"Low-spirited" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my eyes moistening, and that will not do. I will not yield without a fight for it. It is odd, when I set myself to work doggedly, as Dr. Johnson would say, I am exactly the same man that I ever was, neither low-spirited nor distrait. In prosperous times I have sometimes felt my fancy and powers of language flag, but adversity is to me at least a tonic and bracer; the fountain is awakened from its inmost recesses, as if the spirit of affliction had ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... very late when he awoke with a violent headache. The room felt close; a disagreeable dampness saturated the air, and made its way through the crevices of the windows. Low-spirited, uncomfortable, and cheerless as a drenched cock, he sat down on his dilapidated sofa, and began to recall his dream of the previous night. So vivid was the impression it had made, that he could hardly persuade ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... she said to herself in a melancholy tone. "Nobody seems to like her, down here, and I'm sure she's the best cat in the world! Oh, my dear Dinah! I wonder if I shall ever see you any more!" And here poor Alice began to cry again, for she felt very lonely and low-spirited. In a little while, however, she again heard a little pattering of footsteps in the distance, and she looked up eagerly, half hoping that the Mouse had changed his mind, and was coming ...
— Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. With a Proem by Austin Dobson • Lewis Carroll
... quiet, old Bullfrog, as little wiry, wicked Wasp came at him, barking and yelping. He jumped with all his force sheer over a patch of bushes into the river, and swam back to his old home among the cat-tails. And always after that it was observable that he was very low-spirited, and took very dark views of life; but nothing made him so angry as any allusion to Mother Magpie, of whom, from that time, he never spoke except as ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Fatigued, low-spirited, feverishly perplexed, Sibylla did not know what she could do. She was not in a state that night to give much care to the future. All she hoped was, to stay in that haven until something else could be arranged for her. ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... was ill, and exceedingly low-spirited, and persuaded that death was not far distant, I appeared before him in a dark-coloured gown, which his bad sight, and worse apprehensions, made him mistake for an iron-grey. "Why do you delight," said he, "thus ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... way he rambled on from one thing to another. But when he saw I was low-spirited, and found by questioning me that I needed a parasol, and couldn't live long without one, he took me on ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
... civilized society." It is this Introduction, indeed, that will most interest the American reader, for here also the author presents the result of his study of our national character in a sketch that the nation may well glass itself in when low-spirited. The truth is, that we looked our very best to the friendly eyes of M. Laugel, and we cannot but be gratified with the portrait he has made of us. An American would hardly have ventured to draw so flattering a picture, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... Rachel did not seem as low-spirited as usual that evening. Capt. Bowling entertained them with narratives of his personal adventures, and it was later than usual when the lamps were put out, and they ...
— Jack's Ward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... upon the payment of forty or fifty dollars, he will take care of the child for a year and that "maybe it won't live any longer than that," and unless the hospital is equipped with a social service department, such as the one at the Massachusetts General, the girl leaves it weak and low-spirited and too broken to care what becomes of her. It is in moments such as these that many a poor girl, convinced that all the world is against her, decides to enter a disreputable house. Here at least she will ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... declined behind a birch on a distant hill and it seemed a tree with a blazing heart of fire. The great golden willow at the lane gate was laughter-shaken in the wind of evening. Even amid all the changes of our shifting world we could not be hopelessly low-spirited—except Sara Ray, who was often so, and Peter, who was rarely so. But Peter had been sorely vexed in spirit for several days. The time was approaching for the October issue of Our Magazine and he had no genuine ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... just? The very best things we have! It is a pity your modesty doesn't equal your taste. I should miss the smallest thing we have made; and whenever I get low-spirited, I turn them all out of the box and gloat over the collection—eleven pin-cushions, three sets of mats, a table centre, three work-bags, two handkerchief sachets, six babies' shoes, and a nice wool shawl! It's not bad for a start, and there are lots of things on hand, ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... whilst others were engaged in eating, he kept talking loudly and telling stories. But at dessert, on the contrary, and when the general conversation began to be lively, he became serious, silent, and sometimes low-spirited. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... world cared for her; she was quite alone. The only man in whose breast she could excite love or the semblance of it was a contemptible cad. And who was she, that she should venture to hope for love? She figured herself as an item in a catalogue; "a little, ugly, low-spirited, absolutely penniless young woman, subject to nervous headaches." Her sobs were interrupted by a ghastly burst of self-mockery. Yes, Levi was right. She ought to think herself lucky to get him. Again, she asked herself what had existence to ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... her box, and filled it again with chocolate drops; and for the next few days she was angry with me, and avoided my company. I felt grieved, I became low-spirited, but I could not make up my mind to tell her that I ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... aristocracy—they called them lackeys. This word "lackey" served as the strongest expression, when all others were exhausted, to designate human meanness. Under the old French monarchy, to denote by a single expression a low-spirited contemptible fellow, it was usual to say that he had the "soul of a lackey"; the term was enough to convey all that was intended. [Footnote a: If the principal opinions by which men are guided are examined closely and in detail, the analogy appears still ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... "Nonsense! You're low-spirited just now because you're not quite better, but wait till you're on your feet and going around the wards again. There's nothing like work of this sort to ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... slouching slowly into the tanyard, a good-natured grin on his face. He paused only to knock Rufe's hat over his eyes, as the small boy stood in front of the low-spirited mule, both hands busy with the animal's mouth, striving to open his jaws to judge by his teeth how ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... was a good fellow, free-mouth'd, quick-temper'd, not bad-looking, Ready with life or death for a friend, fond of women, gambled, ate hearty, drank hearty, Had known what it was to be flush, grew low-spirited toward the last, sicken'd, was help'd by a contribution, Died, aged forty-one years—and that was ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... Gregory Nazianzan, St. Bernard, St. Catherine of Bologna, St. Philip Neri, St. Francis De Sales and St. Alphonsus. It would make this section of this book too long to quote the words of these saints. But the words of St. Francis De Sales seem to have a special force. "Sometimes I am so low-spirited," wrote the Saint, "by business and events, that I do not know where to turn nor at what end to begin: but during the Office nothing annoys me, I have not even distractions, I imagine that I am in heaven singing with the angels the praises ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... blessing and comfort. Not one is wanting. I am not in any excitement, I think, certainly I do not believe myself to be in such a state as to involve a reaction of feeling. Of course if I am seedy at sea for a few days I shall feel low-spirited also most likely, and miss you all more in consequence. But that does not go below the surface. Beneath is calm ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... have had a slight feverish attack for the last few days, and I feel ill, or rather I feel low-spirited. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... will not do for animal spirits. Every night the room in which I sit is lighted up like a town after a great naval victory, and in this cereous galaxy, and with a blazing fire, it is scarcely possible to be low-spirited; a thousand pleasing images spring up in the mind, and I can see the little blue demons scampering off like parish ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... the fireside, is low-spirited at table, and never opens her mouth either to speak or eat; then, at bed-time, the inevitable repetition of the lesson she has learned, even on the pillow. The same sound of the same bell, for ever and ever: who could withstand ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... Lovelace.— Brief account of his proceedings in Belton's affairs. The lady extremely ill. Thought to be near her end. Has a low-spirited day. Recovers her spirits; and thinks herself above this world. She bespeaks her coffin. Confesses that her letter to Lovelace was allegorical only. The light in which Belford ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... and began spreading them out in their usual corner, in a hopeless and melancholy manner. While she was at it, the little folks came trooping around her. She didn't scold them this time, she was too low-spirited. ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock
... own, persons who had formerly behaved with quite unnecessary depravity, and who, at the time I knew them, appeared to be going to equally objectionable lengths in the opposite direction. They invariably belonged to one of two classes, the low-spirited or the aggressively unpleasant. They said, and I believed, that they were happy; but I could not help reflecting how very sad they must have been ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... the occasion of more mischief, I have sent it to you by this opportunity, begging you will either keep it safe till better times, or return it to Mr Wilson himself, who, I suppose, will make it his business to see you at the usual place. If he should be low-spirited at my sending back his picture, you may tell him I have no occasion for a picture, while the original continues engraved on my — But no; I would not have you tell him that neither; because there must be an end of ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... can't understand," said John, and as he thought the matter over it added to a downcast feeling which had seized upon him. It was by his looks more than by words that he betrayed his low-spirited condition, then, and at other times, as day after day nothing save the trees, great rocks and wooded hills and frowning mountain sides ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... cerulific, sapphire, sapphirine, amethystine, turquoise, ultramarine, sky-colored; livid, ecchymosed; rigorous, severe; (Colloq.) melancholy, downhearted, depressed, despondent, dejected, low-spirited, dispirited, hypochondriac, chapfallen, gloomy, (Colloq.) gloomy, inauspicious, dismal, depressing; (Colloq.) ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... more than you. Forgive me; much should be forgiven a man who has suffered much. My imagination is subject to the wildest alarms. Great, unlooked-for joy has rendered me mistrustful. I have been especially low-spirited of late. After having resolutely fought against my happiness, I tremble now lest it escape me; it appears to me too beautiful not to prove only a dream. To be loved by you! How can I help fearing to lose the great ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... surmounting at all. There were plenty of other men in the world, quite as handsome, as amiable, as rich, and as noble, as Richard de Clare. If such a grief had happened to herself, she would have wept incessantly for a week, been low-spirited for a month, and in a year would have been wreathed with smiles, and arranging her trousseau for a wedding with another bridegroom. The only thing which could really have distressed her long, would have been if the vacant place in her life ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... and do not listen to the answer, the more satisfaction one feels in indulging a self-complacency, by sighing to those that really sympathise with our griefs. Do not think it is pain that makes me give this low-spirited air to my letter. No, it is the prospect of what is to come, not the sensation of what is passing, that affects me. The loss of youth is melancholy enough; but to enter into old age through the gate of infirmity most disheartening. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... oppressed and injured woman, and as hating and despising the character of the witnesses. It also has not a little benefited her cause, that it appears how much the King personally has prepared the evidence by his emissaries abroad, and more particularly by his Hanoverian engines. I assure you I am quite low-spirited about it. One cannot calculate on anything less than subversion of all Government and authority, if this is to go on; and how it is to end, no one can foresee. I think, however (what I did not do when you told me so in town), that the Commons will never entertain the Bill. But, again, when will ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... money, Robert, you may stop at the store and buy a quarter of a pound of their cheapest tea. I am afraid it's extravagant in me to buy tea when there's so little coming in, but it cheers me up when I get low-spirited and helps me to bear ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... distress, she was weakened by the painful task she had just completed. She was low-spirited and broken-hearted, and really ill. Her eyes gave out; and no greater inconvenience could have just then befallen her. Her mental activity was temporarily paralyzed, and yet she knew that prompt measures were necessary to avert the evils crowding upon her. She had truly been anointed to wrestle ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... returned home, we were all low-spirited. The evening's entertainment had displeased the Captain; and his displeasure, I believe, disconcerted ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... necessarily an irritable one, and the suspense which some bear with constitutional indifference or philosophical resignation, and some with a disposition to believe and hope the best, was intolerable to Lady Forester, at once solitary and sensitive, low-spirited, and devoid of strength of mind, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... He's broken-hearted, too! Somebody died, or something else, that he was going to be married to, ever so many years ago; and they say he hasn't hardly spoken to a lady since. That's so romantic! I don't wonder he preaches such low-spirited kind of sermons. Only I wish they warn't quite so. I suppose it's beautiful, and heavenly minded, and all that; but yet I'd rather hear something a little kind of cheerful. Don't you think so? But ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... amuse Nicholas while he took his supper. After a preliminary raising of his spirits with the information that she considered the patient decidedly worse, she would further cheer him up by relating how dull, listless, and low-spirited Miss Bray was, because Kate foolishly talked about nothing else but him and family matters. When she had made Nicholas thoroughly comfortable with these and other inspiriting remarks, she would discourse at length on the arduous duties she had performed that day; and, sometimes, be moved to tears ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... unfortunate decision. I have intimated to him that the burden of the business is too much for me, and that he must be extremely at a loss for the services of one to whom he was so much accustomed, and whose situation, I am confident, nobody else can satisfactorily fill. He went to bed very low-spirited. I ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... marrying him. In fact, Furfur, it seems, was the only bachelor hereabouts whom she was unwilling to marry. She flouted him, derided him, and finally forbade him her house and ordered him never to dare to approach her. He kept away, sulky and morose and low-spirited. ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... as I detest mysteries. I went to the play last night with your sister. We both of us rather expected to see you, but it seems neither of us had mentioned to you we were going. I did not, for I was too low-spirited about your affairs. You lost nothing. The piece was stupid beyond expression. We laughed heartily, at least I did, to show we were not afraid. My lord came home last night suddenly. Odo is going to stand for the county, and his borough is vacant. What an opportunity it would have been ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... low-spirited this morning, Katy," said Mrs. Redburn, when the physician had gone. "I really felt as though my end was rapidly approaching. I am sorry I mentioned my thoughts ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... and their songs always seem like rejoicings over our reconciliation that day ever so long ago; you remember, don't you, Fred? but I should like a bird very much to give to Miss Schomberg; she seems low-spirited, and says she is often very lonely. A bird would be nice company for her, ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... now! Don't bring that book now; it'll just make me low-spirited and cross. I never had the least head for figures; mamma always said so; and if there is any thing that seems to me perfectly dreadful, it is accounts. I don't think it's any of a woman's business—it's all man's work, and ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... every corner of the house. It could be smelt and tasted. Such an atmosphere produces low-spirited languor even in the vigorous and hopeful; to those wasted by suffering it is the very reek of the bottomless pit, poisoning the soul. Her face colourless as the pillow, Marian lay neither sleeping nor awake, in blank extremity ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... offence. His father, who came to me on purpose, assured me that his son was altogether incapable of committing the crime of which he was accused; at the same time, that he thought it right to mention the circumstance to me, to account for his low-spirited and retiring manner. I appreciated the father's motive, and accepted the charge of his son, not supposing that any boy from the lad's former school would come here to accuse him. I have watched him narrowly, and I ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... has not yet begun. The Audience is limited, and low-spirited, and may perhaps number—including the Attendants—eighteen. The only people in the front seats are, a man in full evening dress, which he tries to conceal under a caped cloak, and two Ladies in plush opera-cloaks. Fog is hanging about in the rafters, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... despondency. I am at present not very well. I do not mean that I have any specific illness, but headaches and side-aches, so that I am one moment in a state of feverish excitement and the next nervous and low-spirited; this is not a good account, but ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... it was on the river she went, in one of them tiltuppy Indian boats that I'm deathly afraid of. But Mr. Lyster, he did promise faithfully he'd take good care of her. And as she'd seemed a bit low-spirited this morning, I thought it 'ud do her good, and I part told her to run along. And to think of its being improper for them to go together—alone! Well, ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... it in his heart is clear when he goes on to tell us that God blessed Donne and his wife "with so mutual and cordial affections, as in the midst of their sufferings made their bread of sorrow taste more pleasantly than the banquets of dull and low-spirited people." It was not for Walton to go in search of small blemishes in him whom he regarded as the wonder of the world—him whose grave, mournful friends "strewed ... with an abundance of curious and costly flowers," as Alexander the Great ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... had with the Duke was at the time of the Reform Bill, when he went down with him for a week to Strathfieldsaye, during which time he was more low-spirited and silent than Croker said he ever saw him before or since. He reproached himself for what he had done, particularly about Catholic Emancipation, the repeal of the Test Act, and his resignation in '30. Very curious this, not alluding among the topics of self-reproach to his persevering ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... your new life," she whispered very softly; "as happy as you deserve to be, and as happy as you can make others be. Now how I have been neglecting you! I am quite ashamed of myself for thinking only of grandfather: and it makes me so low-spirited. You have told me a very nice romance, and I have never even helped you to a glass of wine. Here, pour it for yourself, dear cousin; I ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... but she pressed his hand. Then, after a moment's silence, she said, 'My Ferdinand must not be low-spirited about dear Armine. I have confidence in our destiny; I see a ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... pen the ebon-coloured ink which here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest. But to the place where, it standeth north-north-east and by east from the west corner of thy curious-knotted garden: there did I see that low-spirited swain, that base minnow ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... weary and low-spirited when he reached his dismal lodgings that he felt no disposition either to eat or drink, but sat down in the back part of the wretched, musty saloon, and, drawing his hat over his eyes, he gave himself up to bitter thoughts. With mental imprecations he cursed himself that ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... arrived, Frank was low-spirited and moody, but very glad to see me. I brought him up here at once. He seemed overjoyed at meeting Selma, and would not let her go out of his sight for a moment. Still he appeared excited and uneasy, till I met him at the supper table. Then he was more like himself. I went with them into ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... know no Cree, our conversation wasn't very lengthy. At first, however, in spite of the danger of his discovering who I was and what I was doing there, I was pleased to see him, for I was getting moody and low-spirited with living by myself. I tried to be content with supposing that he was a trapper, who had strayed out of his district and had lighted on ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... a good and honest man, but low-spirited, and he thought quiet the only hope for Athens. When he found that the citizens were making a great boasting, and were ready to rush into a war without counting the cost, he said he would advise one only "whenever ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... described above, but in their progress through life to enjoy as well as they can, but always with moderation, the good things of this world, to put confidence in God, to be as independent as possible, and to take their own parts. If they are low-spirited, let them not make themselves foolish by putting on sackcloth, drinking water, or chewing ashes, but let them take wholesome exercise, and eat the most generous food they can get, taking up and reading occasionally, not the lives of ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... his wife low-spirited and dull. The dinner of the three sisters had gone off very well, but then they had waited and waited for him, all of them had felt dull, the sisters had departed, and she had ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... by his advice. I was sad and low-spirited; and Charlotte, pleading a bad head-ache, kissed her brother, received one from me, or, what in his estimation, only passed for one, and retired in tears, and I felt that the joy ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... not low-spirited at all, and though her voice sounds rather hysterical, it is merely her manner of speaking, slightly accentuated perhaps by more trouble than usual. She is fairly well used to such events by now. Yarty himself is angry. His ordinary habits are bound to be upset for a few days; for ever, if ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... that Janet, who sat by him in low-spirited silence, was really suffering less than he. Oliver had undertaken the responsibility of returning the picture, and Oliver was a dependable boy who could manage it far better than she could. She thought little of what was to be said or done and was only ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... solace in writing, reading, re-reading and annotating innumerable documents, of which he seemed to carry a whole library about with him, but his contentment was powerless to infect his companions. Captain Cowper was low-spirited owing to the parting from his wife, for after inducing Sir Edmund and Lady Antony to postpone their return to the hills for two days that she might see him off, Marian had disgraced herself and her parents by making a scene—though happily not in public—at ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... than it has taken me to tell it—he let go and dropped down into the road, where I could see him standing waving his cap till a curve hid him from sight; and I once more sank into my place too low-spirited to think, for my happy school-days were at an end, and there before me in the dim distance, toward which I was being hurried fast as two good mares could trot, was the great gateway of a fresh life, through which lay the ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... it, mother. What was there in the little bit of pleasure you took last night that made it necessary for you to be low-spirited and sorrowful tonight? That's the way you do. If you're happy or merry ever, you come here to say, along with that chap, that you're sorry for it. More shame for you, mother, I ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... that all sort of justice passes in the world for a low-spirited and vulgar virtue, far below the dignity of royal greatness. Or at least, there are set up two sorts of justice; the one is mean, and creeps on the ground, and therefore becomes none but the lower part of mankind, and so must be kept in ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... feeling very weary, very low-spirited and very sad. He was told that Christine had gone to her bedroom saying that she would not be down to dinner. Raoul dined alone, in a very gloomy mood. Then he went to his room and tried to read, went to bed and tried to sleep. There was no sound ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... nor hear from me. She is ill and low-spirited, and Mrs. Barton tells me that a niece has come to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... Woodstock and Boney" [his life of Napoleon] "may both go to the paper-maker, and I may take to smoking cigars and drinking grog, or turn devotee and intoxicate the brain another way."[52] He adds that when he sets to work doggedly, he is exactly the same man he ever was, "neither low-spirited nor distrait," nay, that adversity is to ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... smiling. "Life in the old dog yet, eh? But go in and see Lane. He's in the billiard-room, thinking over his sins and getting low-spirited." ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... were both blinking their eyes in the shade of the lightwood, and whisking the flies from their ears. Maggie was walking about with beak open, showing her parched tongue; the heat made her low-spirited. ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... I tell you plainly, my trouble is caused by your neglect of your beauty. Yes, your countenance is pale, dejected, sorrowful; you have been low-spirited for the last few days; you have something on your mind, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... it showed the necessity of infinite grinding at the mill of knowledge, as per system, schedule, blue book, report, and tabular statements A to Z; and that Jupe 'must be kept to it.' So Jupe was kept to it, and became low-spirited, but no wiser. ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... have laughed heartily. It was so absurd for a child to be lonesome when there were three in the bed! But Dotty was too low-spirited even to smile. Mrs. Rosenberg came up and boxed Rosina's ears; and ...
— Dotty Dimple at Play • Sophie May
... have been very unwell and low-spirited. The cause of this, folks seem to agree, was over-exertion during mother's sickness. To tell the truth, I was so anxious about her that I did not try to save my strength at all, and excitement kept me up, so that I was not conscious of any special fatigue ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... become low-spirited!" she exclaimed. "It is a great pity your kind friend has gone away. But doubtless you will soon ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... But the vanishing of Lord Etherington in a manner so sudden and unaccountable—the obvious ill-humour of Lady Penelope—and the steady, though passive, sullenness of Lady Binks, spread among the company a gloom like that produced by an autumnal mist upon a pleasing landscape. The women were low-spirited, dull, nay, peevish, they did not well know why; and the men could not be joyous, though the ready resource of old hock and champagne made some of them talkative.—Lady Penelope broke up the party by well-feigned apprehension of the difficulties, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... replied; "I only asked you this, Mr. Nighthawk, to satisfy myself that my visions were true. I saw poor Mr. Swartz go to Mr. Alibi's, and ask for you, on the day you appointed. When he was told that you had not come, he seemed very low-spirited, and told Mr. Alibi that he must see you, to give you a paper. His life was threatened, he said, on account of that paper. An officer and a lady had discovered that he had that paper—it was as much as his life was worth to keep it on his person—if Mr. Alibi would ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... melancholy recluse to retreat to! Not a human being appeared in the street where this tavern of despair frowned amid congenial desolation. Nobody welcomed us at the door—the sign creaked dolefully, as the wind swung it on its rusty hinges. We walked in, and discovered a low-spirited little man sitting at an empty "bar," and hiding himself, as it were, from all mortal inspection behind the full sheet of a dirty provincial newspaper. Doleful was our petition to this secluded publican for shelter and food; and doubly doleful ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... men are low-spirited to-night. The news of yesterday has been confirmed. Our army has been beaten at Manassas with terrible loss. General McClellan has left Beverly for Washington. General Rosecrans will assume command in Western Virginia. We are ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... great respectability, who was low-spirited and hypochondriac to a degree, was at times so fanciful, that almost every rustling noise he heard was taken for an apparition ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... not pace the deck, as most modern heroes do, for his passage was steerage, and there was very little deck for him to promenade. Just at first he was low-spirited, he felt the loneliness of his own company, everything seemed different without the bright companionship of his friend beside him. He felt keenly leaving Europe, and all the associations of the land of his birth. He was going to a country ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... not want him for her husband, but equally she did not want him to go off and leave her. So she went over to the davenport again, where she could cry better, and did wonders in that line, in a steady, low-spirited way, ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... was afraid to approach us, until the interpreter went and told her that neither we nor the Indian who remained with us, would prevent her from going where she pleased. Upon this she came to solicit a fire-steel and kettle. She was at first low-spirited, from the non-arrival of a country-woman who had promised to elope with her, but had probably been too narrowly watched. The Indian hunter, however, having given her some directions as to the proper mode of joining her own tribe, she became more composed, and ultimately agreed to adopt ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... Joseph had so skilfully glazed. Joseph was not there, and Laura would not have occupied herself with constant thoughts about him if there had been anything, or rather anybody else to think of. She soon began to feel low-spirited and restless, while, like a potato-plant in a dark cellar, she put forth long runners towards the light, and no light was to be found. This homely simile ought to be forgiven, because it is ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... calculated, counted. 3. Com-pos'er, an author of a piece of music. Or'ches-tra, a body of instrumental musicians. 7. Ap-prove', sanction, allow. 10. De-ject'ed, discouraged, low-spirited. ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... from the Orphan Asylum to the heath, in order that, instead of Copenhagen rogues, they may become honest Jutland peasants. Otto had a boy of this description for his coachman. The lad was very contented, and yet Otto became low-spirited from his relation. Recollections from his own life stirred within his breast. "Return thanks to God," said he, and gave the lad a considerable present; "on the heath thou hast shelter and a home; in Copenhagen, perhaps, the sandy beach would have been ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... or camping in the midst of unspoilt nature, I never felt depressed, no matter what happened, and was absolutely regardless of climatic conditions; but in those miserable settlements—feeble attempts at civilization—I must confess that I used to get low-spirited too, and often thought what an idiot I had been to leave my happy homes in Florence and in London, in order to come to these ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... knew it, and yet this little story wanted dearly to be told. It used to wait about where people were telling stories, and when a story was ended and the merry laugh went round, it would say to itself, "Now they will certainly tell me," but they never did. So at last this little story got quite low-spirited and wandered off by itself out of the house, and through the garden into the orchard, and there in the orchard, under an apple-tree, there was a little girl lying fast asleep among the buttercups and daisies. The little story looked all ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... left the master came into the stable to give some directions, and to give his horses the last pat. He seemed very low-spirited; I knew that by his voice. I believe we horses can tell more by the voice than many ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... several. I thought myself a very unfit wife for you, and that you would be cruelly disappointed to get a low-spirited, sickly, useless girl who did not love or esteem you. I really thought I was dying, and it would have been wrong to have thought of marrying under such circumstances; and besides, you could not have ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... low spirited; come! come! you must not indulge in any such notions; you will do very well again by and by." Upon which my father, turning indignantly round, replied with a firm and rather strong voice, "stand back, and keep your peace for once, Dr. Hill, and do not expose yourself—I am neither low-spirited, nor so weak as to be put off by your common-place cant. Have the modesty, at any rate, to listen with patience to what I am going to say to Mr. Grant, who appears to be a sensible, honest man, or else be so obliging as to leave the room." Then, turning back ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... was in love, and clandestinely engaged to a young lady, whose family were wealthy and would not for a moment hear of the match. I was his only confidante, and he liked to come in evenings and talk to me of Helen. Sometimes, seeing me so lonely and low-spirited, he would stay with me within half an hour of Harry's return; but Heaven knows neither he nor I ever dreamed it could be wrong. No harm might ever have come of it, for my husband knew and liked him, but for that gambling companion, ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... played cards for a long time, I went up to my room and to bed; I was low-spirited and sad, sad, sad! and I sat at my window. Not a sound could be heard outside but the beautiful warbling of a bird in a tree, somewhere in the distance. No doubt the bird was singing in a low voice during the night, to lull his mate, who was asleep on her eggs. And I thought of my poor friend's ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... OLD JOE, It is actually all over! I was so low-spirited at the station yesterday, and this morning, when I woke, I couldn't seem to accept the dismal truth that you were really gone, and the pleasant tramping and talking at an end. Ah, my boy! it has been such a rich holiday to me, and I feel under such ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... purpose much better than trying to compose them myself. You must get the book for me. But, Edna, don't go to school to-day, stay at home with me; I am so lonely and low-spirited. I will tell Mr. Hammond that I could not spare you. Beside, I want you to help me arrange some valuable relics belonging to my son, and now that I think of it, he told me he wished you to use any of his books or MSS. that you might like to examine. This is a great ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... come out with him. One was a low-spirited gentleman of middle age, of a meagre habit, and a disconsolate face; who kept his hands continually in the pockets of his scanty pepper-and-salt trousers, very large and dog's-eared from that custom; and was not particularly well brushed or washed. The other, a full sized, sleek, well-conditioned ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... uneventful years in the household of Bodowen; and when the old women had one and all declared that the cradle would not rock again, Mrs. Griffiths bore the son and heir. His birth was soon followed by his mother's death: she had been ailing and low-spirited during her pregnancy, and she seemed to lack the buoyancy of body and mind requisite to bring her round after her time of trial. Her husband, who loved her all the more from having few other claims on his affections, was deeply grieved by her early death, and his only comforter was the ...
— The Doom of the Griffiths • Elizabeth Gaskell
... written in a low-spirited sort of way, characteristic of Mrs. Beecot, but with a true motherly heart. After two pages of lamentation over his absence, and a description of how the head of the household managed to bear up against the affliction of his ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... thought once, he says, on hearing of his cousin Charlotte's indisposition, to have engaged his cousin Patty's attendance upon me, either in or about the neighbouring village, or at St. Alban's: but, he says, she is a low-spirited, timorous girl, and would but the more ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... corner, and benches are solemnly constituted into front seats, back seats, and reserved seats - which are much the same after you have paid - and a few dull candles are lighted - wind permitting - and the performer and the scanty audience play out a short match which shall make the other most low-spirited - which is usually a drawn game. After that, the performer instantly departs with maledictory expressions, and ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... he were in full health. Plenty of boys no older than he have gone out West by themselves, and fared perfectly well. But in Phil's condition that would never answer. He has a tendency to be low-spirited about himself too, and he needs ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... going back, both of us silent and rather low-spirited, an English dogcart, drawn by a thoroughbred horse, came up behind us and passed us rapidly. The doctor took ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... it?" said Agafea Mihalovna. "The dog now...why, she understands that her master's come home, and that he's low-spirited." ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... were that she ate little, slept little, coughed, and was always low-spirited. The doctors said that she could not get on without medical treatment, so they kept her in the stifling atmosphere of the town, and the Rostovs did not move to the country that ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... breeze blowing, and a general winteriness prevailing, which affected our retainers considerably more than it did ourselves. The Q.M.G. in particular, not having entirely recovered his health, and being low in the article of tobacco, still believed himself to be dying, and was most unusually low-spirited and down in the mouth. As it threatened rain, we pitched our camp close to an old serai, in order to allow our servants to ensconce themselves under a roof, and to derive the full benefit of their wood fire, which they ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... dear little Eva!" said St. Clare, trembling as he spoke, but speaking cheerfully, "you've got nervous and low-spirited; you mustn't indulge such gloomy thoughts. See here, I've bought a statuette ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... tires out your patience with long visits; and, far from taking the most palpable hints to withdraw, when he perceives you uneasy he observes you are low-spirited, and therefore he will keep you company. This perseverance shews that he must either be void of penetration, or that his disposition must be truly diabolical. Rather than be tormented with such a fiend, a man had better turn him out of doors, even though at the hazard ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... looked very low-spirited while her long hair was being curled over a stick, and now was more unhappy than usual, for it was one of her ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May
... the room and dashed it open, and fell to rummaging in a pile of papers with such noisy haste that he knew she was afraid she ought not to have asked him in and was trying to carry it off under a pretence of urgency; and he found himself facing a little woman who wore a shawl in the low-spirited Scotch way, as if it were a badge of despondency, and who was saying, "Good evening, Mr. Yaverland. Will you not sit down? I'm ashamed the hall gas wasn't lit." A very poor little woman, this mother of Ellen's. ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... sickened child at a nauseous medicine. Ask him, too, and he will confess it is not the taste for which he drinks. Intemperate drinking is ever the result of what has been misnamed temperate drinking. "Taking a little" when we are too cold, or too hot, or wet, or fatigued, or low-spirited, or have a pain in the stomach, or to keep off fevers, or from politeness to a friend, or not to appear singular in company, etc., etc., or as is sometimes churlishly said, "when we have ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... immemorial shape of Leg-o'-Mutton Common by a mushroom township, laying Down Wood low, and coming to me with some miserable tale of petty pilfering for my adjustment. I must own I got out of the train at Muddlehampstead and into the station fly feeling distinctly low-spirited. It was some consolation to find that the railway still stopped seven miles short of my village, though I reflected gloomily that the place itself was doubtless a network of light railways by this time. We bowled along in stately fashion up Plough Lane and past Halfpenny Cross to the Manor ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... that night, however, she felt very low-spirited indeed. She was only human, after all, and wanted dreadfully to go to the matinee with the girls. Gladys would take them all to Schiller's afterward for a parfait and bring them home in style in her machine. It did not seem fair that she should be cut off from every ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... are looking a little tired, Heard, as if you had not slept well lately. Perhaps you would like to sit down? We can watch the fireworks from the terrace. You ought to read Pepys' DIARY. That is what I have been doing. I am also rather low-spirited just now. The end of another spring, you know—it always makes me feel sad. Pepys is the antidote. He is a tonic. Every Englishman ought to be compelled, for the good of his soul, to go through Pepys ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... summer of 1782, when Cowper was low-spirited, Lady Austen told him in lively fashion the story upon which he founded the ballad of "John Gilpin." Its original hero is said to have been a Mr. Bayer, who had a draper's shop in London, at the corner of Cheapside. Cowper was so much tickled by it, that he lay awake ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... address well in his mind, in case he should lose it. The crowd was deeply interested by this last incident, and a man in the second row with a gruff voice growled to the artist, "You've got a chance in life now, ain't you?" The artist answered (sniffing in a very low-spirited way, however), "I'm thankful to hope so." Upon which there was a general chorus of "You are all right," and the halfpence slackened ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... must never consist of empty words alone, I name you at once vicegerent of my entire kingdom, in case of war. For we shall not dream away our time much longer in this idle rest, my friends. A Persian gets low-spirited ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... amiable humor; Elizabeth had been very queer all the way home. "High and mighty!" David said to himself; treating him as if he were a little boy, and she a young lady! "And I'm seventeen—the idea of her putting on such airs!" And now here was her uncle making his mother low-spirited. "Materna, I ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... of great profit to my father; but at the same time, I don't know how it is, I have always indulged the idea that we may not stay here for ever, and this plan appeared so like decidedly settling down to a residence for life, that it made me low-spirited. I know that it is foolish, and that we have no chance of ever removing—but still I cannot, even with this almost certainty before my eyes, keep my mind from thinking upon one day returning to my profession, and the idea of becoming a miller for life ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... looking very ill; was low-spirited and hysterical; and when she caught sight of him she forgot her anger, and fell sobbing into his arms. The countess-dowager had gone over to Garchester, and they had a few ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... evening, some flakes of ice were discovered driving towards the coast, and on the 14th, in the morning, the sea was covered with them. But the weather was again very stormy, and the Esquimaux could not quit the snow-house, which made them very low-spirited and melancholy. Kassigiak suggested that it would be well "to attempt to make good weather," by which he meant to practise his art as a sorcerer to make the weather good. The missionaries opposed it, and told him that his heathenish practices ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... laughingly tried to argue him out of his conviction he took me up rather sharply with the assertion that, had I been of Irish birth or extraction, I would know better than to make light of the matter. To my amazement, he seemed quite depressed and low-spirited at the mere mention of it, so I quickly dropped the subject and asked him if during his watch he had observed anything to confirm his earlier suspicion that we might possibly be attacked. He admitted that he had ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... begun to thicken up, and a kind of gray mist came over things; I got low-spirited directly. Then a silver rain began to fall. I could see the drops touch the ground; some flashed up like long pearl ear-rings, and the rest rolled away like round rubies. It was pretty, but melancholy. Then the pearls gathered themselves into long strands and necklaces, and then they melted ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... here," he thought, ruefully. "Dick seems very unpopular. I wish I didn't feel so low-spirited and unwell. Why can't I carry it off easily as—as a kind of joke? How hard these forms are, and how those infernal boys did jog ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... low-spirited horses were saddled at daylight; and as the storm showed signs of a disposition to break away, we started again, immediately after breakfast, for the western edge of the high table-land which here formed the summit of the mountain ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... that there was a Russian in the hotel—lying ill. I went to see him, and found a man in galloping consumption. I had begun to be tired of Dresden; I stayed with my new acquaintance. It's dull work sitting with a sick man, but even dulness is sometimes agreeable; moreover, my patient was not low-spirited and was very ready to talk. We tried to kill time in all sorts of ways; We played 'Fools,' the two of us together, and made fun of the doctor. My compatriot used to tell this very bald-headed German ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... its details; the family room of the house, with a "trundle" bed in one corner and a spinning-wheel in another—a wheel whose rising and falling wail, heard from a distance, was the mournfulest of all sounds to me, and made me homesick and low-spirited, and filled my atmosphere with the wandering spirits of the dead: the vast fireplace, piled high, on winter nights, with flaming hickory logs from whose ends a sugary sap bubbled out but did not go to waste, for we scraped it off and ate ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... of the band that Saturday, as they were getting ready for their anniversary. No contributions were expected, so that it did not matter about Marty having no money; but she was feeling so low-spirited and ashamed that she simply could not go among the others nor ...
— A Missionary Twig • Emma L. Burnett
... it; and be ready to humour it and yield to it a little. Just as a horse which is lame and broken-winded can yet by care and skill be made to get creditably through a wonderful amount of labour; so may a man, low-spirited, foolish, prejudiced, ill-tempered, soured, and wretched, be enabled to turn off a great deal of work for which the world may be the better. A human being who is really very weak and silly, may write many pages which shall do good to his fellow men, or which ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd |
