"Low-spirited" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... every way that she thought all her brother's advisers had done very wrong. She wanted to be under the Pope again, and she engaged herself to marry the King of Spain, her cousin, Philip II. This was very foolish of her, for she was a middle-aged woman, pale, and low-spirited; and he was much younger, and of a silent, gloomy temper, so that everyone was afraid of him. All her best friends advised her not, and the English hated the notion so much, that the little children played at the queen's wedding ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was low-spirited and hysterical; and when she caught sight of him she forgot her anger, and fell sobbing into his arms. The countess-dowager had gone over to Garchester, and they had a ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... conclusive, he fully believed him guiltless of the offence. His father, who came to me on purpose, assured me that his son was altogether incapable of committing the crime of which he was accused; at the same time, that he thought it right to mention the circumstance to me, to account for his low-spirited and retiring manner. I appreciated the father's motive, and accepted the charge of his son, not supposing that any boy from the lad's former school would come here to accuse him. I have watched him narrowly, and I feel sure, from what I have seen of him, that he is, at all events, now a most ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... but I've been suffering from rheumatism dreadfully, and haven't had the spirit to write to anybody but my Almira. It's been so kind of lonesome since she went away that I guess that's why the rheumatism got such a hold of me. When you ain't got anybody belonging to you, you get kind of low-spirited. Then the weather—it's been about as bad as I ever seen it. Not a good hard rain, but a steady drizzle-drozzle day after day. You can't put your foot out of doors without getting your petticoats draggled. ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... the subject of travelling—and fatigue. "When one begins," he says, "to be low-spirited and dejected, to yawn often and be drowsy, when the appetite is impaired, when the smallest movement occasions a fluttering of the pulse, when the mouth becomes dry, and is sensible of a bitter taste, seek refreshment and repose, if you wish to PREVENT ILLNESS, already ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... shouted Mr. Williams, his roving glance searching ambient heights. Another low-spirited yodel reaching his ear, he perceived the head and shoulders of his friend projecting above the roofridge of the stable. The rest of Penrod's body was concealed from view, reposing upon the opposite slant of the gable and precariously secured by the crooking of ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... more than you. Forgive me; much should be forgiven a man who has suffered much. My imagination is subject to the wildest alarms. Great, unlooked-for joy has rendered me mistrustful. I have been especially low-spirited of late. After having resolutely fought against my happiness, I tremble now lest it escape me; it appears to me too beautiful not to prove only a dream. To be loved by you! How can I help fearing to lose the great boon? Each evening ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... these mournful fowls at all cheerful and inspiring. Certainly not the blue heron standing mid-leg deep in the water, obviously catching cold in a reckless disregard of wet feet and consequences; nor the mournful curlew, the dejected plover, or the low-spirited snipe, who saw fit to join him in his suicidal contemplation; nor the impassive kingfisher—an ornithological Marius—reviewing the desolate expanse; nor the black raven that went to and fro over the face of the marsh continually, but ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... Fort Garry was without incident, and the interview with the M'Crawneys was of the usual type. Mrs. M'Crawney was low-spirited and homesick, yearning for Ireland, for the smell of the peat reek and the society of ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... passage. This place could be entered only in the night. The person returned from the cave by the same narrow passage, but walking backwards. He appeared melancholy and dejected; and hence the proverb which was applied to a person low-spirited and gloomy, "He has been consulting the ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... found a man in galloping consumption. I had begun to be tired of Dresden; I stayed with my new acquaintance. It's dull work sitting with a sick man, but even dulness is sometimes agreeable; moreover, my patient was not low-spirited and was very ready to talk. We tried to kill time in all sorts of ways; We played 'Fools,' the two of us together, and made fun of the doctor. My compatriot used to tell this very bald-headed German ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... which here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest. But to the place where, it standeth north-north-east and by east from the west corner of thy curious-knotted garden: there did I see that low-spirited swain, that base minnow of ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... unfortunate decision. I have intimated to him that the burden of the business is too much for me, and that he must be extremely at a loss for the services of one to whom he was so much accustomed, and whose situation, I am confident, nobody else can satisfactorily fill. He went to bed very low-spirited. I ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... too low-spirited to answer 'im; and arter Smith 'ad said "Hush!" to George Kettle three times, he up and put 'im outside for ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... broken-hearted a man, and too low-spirited, to have objected to Myles on the ground of his being a Protestant: it was not that he was indifferent about his religion, but he had not heart enough left to be energetic on any subject. In other ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... with Lucille, Mrs. Thayer returned to her boarding-house with Miss Seaton, and invited the latter to spend the day with her. She said that she was low-spirited and wanted company to keep off the "blues." She was very nervous, and she could not take an interest in anything. She said several times that Lucille was the most wonderful person she had ever met, and that she had heard things which convinced her of Lucille's supernatural powers; ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... then went to Boston to your house. There I hoped to find a quiet asylum,—at least, till I could hear from my aunt in Scotland. The delay of hearing from her during those two years at your house often made me low-spirited." ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... cousin, the young man I told you of. He was in love, and clandestinely engaged to a young lady, whose family were wealthy and would not for a moment hear of the match. I was his only confidante, and he liked to come in evenings and talk to me of Helen. Sometimes, seeing me so lonely and low-spirited, he would stay with me within half an hour of Harry's return; but Heaven knows neither he nor I ever dreamed it could be wrong. No harm might ever have come of it, for my husband knew and liked him, but for that gambling companion, ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... hysterics occur is generally from the age of fifteen to fifty. Hysterics come on by paroxysms—hence they are called hysterical fits. A patient, just before an attack, is low-spirited; crying without a cause; she is "nervous," as it is called; she has flushings of the face; she is at other times very pale; she has shortness of breath and occasional palpitations of the heart; her appetite is usually bad; she passes quantities of colourless limpid urine, having the appearance ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... it?" said Agafea Mihalovna. "The dog now...why, she understands that her master's come home, and that he's low-spirited." ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... arrangements ends with: 'I have every blessing and comfort. Not one is wanting. I am not in any excitement, I think, certainly I do not believe myself to be in such a state as to involve a reaction of feeling. Of course if I am seedy at sea for a few days I shall feel low-spirited also most likely, and miss you all more in consequence. But that does not go below the surface. Beneath is calm ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fireside, is low-spirited at table, and never opens her mouth either to speak or eat; then, at bed-time, the inevitable repetition of the lesson she has learned, even on the pillow. The same sound of the same bell, for ever ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... solitary communings with her favorite instrument became her chief solace when she was: low-spirited, which was seldom, and her favorite diversion when she was high-spirited, which was often. Moreover, her rendition of well-known airs and he improvisings came to be a great pleasure to all the inmates of the Atrium, most of all ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... her distress, she was weakened by the painful task she had just completed. She was low-spirited and broken-hearted, and really ill. Her eyes gave out; and no greater inconvenience could have just then befallen her. Her mental activity was temporarily paralyzed, and yet she knew that prompt measures were necessary to avert the evils crowding ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... "Don't be low-spirited about him, sir. He'll get over it—he'll be all right again in a week or so. A capital fellow, I have not the least doubt!" continued Allan, whose habit it was to believe in everybody and to despair of nothing. "Suppose you ask him to dinner ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... did not marry her, but 'twas not my fault. She played me false. Six months after her father's death we were to be married. The evening previous to our wedding arrived. I was perfectly happy, but Inez seemed low-spirited, and when I inquired the cause she answered, 'Nothing, except a little nervous excitement.' I readily believed her; but when the morning came the cause of her low spirits was explained. The bird had flown, with ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... low-spirited to-night. The news of yesterday has been confirmed. Our army has been beaten at Manassas with terrible loss. General McClellan has left Beverly for Washington. General Rosecrans will assume command in Western Virginia. We are informed that twenty miles from ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... Miss, vouchsafe to the poor soul the honour of a visit: she may be low-spirited.—She may be too much sunk with the recollection of past things. Comfort, with that sweetness which is so natural to Miss Darnford, her drooping heart; and let her know, that I have a true concern for her, and give it her in charge to take care ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... "Nonsense! You're low-spirited just now because you're not quite better, but wait till you're on your feet and going around the wards again. There's nothing like work of this sort to make ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... he placed them therefore, to use his own words as attributed to him by my informant, "between the flattery of the dazzling world without, and the silence of his chamber of study and meditation." They no doubt answered their object, in rendering the possessor at times low-spirited, since they were certainly likely to have that effect even upon a stranger. On the day of my introduction, however, I had little time for observation. My name had been announced, and I passed rapidly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... time that the Doctor received a letter which greatly affected his mode of thought at the time. He had certainly become hipped and low-spirited, if not despondent, and clearly showed to his wife, even though he was silent, that his mind was still intent on the injury which that wretched woman had done him by her virulence. But the letter of which we speak for a time removed this feeling, and gave him, as it were, a new ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... that all this was very bad; that it showed the necessity of infinite grinding at the mill of knowledge, as per system, schedule, blue book, report, and tabular statements A to Z; and that Jupe 'must be kept to it.' So Jupe was kept to it, and became low-spirited, but ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... very unwell and low-spirited. The cause of this, folks seem to agree, was over-exertion during mother's sickness. To tell the truth, I was so anxious about her that I did not try to save my strength at all, and excitement kept me up, so that I was not conscious of ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... the winter months, was Balder's brother, and as unlike him as darkness is unlike daylight. While one rejoiced, and was merry and cheerful, the other was low-spirited and sad. While one scattered sunshine and blessings everywhere, the other carried with him a sense of cheerlessness and gloom. Yet the brothers loved ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... back, both of us silent and rather low-spirited, an English dogcart, drawn by a thoroughbred horse, came up behind us and passed us rapidly. The doctor ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... Carmelite convent did not of course suspect any thing of the events which were preparing beyond the walls of their prison. Even Therese de Fontenay was low-spirited and sad; for this day, the ninth Thermidor, was the last day of respite fixed by her ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... had with the Duke was at the time of the Reform Bill, when he went down with him for a week to Strathfieldsaye, during which time he was more low-spirited and silent than Croker said he ever saw him before or since. He reproached himself for what he had done, particularly about Catholic Emancipation, the repeal of the Test Act, and his resignation in '30. Very curious this, not alluding among the topics ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... a year and that "maybe it won't live any longer than that," and unless the hospital is equipped with a social service department, such as the one at the Massachusetts General, the girl leaves it weak and low-spirited and too broken to care what becomes of her. It is in moments such as these that many a poor girl, convinced that all the world is against her, decides to enter a disreputable house. Here at least she will find food and shelter, she will not be ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... of the wreck had disappeared, and even the captain was convinced that her keel would never leave its present position, except to be cast up in fragments on the rocks. He and the mate had been very quiet and low-spirited. They were craving for their accustomed stimulants, and several times I heard them grumbling at us for not having landed any liquor for them. Neither they nor the larger portion of their crew had exerted themselves in the slightest degree ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... called them lackeys. This word "lackey" served as the strongest expression, when all others were exhausted, to designate human meanness. Under the old French monarchy, to denote by a single expression a low-spirited contemptible fellow, it was usual to say that he had the "soul of a lackey"; the term was enough to convey all that was intended. [Footnote a: If the principal opinions by which men are guided are examined closely and in detail, the analogy appears ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... been thrown away in a foolish fit of despondency. I am at present not very well. I do not mean that I have any specific illness, but headaches and side-aches, so that I am one moment in a state of feverish excitement and the next nervous and low-spirited; this is not a good account, but a ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... could yet hold up his head against all that the world could do to him. How could he be really unhappy while he possessed such an assurance of love as this, and while his mother was able to give him so glorious an example of endurance? He was not really unhappy. The low-spirited broken-hearted wretchedness of the preceding day seemed to have departed from him as he hurried on his clothes, and went off to his sister's room that he might show his letter to Emmeline in accordance with the promise ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... nothin' to that report. I can account for that just as easy as lookin' through a hoop. It's goin' to be wine jelly, after all. I thought maybe it might be calf's-foot, but—" he broke off. "I wish," he said earnestly, "I could get hold of a low-spirited billy goat, Miss Donna, an' tie him to your front gate when Mrs. P. arrives. You want to warn the nurse, Miss Donna. Remember what the old sharp in the big book says: 'Beware o' the Greeks when they come into camp with ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... be a source of great profit to my father; but at the same time, I don't know how it is, I have always indulged the idea that we may not stay here for ever, and this plan appeared so like decidedly settling down to a residence for life, that it made me low-spirited. I know that it is foolish, and that we have no chance of ever removing—but still I cannot, even with this almost certainty before my eyes, keep my mind from thinking upon one day returning to my profession, and the idea of becoming a miller for life is what I cannot as yet contemplate ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... Eva!" said St. Clare, trembling as he spoke, but speaking cheerfully, "you've got nervous and low-spirited; you mustn't indulge such gloomy thoughts. See here, I've bought ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... repeated Anne Lisbeth; but she said no more, and the subject was dropped. She felt very low-spirited, because her count-child had shown no inclination to speak to her who loved him so well, and who had travelled so far to see him. The journey had cost money too, and she had derived no great pleasure from it. Still she said not a word of all this; she could not relieve ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... change in Ivan Matveitch. He was low-spirited, depressed, his health broke down a little. His fresh, rosy face grew yellow and wrinkled; he lost a front tooth. He quite ceased going out, and gave up the reception-days he had established for the peasants, without the assistance of the priest, ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... been a fool; for I have told as much of myself to this young person as if she were of that ripe and discreet age which invites confidence and expansive utterance. I have been low-spirited and listless, lately,—it is coffee, I think,—(I observe that which is bought ready-ground never affects the head,)—and I notice that I tell my secrets too easily when ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... enough, and their songs always seem like rejoicings over our reconciliation that day ever so long ago; you remember, don't you, Fred? but I should like a bird very much to give to Miss Schomberg; she seems low-spirited, and says she is often very lonely. A bird would be nice company for her, shall we take ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... are both good and kind in their way, but uncle is reserved, and often low-spirited. Aunt is always talking of the necessity of self-control, and the discipline of life. She is an accomplished teaze. Why, do you know," continued Ellen, laughingly, as she removed Miss Janet's hand from her mouth, the old lady thus playfully endeavoring to check her, ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... is a constant fight against death, and we don't wait so long if we are fighting. If I thought as you do, I couldn't wait—I'd have to go out and hunt up death at once. I reckon you are low-spirited today. I'm glad I'm not a writer, Lyman. Writing saps all a man's spirit and leaves ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... exercise; and I really think there is now no cause to fear any molestation, otherwise I should not of course suggest such a thing. It will never do, you know, for you to remain cooped up here day after day—you will get low-spirited and out of health; and I am inclined to believe it will be rather a good idea than otherwise to accustom these fellows to the sight of you moving freely and ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... Shirley Park, the wife of an Indian nabob. Their houses were always open to him, and he says in a letter to his mother: 'I have two homes in England where I am loved like a child. I had a letter from Mrs. Shaw, who thought I looked low-spirited at the opera the other night. "Young men have but two causes of unhappiness," she writes, "love and money. If it is money, Mr. Shaw wishes me to say you shall have as much as you want; if it is love, tell us the lady, and perhaps we can help you." I spend ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... midshipmen in Dave's section however, felt low-spirited that morning. They had been looking through their text-books, and felt a dread that they would not be able to keep up the stiff pace of learning long enough to get past the semi-annual ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... in the midst of unspoilt nature, I never felt depressed, no matter what happened, and was absolutely regardless of climatic conditions; but in those miserable settlements—feeble attempts at civilization—I must confess that I used to get low-spirited too, and often thought what an idiot I had been to leave my happy homes in Florence and in London, in order to come to ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... Charles, in consequence, resolved to accommodate himself to her, and since Lord-Mayor's day has abstained from all other liquor, as well as from smoking. We shall all rejoice if this experiment succeeds.... His change of habit, though it, on the whole, improves his health, yet when he is low-spirited, leaves him without ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... tell you the truth, I saw you were low-spirited, and wanted something to rouse you. It's ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Somebody died, or something else, that he was going to be married to, ever so many years ago; and they say he hasn't hardly spoken to a lady since. That's so romantic! I don't wonder he preaches such low-spirited kind of sermons. Only I wish they warn't quite so. I suppose it's beautiful, and heavenly minded, and all that; but yet I'd rather hear something a little kind of cheerful. Don't you think so? But the ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... township, laying Down Wood low, and coming to me with some miserable tale of petty pilfering for my adjustment. I must own I got out of the train at Muddlehampstead and into the station fly feeling distinctly low-spirited. It was some consolation to find that the railway still stopped seven miles short of my village, though I reflected gloomily that the place itself was doubtless a network of light railways by this time. We bowled along in stately fashion up Plough Lane and past Halfpenny Cross to the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... no difficulty in surmounting at all. There were plenty of other men in the world, quite as handsome, as amiable, as rich, and as noble, as Richard de Clare. If such a grief had happened to herself, she would have wept incessantly for a week, been low-spirited for a month, and in a year would have been wreathed with smiles, and arranging her trousseau for a wedding with another bridegroom. The only thing which could really have distressed her long, would have been if the vacant place in her ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... usual. She had conquered her feeling of impatience towards him so far as to be able to offer him her father's rejected supper; and she even tried to eat herself. But her heart failed her. A leaden weight seemed to hang over her; a sort of presentiment of evil, or perhaps only an excess of low-spirited feeling in consequence of the two departures which had taken place ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... he rambled on from one thing to another. But when he saw I was low-spirited, and found by questioning me that I needed a parasol, and couldn't live long without one, he took me on his ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
... "Low-spirited, sir? Why, I could run and shout Hooray, I feel so well. Look at that arm, sir! Who's going to feel mis'rable when he's got his strength back like that. ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... iced champagne; and therefore in the earlier part of the dinner, whilst others were engaged in eating, he kept talking loudly and telling stories. But at dessert, on the contrary, and when the general conversation began to be lively, he became serious, silent, and sometimes low-spirited. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... morning he had been out to the Old Tiverton Road, and there, on the lawn amid the laurels, had caught brief glimpse of two female figures, in one of which he merely divined Sidwell. Why he tarried thus he did not pretend to explain to himself. Rain had just come on, and the lowering sky made him low-spirited; he mooned about ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... time Dotty would have laughed heartily. It was so absurd for a child to be lonesome when there were three in the bed! But Dotty was too low-spirited even to smile. Mrs. Rosenberg came up and boxed Rosina's ears; and ...
— Dotty Dimple at Play • Sophie May
... qualities of any body else, and from censuring those who possess the same faults as her own man: wearing anything that may have been given to her by him; abstaining from putting on her ornaments, and from taking food when he is in pain, sick, low-spirited, or suffering from misfortune, and condoling and lamenting with him over the same; wishing to accompany him if he happens to leave the country himself or if he be banished from it by the King; expressing a desire not to live after him; telling him that the whole object and desire of her ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... low-spirited as my father was; but I s'pose there wasn't much difference," replied Chris, to the accompaniment of Griggs' hammer and the fidgeting of his nag. "Quiet, will you, stupid! He isn't ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... Paper stealing softly from the office to call the other young lady down, Mr. JEREMY BENTHAM made a sign that FLORA should follow him to the supplementary room indicated; his low-spirited manner being as though he had said: "If you wish to look at the body, miss, I will now show ...
— Punchinello Vol. 2, No. 28, October 8, 1870 • Various
... Mrs. Makebelieve came home she was very low-spirited indeed. She complained once more of a headache and of a languor which she could not account for. She said it gave her all the trouble in the world to lift a bucket. It was not exactly that she could not lift a bucket, ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... had come out with him. One was a low-spirited gentleman of middle age, of a meagre habit, and a disconsolate face; who kept his hands continually in the pockets of his scanty pepper-and-salt trousers, very large and dog's-eared from that custom; and was ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... may be virtuous, and wise, and good, but two candles will not do for animal spirits. Every night the room in which I sit is lighted up like a town after a great naval victory, and in this cereous galaxy, and with a blazing fire, it is scarcely possible to be low-spirited; a thousand pleasing images spring up in the mind, and I can see the little blue demons scampering off like parish boys ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... the first stanza very good solemn poetry, as also the three first lines of the second. Its last line is an excellent burlesque surprise on gloomy sentimental enquirers. And, perhaps, the advice is as good as can be given to a low-spirited dissatisfied being:—'Don't trouble your head with sickly thinking: take a ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... and honest man, but low-spirited, and he thought quiet the only hope for Athens. When he found that the citizens were making a great boasting, and were ready to rush into a war without counting the cost, he said he would advise one only "whenever ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... He made up his mind to go there again, and he chose a Sunday, for no special reason, but merely because people generally do go out on Sundays, even when they have nothing to do all the week; and so one Sunday morning he went to Saint-Germain. He felt low-spirited and vexed at having yielded to that new longing, and at having broken through his usual habits. He was thirsty; he would have liked to get out at every station and sit down in the cafe which he saw outside and drink a "bock" ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... Etherington in a manner so sudden and unaccountable—the obvious ill-humour of Lady Penelope—and the steady, though passive, sullenness of Lady Binks, spread among the company a gloom like that produced by an autumnal mist upon a pleasing landscape. The women were low-spirited, dull, nay, peevish, they did not well know why; and the men could not be joyous, though the ready resource of old hock and champagne made some of them talkative.—Lady Penelope broke up the party by well-feigned apprehension of the difficulties, nay, dangers, of returning by so rough ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... the embarrassment of either disclosure or concealment, by presenting me to every other boy who came back, great or small, immediately on his arrival, in this form of introduction, 'Look here! Here's a game!' Happily, too, the greater part of the boys came back low-spirited, and were not so boisterous at my expense as I had expected. Some of them certainly did dance about me like wild Indians, and the greater part could not resist the temptation of pretending that I was a dog, and patting and soothing me, lest ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... one of the few upon which I have ever touched a native. The truth was that I had not the slightest intention of being buried. I wanted to live and marry Marie, not to die and be put in a hole by Hans. Only I saw no prospect of marrying Marie, or even of seeing her again, and that was why I felt low-spirited. ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... same situation; but a feeble mind is necessarily an irritable one, and the suspense which some bear with constitutional indifference or philosophical resignation, and some with a disposition to believe and hope the best, was intolerable to Lady Forester, at once solitary and sensitive, low-spirited, and devoid of strength of mind, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... glanced at the brilliant face with an uneasy and yet half-unrealising sense of looking at a glowing light temporarily waning. The feeling had been unrealisable, because it was not to be explained. Betty was never ill, she was never low-spirited, she was never out of humour or afraid of things—that was why it was so wonderful to live with her. But—yes, it was true—there had been days when the strong, fine light of her had waned. Lady Anstruthers' comprehension ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... instead of using the proper pomatum for a gentleman. Yes, my tastes have always been high and fashionable, and I loathed the horrid company in which I was fallen. What chances had I of promotion? None of my relatives had money to buy me a commission, and I became soon so low-spirited, that I longed for a general action and a ball to finish me, and vowed that I would take some opportunity ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... lad! It'll comfort you and make you forget your troubles. There's a deal of comfort in a glass when you're low-spirited." ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... illness were that she ate little, slept little, coughed, and was always low-spirited. The doctors said that she could not get on without medical treatment, so they kept her in the stifling atmosphere of the town, and the Rostovs did not move to the ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... of all kinds of flowers scattered about, and they were hardly touched by the cold yet. If he had been in better heart, he would have liked to look round a little; but he felt strange, being there all alone, and he felt very low-spirited. ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... his lassitude, he went to see Therese, only to find her feverish, extremely low-spirited, and as weary ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... The Performance has not yet begun. The Audience is limited, and low-spirited, and may perhaps number—including the Attendants—eighteen. The only people in the front seats are, a man in full evening dress, which he tries to conceal under a caped cloak, and two Ladies in plush opera-cloaks. Fog is hanging about in the rafters, and the gas-stars sing a melancholy ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... Moultrie, Osceola was treated with much consideration; he was allowed to walk about the enclosure and to receive visitors in his room. Still he ate little and every day grew more wan and thin. All the chiefs were so low-spirited that great efforts were made to cheer them. A very popular actress was then playing at the Charleston theater, and knowing the Indian's love of whatever is gay and spectacular, the authorities at the fort decided to take the chiefs to the theater on ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... Napoleon] "may both go to the paper-maker, and I may take to smoking cigars and drinking grog, or turn devotee and intoxicate the brain another way."[52] He adds that when he sets to work doggedly, he is exactly the same man he ever was, "neither low-spirited nor distrait," nay, that adversity is to him "a tonic ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... is, that all sort of justice passes in the world for a low-spirited and vulgar virtue, far below the dignity of royal greatness. Or at least, there are set up two sorts of justice; the one is mean, and creeps on the ground, and therefore becomes none but the lower part of mankind, and so must be kept in severely by many restraints ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... had invaded the dinner table, but they had not thought of candles. They went straight out to the still garden. Valeria had a fan, with which she vainly tried to overcome the expression of the atmosphere. She was very low-spirited. Hadria looked ill and exhausted. Little Martha's name was not mentioned. It ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... with; do not expect too much of it; and be ready to humour it and yield to it a little. Just as a horse which is lame and broken-winded can yet by care and skill be made to get creditably through a wonderful amount of labour; so may a man, low-spirited, foolish, prejudiced, ill-tempered, soured, and wretched, be enabled to turn off a great deal of work for which the world may be the better. A human being who is really very weak and silly, may write many pages which shall do good to his fellow men, or which shall at the least amuse ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... up of a morning, produced by the strange manner in which I saw things going on in our family; and to dispel it in some degree, I had been in the habit of taking a dram before breakfast. On the morning in question, feeling particularly low-spirited when I thought of the foolish step our governor would probably take before evening, I took two drams before breakfast; and after breakfast, feeling my melancholy still continuing, I took another, which produced a slight effect upon my head, though I am convinced ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... will not answer for the consequences if Miss Garston nurses Gladys,' interposed Miss Darrell eagerly. 'You have no idea how she excites her. They talk, and have mysteries together, and Gladys is always more low-spirited when she has seen Miss Garston. You know I have only dear Gladys's interest at heart, and in a serious nervous illness like this—' But ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... look so serious? He was low-spirited. Rosa gazed at him with womanly, anxious eyes that love had sharpened. Her daddy was growing old. What a lot of lines he had in his face, lots of crooked lines like those the crows made in the snow with their feet. And still he was ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... black-letter edition of Froissart, printed by Eustace, upon the exterior of the binding of which are HENRY'S arms, with his name—HENRICVS DVX RICHMVNDIAE. The very view of such a book, while it gives comfort to a low-spirited bibliomaniac, adds energy to the perseverance of a young collector! the latter of whom fondly, but vainly, thinks he may one day be blessed with ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... by his masters. The medal aroused his enthusiasm; he at once gave the young fellow his daughter and took him as a partner, who would soon increase his millions now lying idle, since he knew all that was needful in order to build properly. Besides, by this arrangement poor Regine, always low-spirited and ailing, would at least have a husband ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... should smother myself in mud of my own making. I mean to come to Boston soon, not for a week but for a single day, and then I can talk about my sanitary prospects more freely than I choose to write. I am not low-spirited, nor fanciful, nor freakish, but look what seem to be realities in the face, and am ready to take whatever may come. If I could but go to England now, I think that the sea voyage and the 'Old Home' might set ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... each other like a pair of fighting-cocks had not flapped their wings or crowed at each other for a considerable time. The Reverend Mr. Fairweather had been dyspeptic and low-spirited of late, and was too languid for controversy. The Reverend Doctor Honeywood had been very busy with his benevolent associations, and had discoursed chiefly on practical matters, to the neglect of special doctrinal ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... called an amusing complaint, and I would have purchased a franc's worth of iodine for almost anybody on earth. Not then. On the contrary, I grew positively low-spirited when, after three more days, the lamentations began to diminish in volume. They were sweet music to my ears, at the time. They are sweeter by far, in retrospect. If only one could extract the same amount of innocent and durable ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... suit my purpose much better than trying to compose them myself. You must get the book for me. But, Edna, don't go to school to-day, stay at home with me; I am so lonely and low-spirited. I will tell Mr. Hammond that I could not spare you. Beside, I want you to help me arrange some valuable relics belonging to my son, and now that I think of it, he told me he wished you to use any of his books or MSS. that you might like to examine. This ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... addition to this, I found out from our footman that my father has already left the house twice, late at night, in company of X——, the Jesuit priest, and that on both occasions he did not return till morning. Each time he was remarkably uneasy and low-spirited after his return, and had three masses said for my dead mother. He also told me just now that he has to leave home this evening on business, but immediately he told me that, our footman saw the Jesuit go out of the house. We may, ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... Janet, who sat by him in low-spirited silence, was really suffering less than he. Oliver had undertaken the responsibility of returning the picture, and Oliver was a dependable boy who could manage it far better than she could. She thought little of what ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... tone, "but I will try and think less bitterly of that unpleasant affair in the future. I would be sorry to think that I had, even unintentionally, spoiled your life; but you will not feel so low-spirited when you get stronger. The best years of your life are yet before you, and I will soon drop out of your memory as entirely as if you had never known me. Forget me as soon as you can; that is the best wish ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... drink, as it were, oxygen from the air." This oxygen is the only stimulating drink we can take with lasting advantage to ourselves for the purpose of invigorating our strength. It is the wine and spirit of life, an abundance of which Nature has supplied us with ready-made. If you are low-spirited, drink oxygen. Take active exercise in the open air and inhale it. When next you see a lawn tennis player hard at a strenuous game, remember he or she is not necessarily overstraining or injuring health, but taking ...
— Lawn Tennis for Ladies • Mrs. Lambert Chambers
... low-spirited, his campaign had proved a disastrous failure. Instead of planning battles, he had planned pillaging and foraging expeditions, and his hungry and disaffected army had converted the rich fields of Bohemia into a gloomy and desolate waste. At last succoring winter came to the ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... he said; "but it was your hand that placed in mine that by which He is leading me. He surely must have put it into your heart to give me that Bible. When I reached my cheerless rooms in New York I felt so lonely and low-spirited that I had not the courage to go a single step further. But your Bible became a living, comforting presence from that night. What exquisite tact you showed in giving me that little worn companion of your childhood, instead of a new gilt- leaved one, with ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... an amiable humor; Elizabeth had been very queer all the way home. "High and mighty!" David said to himself; treating him as if he were a little boy, and she a young lady! "And I'm seventeen—the idea of her putting on such airs!" And now here was her uncle making his mother low-spirited. "Materna, I ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... he was ill, and exceedingly low-spirited, and persuaded that death was not far distant, I appeared before him in a dark-coloured gown, which his bad sight, and worse apprehensions, made him mistake for an iron-grey. "Why do you delight," said he, "thus to thicken the gloom ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... ashamed of himself," he grumbled, as he stood for a moment or two looking round in search of Dexter, but never looking above the brim of his broad straw hat, and the next moment Dexter was left alone seated in the crown of the old willow, very low-spirited and thoughtful, as he came down from his perch, brushed the bits of green from his clothes, and then walked slowly up toward the house, taking the other side of the garden; but of course coming right upon Dan'l, who followed ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... dream to the haughty lawyer the recollection must have been! Such things as this hurt Lincoln to the quick. He was so low-spirited at times in his early manhood that he did not dare to carry with him a pocket-knife, lest he should be overcome in some dark and evil moment to end his own life. There were times when his tendencies were so alarming that he ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... it begun to thicken up, and a kind of gray mist came over things; I got low-spirited directly. Then a silver rain began to fall. I could see the drops touch the ground; some flashed up like long pearl ear-rings, and the rest rolled away like round rubies. It was pretty, but melancholy. Then the pearls gathered themselves into long strands ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... in full health. Plenty of boys no older than he have gone out West by themselves, and fared perfectly well. But in Phil's condition that would never answer. He has a tendency to be low-spirited about himself too, and he ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... yet he could not help feeling that he lived among a strange people; nor did the remembrance of his sufferings and the cruel treatment he received at the hands of his fellow-countrymen subdue the affection which he cherished towards his native land. Pondering over the past, he became despondent and low-spirited; a morbid imagination caused him to brood over small troubles, and gloomy, melancholy thoughts possessed his mind—symptoms which seemed to presage the approach of some serious malady. One evening, when visiting at the house of a friend, he was seized with a painful illness, to which he succumbed ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... sultan, who one evening being somewhat low-spirited, sent for his vizier, and said, "I know not the cause, but my mind is uneasy, and I want something to divert it." "If so," replied the vizier, "I have a friend, named Mhamood al Hyjemmee, a celebrated traveller, who has witnessed many wonderful occurrences, and can relate a variety of astonishing ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... laughingly tried to argue him out of his conviction he took me up rather sharply with the assertion that, had I been of Irish birth or extraction, I would know better than to make light of the matter. To my amazement, he seemed quite depressed and low-spirited at the mere mention of it, so I quickly dropped the subject and asked him if during his watch he had observed anything to confirm his earlier suspicion that we might possibly be attacked. He admitted that he had not, ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... in a low-spirited sort of way, characteristic of Mrs. Beecot, but with a true motherly heart. After two pages of lamentation over his absence, and a description of how the head of the household managed to bear up against the affliction of his son's absence, Mrs. Beecot proceeded ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... whose breast she could excite love or the semblance of it was a contemptible cad. And who was she, that she should venture to hope for love? She figured herself as an item in a catalogue; "a little, ugly, low-spirited, absolutely penniless young woman, subject to nervous headaches." Her sobs were interrupted by a ghastly burst of self-mockery. Yes, Levi was right. She ought to think herself lucky to get him. Again, she asked herself what had existence to offer her. Gradually her ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... very hard to wait. Yet mamma needed me; she was nervous and low-spirited and unwell and lonely; she could not endure to have me long out of her sight. She never looked with favour upon any proposal of mine to go out, even for a walk; and I could hardly get permission. I fancied that ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... let us leave that poor fellow alone any longer. He seems very low-spirited about his mother. It's natural, you know; though I don't like to see a fellow blubbering just because he has hurt himself, or lost a peg-top, ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... higher consolation Hardy cooked up a big supper for his low-spirited partner, and after he had done the honors at the feast the irrepressible good health of the cowboy rose up and conquered his grief in spite of him. He began by telling the story of his orgy, which ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... dejected. Reck'-oned, calculated, counted. 3. Com-pos'er, an author of a piece of music. Or'ches-tra, a body of instrumental musicians. 7. Ap-prove', sanction, allow. 10. De-ject'ed, discouraged, low-spirited. ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Bertha grew low-spirited. She felt that she was not clever enough for Frau Rupius; she could never do any more than follow the ordinary lines of conversation, like the other women of her acquaintance. It seemed as though Frau Rupius had arranged an examination for her, which ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... shaking his head sagely. Benito puzzled, half resentful, gazed after him. He abandoned the walk to the dock and returned with low-spirited resignation to his tasks ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... smiling. "Life in the old dog yet, eh? But go in and see Lane. He's in the billiard-room, thinking over his sins and getting low-spirited." ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... to abide by his advice. I was sad and low-spirited; and Charlotte, pleading a bad head-ache, kissed her brother, received one from me, or, what in his estimation, only passed for one, and retired in tears, and I felt that the joy of my heart ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... a young man like you have to make him feel low-spirited, I should like to know? Moping about Marian, I shouldn't wonder. The girl is a good girl enough, if she'd only mind her own business, and not let people spoil her. And if you do like her, and must have her, why I shan't make no ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... frequent negligences of the sublimest authors of Greece, 'Those godlike geniuses,' says Longinus, 'were well assured, that Nature had not intended man for a low-spirited or ignoble being: but bringing us into life and the midst of this wide universe, as before a multitude assembled at some heroic solemnity, that we might be spectators of all her magnificence, and candidates high in emulation for the ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... money for our school. I cannot, in words, express the valuable aid these people gave us in our work. Sometimes when I had worked hard all day with poor results, I would go to their home in the evening discouraged and low-spirited, but would always find there a hearty welcome and a word of cheer. I would always leave with new zeal and fresh courage. Their home has been to me a home now for twenty years and although they are now dead, I never go to Boston but that I find time to go out to Mt. Auburn and put a fresh ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards
... in the dumps; low-spirited, melancholy: jocularly said to be derived from Dumpos, a king of Egypt, who died of melancholy. Dumps are also small pieces of lead, cast by schoolboys in the ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... hill at some distance from the house, but was afraid to approach us, until the interpreter went and told her that neither we nor the Indian who remained with us, would prevent her from going where she pleased. Upon this she came to solicit a fire-steel and kettle. She was at first low-spirited, from the non-arrival of a country-woman who had promised to elope with her, but had probably been too narrowly watched. The Indian hunter, however, having given her some directions as to the proper mode of ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... uncle hopes, if you can get a few days' leave, that you will come down here before you join, and I hope so too; for he is unusually low-spirited, and talks about his never seeing you again, and ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever |
