"Dismally" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Edna," he interjected quickly. "I may never be famous. I may be obscure, and we may be poor, relatively speaking, all our lives," and he sighed dismally. ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... the steer fall. He went down heavily, the impetus of his charge proving his undoing; he struck heavily on head and shoulder, grunting dismally, his hind quarters rising in the air, balancing there for an infinitesimal space and then ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Berwick, we had to go round through the hills by Kelso, as there was a block on the main line. I knew nothing of this, and you may imagine my bewilderment when I came to myself, the train standing and whistling dismally in the black morning, before a little vacant half-lit station, with a name up that I had never heard before. My fellow-traveller woke up and wanted to know what was wrong. "O, it's nothing," I said, "nothing at all, it's an evil dream." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at the platforms outside the successive stories. The weather was growing very cold, a storm was coming up, and the wind soughed and whined dismally around the eaves. ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... rallied again, but did not come quite so near the strangers as before, keeping at the distance of about ten yards, as if they supposed that were sufficient to ensure their safety from the muskets. Their consternation was however very great, and they howled and lamented dismally. After all, as if to employ every possible means to mollify their invaders, the men, women, and children presented themselves in the most humble postures, carrying branches of palm in token of peace and submission, bringing plenty of provisions of all kinds, and even pointing ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... and thenceforward across all the States, and on to the shores of the Pacific, this knowledge grew more clear and melancholy. Emigration, from a word of the most cheerful import, came to sound most dismally in my ear. There is nothing more agreeable to picture and nothing more pathetic to behold. The abstract idea, as conceived at home, is hopeful and adventurous. A young man, you fancy, scorning restraints and helpers, issues forth into life, that great battle, to fight for his own hand. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... silent. He wanted to get up and rush at Dan, despite the levelled pistol, but the wounded knee held him back. Had he been a full-blooded Indian he would have suffered in silence, but, being only a half-breed, and of poor Indian and white blood at that, he groaned dismally. ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... telling Miss Russell what bad marks I got this morning," said Effie Hargreaves dismally. "She threatened last week to report me if I had another cross for history, and I missed five times, and four times in literature, and all my problems were ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... his head dismally and pointed ashore, and Mr. Chalk, following the direction of his finger, gazed spellbound at a figure which was signalling wildly from the highest point. Tredgold and Stobell, approaching the side, waved their handkerchiefs ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... sat motionless, and Newman hardly knew what to say to him. The old man looked dismally foolish. "So you determined not to shoot her, after all," ...
— The American • Henry James
... up a shrill call. Two white sheets fluttered dismally. But the great steamer, on her way to Baltimore, neither heard the sound nor saw the white signals of distress. It was ten times more dismal when the friendly smoke had dissolved in ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... It rained dismally, and I sat in the stuffy cabin, either peering at the country through the window or talking with a young Dutchman, the only other traveller. At one village a boy was engaged in house-cleaning by immersing the furniture, piece by piece, bodily in the canal. Now and then we met a barge in full sail ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... always chiming together, or taking up each other's melodies at every pause, my wife the key-clapper of all. A very sweet ringing, and pealing, and chiming, I confess; but then, the most silvery of bells may, sometimes, dismally toll, as well as merrily play. And as touching the subject in question, it became so now. Perceiving a strange relapse of opposition in me, wife and daughters began a soft and ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... and condoned perversion to vulgarity of Musset's perfect little work. How could quality of talent consort with so dire an absence of quality in the material offered it? where could such lapses lead but to dust and desolation and what happy instinct not be smothered in an air so dismally non-conducting? Is it a foolish fallacy that these matters may have been on occasion, at that time, worth speaking of? is it only presumable that everything was perfectly cheap and common and everyone perfectly bad and barbarous and that even the least corruptible ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... of the cells, the chapel, and the refectory. In the refectory, a vast hall where the tables still stood in their places, Roland noticed five or six bats circling around; a frightened owl flew through a broken casement, and perched upon a tree close by, hooting dismally. ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... disappointed anguish escaping her lips. The candle had burned out in the grease cup, the wind was rocking the shanty and making the rafters creak dismally. Tess shivered as she tossed her clothes upon the floor, and crept exhausted into Daddy's bed. The last thing she heard was the splashing of her ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... We were dismally sea-sick. And I cared for nothing but arriving. Oh! dear, I think I would even have given up Paris, at least I thought so. But, oh! how could I think so! Just fancy a place where not only your own maid speaks French, ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... wind soughing dismally among the rafters responded to her call, uttered with her loudest voice, and a fresh shiver of fear crept over her. Then she rallied, growing angry, which, under the circumstances, was the best thing that could have happened. Her indignation made her half-forget her terror ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... but five or six communicants remained to tell their experience in the class-meeting. Paul's father gave him permission to go into the yard if he liked, and the boy got into the sulky, beneath the buffalo, and heard the sobs and hymns floating dismally on the wind. Grim shapes thronged his mind again, wherein the Bible stories were mingled with tales of ghosts and strange nursery fables. They chased each other in and out, generating others as they went, and then came ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... business, and laughers without occasion; as you tender the welfare of your country, I entreat you not to forget or delay so public-spirited a work. Now or never is the time. Many other calamities may cease with the war; but I dismally dread the multiplication of these mortals under the ease and luxuriousness of a settled peace, half the blessing of which may be destroyed by them. Their mistake lies certainly here, in a wretched belief, that their mimicry passes for real business, or true wit. Dear sir, convince ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... dismally. "There was not much chance of fun on that long march; on board ship there was a storm all the way; then we were kept on board the transport at Cork nearly three months. Everyone was out of temper, and a mouse would not have dared ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... night. It cannot have been owing to the turkey or the beef,—and the Wassail is out of the question—but in every endeavour that I made to get to sleep I failed most dismally. I was never asleep; and in whatsoever unreasonable direction my mind rambled, the effigy of Master Richard Watts ...
— The Seven Poor Travellers • Charles Dickens
... creature, who is at the same time in love with Lady Mary Coke, and following the Duchess of Grafton and Loo all over the kingdom. In short, my lord, I have got the gout-yes, the gout in earnest. I was seized on Monday morning, suffered dismally all night, am now wrapped in flannels like the picture of a Morocco ambassador, and am carried to bed by two servants. You see virtue and leanness are no preservatives. I write this now to your lordship, because I think it totally impossible that I should be able to set out the day after to-morrow, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... He sat at the window all afternoon, dismally trying to devise way of escape from the dilemma. He did not succeed. He had gone too far now to make a confession sound reasonably convincing; and he could not desert the girl to Dale. That was not to be thought of. ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... but one, dearie. And a feather bed!" All this as she bustled to and fro, and very quietly despite her size, while I sat gazing into the fire and hearkening to the patter of rain on the windows and the wind that howled dismally without and rumbled in the wide chimney so that I must needs wonder how it fared with the travellers and if I should ever see either of ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... morning there was rain, and the air freshened, but the leaden sea lay level as before. The sun shone in the afternoon; with the sunset the fog came thick and white; the ship lowed dismally through the night; from the dense folds of the mist answering noises called back to her. Just before dark two men in a dory shouted up to her close under her bows, and then melted out of sight; when the dark fell the lights ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... he once more pelted forward, Matcham trailing in the rear. To say truth, they made but poor speed of it by now, labouring dismally as they ran, and catching for their breath like fish. Matcham had a cruel stitch, and his head swam; and as for Dick, his knees were like lead. But they kept up the form of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... by the blast through the loose windows, flapped dismally, and the people drew their wraps about them, for the fireless room was cold. Steadily, insistently, the hive-like drone of conversation ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... kitchen door and tapped lightly. There was no answer, but somewhere within the house a dog howled dismally. The door handle yielded to his touch when he tried ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... below zero. On such nights, while the trees of the surrounding forest here and there begin to be so penetrated with the fierce cold that they crack like rifle-shots, the ice-bound lake sets up an unearthly groaning, and the cavernous sound of its bellowing echoes dismally over the sleeping village, like the trumpetings of some huge ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... floating ice under the sky of July. The scanty grass around it forms a thick, low turf, which is studded with bodiless blue gentians, primroses, and other Alpine flowers. Overhanging the lake are the frost-bitten crags of the Mountain of Death; and the other mountains about, though less dismally named, are not more cheerful to the traveler. Along the lake margin winds the narrow bridle-path, which follows rushing rivulets in zigzags down steep flower-carpeted slopes to the pine woods of Saint Remy, ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... bidding accomplished, turned to meet Hilarius and the Friar who were now coming slowly across the windswept common. March mists gathered and draped the sluggish river; the dry reeds rattled dismally in the ooze and sedge. Hilarius shivered, and the Friar started nervously when ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless
... has been put to the door I can watch it out of the loophole where, with its fellows, it raves and threatens in dumb show. Years ago when that thought was young, it was dearer to me than all others, and I would speak with it always when I had an hour alone. These rags that so dismally trick forth its madness were once the splendid livery my favour wrought for it on my bed at night. Can you see the device on the badge? I dare not read it there myself, yet have a guess—'bad ware nicht'—is not ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... itself, and brought up nowhere. The treasuries of local speech were all too poor to clothe so wild a venture. It was agreed that there's no fool like an old fool, and that folks who ride to market may come home afoot. Everybody forgot that Amelia had had no previous romance, and dismally pictured her as going through the woods, and getting a crooked stick at last. Even the milder among her judges were not content with prophesying the betrayal of her trust alone. They argued from the tramp nature to inevitable results, and declared it would be a mercy if she were not murdered ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... dismally over a bottle of good wine, Blaise. Therefore, I intend to stop at the first inn on the way. I hope it is a good one, for I am ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the table, and the precious silver forks, and the old bronze image, keeping its solitary stand upon the mantelpiece. Then, methought, the wretched Vigwiggie came, and jumped upon the window-sill, and clung there with her fore paws, mewing dismally for admittance, which I could not grant her, being there myself only in the spirit. And then came the ghost of the old Doctor, stalking through the gallery, and down the staircase, and peeping into the parlor; and ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... boxful of wax matches. I resumed the bellows. I lunged with the poker. I held a newspaper over the whole grate. I did all that inspiration could suggest, or skill accomplish. Vainly. The fire went out—darkly, dismally, gradually, quite out. ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... still some gray light left, but the little lady who sat dismally on her husband's right, occasionally peering through the window, could make nothing of the landscape, because of the driving scuds of rain which drenched the carriage windows, as though in their mad charges from the trailing clouds in front, they disputed every inch of the miry way with the ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... remembering the advice, and unconscious of the danger, stood her ground as a great hawk came circling nearer and nearer, till, with a sudden dart he pounced on the poor chicken, and bore it away chirping dismally, ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... running over the table-cloth and mosquitoes biting her ankles, she could have them, but they would have the ranch. To Druro's surprise and relief, she laughed and gave in quite pleasantly. Being a man, he could not know that, at that very moment, she was dismally deciding that, considering all that had passed, she could not ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... March dismally. "I don't b'lieve it can make me worse, an' perhaps it'll make me better. I wonder what in the world pain was ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... have I done to-day? Moped dismally till evening, and then muffled myself in furs; sat down among cushions and buffalo robes in the omnibus-sleigh, beside ——, shall I write it? yes! beside Rufus Malcome, and dashed away over the snow-clad earth to the music of merry bells ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... Not that he had moved there, oh, no! He could not have endured life if all of it that he could call his own had to be spent in that atmosphere. He still kept his little fourth floor back in the dismally respectable street. He had not gone to the place recommended by Endicott, because he found that the difference he would have to pay would make it possible for him to rent this sad little room near the alley; and for his purposes this seemed to him ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... came within sight of the house, and saw that Trabb and Co. had put in a funereal execution and taken possession. Two dismally absurd persons, each ostentatiously exhibiting a crutch done up in a black bandage,—as if that instrument could possibly communicate any comfort to anybody,—were posted at the front door; and in one of them I recognized a postboy discharged from the Boar ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... in, and kissed him thrice; and after he had kissed him kept fast hold of his hand until they came together through the hall into the great room where Cicely was sitting quite dismally ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... gone to see the last resting-place destined for him in the little village churchyard. It was a dreary patch of ground which looked as if the suns ray's never penetrated through its high walls on the graves below. Crumbling grey-lichened headstones peeped dismally from among the long dank grass, and the little paths were overgrown with weeds. Everywhere there were traces of unloving carelessness of the dead. And though Grace knew full well that the silent sleepers below little heeded this selfish forgetfulness, these surroundings sent a ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... throws into the black-balling of some evil tongue—some too harsh and too powerful critic of the moment. 'Scamped and empty work,' in which 'ideas not worth stating' find an expression 'not worth criticism.' Mannerisms grown to absurdity; faults of early training writ dismally large; vulgarity of conception and carelessness of execution—no stone that could hurt or sting was left unflung, and the note of meditative pity in which the article came to an end, marked the climax of a very neat revenge. After reading it, Fenwick felt himself artistically ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the rope, the further end of which was rove through the ring of a small grapnel anchor half buried in the spongy earth. "Gone!" he echoed dismally. ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... in its jaws, and the little body, with its stuck-out webbed feet, flapped and flopped dismally from side to side, as the animal cantered along with a somewhat shuffling, undulating gait. And then the polecat became transfixed. He had recognized the new-comer. He knew the breed, and would have given a lot not to have molested that redshank's ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... said Rachel, dismally. "Anybody might know by the noise who it is. He always comes stamping along as if he was paid for makin' a noise. Anybody ought to have a cast-iron head that lives anywhere within ...
— Jack's Ward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... who know what they want, and used words he had never met with before out of a newspaper. He felt himself no match for her, and ended the discussion by saying: "That's all moonshine—you shan't go! D'ye hear me?" but he felt dismally sure that she would go, ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... The mother was beautiful as a woman, the daughter beautiful as a child; not even love could say so much now. Their hair is long, unkempt, and strangely white; they make us shrink and shudder with an indefinable repulsion, though the effect may be from an illusory glozing of the light glimmering dismally through the unhealthy murk; or they may be enduring the tortures of hunger and thirst, not having had to eat or drink since their servant, the convict, was taken ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... Colonel so that he waved a feeble hand above his head, then groaned most dismally, and ground his teeth ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... on a lonely branch, croaked dismally, till Andy fancied he could hear words of reproach in the sounds, while a little tomtit chattered and twittered on a neighbouring bough, as if he enjoyed and approved of all the severe things the raven uttered. The little tomtit ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... did." He touched a button and a music-box in the dragon's head began to play a tune. At once the little charioteer pulled over a lever and the dragon began to move—very slowly and groaning dismally as it drew the clumsy chariot after it. Toto trotted between the wheels. The Sawhorse, the Mule, the Lion and the Woozy followed after and had no trouble in keeping up with the machine; indeed, they had to go slow to keep from running into it. When the wheels turned ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... warm arms round his neck half throttle ME, The hot love-tears burn deep like spots of lead, Yea, and the years pass quick: right dismally Will Launcelot at ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... fain to laugh, so dismally did the broad-shouldered Mercian blame himself. But the bishop said that if I went, needs must that he came also. But he did not dissuade me ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... a remarkably cheerful voice, but the appalling magnitude of three years could not be diminished, and the three little sisters who were to stay behind with Aunt Raby were still disposed to view things dismally. ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... it best as it wur afore." As he spoke the head disappeared, and they heard him go clumping down the ladder again. The words fell heavily on Lilac's ears. "Best as it wur afore." Perhaps everyone would think so too. She looked dismally first at the locks of hair on the ground and then at Agnetta's ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... so dismally recalled Leonidas's late feelings that his face clouded, and he involuntarily sighed. The stranger instantly shifted his head and gazed curiously at him. Then he took the boy's sunburnt hand in his own, and held it a moment. "Well, go ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... visible from where I am; it rises behind and beyond the wall. I stay taking compass bearings and look for an easy way up for to-morrow. My men, by now, have missed their "ma" and are yelling for her dismally, and the night comes down with great rapidity for we are in the shadow of the great mountain mass, so I go back into camp. Alas! how vain are often our most energetic efforts to remove our fellow creatures ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... streak of lightning. The one we killed was a male and had a good coat—a rather unusual thing for a dingo, as the skin is often covered with sores. From that time, till we broke up camp, we were not often troubled by their howling near us—a gun shot would quickly silence their dismally infernal howls. ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... trying to get something for Meg, who is very tired, and someone shook me, and here I am in a nice state," answered Jo, glancing dismally from the stained ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... and silent, but outside the wind howled dismally and drove the rain with repeated assaults against the rattling windows. How nice it would be—the thought flashed through his mind—if all winds, like the west wind, went down with the sun! They made such fiendish noises at night, like the crying of angry voices. In the daytime they had such ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... to think is really a pretty important matter, if you find some night that you have to watch with a sick friend. You must not read, write, or talk there. But you must keep awake. Unless you mean to have the time pass dismally slow, you must have your regular topics to think ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... afternoon—a face concave and long, with a jaw which divested of flesh would have seemed extravagant: altogether a chinny face though not at all ill-looking. He was feeling more strongly than ever that Timothy's was hopelessly 'rum-ti-too' and the souls of his aunts dismally mid-Victorian. The subject on which alone he wanted to talk—his own undivorced position—was unspeakable. And yet it occupied his mind to the exclusion of all else. It was only since the Spring that this had been so and a new feeling grown ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... uncommon wealth of golden blossoms. "The lanes looked for all the world as they did the year that poor child was found," said Thomasina, wiping her eyes. Annie the lass sobbed hysterically, and the cowherd found himself so low in spirits that after gazing dismally at the cowstalls, which had not been cleaned for days past, he betook himself to the ale-house to refresh his energies for this ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... netted them another yard in the same place. Then Paul was given the pigskin for a try outside of right tackle and reeled off four yards more before he was downed. It was quick starting and fast running, and for the moment Robinson was taken off her feet; but the next try ended dismally, for in an attempt to get through the left of the line between guard and tackle Mason was caught and thrown back for a two-yard loss. Another try outside of tackle on that side of the line netted but a bare three feet, and Foster dropped back for a kick. His effort ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Gray Stoddard married to Johnnie! He tried to adjust his dull wits to the new position of affairs; tried to cipher the problem with this amazing new element introduced. Last night's scene of violence when the injured child was brought home went dismally before his eyes. Laurella had said she would leave him so soon as she could put foot to the floor. He had expected to coax her with gifts and money, with concessions in regard to the children if it must be; but with a rich man for a son-in-law, ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... day that Ena began to sneeze so dismally that the only place for her was bed. And when she could leave its seclusion the next only place was Palm Beach. She said she would die unless she could go to Palm Beach, so mother took her, and Peter took them both, not ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... forward suddenly with his cane and pushed the button in the grass so that the picture below went out instantly, and there remained only that great dark mouth covered dismally with the black teeth of ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... upon the room. Only the breathing of the dog upon the mat came through the deep stillness, like the pulse of time marking the minutes; and the steady drip, drip of the fog outside upon the window-ledges dismally testified to the inclemency of the night beyond. And the soft crashings of the coals as the fire settled down into the grate became less and less audible as the fire sank and the flames resigned ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... mist-filled ravines, through gloomy woods where no light entered, and over bare ridges where the big stars sparkled just over his ears as he hung, limp as a rabbit skin, from his mother's great jaws. An owl hooted dismally, whoo-hooo! and though he knew the sound well in his peaceful nights, it brought now a certain shiver. The wind went sniffing suspiciously among the spruce branches; a startled bird chirped and ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... passed over St. Ange in the late afternoon, had changed the sultry heat to ominous chill. The wind among the pines sobbed dismally as if it were a ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... middle of a field which had been ploughed up all over by the heavy wheels of cannons. The rest of the ground had been trampled by horses' feet and the cold had hardened the little ridges of earth, leaving icicles here and there, which glittered dismally in ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... dismally. "Me and Johnnie don't ask for nothin' better than to bask in each other's company; but our wives insists on keepin' up the manoeuvres of a war-dance ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... put in a fresh pair o' sleeves or set on a button that's missin'. Sure, ye didn't think Cleena was one would be leavin' her childer bring in all the wage. Only—" and the good creature's fine face clouded dismally. ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... picked up the children and threw them upon the bank, and then strode out, and tried to shake myself, as I have seen a Newfoundland dog do. The shake was not a success—it caused my trouser's legs to flap dismally about my ankles, and sent the streams of treacherous ooze trickling down into my shoes. My hat, of drab felt, had fallen off by the brookside, and been plentifully spattered as I ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... person. In 1803, while on a visit to the Lake Country, Hazlitt had painted a portrait of Wordsworth. "He has painted Wordsworth," writes Southey, "but so dismally, though Wordsworth's face is his idea of physiognomical perfection, that one of his friends, on seeing it, exclaimed, 'At the gallows—deeply affected by his deserved fate—yet determined to die like a man;' and if you saw the picture, you would ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... he panted dismally, fanning himself with a large fern leaf. "History was better—anything ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... his drum. Goldsmith (D. V. 44) calls the bird "the hollow-sounding bittern;" and in his Animated Nature, he says that of all the notes of waterfowl "there is none so dismally hollow as the ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... directly," he said at last, sitting up and looking dismally about him; "and it's nearly five o'clock. She said she would be here at four. Ugh! how cold it is! If she doesn't come in five minutes I shall go to the Spotted Dog. There's always a fire there, thank goodness, and they'll stand me a glass of ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... any one to tell me that now was my time; but it was with limbs that almost refused their office from sheer fright, that I crept past the sleeping man, and reached the edge of the wharf. There was the vessel moving very slightly, and groaning dismally as she moved, and there was the hole, and it was temptingly dark. But—the gangway that had been laid across from the wharf was gone! I could have jumped the chasm easily with a run, but I dared not take a run. If I did it at all ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Chazelle [dismally]. "Disgusting business! I don't see why we should be treated like slaves because the government gives us four francs and sixty-five ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... Church or adventurous free-companion who might not, indeed, command—for there were none who could do that—but hope for the lady's kindness. Although I assured myself lustily that a poet was as good as a prince, in my heart, and in the presence of all this luxury, I knew very dismally that it was not so, and that Monna Vittoria would never be persuaded to think so. As I have already said, I had no great yearning for these magnificent mercenaries of the hosts of Love, for these bejewelled amazons that seemed made merely ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... time of the morning there are comparatively few people out in that part of the town. The broad interminable perspective of the East India Dock Road, the great perspective of drab brick walls, of grey pavement, of muddy roadway rumbling dismally with loaded carts and vans lost itself in the distance, imposing and shabby in its spacious meanness of aspect, in its immeasurable poverty of forms, of colouring, of life—under a harsh, unconcerned sky dried by the wind to a clear blue. It had been raining during the night. ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... some amusement Rachel's utter absence of small dexterities, and of even the effort to avoid the humiliation of a confession of her error. Miss Grey and a boy partner had wandered into the conservatory, and were rather dismally trying to seem occupied with the camellias when Rachel made her way to them, and though he could not actually hear the words, he knew pretty well what they were. "Emily, you were right after all, and I was mistaken," and then as ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... love, the neighbours far and near, Follow'd with wistful looks the damsel's bier; Sprigg'd rosemary the lads and lasses bore, While dismally the parson walk'd before. Upon her grave the rosemary ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... of his age seldom have a natural pleasure in soap and water. Therefore, not to mention his clothes, which had seen three months' service in mire and dust, and his thick uncombed hair, the surface of his face and hands was dismally beclouded. He might well skulk behind the settle, on beholding such a bright, graceful damsel enter the house, instead of a rough-headed counterpart of himself, as he expected. 'Is Heathcliff not here?' she demanded, pulling off her gloves, and displaying fingers ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... something anon, Dick," rejoined Nicholas, with a hollow laugh, and in a dismally deep tone. "You will see Isole herself. I was foolhardy enough to invite her to dance the brawl with me. She smiled her assent, and winked at me thus—very significantly, I protest to you—and she will be ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... break all the morning. The two teams, after hanging about dismally, and whiling the time away with stump-cricket in the changing-rooms, lunched in the pavilion at one o'clock. After which the M.C.C. captain, approaching Adair, moved that this merry meeting be considered off and himself and his men permitted to catch the next train ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... as all his confidence in the righteousness of his cause, to keep his heart from fluttering with fear as they stepped along beneath the gloom of the trees, which even when not in leaf cast dense shadows around them. It was in truth a weird spot: owls hooted dismally about them, bats flitted here and there in their erratic flight, and sometimes almost brushed the faces of the boys with their clammy wings. The strange noises always to be heard in a wood at night assailed their ears, and mingled with the quick ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... dismally, "I suppose I am. I—By Jingo," he cried, with sudden animation, "perhaps you can give me a lift here. I never thought of that. I say, mamma; I am in great trouble at present, and I think you can ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... brick chimney, the wind fought for entrance from above, rain beat dismally upon the high windows. The fire died down again, seeming to retire into the mound of grey ashes which it had created; and the ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... hours in reading aloud to her small guests, exhibited a tendency to tears and self-pity. Mr Hallett, disappointed of a hoped-for holiday with his friend as companion, shrugged his shoulders, and inquired dismally: "What can you expect? Things always go wrong in ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... who embellishes it, and passes it along as a fact. He goes into details, tells harrowing stories concerning hair-raising escapes from shot and shell. He splashes the surrounding rocks with gouts of blood, and then shudders dismally at the sight his fancy has conjured up. When the thrilled listener has refreshed the tale-teller from his whisky flask, the romancist takes up the thread of his narrative once more, and tells how the Lancers thundered over the shivering veldts in pursuit of flying ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... it is," she said, "I'm not one bit superstitious, but Bruno howled so dismally under my window all night, and when he ceased, a horrid owl set up a screech. I told Maria, and she said, in her country the cry of an owl was a sign that the grave was about to give up its dead, and she looked so mysterious that she frightened me ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... daidokoro, a party of storm-bound students, horses, fowls, and dogs. My room is a wretched loft, reached by a ladder, with such a quagmire at its foot that I have to descend into it in Wellington boots. It was dismally grotesque at first. The torrent on the unceiled roof prevented Ito from hearing what I said, the bed was soaked, and the water, having got into my box, had dissolved the remains of the condensed milk, and had reduced clothes, books, and paper into a condition of universal ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... brilliantly in salons and conversazioni, and spent their time in masking and throwing confetti in carnival, and going to balls and opera. I didn't know what American tourists were, then, and how dismally they moped about in hotels and galleries and churches. And I didn't know how stupid Europe was socially,—how perfectly dead and buried it was, especially for young people. It would be fun if things ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... went the pair, down a narrow road lined on either side with palms and plantains and sweet-smelling shrubs. From the hollows the frogs croaked dismally, and here and there a night bird uttered its lonely cry, but otherwise all ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... her worst spasm. We hung grimly on to the chute, dismally confident that something would have to give way soon. Suddenly there was a rending sound; the seam of the canvas ripped open and a gaping slit appeared, through which Cook's freed arm flapped wildly. Then ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 14, 1917 • Various
... and dashed out of the hall, as he proposed to dash out of her life, with terrible, sinking thoughts in his brain, and his heart pounding dismally against his ribs. He recovered his coat ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... time in hand, suffer'd unspeakable miseries,—owing to a succession of exfoliations from the os pubis, and the outward edge of that part of the coxendix called the os illium,—both which bones were dismally crush'd, as much by the irregularity of the stone, which I told you was broke off the parapet,—as by its size,—(tho' it was pretty large) which inclined the surgeon all along to think, that the great injury which it had done my uncle Toby's groin, was more owing to ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... dismally that she would try, but her head shook with more feebleness than usual as she ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... her childhood in New England. She could barely remember the old white farmhouse with its faded green shutters that rattled so dismally in the piercing winds that seemed to single out the Knight house as it swept down between the hills. She recalled vividly the discussion carried on between her parents in regard to their mode of moving ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... wheel-marks of the trail to Utah often ran parallel with the track, and bones of oxen were bleaching in the sun, the remains of those "whose carcasses fell in the wilderness" on the long and drouthy journey. The daybreak of to-day (Sunday) found us shivering at Fort Laramie, a frontier post dismally situated at a height of 7,000 feet. Another 1,000 feet over gravelly levels brought us to Sherman, the highest level reached by this railroad. From this point eastward the streams fall into the Atlantic. The ascent of these ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... never forgive us," said Ismay, dismally. "I had a presentiment of trouble the moment that ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... was thus dismally shrouded, the prospect was not obscured. Down in the valley of the Rhone behind them, the stream could be traced through all its many windings, oppressively sombre and solemn in its one leaden hue, a colourless waste. Far and high above them, glaciers ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... send your boy for a carriage," said the doctor, who was engaged in removing Mrs. Stiles's shoe. "Nothing else, thank you, unless you happen to have some lead-water about you." He gave a professional smile, and Mrs. Stiles groaned dismally. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... excellent qualities of our ship; but I could not help feeling the utter hopelessness of hope itself, and prepared myself gloomily for that death which I thought nothing could defer beyond an hour, as, with every knot of way the ship made, the swelling of the black stupendous seas became more dismally appalling. At times we gasped for breath at an elevation beyond the albatross—at times became dizzy with the velocity of our descent into some watery hell, where the air grew stagnant, and no sound disturbed ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... from any book she desired; an offer involving no small degree of self-denial, for Sophia's books were very rarely interesting, or even intelligible, to her sister. But she lifted the nearest two, Barret's "Maga," and "The Veiled Prophet," and rather dismally asked which it was ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... there, and departed. The truth at length came out—that these two smart Parisian lasses, having a fortnight before them, had determined to give up their places, and play the mascarade which I have described. When M. and Madame de Mourairef, two respectable, middle-aged people, arrived, they were dismally made acquainted with the sacrilege that had been committed; but as no debts had been contracted in their name, and their letters came in a parcel by the post from Orleans, they laughed heartily at the joke, and enjoyed the idea that Sophie ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... sitting down on the opposite side of the hearth, while the fire, on which Hemstead had thrown some damp green wood, smoked dismally between them, "I do think ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... a great Expedition set on foot to go and find out Mrs. Fielding; and to be dismally penitent to that excellent gentlewoman; and to bring her back, by force, if needful, to be happy and forgiving. And when the Expedition first discovered her, she would listen to no terms at all, but said, an unspeakable number of times, ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... seemed literally stunned and wholly incapable of action, while the negroes howled dismally for Mas'r Hugh, who, Chloe said, ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... floating swiftly down, and, closer at hand, something white rolling over and over, and he shuddered; but it was only the carcase of a drowned sheep, one of several more which had probably been surrounded in some meadow and swept away. Directly after, lowing dismally, and swimming hard to save itself, a bullock came down rapidly, with its muzzle and a narrow line of backbone ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... gentle swine, To ease her itch against the stump, And dismally was heard to whine, All as she scrubb'd ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... a prejudice against the hydropathic treatment of wounds, holding that water poisons them: and, as the native produce usually contains salt, soda and magnesia, they are justified by many cases. I once tried water-bandages in Arabia and failed dismally. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... man volunteered to stay and hold the camp while the remaining three should go the Sullivan county miles to a farmhouse for supplies. They gazed at him dismally. "There's only one of you—the devil make a twin," they said in parting malediction, and disappeared down the hill in the known direction of a distant cabin. When it came night and the hemlocks began to sob they had not returned. The little man sat close to his companion, the campfire, and encouraged ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... vetturino agreed to take us to Florence that night for five francs a piece, provided one person would sit on the outside with the driver. I accordingly mounted on front, protected by a blouse and umbrella, for it was beginning to rain dismally. The miserable, bare-boned horses were fastened with rope-traces, and the vetturino having taken the rope-lines in his hand, gave a flourish with his whip; one old horse tumbled nearly to the ground, but he jerked him up ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... at him with her large dark eyes, and then, all at once, she remembered Dandy, her husband's terrier, who, after his master's tragic death, had refused all food, and had howled so long and so dismally that, in a fit of temper, she had herself ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... said Julia, when she had brought him back to the library fire again, and they were seated before it. "Don't you want to smoke?" He shook his head dismally, having no heart for what she proposed. "Well, then," she said briskly, but a little ruefully, "let's get to the bottom of things. Just what did you mean you had 'in black and white' in ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... fat boy sat there, apparently lost in bitter reflections. Now and then he would give a start, and look around him hastily, after which he would heave a great sigh, or else groan dismally. From this it might be assumed that Bumpus was allowing himself to dwell upon many a glorious supper he had devoured in the company of his Boy Scout chums; and just then he was enjoying things the best he knew how, he would remember the desolation ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... guard and see him safely bestowed—in the lock-up aft, and bring the key to my cabin." So at Godby's word, in came two armed fellows and marched out Resolution Day, his head still bowed and his fetters jangling dismally. ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... cry rent the still evening air, and shrieked dismally back from the distant hills and the gray, ghostly mountain- -and the child fell on her face at ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... him stood the negro-driver, a tattooed African, armed with a whip. All within the court swarmed the black bees of the hive,—the men with little clothing, the small children naked, the women decent. All had their little charcoal fires, with pots boiling over them; the rooms within looked dismally dark, close, and dirty; there are no windows, no air and light save through the ever-open door. The beds are sometimes partitioned off by a screen of dried palm-leaf, but I saw no better sleeping-privilege than a board with a blanket or coverlet. From this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... surprising intellectual strength the average cabby displays when you promise him a tip.... Great Heavens!" he cried, reading the girl's dismayed expression. "A tip! I never thought—!" His face lengthened dismally, his eyebrows working awry. "Now we are ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... was, indeed, a far more warlike time than was 1862. "Great war" is now confined to the territory of the United States, and exists neither in Asia, Africa, nor Europe. Garibaldi's laudable attempt to get it up in Italy failed dismally. There was a flash of spirit, and there were a few flashes of gunpowder, and all was over. "The rest is silence." There are numerous questions unsettled in the Old World, but the disputants are inclined to wait for settlement, it would seem, until our affairs ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... head dismally, and leaned his hot forehead against the pane. Neither of them spoke again until they reached Manhattan Transfer, where they changed ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... It was not that it had come back empty to her side that made her sad. If occasionally she was moved by a little bitterness about her brief existence, it was rather because the kind of things with which her outstretched hand had been filled were so dismally unsatisfying. She counted the men she had been compelled to refuse. They numbered only two, but there were at least three others whom she had never allowed to get as far ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... beat again in the empty streets and pour across the vacant squares. Whatever destruction was done, the hand of the destroyer was stayed. All the gaunt wrecks, the blackened skeletons of houses that stared so dismally at the sunlit grass of the hill, would presently be echoing with the hammers of the restorers and ringing with the tapping of their trowels. At the thought I extended my hands towards the sky and began thanking God. In a year, thought ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... not only that winter had stripped the elm, and blackened the flower-borders: the house itself had a debased and deserted air. The window-panes were cracked and dirty, and one or two shutters swung dismally on ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... against the black, precipitous sides of the giant liner which, under a full head of steam, vibrated with suppressed energy, straining at mighty cables as if impatient to start on her long and hazardous voyage across the tumbling seas. A raw, piercing northeaster, howling dismally above the monotonous creaking and puffing of the donkey-engine, swept through the cheerless, draughty dock, chilling the spectators to the marrow. The sun, vainly trying to break through the banks of leaden-colored clouds, cast a grayish pall over land and sky. A day it was of sinister portent, that ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... replied dismally. "There isn't much sense in wandering over the whole confounded mountain, Miss Cameron, and not getting anywhere. I am inclined to suspect that we are above Green Fancy, but a long way off to the right of it. My bump of direction tells me that we have been going ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... Prue's turn to groan now, and she did so dismally. But Sylvia had never asked a favor in vain, and this was not the moment to refuse to her anything, so worldly pride yielded to sisterly affection, and Prue said with resignation, as she fell to work more vigorously than ever, because she had ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott |
