"Moodiness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... demands upon her piety. "Two diamonds do not easily form cup and socket," was an old saying in her home circle. The more she had seen of Brigit Parflete the more she had been struck with her—struck with her moodiness, struck with her contempt for received opinions, her vigour and independence of will. Was she the wife to further the advance of a man of extraordinary ability, already much handicapped on the world's course by a proud spirit, a reckless, impetuous disdain of creatures generally considered the ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... has paid the forfeit,' the king rejoined, looking down at the floor and immediately falling into a moodiness as sudden as his excitement. His lips moved. He muttered something inaudible, and began to play absently with his cup and ball, his mind occupied apparently with a gloomy retrospect. 'M. de Guise, M. de Guise,' he murmured at last, with a sneer and an accent of hate ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... shook off his moodiness and followed her into the brush; and Tomlin was close behind him. When she had them in covert, she stepped out once more, waited to catch Milo's eye at the ledge, then gave him the sign. And the defenders fell back as if suddenly broken and beaten. She waited still, until the attackers swarmed ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... naturally quick-sighted, had partially divined the cause of her uncle's moodiness. The more she saw of him the better she liked him, and she began to think that she would willingly try to cure herself of the peculiarities which evidently annoyed him, if he would only notice her a little, which he was ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... dyspeptic stomachs of your associates. A wise reciprocity and interplay of merriment is the best rule—a fair share among the entire party. Burns himself, sparkling talker as he was, is recorded to have been at times sunk in gloom and shadow. But anon emerging from his moodiness, he would utter such words as set the table in a roar. And now for these masterpieces ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... the most assertive, with a gay initiative and a fluent tongue; Molly already a sun-brown gipsy, and Norah still a pig-tailed thing of lank legs and wild embraces and the pinkest of swift pink blushes; your uncle Sidney, with his shy lank moodiness, acted the brotherly part of a foil. There were several stray visitors, young men and maidens, there were always stray visitors in those days at Ridinghanger, and your grandmother, rosy and bright-eyed, maintained a gentle flow of creature ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... was over. He felt that Miss Graham was behaving badly, ungratefully, selfishly; on the way home in the carriage he was silent from utter boredom and fatigue, but Mrs. Bowen was sweetly sympathetic with the girl's rapture. Imogene did not seem to feel his moodiness; she laughed, she joked, she told a number of things that happened, she hummed the air of the last waltz. "Isn't it divine?" she asked. "Oh! I feel as if I could dance for a week." She was still dancing; she gave Colville's foot an accidental tap in keeping time on the floor of the carriage ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... "Your Uncle George called to us that Pendennis got home safely. Put your shoes close to the fire, dear, or else go and change them." She went to her husband and patted him lightly on the shoulder, an action which George watched with sombre moodiness. "You might dress before long," she suggested. "We're all going to the Assembly, after dinner, aren't we? Brother George said he'd ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... Lady Constance declared she was tired, and turned to Adrien, begging him to sing instead. He hesitated for a moment; then, as if throwing off the unusual moodiness that oppressed him, he seated himself at the piano; and, after a few moments of restless improvisation, he sang song after song from Schumann's "Dichter-liebe," with an intensity of passion in the clear tenor notes that thrilled the ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... and assured her that my work was responsible. But her moodiness increased. At last, apparently at the end of her resources, she announced that she was tired: that after we had had a cigarette she would ask to be excused, as she wanted to lie down. Would I come to see her the ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... my horse to it by his halter, and, removing his saddle and bridle, left him free to graze in the vicinity. Then I unfolded my camp-bed, covered myself with a rubber blanket, and continued to listen to the conversation. Of course, accusations, bitter mutterings, moodiness, and melancholy, prevailed. I heard these for some time, interspersed with sententious eulogies upon particular persons, and references to isolated events. The evening was one of the pleasantest of the year, in all that nature could contribute; a fine starlight, a ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... together, discarding their youth at the same turn of the highway; yet here was his French brother, indefatigable in the pursuit of merriment, while his own soul sang miserere to the tune of Francis' fiddles. Yet, had he overheard the conversation of the favorite and the king, the emperor's moodiness would not, perhaps, have been unmixed ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... him!" she repeated, with a fierce moodiness that was quite dreadful, "yes, I hate him! and I would kill him, like that rat, if I could! He has been the curse of my whole life; he has made life cursed to me; and his heart's blood shall be shed for it some day ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... me. I am used to late hours," he declared, with ingenuous levity. But, feeling an instant compunction, he began to assume an air of statesman-like moodiness, as one draws on a glove. "His massive intellect will stand any amount of work. It's his nerves that I am afraid of. The reactionary gang, with that abusive brute Cheeseman at their head, insult ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... suffered any increase of suffering, could he by such agony have released them. Dearly as he loved them, he would have severed himself from them, had it been possible. Terrible thoughts as to their fate had come into his mind in the worst moments of his moodiness,—thoughts which he had had sufficient strength and manliness to put away from him with a strong hand, lest they should drive him to crime indeed; and these had come from the great pity which he had felt for them. But the commiseration which he had felt for himself had been different from ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... the tendencies of the school-bred child are to be simple, natural, and childlike. His inclination to moodiness and suspiciousness is much less. He is happier. He becomes self-reliant, independent, and respectful of the rights of others. He is less petulant and more obedient. The wisest parents do not educate ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright
... little people whom he was before so fond of; he kept away from their banquets and dances, associated only with Elizabeth, and ate and drank quite solitary in his chamber. In short, he became almost a perfect hermit, and sank into moodiness ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... Chartres was taller, thinner, less handsome than his brother. Both were remarkably cordial and affable, and, as they spoke English perfectly, they enjoyed the gay scene. General Fremont, in a plain undress suit, seemed rather downcast, although his devoted wife, "Jessie," more than made up for his moodiness by her animated and vivacious conversation. There were, besides Generals McDowell, Stone, Heintzelman, Blenker, Hancock, Hooker, Keyes, Doubleday, Casey, Shields, and Marcy, with Captain Dahlgren and the Prince Salm-Salm. Of those present many fought, and some fell, on the ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... begun to discover that she was not without her troubles. For one thing, her husband's fits of moodiness and fretful anxiety troubled her, and led her, possessed as she was with a more than ordinary share of womanly shrewdness, to suspect that he was hiding something from her. But what chiefly vexed her proud nature was the necessity of concealment, ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... "She is amiable, simple, fresh, happy and even-tempered, and I consider Felix most fortunate. For though loving him inexpressibly, she does not spoil him, but when he is moody, meets him with a self-restraint which in due course of time will cure him of his moodiness altogether. The effect of her presence is like that of a fresh breeze, she is so ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... words into an interpretation of which I never dreamed, and look upon all things through the distorting lenses of your own moodiness. It is worse than useless for us to attempt an amicable discussion, for your bitterness never slumbers, your suspicions are ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... forty-eight hours later. She backed away from the Wrangel wharf with Tommy waving his hand to his partner on the pierhead. Thompson went back to their room feeling a trifle blue, as one does at parting from a friend. But it was not the moodiness of uncertainty. He knew what he was going to do. He had simply got used to Tommy being at his elbow, to chatting with him, to knowing that some one was near with whom he could try to unravel a knotty problem or hold ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... shy about his fiddle, and besides he was not in a mood for it; his father's words had rasped him. It took the united persuasions of Billy Jack and Jessac and Hughie to get the fiddle into Thomas' hands, but after a few tuning scrapes all shyness and moodiness vanished, and soon the reels and strathspeys were dropping from Thomas' flying fingers in a way that set Hughie's blood tingling. But when the fiddler struck into Money Musk, Billy Jack signed Jessac to him, and whispering to her, set her out on the ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... nervous system, overstrained, diseased. Yes, diseased! If it does not result in the frantic madness of Lamb, or the final imbecility of Southey, it is manifested in various other forms, such as the morbid melancholy of Cowper, the bitter misanthropy of Pope, the abnormal moodiness and misery of Byron, the unsound and dangerous theories of Shelley, and the strange, ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... been done, before the young man's own assent had been given. She did not see much of him—certainly not enough to fall in love with him. She even thought him a strange, moody youth; but yet there was something in his moodiness and eccentricity which excited her fancy. The reader knows that he chose for himself; and the lady also ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... and the home-party had settled down again into what was likely to be their usual course, excepting in the holidays, to which the doctor looked forward with redoubled interest, as Tom was fast becoming a very agreeable and sensible companion; for his moodiness had been charmed away by Meta, and principle was teaching him true command of temper. He seemed to take his father as a special charge, bequeathed to him by Norman, and had already acquired that value and importance at home which comes ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... that occupied the king on his bed of pain, and upon which he dwelt with all the wilfulness and moodiness of a sick man. ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... sat down with their little bushy tails cocked up, watching the boys ever so long before they darted up the beech-tree bole, and hid behind the great branches. But it was of no use; there was no tempting the boys out of their solid sombre moodiness; and on they tramped, fishless and disconsolate, for their young spirits were not damped, but literally drenched; and then, too, they had lost their wicker idol, full of captives—captives which, like those of the ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... political affairs—which he had never felt before. He, with his brooding second sight based on a spiritual estimate of the world—he and Lady Lucy—alone saw that Marsham was unhappy. His irritable moodiness might, of course, have nothing to do with his failure to play the man in the case of Miss Mallory. Lankester was inclined to think it had—Alicia Drake or no Alicia Drake. And the grace of repentance is so rare in mankind ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the Waynes found him, each in his and her own degree, an agreeable companion. Sir Richard approved of his quiet and reserved manner, and was not inclined to quarrel with his occasional fits of moodiness—for there were times when the ghosts which haunted him refused to be exorcised, and Anstice felt himself unfit, by reason of the handicap which Fate had imposed upon him, to mingle with the happy, the careless, the innocent ones ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... Kate's quick eyes caught the expression of David's face—while Mrs. Bartlett only heard his words. She gave Anna a searching look as she said: "So it is you whom David loves." At last Kate understood the secret of Anna's distracted face—and at last the mother understood the secret of her boy's moodiness—he loved Anna. And her heart was filled with bitterness and anger at the very thought; she had taken her boy, this stranger, with whom the tongue of scandal was busy. The kindly, gentle, old face lost all its sweetness; jealous anger filled it with ugly ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... I remember Jeeves saying once about Pongo Twistleton when he was trying to knock off smoking, had marked him for her own. Not that I was surprised, of course. In the circs., no doubt, a certain moodiness was ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... firm in health, and though most active and useful in the Council, had thus far done little elsewhere. Hawley, far in the interior, was often absent from the centre in critical times, and somewhat unreliable through a strange moodiness. Cushing was weak. Hancock was hampered by foibles that some times quite canceled his merits. Quincy was a brilliant youth, and, like a youth, sometimes fickle. We have seen him ready to temporize, when to falter ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... him. Everybody too loved and honoured him; for his bounty was as great as his wealth: but at the same time he was viewed with fear; for he harast both himself and others by a number of strange whims which no one could understand; and his moodiness, his silent reserve, were especially irksome to those who were nearest about him. No person had seen him smile for many years; he scarcely ever came out of his large house on the hill above the little mountain-town, nearly ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... sunny light and bracing air of the following morning, banished much of Gregory's moodiness, and he descended the stairs proposing to dismiss painful thoughts and get what comfort and semblance of enjoyment he could out of the passing hours. Mr. Walton met him cordially—indeed with almost fatherly solicitude—and led him at once to the dining-room, where an inviting breakfast ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... the activities of public life his moodiness gave place to a healthy cheerfulness, and his enthusiasm soon led him into taking part in nearly every form of sport which gave life more zest. His interest being roused, he was wholehearted in his application, ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... notion of betrayal at Romeo's hands; Peppe would dog him like a shadow. This he did for the remainder of that day, clinging to Gonzaga as if he loved him dearly, and furtively observing the man's demeanour. Yet he saw nothing to confirm his suspicions beyond a certain preoccupied moodiness on the ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... but the strongest constitution could stand such treatment time after time, and though the Irishman's tough body had not yet shown any signs of breaking up under the strain, his mind was liable to fits of moodiness which amounted almost to madness. Such a man is not rare in Central Australia, and he goes by the name ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... and went up to his room. The tears came to her eyes, but she blinked them away resolutely. She must not mind, must not show him that she even dreamed of any connection between his moodiness and the ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... contrary was always ready to volunteer when a few men were required to crawl forward at night to ascertain the precise position of the Prussian outposts or to endeavor to find out the meaning of any stir or movement that might be heard towards their front. At other times his fits of moodiness seemed to increase. He was seldom present at any of the gatherings of his companions, but went off after work at the studio was over, and it was generally late at night before ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... majority in Webb's regiment, and was knocked on the head the next campaign. Perhaps Esmond would not have been sorry to share his fate. He was more the Knight of the Woful Countenance than ever he had been. His moodiness must have made him perfectly odious to his friends under the tents, who like a jolly fellow, and laugh at a melancholy warrior always sighing after Dulcinea ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in this last line a dark, grim, sardonic appreciation of the advantages which common minds have over those that, like the poet's own, have to endure the splendid miseries of genius,—a dark moodiness, like that of a tame Byron remorsefully recalling a wild debauch upon ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... the same spirit. "I'm no fortune hunter, in the sense you mean. Pah! I have no debts; no crumbling schloss to rebuild. All I ask is to be let alone," with a flash of that moodiness of which he had spoken. "How ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... relentless in her scorn for his meannesses and follies, and, though he did not always heed her counsels, he proved their justness by finding his own course wrong. Kate, however, hesitated about remonstrating with him on his deepening moodiness, for she was not quite sure whether it was mad jealousy of Dick's favor in Rosa's eyes, or a secret purpose to attempt to fly from the gentle bondage of Rosedale. Wesley with Rosa it was remarked by Kate, was, or seemed ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... the first time he had gone into fits of abstraction as deep as his absorption in the books he read so hungrily. He had been at the Wolverine a month, and they were pretty well acquainted by now and inclined to friendliness when Ward threw off his moodiness and his air of holding himself ready for some affront which he seemed to expect. But for all that the distrust never quite left his eyes, and there were times like this when he was absolutely oblivious to ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... Tom, looking away again and with the same moodiness, "that I was a fool to leave the army. That was my job. I should have stuck to it. I should have used my commission and father's influence to stay in the army. But it's too late now. I guess I had my chance and didn't ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... it elicited no outburst of cheering. On the contrary, the long man frowned, and his two companions helped themselves to a handful of cigars apiece with a marked moodiness. ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... own bitterness," he answered. "Don't pay the least attention to me. You mustn't let moodiness of mine cast a blight ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... its own distemper for a disease of the universe. With all the mishaps to which our life is subject, a glance over a wide range of human experience proves that God helps those who help themselves, and whatever be the tenor of our fortune, levity is more seemly than moodiness, and under any circumstances there is more virtue in being a clown than a cynic. But in adversity, a subdued cheerfulness and quiet humor are, next to Christian fortitude, the golden mean of feeling that makes the loss of worldly things rest lightly on the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... had been her sense of the unrest in the domestic atmosphere during the last month. Since the evening when she had found Thyme in foods of tears because of the Hughs' baby, her maternal eyes had not failed to notice something new in the child's demeanour—a moodiness, an air almost of conspiracy, together with an emphatic increase of youthful sarcasm: Fearful of probing deep, she had sought no confidence, nor had she divulged ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... desired was the highest good and the most complete felicity to everybody concerned in the fulfilment of the desire. She bore the blow from Musa admirably, keeping both her smile and her dignity, and with one gesture excusing Musa to all beholders as a capricious and a sensitive artist in whom moodiness was lawful. It was exquisitely done. It could not have been better done. But not even Madame Piriac's extreme skill could save the episode from having the air of a social disaster. The gaiety which had been too feverishly resumed after ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... all of the story that Joel could learn. The two boys were shut out by the wall of grown-up life. Luke crouched in bitter moodiness, throwing clods of dirt at early grasshoppers and reconquering his lost dignity. At last he said: "If you ever let on to anybody what ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... brace of pistols the night when first we met, His deep-lined brow was frowning beneath his wig of jet, His footsteps had the moodiness, his voice the hollow tone, Of a bandit-chief, who feels remorse, and tears his hair alone— I saw him but at half-price, yet methinks I see him now, In the tableau of the last act, with the blood upon ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... manifested a certain moodiness and irritability very unlike her usual facile sweetness of disposition, and Sara was somewhat nonplussed to account for it. Finally, she approached the matter by way of a ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... that he had not ruined his cause by impatience. To think of not seeing her, of not hearing her voice, was like madness! His face grew thin, there were tense lines about his mouth and a set resolve in his eyes; yet to his fine temper came no moodiness or irritability. The task he had set for himself must be accomplished. He was as absolute in his self-denial as he would be in his ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... party from the palace must be out," he remarked, but the music of the horn which once pleased him could no longer arouse him from his moodiness. Nevertheless an extraordinary thing was about to happen. As he went into the inn for a moment, into the grove whirled—Nancy! all bespangled in a rich hunting costume and accompanied by her friends ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... feverish. He at once remembered what had passed. Bull's words haunted him; he could not forget them; they burnt within him like the flame of a moral fever. He was moody and petulant, and for a time could hardly conceal his aversion to Bull. Ah Eric! moodiness and petulance cannot save you, but prayerfulness would; one word, Eric, at the throne of grace—one prayer before you go down among the boys, that God in his mercy would wash away, in the blood of his dear Son, your crimson stains, ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... followed hers without satisfaction. A certain moodiness had come upon him. He made ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... he was back. He mixed the due quantity of river slush with the alcohol, took a long, solitary drink, and stared with bitter moodiness into the fire. ...
— The Red One • Jack London |
