"Gloominess" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Poe never tried to be gloomy, or that Mr. W.S. Gilbert never tried to be extravagant. The whole issue depends upon whether we realise the simple and essential fact that ruggedness is a mode of art like gloominess or extravagance. Some poems ought to be rugged, just as some poems ought to be smooth. When we see a drift of stormy and fantastic clouds at sunset, we do not say that the cloud is beautiful although it is ragged at the edges. When we see a gnarled and sprawling oak, we do not say ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... rude pile of logs, which stood in a cleared space, barely large enough to secure its safety from falling trees, and beyond all was a dense forest of tall trees and thick underbrush and a fast falling shower of snow (at the time) added to the gloominess of the scene. I gazed around me with sadness, almost with dismay and terror. At length I found voice to say 'can we live here.' 'I have no doubt that we can live here, and be happy too,' replied your grandfather in a hopeful voice, 'if it pleases God to ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... floor; an assemblage of circumstances that do not constitute a very agreeable habitation; but I was in the same house with my best friend, incessantly near her, at my desk, or in chamber, so that I could not perceive the gloominess of my own, or have time to think of it. It may appear whimsical that she should reside at Chambery on purpose to live in this disagreeable house; but it was a trait of contrivance which I ought not to pass over in silence. She had no great inclination for a journey ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains; a great people and a strong: there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations. A fire devoureth ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... the person she had seen come out of my bedroom. I think this a very tidy ghost story; and I am bound to add, as a proper commentary on it, that I have never inhabited a house which affected me with a sense of such intolerable melancholy gloominess as this; without any assignable reason whatever, either in its situation or any of its conditions. My maid, to the present day, persists in every detail (and without the slightest variation) of this experience of hers, absolutely rejecting ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... ground, through which ran the stream we had crossed in the morning. Indeed we were not more than two miles south of the place we had quitted. Our hope of proceeding without much interruption was thus disappointed: the gloominess of the weather, and the constant showers that fell, so impeded our view and distorted its objects, that what appeared plain and practicable at a distance of two or three miles, when approached was found impassable. I think it probable, however, that ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... in that Country supplies the Want of Horses. The Circumstances which successively present themselves to him in his Way, are, I believe you will think, naturally interwoven. The Anxiety of Absence, the Gloominess of the Roads, and his Resolution of frequenting only those, since those only can carry him to the Object of his Desires; the Dissatisfaction he expresses even at the greatest Swiftness with which he is carried, and his ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... feel as courageous when with Lantier as she said. She was, indeed, perfectly resolved not to hear his flattery, even with the slightest interest; but she was afraid, if ever he should touch her, of her old cowardice, of that feebleness and gloominess into which she allowed herself to glide, just to please people. Lantier, however, did not avow his affection. He several times found himself alone with her and kept quiet. He seemed to think of marrying the tripe-seller, a woman ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... scattered from the sheaves of the prosperous and prodigal. For this reason, too, the mother had carefully forborne to remind the children that this was Christmas eve. But they knew it too well, and they contrasted its gloominess and sorrow with the well-remembered anniversaries when this was a season of delight—the eve of promised pleasures, of feasts, of dances, and of presents. With this thought in their hearts they silently kissed their mother, and retired to their little bed, committing ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... it was all settled, at last, and Noll's heart—in spite of Uncle Richard's gloominess—was light and glad. He would stay and see if the man's sorrow and wretchedness could not be driven away, he thought; perhaps—who could tell?—he would lose his sternness, and become kind and regardful, and follow in the path which papa had trod. It all seemed very doubtful now, ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... now the 30th of November, a month celebrated to a proverb in England, for its gloominess. We have had a troubled sky and foggy for several weeks past. The pleasant prospect of the surrounding shores has been obscured a great portion of this month. The countenances of our companions partake of our dismal atmosphere. It has even sobered ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... at once recollected me; for the gloominess of the place and the approaching night had prevented his distinguishing my features before.—'Yes, Sir,' returned Mr Jenkinson, 'I remember you perfectly well; I bought an horse, but forgot to pay for him. Your neighbour Flamborough is the only prosecutor I am any way afraid of at the next assizes: ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... Castle Vecchio for their residence, and there Lucretia established her court. This stronghold, which is still in existence, is one of the most imposing monuments of the Middle Ages. It overlooks all Ferrara, and may be seen for miles around. Its dark red color; its gloominess, which is partly due to its architectural severity; its four mighty towers—all combine to cause a feeling of fear, especially on moonlight nights, when the shadows of the towers fall on the water in the moat, ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... He could not complete his tasks even by the most severe application. It seemed impossible for him to apply himself. The power of concentration appeared to be lost. Soon he was seized by fits of gloominess from which he did not seem to have power to free himself. His strength began to fail to such a degree that he could hardly drag himself to his meals, and at last he was almost confined to his room. He became greatly emaciated. The failure of his mental powers seemed to keep pace with ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... she could. I realised that if the shaman did not return that evening or early next day, I should have to return to Lajas. The plaintive trumpet sound of a giant woodpecker about sunset—as far as we could make out, the only living being in the vicinity—did not detract from the gloominess of the prospect. ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... LORD cometh, for it is nigh at hand; a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, as the dawn spread upon the mountains; a great people and a strong, there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after them, even to the ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... them in their proper place; and his relatives came and asked after the peace of the judges, and the peace of the witnesses, as much as to say, "know there is nothing in our hearts against you, as your judgment was true." And they did not mourn, but were gloomy, since gloominess is only ...
— Hebrew Literature
... the drifts of snow.... On a boy coming fresh from the provinces and imagining that the temple of science must really be a temple, such gates cannot make a healthy impression. Altogether the dilapidated condition of the University buildings, the gloominess of the corridors, the griminess of the walls, the lack of light, the dejected aspect of the steps, the hat-stands and the benches, take a prominent position among predisposing causes in the history of Russian pessimism.... Here is our garden... I fancy it has grown ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... and rhythm that interpreted the words were of a grandiose gloominess, like a song of shades pursued in the night, across the sea. Daniel recalled the hour he had written this music; he recalled the expression on Gertrude's face the time he played it for her. Eleanore was there, too, wearing a white dress, with a myrtle ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... starting-point of a life-long testimony against slavery. In the year 1746 he visited Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. He was afflicted by the prevalence of slavery. It appeared to him, in his own words, "as a dark gloominess overhanging the land." On his return, he wrote an essay on the subject, which was published in 1754. Three years after, he made a second visit to the Southern meetings of Friends. Travelling as a minister of the gospel, he was compelled ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the minds of his men, and inspired that degree of confidence which would have maintained his authority in almost any circumstances. But here, from the nature of the undertaking, every man had leisure to feed his imagination with the gloominess and uncertainty of the prospect. They found from day to day the same steady gales wafting them with rapidity from their native country, and indeed from all countries of which ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... wishes left to his family. He buried the woman, and I received him. I took him on my tour. A second marriage might cover the first: there would be a buzz about the old business: the woman's relatives write to him still, try to bleed him, I dare say. However, now you understand his gloominess. I don't imagine he regrets his loss. He probably sentimentalizes, like most men when they are well rid of a burden. You must not think the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... dale, sometimes coming to a more open piece of ground, but more generally threading our way amid a very maze of trees, with trunks all black as the ground itself, whilst the dingy foliage and the few rays of sunshine that lit up those dark, deep glades served only to heighten the gloominess around. ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... am in a serious humour, I very often walk by myself in Westminster Abbey; where the gloominess of the place, and the use to which it is applied, with the solemnity of the building, and the condition of the people who lie in it, are apt to fill the mind with a kind of melancholy, or rather thoughtfulness, that is not disagreeable. I yesterday passed a whole afternoon in the church-yard, ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... bear upon her life, or whether it could excuse her at all, she had no spirit to inquire. English society appeared a gloomy concretion enough to abide in as she contemplated it on this journey home; yet, since its gloominess was less an essential quality than an accident of her point of view, that point of view she ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... monstrous shapes that lived and fought in the jungle's swampy gloom saw to that. Hideous nightmare shapes they were, some reptilian and comparable only to the giants that roamed Earth in her prehistoric ages. Eating, fighting, breeding in the humid gloominess of the vegetation shrouded swamps, their bellows and roars sometimes at night thundered right through Porno, a reminder of Nature yet untamed. Occasionally, in the berserk ecstasy of the mating season, they hurled their house-high ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... in the firmament, with clouds gathering and a murky twilight. Being of a nature more or less sensitive to atmospheric influences, I feel a corresponding gloominess. ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... had taken advantage of his first gratified ejaculation to shake him warmly by the hand, and then, with both hands laid familiarly on his shoulder, force him down into a chair. Luckily, for by that time Jim Hooker had, with characteristic gloominess, found time to taste the pangs of envy—an envy the more keen since, in spite of his success as a peaceful contractor, he had always secretly longed for military display and distinction. He looked at the man ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... this extraordinary indulgence to the temper and gracious nature of the individual, not to the firm protection of the laws. But the most reasonable and mildest of the German princes had been little taught at that day to brook opposition. And the Landgrave was by nature, and the gloominess of his constitutional temperament, of all men the last to learn that lesson readily. He had already met with just sufficient opposition from the civic body and the university interest to excite his passion for revenge. Ample indemnification ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... June he had sufficiently rallied his strength to set out with Boswell, for Oxford, where he remained about a fortnight, with Dr. Adams, the master of Pembroke, his old college. In his discourse, there was the same alternation of gloominess and gaiety, the same promptness of repartee, and keenness of sarcasm, as there had ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... patrons noticed with surprise that he seemed sad and depressed after the expulsion of Grid, and that this gloominess was deepened about the ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... was one of that delightful class whom everybody feels privileged to be related to,—"Uncle, uncle, how is it that you contrive to be so happy? Why is your face so cheerful, when so many thousands are craped over with a most uncomfortable gloominess?" ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... dressed for her wedding:- "Tabby, why look so sad?" "—O I feel a great gloominess spreading, spreading, Instead of ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... for this meeting—my heart feels oppressed as if by some heavy crime. Go! Sophy, order the most spirited horse in the stable to be saddled for me—I must away into the open air where I may look on the blue sky and hear the busy hum of man. I must dispel this gloominess by ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... himself to utter a word in reply. How should he defend himself when his defence was the accusation of Elfride? On that account he felt a miserable satisfaction in letting her father go on thinking and speaking wrongfully. It was a faint ray of pleasure straying into the great gloominess of his brain to think that the vicar might never know but that he, as her lover, tempted her away, which seemed to be the form ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... dull gray morning, the gloominess of the overhanging clouds reflected in the water. Men on lookout were stationed in the fore-top and on the heads, yet the sharpest eyes could scarcely see beyond a half mile in any direction. The sea came at us in great ocean swells, but the stout bark ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... have exercised. She recognised it in herself as a power, and used it, as she did all her powers, for the service of her Master. Young Christians, seeing that her deeply religious life did not interfere with her keen enjoyment of all innocent pleasures, realised that there need be no gloominess for them, either, in a life consecrated ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... his natural chearfulness and vivacity was clouded, and a kind of sadness and dejection of spirit stole upon him. After the resolution of the two houses not to admit any treaty of peace, those indispositions which had before touched him, grew into a habit of gloominess; and he who had been easy and affable to all men, became on a sudden less communicable, sad, and extremely affected with the spleen. In his dress, to which he had formerly paid an attention, beyond what ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... style, poetry, and depth of feeling without gloominess, characterize this volume of stories of the Eastern poet. This new volume of his work which introduces him to English readers as a short-story writer is as significant of his power as are the verses that ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... stone steps to the cavern, they found that the brilliant light from the tripods dispelled the gloominess around them, and gave, as far as the eye could reach, a lively appearance to ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... of anxiety, or gloominess, or perversion of mind, lays hold upon you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaints, but exert your whole care to hide it; by endeavouring to hide it, you will drive it ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... in consequence of his return, and on the following morning, and still on the third day, that feeling of joy and security continued to increase, for it soon got abroad that the young lord's grief and gloominess of mood was wearing hourly away, and that his lip, and his whole countenance were often lighted up with an expression which showed, as they fondly augured, that days and years of happiness were ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... some unknown cause. Upon which Cromwel asked him how he did, or how he felt himself. He answered, that he was in such a trembling and consternation, that he had never felt the like in all the conflicts and battles he had ever been engaged in: but whether it proceeded from the gloominess of the place, or the temperature of his body, he knew not. 'How now?' said Cromwel, 'What, troubled with the vapours? Come forward, man.' They had not gone above twenty yards further, before Lindsey on a sudden stood still, and cried out, 'By all that is good I am ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... her in a quick, unequal walk up and down the room, pausing now and then to dash the tears from her eyes, or gaze in wonder at Lady Hope's face, which bore an expression she had never seen in all its gloominess till then. ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens |
