"Gloom" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tells very simple truths in a very fine manner, thus:—"I cannot gather the sunbeams out of the east, or I would make them tell you what I have seen; but read this, and interpret this, and let us remember together. I cannot gather the gloom out of the night-sky, or I would make that teach you what I have seen; but read this, and interpret this, and let us feel together." We must pause. Really we do not see the slightest necessity of an interpretation here. It is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... through narrow passages, where they often had to bend double, with only an opportunity now and then for straightening themselves upright; but by degrees, as they went on splash, splash, through the water, the roof rose higher and higher, till its summit seemed to be lost in gloom, while the grey walls looked wild and romantic ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... and all leaned forward, peering down into the gloom, and listening. From a little to the left rose the clatter of a pebble. Wilson stretched himself on his face, and bent over, one of his pistols extended. Barely breathing, they waited, and again came a faint clatter ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... Winter's white shroud on the mountains was lying, And deep lay the drifts in each corrie and vale, Snow-clouds in their anger o'er heaven were flying, Far-flinging their wrath on the frost-breathing gale;— Undaunted by tempests in majesty roaring, Unawed by the gloom of each path-covered glen, As swift as the rush of a cataract pouring, The mighty Montrose led his brave Highlandmen:— Over each trackless waste, Trooping in glory's haste, Dark-rolling and silent as mist on the heath, Resting not night nor day, Fast on their snowy way They ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... at eve I sit (And these remarks would still apply, Perhaps with greater force, were I Accommodated in the Pit)— Worn with the long day's dusty strife, I ask a brief surcease of gloom; I want a mirror held to life, But not the life beyond ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 13, 1920 • Various
... heaven-directed blight Involves each countenance with clouds of night! What pearly drop the ashen cheek bedews! Why do the walls with gouts ensanguined ooze? The court is thronged with ghosts that 'neath the gloom Seek Pluto's realm, and Dis's awful doom; In ebon curtains Phoebus hides his head, And sable mist ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... cannot kindle when we will The fire which in the heart resides; The Spirit bloweth and is still, In mystery our soul abides. But tasks in hours of insight will'd Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd. ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... the show of cheerfulness he could muster, for his spirits had been strangely damped by the irresponsive gloom of his old schoolfellow—"well! here's the den at last. Upon my word, old man, I've seen livelier holes! Why don't you explore and find some place a trifle less dead-alive? But I dare say it's convenient to be near the Hospital, and when a fellow's working, it ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... the late gloaming's purple gloom She wandered home; but half the bloom Had faded from her cheek and lips: Love's orient ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey
... her very seriously in the gloom. She thought of the meeting at the Festa, and longed to wring from ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... always welcomed poverty with a smiling countenance, though naturally it be apt to cast a gloom and melancholy upon the faces both of those who endure it and of those who ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... had indeed been to him; a shadow of the night; to Meeta a dark cloud, in whose gloom she was henceforth to walk for ever. Hours of conversation could not so fully have revealed the truth to Meeta as those simple words: "Sophie—my Sophie!" uttered by Ernest in such a tone of heart-worship. Ernest ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... his aid, felt himself a very martyr. However, he was, by this time, "used to it, you know,"—as he would have said—having viewed himself in that light since his unwitting resurrection of "C." Still, he sometimes fancied he saw a dim light shining ahead through the gloom—a hope that Clem might be fascinated by Cyn. Many were, Quimby argued, so why should not Clem be? and certainly he talked with her more ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... snows, and poured them more abundantly into the other's bed. So 'Rejoice in the Lord always'; and if earth grows dark, lift your eyes to the sky, that is light. To one walking in the woods at nightfall 'all the paths are dim,' but the strip of heaven above the trees is the brighter for the green gloom around. The organist's one hand may be keeping up one sustained note, while the other is wandering over the keys; and one part of a man's nature may be steadfastly rejoicing in the Lord, whilst the other is feeling the weight of sorrows ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... dyed in many a brilliant shade of brown and orange by the admixture of various ores, but their brightness seemed strange and unnatural, and the dizzying whirls of vapor, now enveloping the whole scene in gloom, now lifting in this spot and now in that, seemed to magnify the dismal pit to an indefinite size. Now and then there would come up from the very entrails of the mountain a sort of convulsed sob of hollow sound, and the earth would quiver beneath his feet, and fragments from the surrounding rocks ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... naught but windy gloom; white clouds rolled over us in billowy folds, and tattered scarves of mist trailed lower still and seemed almost to snare their fringes on the topmost branches of the forest. Close under the protecting river-bank sped our light canoes, cutting their ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... 1844, the suit for my freedom began. A bright, sunny day, a day which the happy and care-free would drink in with a keen sense of enjoyment. But my heart was full of bitterness; I could see only gloom which seemed to deepen and gather closer to me as I neared the courtroom. The jailer's sister-in-law, Mrs. Lacy, spoke to me of submission and patience; but I could not feel anything but rebellion against my lot. I could not see one gleam of brightness ...
— From the Darkness Cometh the Light, or Struggles for Freedom • Lucy A. Delaney
... I have been watching Georgiana's window for the light of her candle, but there has been no kindly glimmer yet. The only radiance shed upon the gloom outside comes from the heavens. Great cage-shaped white clouds are swung up to the firmament, and within these pale, gentle, imprisoned lightnings flutter feebly to escape, fall back, rise, and try ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... Chillingly had parted from Walter Melville until somewhere between sunrise and noon the next day, the summer joyousness of that external Nature which does now and then, though, for the most part, deceitfully, address to the soul of man questions and answers all her soulless own, laughed away the gloom of his misgivings. ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... flight of steps to the verandah, through a rapidly thickening gloom which was ripped wide open at intervals ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... with the glitter of ocean Agleam on her wrist and her bosom, And my heart follows hard on her footsteps, For the hall is in darkness without her. I have gazed, but my glances can pierce not The gloom of the desolate dwelling; And fierce is my longing to find her, The fair one who only can ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown
... I was like a man flying through the phantasmagoric happenings of a dream, knowing neither how nor whither. I tore along what I suppose was a broad passage, through a door at the end into what, I fancy, was a drawing-room. Across this room I dashed, helter-skelter, bringing down, in the gloom, unseen articles of furniture, with myself sometimes on top, and sometimes under them. In a trice, each time I fell, I was on my feet again,—until I went crashing against a window which was concealed by curtains. It would not have been strange had I crashed through ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... madness of it. But the General was down at the sawmill, two miles away; and the broken regiments reformed and faced the rampart again. The sun beat down on the clearing, heating men to madness. The wounded went down through the gloom of the woods and were carried past the saw-mill, by scores at first, then by hundreds. Within the saw-mill, in his cool chamber, the General sat and wrote. Someone (Gage it is likely) sent down, beseeching him to bring the guns into play. He answered that the guns ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... my mother gave me of Mr. Watt's early and constant attachment to his cousin Miss Miller; but she ever considered it as having added to his enjoyment of life, and as having had the most beneficial influence on his character. Even his powerful mind sank occasionally into misanthropic gloom, from the pressure of long-continued nervous headaches, and repeated disappointments in his hopes of success in life. Mrs. Watt, from her sweetness of temper, and lively, cheerful disposition, had power to win him from every wayward fancy; to rouse and animate him to active ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... on the steeple of Guerande as Calyste entered his own house, where Mariotte gave him his belated dinner; after which, he played mouche in gloomy meditation. These alternations of joy and gloom, happiness and unhappiness, the extinction of hopes succeeding the apparent certainty of being loved, bruised and wounded the young soul which had flown so high on outstretched wings that ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... or American Aloe, sometimes called the Century Plant, because it blooms but once in a lifetime. It is of the family of the lilies; but no other lily rivals its lofty magnificence. From the gloom of the untrodden places it sends its shaft skyward into the sunshine; it is an elemental growth: its simplicity equals its beauty. But until the flower blooms, after its ages of preparation, the plant seems to have no meaning, proportion, or comeliness; only ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... you might well live in greater ease than that. Also, Thedora tells me that your circumstances used to be much more affluent than they are at present. Do you wish, then, to persuade me that your whole existence has been passed in loneliness and want and gloom, with never a cheering word to help you, nor a seat in a friend's chimney-corner? Ah, kind comrade, how my heart aches for you! But do not overtask your health, Makar Alexievitch. For instance, you say that your eyes are ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Now the gloom of the castle was turned into rejoicing, and the earl begged Owen to stay with him till he could make him a feast, but the knight said he had other work to do, and rode back to the place where he had left Luned, and the lion followed at his heels. When he came there he saw ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... from Coercion's darkest gloom saw Erin's star re-risen, You hob-and-nobbed with patriots, whom yourselves had sent to prison: It was our schemes of mutual good such close allies that made us: You spoke as we decreed you should, we voted ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... a sudden thunderstorm boiled up out of the sea: the sky became a vast brazen bowl, and a strange, coppery twilight bleached the lilies in the white garden to a supernatural pallor. The room, with its embroidered Moorish hangings, darkened to a rich gloom; but Mohammed touched a button on the wall, and all the quaint old Arab lamps that stood in corners, or hung suspended from the cedar roof, flashed out cunningly concealed electric lights. At the same ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the arrival of the dark season brought only additional gloom. I could not get rid of the thought that I was reserved for some horrible fate, in which Almah might also be involved. We were both aliens here, in a nation of kind-hearted and amiable miscreants—of generous, refined, and most self-denying ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... The gloom on every countenance bore silent witness to the hold Blue Bonnet had on the affections of ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... break to pieces in the sea before morning. There was no other way out of it. Ashore she must go, and trust to luck! Driving as much before the breakers as before the gale, the vessel held straight on toward the beach still shrouded in gloom. Suddenly another light! And it flashed three times, and went out. Then, three times again! Tonet joined the Rector in a cry of joy. Tio Mariano was on watch ashore. It was the signal agreed upon. He had scratched three matches under cover of a shawl, which kept the light from being ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... taken sick. We all mourned his loss as we would that of a loved son or brother, as he was one of the truest, bravest, and best of friends. Amid sorrow and tears we laid him away to rest in a picturesque spot on Pilot Knob. His death cast a gloom over our household, and it was a long time before it was entirely dispelled. I felt very lonely without Harrington, and I soon wished for a ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... through, and keep other people from hearing the singers; row after row of theatre-goers who come in late and trample over the virtuous folk who have arrived punctually; any number of theatrical managers who mistake gloom for amusement; three or four smirking matinee idols, whose talents are measured by the fit of their clothes, the length of their hair, and their ability to spit supernumeraries with a tin sword; cab-drivers ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... near Fifth Avenue in Fifty-seventh Street. Mr. Fox called attention to the grandeur of Mr. Carroll's plans. The workmen were tearing down a house to make room for Mr. Carroll's coming palace. Mr. Croker gazed for full ten minutes in wordless, moody gloom. Then turning to the sympathetic Mr. Fox he broke forth: 'What do you think of that? He's tearing down a better house than mine!' From that moment Mr. Croker went about the tearing ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... this proposal; the fellow slipped an arm about her and led her away, meanwhile pouring a confidential murmur into her ear. They had proceeded but a few steps when 'Poleon Doret strode out of the gloom and laid a ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... found that the gambler, with his canvas sack under his arm, had turned to the right toward the line of saddle horses which stood in the shadow; and no sooner did he reach the gloom at the side of the building than he broke into a soft, swift run. He darted down the line of horses until he came to one which was already mounted. This Donnegan saw as he followed somewhat more leisurely and closer to the horses to avoid observance. He ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... again upon the narrow terrace, obliterating all marks there. A window overhead was pushed open, but already the band of light upon the snow was gone, and nothing remained for Valerie's eyes but a chaos of gloom. Yet she had seen something. Dimly through the double glass she had discerned the green and gold of the Guard on the swaying figure before it dropped away for ever ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... and poets in exalted moments had seen that death was but a step in life, but this seemed to most of you to have been a hard saying. Nowadays, as life advances toward its close, instead of being shadowed by gloom, it is marked by an access of impassioned expectancy which would cause the young to envy the old, but for the knowledge that in a little while the same door will be opened to them. In your day the undertone of life seems to have been one of unutterable ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... condemned by the County Council. Powells was such a one—and Sir George had a reputed income of twenty thousand a year. At Powells the old Dickensian tradition was kept vigorously alive by every possible means. Dirt and gloom were omnipresent. Cleanliness and ample daylight would have been deemed unbusinesslike, as revolutionary and dangerous as a typewriter. One day, in winter, Sir George had taken cold, and he had attributed his misfortune, in language which he immediately regretted, to ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... dropped, and were still. The figure runs from my pen. In New York that very thing occurred. Most of the theatrical audiences dispersed, but in two crowded houses the company, fearing a panic, went on playing amidst the gloom, and the people, trained by many a previous disaster, stuck to their seats. There they sat, the back rows only moving a little, and there, in disciplined lines, they drooped and failed, nodded, and fell forward or slid down upon the floor. I am told by Parload—though indeed I know nothing ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... a length of colonnade Invites us; monument of ancient taste, Now scorned, but worthy of a better fate. Our fathers knew the value of a screen From sultry suns, and, in their shaded walks And long-protracted bowers, enjoyed at noon The gloom and coolness of declining day. We bear our shades about us; self-deprived Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread, And range an Indian waste without a tree. Thanks to Benevolus—he spares me yet These chestnuts ranged in corresponding lines, And, though himself ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... than they did their paddles. At times they lay down in the canoe and dragged it under branches and at others got overboard, and standing in water and mud, lifted it over logs. They were in the deep gloom of a jungle from which the thick growth above shut out nearly all the light. As they pushed the canoe forward, unseen vines seized their throats in a garroting clutch, while solid masses of spider-webs stuck to their faces and spiders the size of a saucer ran over them. As Johnny sat in the ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... of who Babette was, for I could pretty well guess what she would be like. I pictured her to myself as a flower that had sprung up in a corner of these dull courtyards, like a ray of sun shining through the sepulchral gloom of these ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... to my mind, something eerie and ghost-like in the endless procession of faces which flitted across these narrow bars of light,—sad faces and glad, haggard and merry. Like all human kind, they flitted from the gloom into the light, and so back into the gloom once more. I am not subject to impressions, but the dull, heavy evening, with the strange business upon which we were engaged, combined to make me nervous and depressed. I could see from Miss Morstan's manner that she was suffering from ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... more did Henri enter and demand a bottle of the famous vintage, and each time he seemed a shade less buoyant. His elation diminished as his tips grew greater until, as he drew up at the bar at six o'clock, he seemed wrapped in impenetrable gloom. ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... rode on the figure of Claudia, in her woe, became lost in a shadow that was gradually stealing over his soul-one of those mysterious shadows that approaching misfortunes are said to cast before them. In vain he tried by reason to dispel this gloom. The nearer he approached The Beacon, the deeper it ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... a good mile behind me. The sun had already sunk over the crest of the cliffs, and I could just see the mounted savages through the darkling gloom—still fallowing as fast as their horses could gallop. In five minutes after, I had entered the gorge. The twilight continued no longer: in the canon it was night. I followed the stream upwards, keeping along near the bank. Thick darkness was over and around me; but the gleam of the water and ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... lo! the fairy queens who rule our birth Drew nigh to speak the new-born baby's doom: With noiseless step, which left no trace on earth, From gloom they came, and vanished ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... now delayed, Behold me whole! My hour must come, Again on earth Involved, perchance, A living soul! In deeper gloom. ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... as the snow blows without, And winds whistle keen through the air, His grace can remove every doubt, And chase the black gloom of despair: It often supports my weak mind, And wipes the salt tear from my eye, It tells me that Jesus is kind, And died for ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... thick veil round her head and face, and said some tremulous words, which unconsciously deepened the gloom on Fontenoy's face. Apparently they were to the effect that before going home she wished to see the Anglican priest in whom she especially confided, a certain Father White, who was to all intents and purposes her director. For in his courtship of this woman of fifty, with her curious distinction ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... toil for your luxury and lust of gain? Must every tender feeling be likewise sacrificed to your avarice? Are the dearest friends and relations, now rendered more dear by their separation from their kindred, still to be parted from each other, and thus prevented from cheering the gloom of slavery with the small comfort of being together and mingling their sufferings and sorrows? Why are parents to lose their children, brothers their sisters, or husbands their wives? Surely this is ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... himself on damp dark mornings in the winter—on evenings when the days were shortening, and the gas lamps shone through the gloom. He saw the doors opening, and each one disgorging some black coated, pallid man, who passed through the gate, and then with quick nervous steps walked towards the station. The 8.30 was their train; though in some very rare cases the 9.3 ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... from some savage hysterical emotion, a mixture of delight, gloom, and weariness. His face was drawn as if he had just recovered from a fit; and, as his agitation of mind increased, ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... had he? He remained there, where he was, and saw those who were dearest to him die. A kind preacher came to him, and would have said some prayers to soften his heart in his gloom, but he replied: ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... Heaven knows where, Have sucked the fire of some forgotten sun And kept it thro' a hundred years of gloom Yet glowing in ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... were fading in the growing light. A low mist hung over The Jug, and beyond the haze lay the dark, heaving waters of Eskimo Bay. In the distance beyond the Bay the high peaks of the Mealy Mountains rose out of the gloom, white with snow and looming above the dark forest at their base in cold and silent majesty. Behind the cabin stretched the vast, mysterious, unbounded wilderness which held, hidden in its unmeasured depths, rivers and ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... he told us a strange story. The chalet was built and furnished to the order of a German countess from Mannheim, who, having lost her husband, conceived that the light of her life had gone out, and so determined to dwell in an atmosphere of eternal gloom. ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... constantly alert for the amusing, the grotesque, and the contradictory; like all men who are really serious and alive to the pathos of existence, he loved a hearty laugh, especially as he found it a relief from the gloom that filled his every waking moment in England. Page himself regarded this ability to smile as an indispensable attribute to a well-rounded life. "No man can be a gentleman," he once declared, "who does not have a sense of humour." Only he who ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... denizens are afoot, are not cheerful places. Though a man lie very still, so that the life of the jungle is undisturbed by his presence, the weird night noises, that are borne to his ears, only serve to emphasise the solitude and the gloom. The white moonlight straggles in patches through the thick canopy of leaves overhead, and makes the shadows blacker and more awful by the contrast of light and shade. But a night march through the forest ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... his mouth as his companion grasped the rope tightly, and let himself glide down the steep tiled slope, till he reached the edge over the gutter; and then, as he disappeared, dissolving—so it seemed—into the gloom, Don's breath was held, and he felt a singular pain at ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... among Brahmanas, the high-souled ones gently alighted from the shoulders of the Rakshasas. Then in company with those bulls among the twice-born ones, the Pandavas beheld that romantic asylum presided over by Nara and Narayana; devoid of gloom; and sacred; and untouched by the solar rays; and free from those rubs, viz. hunger, and thirst, heat and cold, and removing (all) sorrow; and crowded with hosts of mighty sages; and adorned with the grace proceeding from the Vedas, Saman, Rich, and ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... extracts (written when he was about twenty-three years old) may serve to show how utter was the subversion of his faith. His mind was indeed in darkness! Who could have hoped that so brilliant a day should have succeeded to the gloom of such mistrust? Yet as upon a winter's morning in November when the sun rises red through the smoke, and presently the fog spreads its curtain of thick darkness over the city, and then there comes a single breath of wind from some more ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... compact compass of a circle, or rather, as it seemed to me, of a Maltese cross—tiny aisles forming the sides of the cross, where there were shrines and tombs, though scarcely distinguishable in the gloom. The dome and aisles are supported by wonderfully strong Byzantine arches and arcades. It struck me that the Maltese cross may have been the shape of the most ancient Christian temples, the more orthodox Latin cross shape being ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... and merrily, the echoes of his laughter ringing up the valley like a peal from a chime of bells. The child's fear was needless, for the heart and hands that dealt with him were as gentle as a woman's. The youth, resembling some old Norse god as he stood there in the gathering gloom, lowered the child slowly, and printing a kiss ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... His gloom returned with the dusk. It was the silence that tormented him most. Nothing stirred but the mice behind the boards. The voice was haunting him again: 'I was a stranger and ye ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... we shall readily assign the true reason of a scruple, which arose not so much from a superiority of reason, as from a want of ingenuity. The only temples in Germany were dark and ancient groves, consecrated by the reverence of succeeding generations. Their secret gloom, the imagined residence of an invisible power, by presenting no distinct object of fear or worship, impressed the mind with a still deeper sense of religious horror; [63] and the priests, rude and illiterate ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... The gloom of popery had overshadowed Ireland from its first establishment there till the reign of Henry VIII. when the rays of the gospel began to dispel the darkness, and afford that light which till then had been unknown in that island. The abject ignorance in which the people were held, with ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... something dreadful in the silence which they maintained so strictly. He could not avoid associating their movements and designs with some act of violence and bloodshed, that was about to add horror to the impenetrable gloom of night, whose darkness, perhaps, they were about to light up with the roof-tree of some unsuspecting household, ignorant of the fiery fate that ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... they would both of them come back to England. Thereupon the host acknowledged that a perfect flood of letters had been pouring on the Foreign Office with respect to the Montenegrin Bulletin, and they were weary of receiving them.... Sometimes the Neuilly Court was plunged in gloom, as when old Tomo Oraovac's little book appeared with seventy-five awkward questions to Nikita. For three days the King shut himself up in his room, trying to decide as to whether he should issue an answer. He decided to do nothing. Now and then a French ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... character of the unhappy man a stain at which even libertines looked grave. He tried to make the errors of his private life forgotten by splendid and perilous services to a public cause; and, having endured in that cause penury and exile, the gloom of a dungeon, the prospect of a scaffold, the ruin of a noble estate, he was so unfortunate as to be regarded by the party for which he had sacrificed every thing as a coward, if not a traitor. Yet, even against such ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... she? His wild eyes for a second or two saw nothing but the landscape of his desolate dream. Then gradually the familiar forms of the room emerged from the gloom, and there—against the further wall—she lay, so still, so white, so gracious! Her childish arm, bare to the elbow, was thrown round her head, her soft waves of hair made a confusion on the pillow. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... which he proceeded to Kirkmichael, and on the 6th of September, raised his standard in presence of a force of 2000, mostly consisting of cavalry. When in course of erection, the ball on the top of the flag-staff fell off. This was regarded by the Highlanders as a bad omen, and it cast a gloom over the ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... a Vernon Center boy but was working in the town of Glastonbury, when the war broke out, with Hubbard and Broadhead at teaming and farm work. At this time the gloom was deep but the people were not discouraged. At the request of the governors of eighteen loyal states, President Lincoln, on July 2nd, 1862, called out three hundred thousand men for three years' service, and on August ...
— The Twenty-fifth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion • George P. Bissell
... the doorway, but turned a little into the gloom of the house as Mr Flintwinch turned, and pursued him with his eyes into the little room, where he groped about for a phosphorus box. When he found it, it was damp, or otherwise out of order; and match after match that he struck ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... On the gloom of this life one sole figure of a man, that of a music-master, stood vigorously forth. The confessors had decided that music was a Christian art, born of the Catholic Church and developed within her. The two Maries were therefore permitted to study ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... upon a hill. The setting sun Was crimson with a curse and a portent, And scarce his angry ray lit up the land That lay below, whose lurid gloom appeared Freaked with a moving mist, which, reeking up From dim tarns hateful with some horrid ban, Took shapes forbidden and without a name. Gigantic night-birds, rising from the reeds With cries discordant, startled all the air, And bodiless voices babbled in the gloom— The ghosts of ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... how beautiful to rest. Aye, lift your little ones to see her face, So calmly smiling in its coffin-bed! There is no wrinkle there,—no rigid gloom To make them turn their tender glance away; And when they say their simple prayer at night With folded hands,—instruct their innocent lips Meekly to say: "Our Father! may we live, And die like her." Her more than fourscore years Chill'd not in her the genial flow of thought Or energy of ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... orgoglioso, the ode which brought Testi to the block in a dungeon of the Estensi, we comprehend what Leopardi meant by his high panegyric. It is a piece of poetry, lofty in style, grave in movement, pregnant with weighty thought, stern and rugged, steeped in a sublimity of gloom and Stoicism which remind us of the author of La Ginestra. The century produced little that bore a stamp so ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... went amid the trees, following a grassy ride; but as I advanced, this grew ever narrower and I walked in an ever-deepening gloom, wherefore I turned about, minded to go back, but found myself quite lost and shut in, what with the dense underbrush around me and the twisted, writhen branches above, whose myriad leaves obscured the moon's kindly beam. In this dim twilight I pushed on then, as well as ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... when he most gave way to this humor, I have known him more than once, as we have sat together after dinner, to fall seriously into this sort of dark and self-accusing mood, and throw out hints of his past life with an air of gloom and mystery designed evidently to awaken curiosity and interest.... It has sometimes occurred to me that the occult cause of his lady's separation from him, round which herself and her legal adviser have thrown such formidable mystery, may have been nothing ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... man was down again, wrapped in gloom. Again he threatened to ask to ride, but again he managed to subdue his pains. Said I, "I suppose that pie is paying you back." He answered, "You don't understand. I have to buy those things because they give us so little sweet in our diet." One has to respect misery, however caused, ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... stay at Sansanding, he had the misfortune to lose his brother-in-law, Mr. Anderson, to whom his attachment was so strong as to make him say, "No event which took place during the journey ever threw the smallest gloom over my mind, till I laid Mr. Anderson in the grave. I then felt myself as if left a second time, lonely and friendless amidst the wilds of Africa." Although the party were now reduced to five Europeans, one of whom was deranged, and although ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... two young men walked slowly on across the Pont de la Concorde. They went in silence, for Hartley was thinking still of Miss Helen Benham, and Ste. Marie was thinking of Heaven knows what. His gloom was unaccountable unless he had really meant what he said about feeling calamity in the air. It was very unlike him to have nothing to say. Midway of the bridge he stopped and turned to look out over the river, and the ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... of the enemy and the camp-fire of the Pony Rider Boys glowed dimly down below. Tad, peering off into the gloom, for the moon had not yet risen, thought he saw a figure flit by the fire. He could not be sure, however. He wished he might tell the guide of his fancied discovery; but, remembering the injunction for absolute ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... with flappers, Fire and clappers; Hop with hopsticks, Brooms and mopsticks; Through the night-gloom lead and follow In and out each rocky hollow. Owls and ravens Howl with ...
— A Day with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy • George Sampson
... went. It wa'n't any joy ride we had, either. All the way up Mr. Robert sits there fillin' the limousine with gloom thick enough to slice. I tried chirkin' him up with a few frivolous side remarks; but they don't take, and I sighs relieved when we're landed at the apartment ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... nor join the mocking throng, Thou heartless sharer in our common doom! Just meed for us, but He hath done no wrong; All seems so strange—what means the gathering gloom? ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... Interfered with all my gay pursuits, and gradually saddened my life; yet I could not prevail upon myself to shake off a being who seemed to hang upon me for support. In truth, the generous traits of character that beamed through all this gloom had penetrated to my heart. His bounty was lavish and open-handed. His charity melting and spontaneous. Not confined to mere donations, which often humiliate as much as they relieve. The tone of his voice, the beam of ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... examinations were approaching. Dan Dalzell was buried deep in gloom. Dave Darrin kept cheerful outwardly, but ...
— Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis - Or, Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters" • H. Irving Hancock
... went—into an allee of close, cropped trees, where the gloom was almost twilight; but if there was pain there was joy too, and almost ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... Christmas, when menaced by Indian war and domestic rebellion, when distrustful of those around him and apprehensive of disgrace at court, he sank for a time into complete despondency. In this hour of gloom, when abandoned to despair, he heard in the night a voice addressing him in words of comfort, "Oh man of little faith! why art thou cast down? Fear nothing, I will provide for thee. The seven years of the term of gold are not ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... face peers out into the dark, And childish faces—frightened at the gloom— Grow awed and vacant as they turn to mark The father's as he passes through the room: The gate latch clatters, and wee baby Bess Whispers, "The doctor's tummin' ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... know. How does it go? 'I loved to choose my path and see, but now lead Thou me on. I loved the garish day, and spite of fears, Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years.' That is what I repeat over and over to myself. 'Lead, kindly light, amidst th' encircling gloom.' The encircling gloom! Oh, dear!" She suddenly broke off, "I wish morning would come." It did finally, and with it, when the approaching sun began to pinken the eastern sky, sleep for my ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... careful," he promised, releasing it at last. Another moment and he had surmounted the barrier and was swallowed up in the gloom of the forest. ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... alleviations of one sort and another, with her destitution in all. She was used to liberty, but now she had none; she was an out-of-door creature by nature and habit, but now she was shut up day and night in a steel cage like an animal; she was used to the light, but now she was always in a gloom where all objects about her were dim and spectral; she was used to the thousand various sounds which are the cheer and music of a busy life, but now she heard only the monotonous footfall of the sentry pacing his watch; she had been fond of talking with her mates, but now there was no one to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... who blights beanos. Who makes every one a little uncomfortable, casts a gloom over entertainments—has to be taken in hand and dealt with separately from the ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... gloom of the evening Mary sat. No one brought her anything to eat or drink, and Mr. Redmain was too much taken up with himself, soul and body, to think of her. She was now past hunger, and growing faint, ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... at length the hall [Argenk] of great extent, and covered with a lofty dome.... A funereal gloom prevailed over it. Here, upon two beds of incorruptible cedar, lay recumbent the fleshless forms of the pre-Adamite kings, who had once been monarchs of the whole earth.... At their feet were inscribed the events of their several reigns, their power, their pride, and ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer |
