Read full book for free!
... sire, and Layn Calvo's line, A breed that never brook offence, nor challenge fit decline; How dared ye thus provoke a man whom only Heaven may, And not another' while the son lives to avenge the day! Ye cast about his noble face dishonor's sombre pall, But I am here to strip it off and expiate it all; For only blood will cleanse the stain attainted honor brings, And valid blood is that alone which from the aggressor springs; Yours it must be, Oh tyrant, since ... — Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock Read full book for free!
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