"Dreary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... forbade them to hurl bitter darts against Hector, lest any smiting him should gain renown, and he himself come second. But when the fourth time they had reached the springs, then the Father hung his golden balances, and set therein two lots of dreary death, one of Achilles, one of horse-taming Hector, and held them by the midst and poised. Then Hector's fated day sank down, and fell to the house of Hades, and Phoebus Apollo left him. But to ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... the men resolved to remain on this sand-bank, for dreary and uninhabited though it was, they preferred to take their chance of being picked up by a passing ship rather than run the risks of crossing the wide ocean in open boats, so their companions bade them a sorrowful farewell, and left them. But this ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... yet arrived," Washington writes to Jack Custis, "but ...expected every hour. [My aide] Meade set off yesterday (as soon as I got notice of her intention) to meet her. We are in a dreary kind of place, and uncomfortably provided." And of this reunion Mrs. Washington wrote: "I came to this place, some time about the first of February when I found the General very well, ... in camp in what is called ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... Georges was victor, and he assigned to his brothers and cousins the administration of the provinces of southern Russia. Still the ancient annals give us nothing but a dreary record of war. A very energetic prince arose, by the name of Mstislaf, who, for years, strode over subjugated provinces, desolating them with fire and sword. Another horrible famine commenced its ravages at this time, caused ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... he footed the fens so dreary and dern, While his brain, like the sky, was dark'ning; And with dread to the scream o' the startled hern And the bittern's boom he ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... my limbs grow old and weary, Trembling in the wintry air; And my life be dark and dreary— Still I feel that thou art near; Stripped of all my blossoms golden, 'Reft of stalwart forest pride— Sere and sallow, leafless, olden; Yet remain'st thou by my side. Time wings on: my strength ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... Prince Otto himself. The modest epigraph - 'Le rime n'est pas riche' - may be attributed, with a good show of likelihood, to the same collaborator. It is strikingly appropriate, and I have found the volume very dreary. Those pieces in which I seem to trace the hand of the Princess are particularly dull and conscientious. But the booklet had a fair success with that public for which it was designed; and I have come across some evidences of a second venture of the same sort, ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... counsel each young Danish swain who may ride in the forest so dreary, Ne'er to lay down upon lone Elvir Hill though he chance to be ever ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... and his grandfather had headed the deer: it was covered with hundreds of dirty, yellow tents now. Around there were hills like uncouth monsters, swathed in ice, holding up the soggy sky; shivering pine-forests; unmeaning, dreary flats; and the Cheat, coiled about the frozen sinews of the hills, limp and cold, like a cord tying a dead man's jaws. Whatever outlook of joy or worship this region had borne on its face in time gone, it turned to him to-day nothing but stagnation, a great death. He wondered idly, looking at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... road be rough and dreary, And its end far out of sight, Foot it bravely! strong or weary, Trust in God, and ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... who forgets that dreary hour When, as with misty eyes, To call the old familiar roll The solemn sergeant tries— One feels that thumping of the heart ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... at the end of the week, now that the boys are to leave," remarked the little hunchback to Miss Ann as he bent over her chair. "Life is dreary ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... in the flame, And near the centre took her post; From all sides to her ears there came The dreary anguish of the lost. ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... pausing, now scattering away as in fear, Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks Like herds of startled deer. But the wind without was eager and sharp, 225 Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp, And rattles and wrings The icy strings, Singing, in dreary monotone, A Christmas carol of its own, 230 Whose burden still, as he might guess, Was—"Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless!" The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch, And he sat in the gateway and saw all night 235 The great hall-fire, ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... reached the house Mrs. Carey had died in—it was in a dreary, respectable street between Notting Hill Gate and High Street, Kensington—Emma led Philip into the drawing-room. His uncle was writing letters of thanks for the wreaths which had been sent. One of them, which had arrived too late for the funeral, ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... Woman in Universal Freemasonry" was hailed with acclamation in the columns of the Revue Mensuelle; it reviewed it by dreary instalments, and when reviewing was no longer possible, had recourse to tremendous citations; as a last effort, it supplied an exhaustive index to the whole work—a charitable and necessary action, for the twelve months' toil of the author ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... die; that he had been purposely placed on the most uninhabitable spot of that inhospitable island, and kept six years a close prisoner, and that Sir Hudson Lowe was his executioner. He concluded with these words: "You will end like the proud republic of Venice; and I, dying upon this dreary rock, away from those I hold dear, and deprived of everything, bequeath the opprobrium and horror of my death to the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Frequently, they rode slowly along the Appian Way, now almost impassable for heaps of rubbish, mounds, and broken fragments, temples, columns, pillars, and successive piles of neglected relics. The Campagna, in its dreary aspect, often tempted their stay. Sometimes her ladyship would have a feeling of vexation, knowing that it was utterly impossible to visit more of the sights of Rome. They might remain for years and leave many scenes unexplored. The palace of the Vatican formed a life-long study for Lady Rosamond. ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... sacred tie, which should only unite congenial spirits, be violated by two souls, distant as the poles, jarring as contending elements. My father may kill me. Alas, of what value is life to me! It is a long scene of unvaried misfortune. It is a dreary vista of despair. He may kill me, but never, never shall he force me to a deed my ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... wearied the ear of night with his incessant moanings. The mind, soothed into a hallowed melancholy, listened with pensive stillness to catch and distinguish each sound that vaguely echoed from the shore—now and then startled, perchance, by the whoop of some straggling savage, or by the dreary howl of a wolf, stealing forth ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... Sultan's Head. One, in old Fables, and the Pagan Strain, With Nymphs and Tritons, wafts him o'er the Main; Another draws fierce Lucifer in Arms, And fills th' Infernal Region with Alarms; A Third awakes some Druid, to foretel Each future Triumph from his dreary Cell. Exploded Fancies! that in vain deceive, While the Mind nauseates what she can't believe. My [Muse th' expected [1]] Hero shall pursue From Clime to Clime, and keep him still in View; His shining March describe in faithful Lays, Content to paint him, nor presume to ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... in the nest of my childhood. I had always looked on the Moat as my refuge at the last; now it seemed the only desirable thing—a lonely nook, in which to lie down and end the dream there begun—either, as it now seemed, in an eternal sleep, or the inburst of a dreary light. After the last refuge it could afford me it must pass from my hold; but I was yet able to determine whither. I rose ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... had been and what he had been doing with himself. But Mary noticed that every evening he spent at least an hour in the box-room; she was rather sorry at the waste of time involved in reading old papers about dead people. And one afternoon, as they were out together on a somewhat dreary walk towards Acton, Darnell stopped at a hopeless second-hand bookshop, and after scanning the rows of shabby books in the window, went in and purchased two volumes. They proved to be a Latin dictionary and grammar, and she was surprised to hear her husband declare his intention of acquiring ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... strange meanings enough, God knows, into faces that never owned them. We hear dreary hopelessness in the moaning of the wind; wild sorrow in the tossing of the trees; and read into the work-a-day cries of birds, content, humour, melancholy, and ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... dreary in prospect to Maurice bade fair to be endurable after all. Rosalind's gray eyes, now merry, now serious, but always seeking the good in things, her contagious belief in the Forest, had stirred his manliness, making him conscious ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... without stopping the forty-five miles of dreary road which leads from the hot springs to Little Rock, and I arrived in that ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... courage of the individual who had the charge of their subterranean refuge. [352:4] The new curator seems to have signalised himself by the ability with which he discharged the duties of his appointment; he probably embellished and enlarged some of these dreary caves; and hence a portion of the catacombs was designated "The Cemetery of Callistus." Hippolytus, led astray by the ascetic spirit beginning so strongly to prevail in the commencement of the third century, was opposed to all second marriages, ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... me, I was never so embarrassed in my life. I felt as if he knew that I had expected to see him in London and Ely and Peterborough, though, of course, he couldn't know it, even if he looked for, and missed, me in those three dreary and over-estimated places. He had made a most beautiful drawing of the Jews' House, and completed his conquest of Aunt Celia by presenting it to her. I should like to know when my turn is coming; but, anyway, she asked him to luncheon, and he ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... making a little detour, Blake started forward, but hardly had he again taken up his progress when there came the sound of a slight explosion over toward the German lines, and almost instantly the dreary stretch of No ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton
... the top I saw that there were some mighty high hills covered with snow to the south-east, which might have been fifteen or twenty miles away. It was a dreary kind of country—rocky and desolate, with tufts of thin grass growing in the crevices of the rocks; and I saw that there was precious little chance of picking up a living there, and that if I was to get grub it was to the sea I must look for it. I thought the best thing ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... belong to him. He possibly cherished a half-recognized idea that they might pass away. Youth, however eclipsed for a season, is undoubtedly the proper, permanent, and genuine condition of man; and if we look closely into this dreary delusion of growing old, we shall find that it never absolutely succeeds in laying hold of our innermost convictions. A sombre garment, woven of life's unrealities, has muffled us from our true self, but within it smiles the young man ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... every right to use me as you will," returned Malcolm in a low voice, "for I have done nothing to forfeit your friendship." And with a dreary attempt at a smile—"A friend is born for adversity." Then Elizabeth rose from her kneeling position, but she did not answer—perhaps she could not, for Malcolm's worn face and sad, kind eyes seemed to bring a sudden ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... unattainable! And with a heavy heart, indeed, he entered the great building, where, in a small room, companioned by the telephone, and surrounded by sheets of paper covered with figures, he passed his days. The war made everything seem dreary, hopeless. No wonder he had caught at any distraction which came along—caught at it, till it had ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... most perfectly dreary, dreadful way of living I ever heard of," said Mrs. Ferguson, with unwonted energy. "How I pity people who know so ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... romance, the feeling that strange things had happened to him in that great city, so strange and so intimate that they might not be spoken of. He spoke wistfully of a sudden leaving, a breaking of old ties, a flight into a strange world, ending in this dreary valley, and Ettie listened, her dark eyes gleaming with pity and with sympathy—those two qualities which may turn so rapidly and so ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... place, spends a great deal of time seated in railway stations or on the banks of the Nile, waiting for his train or his boat to arrive; and he has, therefore, a great deal of time for thinking. I often try to fill in these dreary periods by jotting down a few notes on some matter which has recently been discussed, or registering and elaborating arguments which have chanced lately to come into the thoughts. These notes are shaped and "written ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... Cappadocia and Lycaonia, with five hundred horse and two hundred foot soldiers, and dismissed from thence with kind speeches and embraces, all of his friends who wished to leave the fortress, dismayed by the prospect of the dreary imprisonment which awaited them during a long siege in such a place. Antigonus when he arrived summoned Eumenes to a conference before beginning the siege, to which he answered, that Antigonus had many friends and officers, while ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... the restoration of the aristocracy. These insurrections of the slaves swelling from revolts into wars— which had emerged just about 620 as one, and that perhaps the proximate, cause of the Gracchan revolution—were renewed and repeated with dreary uniformity. Again, as thirty years before, a ferment pervaded the body of slaves throughout the Roman empire. We have already mentioned the Italian conspiracies. The miners in the Attic silver-mines ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... have with us a chief, whose face is of the colour of the plucked pigeon; he listens. He has crossed the great waters in the season of storms, he has forded the shallow streams and swum the deeper, and threaded the dreary woods, and faced unaccustomed dangers, that he may learn our traditions, our customs, our laws, and our opinions of the Great Spirit. He has come, if he does not lie, from a far country, a land very beautiful to the eye, a ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... little piece of paper into my hand, as I made a hollow show of passing her the sandwiches, I came very near dropping the plate; and when I had a chance to open it unobserved, and read the words, "Are you mad with me?" I could not occupy my cold and dreary pinnacle a moment longer, but sought an early opportunity of squeezing her hand two seats behind the voluminous asylum of Briggs's toes, and whispering, slightly confused by intensity of feeling, that if I had done any thing I was sorry for, I was willing to be forgiven. From that ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... passed a pile of buildings that, in the summer, might be screened from sight by the foliage of a group of elms, too scanty at present to veil their desolation. Wide gaps in the roof proved that the vast and dreary stables were no longer used; there were empty granaries, whose doors had fallen from their hinges; the gate of the courtyard was prostrate on the ground; and the silent clock that once adorned the cupola over the ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... of all. They shut their eyes to beauty and their ears to music, that the light and music of the unknown shore might burst upon them as a sudden revelation. They looked not at the stars, lest perchance these should declare a glory which was reserved for other days. Dreary and harsh was the way they trod. But in its very dreariness they found safety. They sought no pleasure, they fought no battles, they wasted no time. In the pushing aside of all temptation, the scorn of all beauty and idleness, they found delight. Against the strength of ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... keep on repeating the song until the dreary woods rang again with the good news, and the wood-people learned to love the brave little bird that sets his face so cheerfully, to meet so hard ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... was new and interesting to Shad Trowbridge, and for a time he enjoyed it hugely. But presently it dropped into a dreary, monotonous routine. The vast, unbroken solitude, the endless tramping over endless snow, day after day, and the lack of adventure to which he had looked forward, served presently to ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... for people if approached in the right way, but nobody cared for him, unless it were his mother and Aunt Eunice. They seemed to like him, and he reckoned they did, but for the rest, who was there that ever thought of doing him a kindness? Poor Hugh! It was a dreary picture he drew as he sat alone that night, brooding over his troubles, and listening to the moan of the wintry wind—the only sound he heard, except the rattling of the shutters and the creaking of the timbers, as the old house rocked in ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... want the wretch await Who slumbers in an abject state— 'Midst rushing crowds, by toil and pain The meed of Honor we must gain; At Honor's call, the camel hastes Thro' trackless wilds and dreary wastes, Till in the glorious race she find The fleetest coursers left behind: By toils like these alone, he cries, Th' adventurous youths to greatness rise; If bloated indolence were fame, And pompous ease ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... "a dirty night." The barometer had been slowly but persistently falling during the two previous days; the dawn had been red and threatening, with a strong breeze from S.E.; and as the short dreary November day waxed and waned this strong breeze had steadily increased in strength until by nightfall it had become a regular "November gale," with frequent squalls of arrowy rain and sleet, which, impelled by the furious gusts, smote and stung like hail, and cleared ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... from striking upon the rocks; in any of these possible and not at all improbable cases, those who might thus have been left upon the rock had now something to lay hold of, and, though occupying this dreary habitation of the sea-gull and the cormorant, affording only bread and water, yet life would be preserved, and the mind would still be supported by the hope ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... done so, she flung herself down on the rushes [note 1], and bent her head forward on her knees. The longer she thought over her prospects, the more dreary and doleful they appeared. Her state of mind was one that has been touchingly described by a writer who lived three hundred years later—"Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother"—who, of all who have attempted and failed in the impossible task ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt
... arguments nor prayers can reach, And nothing less than utter ruin teach. Hence, Ignorance!—hence to that depth of night Where thou wast born, where not one gleam of light 340 May wound thine eye—hence to some dreary cell Where monks with superstition love to dwell; Or in some college soothe thy lazy pride, And with the heads of colleges reside; Fit mate for Royalty thou canst not be, And if no mate for kings, no mate ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... three hours the Prince came upon a dreary-looking grey stone wall; this was the back of the building and did not attract him; but when he came upon the front of the house he found it even less inviting, for the old witch had surrounded her dwelling with a fence of spikes, on every one of which ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... say I ever said such a thing!" interposed Miss Dabstreak, with a deprecating glance at Paul. "I only said the Russians were such a young and manly race, so interesting, so unlike the inhabitants of this dreary den of ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... the small group of watchers surrounded the bed. The slow minutes filed away in dreary procession. Another hour passed. Then the figure on the bed, hitherto so motionless, twitched and ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... And can it be that thou dost not discern That else we from the North do draw support, Our party will, as in the dreary past, From out the pale in vain with hungry eyes Behold our enemies safely entrenched Lapping with greedy tongue successe's broth From out the flesh-pets, which we, fool-like, placed Before them by our squabling ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... such my life since you have left; the rain Unheeded falls, the sun shines as of old, But lingers not in all the dreary rooms To touch your hair ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... Zaarah, without calling, or needing to call at one of those fountains, stages, or mansiones,[7] by which (according to our former explanation) Providence has relieved the continuity of arid soil, which else disfigures that long dreary level. This happens to all; but was dinner not dinner, and did supper become dinner, because Sir Isaac Newton ate nothing at the first, and threw the whole day's support upon the last? No, you will say, a rule is not defeated by one casual deviation, nor by one person's constant deviation. Everybody ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... but also in Latin and other translations. It is a bitter reflection, that discussion on this subject was (and—in a less degree—is still) evoked, not so much by critical and textual variations and difficulties, as by the exigencies of party spirit and theological animosity. A dreary, if necessary, page of ecclesiastical history has to be studied, when French Protestant and English Puritan turned passionately against the discovery of Ussher and Voss. It is small comfort to the charitably minded to be told that, had no Daille attacked[74] the Ignatian letters, Pearson would not ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... home, one dark and dreary day in late December, found him as usual in the best of spirits. He welcomed the visitors with a cordiality that would rival the meeting of two long lost friends. The front has no main entrance; the main door is around the back. ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... the shape of a Frankenstein-monster, whose mission it is to tyrannize perpetually over the guilty lordling or lady whose secret he holds; doing a steady trade of two assassinations or abductions weekly; and utterly inviolable by cord, shot, or steel, up to the final blue-fire tableau of the dreary drama. I believe that my mate is now prepared to admit, that a certain amount of piety and chastity is not incompatible with tenure of the highest dignities in the Anglican Church—that a youth need not necessarily be a savage Sybarite, because he ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... actually one who ended as the wife of the town's richest banker—that is, one who bagged the best catch in the whole community. This woman had begun as a domestic servant, and abandoned that harsh and dreary life to enter a brothel. Her experiences there polished and civilized her, and in her old age she was a grande dame of great dignity. Much of the sympathy wasted upon women of the ancient profession is grounded upon an error as to their ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... with other men I know not. For myself, I could not have come through that dreary winter unscathed without the influence of her, who would have been the first to disclaim such power. Among the velvet cushions of the east one may criticise the lapse of white man to barbarity; but in the wilderness human voice is as grateful to the ear as rain patter in a drouth. There, ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... newspaper to read; but after vainly endeavouring to interest myself in its pages, and feeling painfully affected by the noisy hilarity of some gay young students in a neighbouring box, I drank off my sober beverage, and walked home to my solitary chambers. Oh, how dreary they appeared that night!—how desolate seemed the uncomfortable, dirty, cold staircase, and that remarkable want of all sorts of conveniences, for which the Temple has acquired so great a notoriety! In fine, I was fairly hipped; and being convinced of the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... more comfortably at anchor after many dreary days at sea of thick blowing weather* spent in sailing backwards and forwards, daily tantalised by the sight of land, which was approached only that we might stand off again for the night. Yesterday afternoon ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... means of defence, a bare country around, no mountain, glen, or cave in which they could take refuge, under a burning sun and on a glowing plain, distant two hundred miles from the abodes of civilised men, between which and them lay the dreary wilderness and the Orange River; such was their position, with the human lion in his lair, ready to rouse himself up to deeds of ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... longer held together. Small groups formed haphazard squadrons, keeping each other company, but many ships were isolated and ploughed their way alone over the dreary sea. Many, despite hard work at the pumps, settled lower and lower in the water each day, and at last sank in the ocean, their fate unknown and unrecorded till, as the months went by and there was no news of them, they were counted as hopelessly lost. Of others the ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... silence aroused them, startled both into a swift realization of that dreary waste in which they floated helplessly alone, a drifting chip on the face of the waters. Her eyes swept the crest of the waves, and she withdrew herself partially from ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... glimpses of a kind, placid face that he seemed to know—a face that bent over him lovingly and kissed him. These were subconscious memories of his mother, which lasted long after he had forgotten her. As he neared manhood, strange yearnings had come to him—a dreary loneliness and craving for company. In his sleep he had seen fleeting visions of forms and faces like his reflection in a pool—like, yet unlike; soft, curving outlines, tinted cheeks, eyes that beamed, and white, caressing hands appeared and disappeared—fragmentary ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... in the city, only that he might act against him; those false promises by which the little garrison, unconquerable by any force, was beguiled to give itself up to mere butchery; the long captivity of the few scores of women and children who survived the general slaughter, only, after many dreary days of painful suspense, to be murdered in their prison-house as Havelock drew near the gates of Cawnpore: all these circumstances of especial horror made men regard their chief instigator rather as one of the lower fiends masquerading in human guise than ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... it was necessary to march long distances without meeting water. One of these dreary stretches was eighty miles long. It was necessary to pass over it as rapidly as possible, day and night almost without resting. In accomplishing one of these arduous journeys across a desert almost as bare as that of Sahara, the party set out one afternoon at three o'clock. ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... him on the Eastern Shore. It was raw, and damp, and chill, with the presage of winter in its cold; the leaves were almost gone from the trees, the blackening hand of frost was on flower and shrubbery. As he passed up the dreary, deserted street, the wind was whistling through the branches over head, and moaning around the houses like spirits of ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... horseback rather unfashionable in winter, therefore I submitted, as I always do, to the custom of the country, took a single horse sledge, and drove briskly towards St. Petersburg. I do not exactly recollect whether it was in Eastland or Jugemanland, but I remember that in the midst of a dreary forest I spied a terrible wolf making after me, with all the speed of ravenous winter hunger. He soon overtook me. There was no possibility of escape. Mechanically I laid myself down flat in the sledge, and let my horse run for our ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... and as Albinia looked at his pensive brow, she was oppressed by the thought of his sufferings in that dreary convalescence. At night, when she looked from her window, the fog hung white, like mildew over the pond, and she could not reason herself out of a spectral haunting fancy that sickness lurked in the heavy, misty ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... up, and towards the end of the story we must be contented to see the hero and heroine living happily in an island of bliss on other people's troubles; and that after a long series of sham troubles (or mostly sham) of their own making, illustrated by dreary introspective nonsense about their feelings and aspirations, and all the rest of it; while the world must even then have gone on its way, and dug and sewed and baked and built and carpentered round about ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... she never would go home. But the cat was all she had, she used to say, and nobody knew the comfort it was to her. Yet, for all this, there were hours and seasons when, obliged to stay in the house, it was intolerably dreary there, and she longed for companionship. "Some one with an interest," she said. "Some one who loves the same things that I do, who cares for me, and for my pursuits. Some one like Sophia Maybury. Oh! how I should have liked to spend my last days with Sophia! ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... I complain? Did I tell this, who would believe me?" said Isabel, as she went toward the dreary prison where her brother was confined. When she arrived there her brother was in pious conversation with the duke, who in his friar's habit had also visited Juliet and brought both these guilty lovers to a proper sense of their fault; and unhappy Juliet with tears and a true remorse ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... excuse for disparaging Velasquez, and launches into a discourse upon the Higher Reality and the Inner Truth which leaves one with a very dreary feeling, and, by some ponderous application of spiritual ropes and pulleys, seems to jerk into empty space all that is most personal ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... Zephyr read the whole dreary life at a glance. A fleeting thought came to Zephyr. How would it have been with Madame had she years ago chosen him instead of Pierre? A smile, half pitying, half contemptuous, was suggested by an undecided quiver of the muscles of his face, more pronounced by the light in his expressive eyes. ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... a moment under a lamp-post. He put his hand on my arm and looked up at me with his queer ugly face, his sentimental dreary eyes, his red nose, and his hard, ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... dull and gray, the marsh that lay Out-stretched afar—a dreary waste Of tide lands low, where ebb and flow The waters, that with ...
— Within the Golden Gate - A Souvenir of San Fransisco Bay • Laura Young Pinney
... dreary resting places. The scream of the eagle as he easily swung on powerful pinions from cliff to cliff on family errands or to drink at the foot of some rushing cascade was the only dirge that was sung. Ferns swayed gently in shaded nooks, and wild flowers ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... the sea-level, must be considered as determining in the negative the question of the possibility of such a cut, by any means now at the control of man; and both the sanguine expectations of benefits, and the dreary suggestions of danger, from the realization of this great dream, may now be dismissed as ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... consequence of the holiday. In doing so, I had to leap a ditch or canal, in which both I and my horse came near closing our pilgrimage in a quagmire; but in time we were again upon the road. It is a dreary place about the hill of Tepeyaca, or Guadalupe, and if the Virgin had not smiled upon the barren hill and made roses grow out of it, it would be as uninviting as one of the hills of the valley of Sodom. This hill is now called ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... she should never find the match-box; but she did at last, and lighted the lamp after several trials. It was dreary work, though, going down stairs with those sticks in her eyes, ...
— Dotty Dimple at Her Grandmother's • Sophie May
... arranged as on a chessboard, in straight and regular rows like ranks of soldiers, and this severe pedantic regularity, and the fact that all the trees were of the same size, and had tops and trunks all exactly alike, made them look monotonous and even dreary. Kovrin and Tanya walked along the rows where fires of dung, straw, and all sorts of refuse were smouldering, and from time to time they were met by labourers who wandered in the smoke like shadows. The only trees in flower ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... here an' there, or rubbed against one another. An' poor Micah's body under the blanket—they were all about it, an' I havin' to brush 'em away. Anybody would 'a' cried if they'd been in my place, such a dreary day was that—me an' baby all alone, with the village ten miles off, an' not a soul nearer than ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... over the north-west territory. Here and there, however, by the sides of streams, or pools, numerous aspens—the fastest growing trees in that region—had again sprung up, their stems being of considerable thickness, while their light foliage gave a cheerful aspect to the otherwise dreary scenery. When the ground allowed it, they occasionally put their horses into a gallop—a pace well suited to their tempers. At the same time, they knew that they must not run the risk of knocking up their ...
— The Frontier Fort - Stirring Times in the N-West Territory of British America • W. H. G. Kingston
... long as subordination in all countries is the rule of her being. Through suffering we have learned the open sesame to the hearts of each other. With the spirit forever in bondage, it is the same whether housed in golden cages with every want supplied, or wandering in the dreary deserts of life, friendless and forsaken. Long ago we of America heard the deep yearnings of the souls of women in foreign lands for freedom responsive to our own. Mary Wollstonecraft, Madame de Stael, Madam Roland, George ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... several degrees of frost by day were what Thrums began to accept as a revised order of nature. Vainly the Thrums doctor, whose practice extends into the glens, made repeated attempts to reach his distant patients, twice driving so far into the dreary waste that he could neither go on nor turn back. A ploughman who contrived to gallop ten miles for him did not get home for a week. Between the town, which is nowadays an agricultural centre of some importance, and the outlying farms communication was ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... her stories! There was nothing like them in all that countryside. It was rather a dreary country in outward aspect, having many bleak moorland hills, that lay about like slow-stiffened waves, of no great height but of much desolation; and as far as the imagination was concerned, it would seem that the minds of former generations had ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... surface of it was beautiful in a high degree. The universal face was clothed with living green. And every part was fertile as well as beautiful. It was no where deformed by rough or ragged rocks: it did not shock the view with horrid precipices, huge chasms, or dreary caverns: with deep, impassable morasses, or deserts of barren sands. We have not any authority to say, with some learned and ingenious authors, that there were no mountains on the original earth, no unevennesses on its surface, yet it is highly probable that they rose and fell, by ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... of Bielkin", is left to me. Do not deprive me of it, I pray you, but suffer me to keep it. It is not so much because I wish to read the book for its own sake, as because winter is coming on, when the evenings will be long and dreary, and one will want ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... emptily embracing him, walked slowly from behind the counter to the door, examined its fastenings, and gazed at the prospect. He was the owner of the store, and the view was a familiar one,—a long stretch of treeless waste before him meeting an equal stretch of dreary sky above, and night hovering somewhere between the two. This was indicated by splashes of darker shadow as if washed in with india ink, and a lighter low-lying streak that might have been the horizon, but was not. To the right, on a line with the front door of the store, were several scattered, ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... Sylvia was a bit breathless; "a cold, dreary afternoon outside—a warm, bright tea room with enchanting tables drawn close to an open fire, and someone—you, my lamb—singing a ballad, when there is a lull—in the offings! Why, Elspeth is as good as made if she has the wit to grab ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... That hushed the stormy main:{12} Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed: Mountains, ye mourn in vain Modred, whose magic song Made huge Plinlimmon{13} bow his cloud-topt head. On dreary Arvon's shore{14} they lie, Smeared with gore, and ghastly pale: Far, far aloof th' affrighted ravens sail; The famished eagle{15} screams, and passes by. Dear lost companions of my tuneful art, Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes, Dear as the ruddy drops that warm ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... Maiden wedded To a groom she's never seen— Never, never, never seen! Groom about to be beheaded, In an hour on Tower Green! Tower, Tower, Tower Green! Groom in dreary dungeon lying, Groom as good as dead, or dying, For a pretty maiden sighing— Pretty maid of seventeen! Seven— ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... winter day closed in so fast, Scarce for his task would dreary daylight last; And in all weathers—driving sleet and snow— Home by that bare, bleak moor-track must he go, Darkling and lonely. Oh! the blessed sight (His pole-star) of that little twinkling light From one ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... day of which I write the rain had fallen incessantly, and Leo had been more than usually disturbed by it, for cold and dreary though it was, the servants had turned him out of the kitchen. They would not have ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... insist on the right to rule, freemen will protect their lives and their liberties.—And is not the peace and tranquility of the State of importance? We have been told with more truth than sincerity that "life itself is a dreary thing" without "harmony in social intercourse." Happy would it have been if the author of that just and pertinent remark had not contributed more than any other man in the United States to embitter parties, and to render life indeed ...
— Count The Cost • Jonathan Steadfast
... anything of him in a large party such as this, unless he specially sought her, and she thought now it was improbable he would do that. She bitterly regretted that she had not adhered to her original determination. Nothing can be more dreary than a gay party from which there is no escape when one's mind is out of tune for society of any description. The idea that for so many hours the conventional smile must be upon our brow, and the conventional nothings upon our lips, is depressing in the extreme. It may be injudicious, but it is ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... down at the front in Alabama, as was also the officer who had the authority to give them leave of absence. I was also informed that my only chance was to go to Alabama, or, in fact, into the field itself, as a civilian! This was a dreary prospect. However, I made up my mind to it, and was walking along the street in a very sombre state of mind, for I was going to a country like that ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... Yet, however dreary life is, it must go on. The brave-hearted cannot drop daily duty. On the second day the doctor went to his office again, and Antonia arranged the meals and received company, and did her best to bring the household into peaceful accord with the new elements encroaching ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... directions. While I had been asleep, a slight fog had come over, not the earth, but the sky; it stood high, the moon hung a whitish patch in it, as though in smoke. Everything had grown dim and blended together, though it was clearer near the ground. Around us flat, dreary country; fields, nothing but fields—here and there bushes and ravines—and again fields, mostly fallow, with scanty, dusty grass. A wilderness... deathlike! If only a quail ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... dead! Nest Gwynn is dead!" and, crazy with fear, it did not stop until it had hid its head in its mother's lap. The village was alarmed, and all who were able went in haste toward the well. Poor Nest had often thought she was dying in that dreary hour; had taken fainting for death, and struggled against it; and prayed that God would keep her alive till she could see her lover's face once more; and when she did see it, white with terror, bending over her, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... forehead, and with spreading horns, Whose taper tops refulgent gold adorns." The heroes pray'd, and Pallas from the skies Accords their vow, succeeds their enterprise. Now, like two lions panting for the prey, With dreadful thoughts they trace the dreary way, Through the black horrors of the ensanguined plain, Through dust, through blood, o'er arms, and hills ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... the women more than the men. The mind feels itself contracted on entering the circle of this well-to-do domestic life; such is the impression of Corinne when from liberal Italy she passes to rigid and dreary Scotland. And yet there is a certain picture, a large landscape by Rembrandt, which equals and surpasses all; a dark sky bursting with showers among flocks of screaming crows; beneath, is an infinite stretch of country as desolate as a cemetery; ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... lively, without the not less invidious faculty of wit. All the court officials crowded her apartments in the palace. Chesterfield, young Churchill, Lord Hervey, Lord Scarborough, all hurried to the tea-table of the well-bred bedchamber-woman, to escape the dreary duties and monotonous moping of attendance on the throne. Lady Walpole, Mrs Selwyn, Mary Lepell, and Mary Bellenden, formed a part of this coterie—all women of presumed character, yet all associating familiarly with women of none. Of Mrs Howard, Swift observed in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... fault of ours the die was cast We shall go forth and fight In death's despite And shall return victorious at the last; But how, ah how," they said, "Shall we and ours be fed And clothed and housed from dreary day to day, If, while our hearths grow cold, we ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 2nd, 1914 • Various
... him, on his shoulder, her little rosy face, smiling silently under the gold bands of her cap. To warm her hands she put them from time to time in his breast. How long ago it all was! Their son would have been thirty by now. Then he looked back and saw nothing on the road. He felt dreary as an empty house; and tender memories mingling with the sad thoughts in his brain, addled by the fumes of the feast, he felt inclined for a moment to take a turn towards the church. As he was afraid, however, that this sight would make him ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... beyond his wildest dreams and a treasure to which the cargoes of those Philippine galleons he had more or less successfully intercepted were trifles. Had the restless explorer been content to pace those dreary sands during three weeks of inactivity, with no thought of penetrating the inland forests behind the range, or of even entering the nobler bay beyond? Or was the location of the spot a mere tradition ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... winter days are dreary, And we're out of heart with life, Of its crowding cares aweary, And sick of its restless strife, We take a lesson in patience From the attic corner dim, Where the chest still holds its treasures, A ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... suppers were rather dreary. The cause may have been that the guest was handicapped by circumstances—to be good company without discarding the fatal air was extremely difficult; also the cause may have been that the daring spirits felt ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... while we thus firmly fix'd our eyes, That bled for ruth of such a dreary sight, Lo, suddenly she shriek'd in so huge wise As made hell-gates to shiver with the might; Wherewith, a dart we saw, how it did light Right on her breast, and, therewithal, pale Death Enthirling[2] it, to rieve her of ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... subject from a point of view commanding a wide horizon, it seems to be nothing less than a social demand, rising into a religious duty, to make every endeavour in the direction of supplying all possible compensating consolation for the routine of daily work, become so mechanical and dreary. When home is without charm, and country without attaching bonds, the existence of a nation is rudely shaken; dull discontent leading to sullen discontent, may readily become active animosity. There will not be men interested in the maintenance of law and order, who feel that law and ...
— Watts (1817-1904) • William Loftus Hare
... seen, with the exception of one solitary light hanging before the picture of the Virgin that was fastened against the wall. The plash of the water against the neighbouring rampart at the castle wharf could be plainly heard. Such evenings are long and dreary, unless people devise some employment for themselves. There is not always packing or unpacking to do, nor can the scales be polished or paper bags be made continually; and, failing these, people should devise other employment for themselves. ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... taught them; but when he spake to them of the destruction of the world by fire, and the resurrection of the body, they would not hear to it, for they pretend to hold that the spirit of the dead man goes forthwith, after death, to the happy hunting-grounds made for good Indians, or to the cold and dreary swamps and mountains, where the bad Indians do starve and freeze, and suffer all manner ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... was remarkable by its lack of any particular incidents. Always the same damp and swampy soil; the same dreary uniformity; the same sad and monotonous aspect of scenery. In the evening, having accomplished the half of our projected journey, we slept at the Annexia ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... am very sensible of your good wishes, and, indeed, I have need of them. My whole life has been at variance with propriety, not to say decency; my circumstances are become involved; my friends are dead or estranged, and my existence a dreary void. In Matthews I have lost my 'guide, philosopher, and friend;' in Wingfield a friend only, but one whom I could have wished to have preceded ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... To pass over the dreary time, I will tell you at once that the three patients recovered—only in poor little Edith's case Roman fever followed the gastric, and has persisted ever since in periodical recurrence. She is very pale and thin. Roman fever is not dangerous ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... pot-hooks, and when they have led the boys' intelligence up a few more steps of scholarship the end is achieved. The boy goes out into the world and refreshes his mind with new occupation; but the poor Brother remains chained to his dreary task, which is always the same and ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... founders of the Commonwealth, married to this Royalist of Royalists, the handsome young insurgent in the Second Civil War of 1648, the boon-companion of Charles II. for some time abroad, his boon-companion and buffoon all through his dreary year of Kingship among the Scots, his fellow-fugitive from the field of Worcester, and ever since, though less in Charles's company than before, and serving as a volunteer in the French army, yet a main trump-card in Charles's lists! How had it ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... rather dreary lounge. Esther passed a hand across her eyes. She must conquer this absurd weakness. She forced herself to remember that she was alone, but she felt as if ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... dreadful thing to wait and watch for the approach of death; to know that hope is gone, and recovery impossible; and to sit and count the dreary hours through long, long nights—such nights as only watchers by the bed of sickness know. It chills the blood to hear the dearest secrets of the heart—the pent-up, hidden secrets of many years—poured forth by the unconscious, helpless being before ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... end of the sixteen days no proof of their guilt had been found, their captors, recognising and appreciating their staunch fidelity and unswerving loyalty, removed them from their cells in the dreary jail to the Rest Camp, where they were able to enjoy the privileges of the ordinary prisoners of war, and refreshing intercourse with ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... day in dreary sameness. Regularly every evening Desmond was locked with his eight fellow prisoners in the shed, there to spend hours of weariness and discomfort until morning brought release and the common task. He had the same rations of rice and ragi {a cereal}, with ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... tears, and seemed to myself the most deserted, solitary lad in Scotland. With that I turned my back upon the sea and faced the sandhills. There was no light or sound of man; the sun shone on the wet sand and the dry, the wind blew in the bents, the gulls made a dreary piping. As I passed higher up the beach, the sand-lice were hopping nimbly about the stranded tangles. The devil any other sight or sound in that unchancy place. And yet I knew there were folk there, observing me, upon some secret purpose. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... known of it in Russia itself, not even by the members of the autocratic political family, beyond the fact of its being a dreary, frozen land of political exile, a region without light or hope ...
— The Boy Nihilist - or, Young America in Russia • Allan Arnold
... games, or dancing, then she must find out what she is good at and do that! If she is good for nothing but to look in the glass and put rouge on her lips and powder her nose and pat her hair, life is going to be a pretty dreary affair. In other days beauty was worshiped for itself alone, and it has votaries of sorts to-day. But the best type of modern youth does not care for beauty, as his father did; in fact, he doesn't care a bit for it, if it has nothing to "go with it," any more ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... to do. "No," she loyally said, "I am going with you," and although I knew that she was choosing a dreary alternative I was too weak, too selfishly weak, to prevent her self-sacrifice. We left that night at the usual hour and arrived in time to eat another farmer's breakfast with father and mother next morning. Aunt Susan was unable ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... possessed voice, which Maud hardly recognised as her own. It was easier to play a part than she had expected: the looking forward had been worse than the reality; and, as she met her mother's smile and Nan's approving glance, she even began to feel a dreary pride in her own composure. Lilias had seated herself between two of her sisters, an intentional revenge for the slight which she considered herself to have received, and Ned was therefore left free to devote himself to his ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... looked at him and could not understand why this queer man lived here. What could his money, his interesting appearance, his refined bearing do for him here, in this mud, in this God-forsaken, dreary place? He got no special advantages out of life, and here, like Semyon, was driving at a jog-trot on an appalling road and enduring the same discomforts. Why live here if one could live in Petersburg or abroad? And one would have thought it would be nothing for a rich man like him to make ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... their delights; but they have not turf, and the world without turf is a dreary desert. The original Garden of Eden could not have had such turf ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... fell upon me. She kept up a desultory conversation as we went along Piccadilly in the dreary gloom of that dull January afternoon, but I only replied in monosyllables, until ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... better of that. You are too young, too beautiful, too much made to be happy and to make others happy. If you are afraid of losing your freedom, I can assure you that this freedom here, this life you now lead, is a dreary bondage to what I will offer you. You shall do things that I don't think you have ever thought of. I will take you anywhere in the wide world that you propose. Are you unhappy? You give me a feeling that you are unhappy. You have no right ...
— The American • Henry James
... other times I rode alone, and my favorite route was an unfrequented lane called the "Quaker Road," that extended from Despatch Station, on the line of rail, to Daker's, on the New Bridge Road. Much of this way was shut in by thick woods and dreary pine barrens; but the road was hard and light, and a few quiet farms lay by the roadside. There was a mill, also, three miles from Daker's, where a turbulent creek crossed the route, and at an oak-wood, near by, I used to frighten the squirrels, so that they started up ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... of the room, taking our hearts with her. Our one desire now was to be gone; but it was easier wished than accomplished, for there remained the dreary process of bargaining. Mme. de Mayenne had set her heart on a pearl bracelet, Mme. de Brie wanted a vinaigrette, a third lady a pair of shoe-buckles. M. Etienne developed a recklessness about prices that ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... in reason; all the remainder of the world is dreary. The highest reason, however, is seen by me in the work of the artist, and he can feel it to be such: there may be something which, when it can be consciously brought forward, may afford an even greater feeling of reason and happiness: for example, the course of the solar ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... from this delightful valley of the Sind River and cross the Zoji-la Pass, we come upon a very different style of country—bare, dreary, desolate, monotonous, uninteresting. The forest has all disappeared, for the rainfall is here slight. The moisture-laden clouds have precipitated themselves upon the seaward-facing slopes of the mountains ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... is the most disagreeable state of existence, and both mind and body are continually making efforts to escape from it. It has been said that idleness is the parent of mischief, which is very true; but mischief itself is merely an attempt to escape from the dreary vacuum of idleness. There are many tasks and occupations which a man is unwilling to perform, but let no one think that he is therefore in love with idleness; he turns to something which is more agreeable to his inclination, and doubtless more suited to his nature; but he is not in love with idleness. ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... door. We observed that the latch was made of iron, and almost eaten away with rust. In the like condition were also the hinges, which creaked as the door swung back. On entering, we stood still and gazed around us, while we were much impressed with the dreary stillness of the room. But what we saw there surprised and shocked us not a little. There was no furniture in the apartment save a little wooden stool and an iron pot, the latter almost eaten through with rust. In the corner farthest from the door was a low bedstead, on ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... being more active in their own behalf. This breezy speech was often applauded, and good-natured criticism followed, putting the heaviest duty on the shoulders of men who have the power to free women, but still do not do it. The last speech of the evening was made by Lucy Stone, who showed the dreary helplessness implied in disfranchisement, and who sought to arouse women to a proper resentment against such degradation of position. Then was sung, "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow," and thus closed the tenth annual meeting of the American ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... bribe to war Are guilty of the blood, the widows left In want, the slave or led to suicide, Or murdered by the foul infected air Of his close dungeon, or more sad than all, His virtue lost, his very soul enslaved, And driven by woe to wickedness. These next, Whom thou beholdest in this dreary room, So sullen, and with such an eye of hate Each on the other scowling, these have been False friends. Tormented by their own dark thoughts Here they dwell: in the hollow of their hearts There is a worm that feeds, and tho' thou seest That skilful leech who willingly would heal The ill ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... Ivanhoe and Guy Mannering, Pendennis and The Virginians, Pecksniff and Micawber. In front of us stretch a never-ending series, a dreary vista of Foregone Conclusions, Counterfeit Presentments, and Undiscovered Countries. But the darkest watch of the night is the one before the dawn, and relief is often nearest us when we least expect it. All this gloomy nonsense was suddenly dispelled, and the fact that ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... it was they were with them on the long dreary marches, with a smile and a song and a word ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... where Jimmy lived, was quite as dreary as Rathbone Place: here and there, a few posters on the walls; some low-fronted shops, displaying sweets and candies, or else a dazzling case of oranges on the muddy pavement; ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... fellows, could make him, it availed not. So within six weeks after, Sir Launcelot fell sick, and lay in his bed; and then he sent for the Bishop that there was hermit, and all his true fellows. Then Sir Launcelot said with dreary steven: Sir Bishop, I pray you give to me all my rites that longeth to a Christian man. It shall not need you, said the hermit and all his fellows, it is but heaviness of your blood, ye shall be well mended by the grace ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... of the Bernina—what makes it a dreary pass enough in summer, but infinitely beautiful in winter—is its breadth; illimitable undulations of snow-drifts; immensity of open sky; unbroken lines of white, descending in smooth curves ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds |
