"Somber" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with a yellow metal, the effect being indescribably rich. The floor was mosaic of many dark colors, but with no definite pattern, and the concave roof was deep red in color. Though beautiful, it was somewhat somber, as the light was not strong. At all events, that is how it struck me at first on coming in from the bright sunlight. Nor, it appeared, was I alone in experiencing such a feeling. As soon as we were inside, the old gentleman, removing ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... "Do they?" The somber pain in Arkwright's eyes deepened. Alice Greggory did not know it, but he was thinking of another story he had once told in that same room. Billy was his listener then, while now—A little precipitately he ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... and thinner. There was a somber light in his eyes, and his lips were whitening. His step, once quick and sure, despite his infirmity, was now less certain. He had not slept since the night of Mercy's death. Determined never to encounter again the pains ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... sadly: "Yes and no. I have lost none of my relatives, but I have arrived at an age when one should wear somber colors. I wear it to-day to inaugurate it; hitherto I have worn it ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... of a well-warmed room. Hoar-frost is a beauty, ice a change of decoration by the greatest of artists, which the rich admire through their windows. He who is warm can admire the withered trees, and find a somber charm in the sight of the snow-covered plain. He who, after a day without suffering, when millions of his fellow-creatures are enduring dreadful privations, throws himself on his bed of down, between his fine and well-aired sheets, may find out that all is for the best ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... taxis at eleven at night, and they are hard to catch. So we generally had the fun of walking back to Brook Street in the dark. And it is dark in London toward midnight. Paris is merely gloomy. Rome is a bit somber, but London is as black as the inside of your hat. For London has been bombed and bombed by the German airmen, until London in the prevailing mist which threatens fog becomes mere murk. Night after night we wandered the crooked streets inquiring our way of strangers, some of whom were ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... "little lake." The clouds hung somber and dull with threatening rain, and a gentle breeze wafted to us now and again a bit of fragrance from the spruce-covered hills above us. Almost before I realized it we were at the rapid. Away to the westward stretched Grand ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... the fact was that so long as he kept still on the dark ground where the snow had been swept away—and earth and grass mingled almost to a black whole against the white—he was practically invisible. This was because of his peculiar somber color. Had he been light of dress, like an ordinary song-thrush, any eye could have picked him up ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... Negro insolently stride Down the red noonday on such noiseless feet? Piled in his barrow, tawnier than wheat, Lie heaps of smoldering daisies, somber-eyed, Their copper petals shriveled up with pride, Hot with a superfluity of heat, Like a great brazier borne along the street By captive leopards, black ...
— Nets to Catch the Wind • Elinor Wylie
... laugh escaped her lips. He had never seen her look so beautiful. A spiritual radiance had transformed her face, which was that of a young girl. Her eyes had lost their somber shadows. Ineffable lights ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... companion stood for some time gazing at the scenes around them. The detective's mind was busy with somber meditations upon the human degradation that was here presented. Here were women, many of them still youthful and with marks of beauty still remaining, in spite of their life of dissipation. Their eyes were flashing ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... be an avenue in a churchyard," he said. "How peacefully the dead might sleep under this somber shade! I wish the churchyard at Ventnor ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... walked through the woods, saw it behind a veining of black branches. Though a camper and impatient to be off like the rest, he did not feel the elation that shone on their watching faces. His was held in a somber abstraction. Just behind him, in an opening under the straight, white blossoming of dogwood trees, was a new-made grave. The raw earth about it showed the prints of his feet, for he had been standing by it thinking of the ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... Tarbell calls 'Restless women.' Money, and always have had it. Those hats were born in one of those exclusive little shops off the Avenue. Rich but somber. They think they're advanced, but they still resent the triumph of the motor-car over the horse. That girl can't call her soul her own. Good eyes, but too sad. He ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... story should be read for the fidelity with which it portrays a life that is potent on this island, along with the best of us. It is a powerful portrayal, and, if somber and repellent, none the less true, none the less freighted with appeal to those who are able to assist in righting ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... at this moment. His face was set resolutely toward the bright side of life, which is really half the battle, and neither the damp nor the cold was able to take from him the good spirits that were his greatest treasure. Coming from the bare life of a camp and the somber scenes of battlefields, he seemed to have plunged into a very whirlwind of gaiety, and his eyes sparkled with appreciation. He did not notice then that his captain's uniform was stained and threadbare enough to make him a most disreputable figure in a drawing-room, however gallant ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... back the same way that we had come. What time was it? I had no idea. We had walked for hours, a long, long time, and so slowly. Perhaps it was midnight or one o'clock. The sky was still a somber blue, without moon, and with but few stars, and the few that had appeared seemed to me to be smaller than usual. The wind had increased; the snow beat in our faces; the houses that we passed were closed for the night. It ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... Mrs. Hawkins entered. She was clad in somber black now, and her cheeks flamed scarlet ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... the one hotel in that somber town of East Africa, and Miss Gregory, fronting the proprietor of it squarely, noted that he looked at her with something like amusement. She was a short woman of fifty, grey-haired and composed, and her pleasant face had a quiet and almost masculine strength ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... dined together, a different atmosphere prevailed. My attention was first caught by the woman's face. She had been speaking earnestly across the table, her profile turned to me. I had noticed casually her earnest manner, her somber clothes, and the great mass of odd, bronze-colored hair on her neck. But suddenly she glanced toward me and the utter hopelessness—almost tragedy—of her expression struck me with a shock. She half closed her eyes and drew a long breath, then ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... by a fine spectacle, a truly noble subject for a painter. At the other end of the field a fine-looking youth was driving a magnificent team of four pairs of young oxen, through whose somber coats glanced a ruddy, glow-like name. They had the short, curry heads that belong to the wild bull, the same large, fierce eyes and jerky movements; they worked in an abrupt, nervous way that showed how they still rebelled against the yoke and goad, and trembled with anger as they obeyed ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... two light and somber trifles, such as in the present day are deemed generally encouraging to spirits, and particularly in accordance with the sentiment of supper—they were ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... channel, Carker proved to be a most delightful conversationalist and companion. He was educated, cultured, and witty, although evidently lacking in humor. Possibly this came from the fact that he had so long and so earnestly regarded and meditated on the somber side of life. He seemed to fascinate Juanita, who listened intently whenever ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... few black-clad figures leave the church, a somber group of shawled women, each affording a glimpse through the opening in the mantle of a nose reddened by the sun, and of one eye swimming in tears. They were covered by the abrigais, the winter shawl, the coarse wool wrap of ancient usage, the very sight of which on that sultry summer morning ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... steps. He gave the password to a sentinel there, and held wide one leaf of the door. He took a candle; and otherwise dark corridors and ante-chambers, somber with heavy Russian furnishings, rugs hung against the walls, barbaric brazen vessels and curious vases, passed like a ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... silent room, of a very silent house, with a peculiar foreboding; and its darkness, and solemn clothing of books, for except where two narrow looking-glasses were set in the wall, they were everywhere, helped this somber feeling. ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... long regret, O tears with which our eyes are wet, Heart-throbs, heart-aches, the glut of pain, The somber cloud, the bitter rain, You were not of those dreams—ah! well, Your full fruition who can tell? Wealth, fame, and love, ah! love that beams Upon ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... he was a man of excellent habits, and the whole company was made up of good straight boys, jolly chirping vagabonds like myself. It was delightful to bowl over the country in that way. I laughed all the time. Miles and miles of somber landscape were made bright with merry song, and when the sun shone and all the golden summer lay spread out before us, it was glorious just to drift on through it like a wisp, of thistle-down, careless of how, or when, or where the wind should anchor us. 'There's a tang of ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... advocate, thus to prove his contention and checkmate its ever-widening influence. He became obsessed by this idea; he schemed and he contrived; he used to the utmost the powers of his Oriental mind. From his vantage-point above the cloister he heard the monks droning at their Latin; his somber glances followed them at their daily tasks. Like a spider he spun his web, and when one victim broke through it he craftily repaired its fabric, luring ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... must surely be drowned and turned his head to see. But there were the two somber figures still following him, though their black sacks were ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... a second look to separate him from the herd. That second look would show you a fine, lean form whose every movement was catlike in its grace, a dark face whose expression was usually sullen, whose eyes were nearly always somber; slender hands and small feet. And his speech, whenever you heard it, was sure to be comparatively free from the idioms of the region; the English was often more correct than otherwise. A man of parts, and he looked it; they all ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... a furnace dimly suggested convey the idea of Industrial Fire in the last of the pictures. There is the same motif of cold in the sky and the fruits, intensified by the somber leafage of fir ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... moving image of George Prince. He stood somber in the black detention uniform. A dark, almost a girlishly handsome fellow, well below medium height—the rod beside him showed five feet four inches. Slim and slight. Long, wavy black hair, falling about his ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... the retreating footsteps of Strangwise and Bellward had died away, Desmond sat listless, preoccupied with his thoughts. They were somber enough. The sinister atmosphere of the house, weighing upon him, ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... philosopher avers are less true than chemical and physical forces, they represent the hidden truth of beauty, which is threaded through the ugly medley of life, being invisible till under the light of the poet's thought it flashes out like a pattern in golden thread, woven through a somber tapestry. ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... were the woods. Through the dense greenness of the pines there was an occasional flash of a silver birch. The scarlets and yellows of oak and maple trees gleamed here and there, making a rich background for the somber company ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... recognizes the somber mystery. The fact, the power, the terror of death are displayed by Him without reserve or softening. And He goes to the root of the dire and dismal matter. He shows us that death as we know it is an unnatural ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... room in his house that overlooked the Pasig, Simoun turned his gaze toward the Walled City, which could be seen through the open windows, with its roofs of galvanized iron gleaming in the moonlight and its somber towers showing dull and gloomy in the midst of the serene night. He laid aside his blue goggles, and his white hair, like a frame of silver, surrounded his energetic bronzed features, dimly lighted by a lamp whose flame was dying out from lack of oil. Apparently wrapped in thought, he took no ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... routine. It took a couple of hours to get them out of the way, and in the end Jurgis saw them go into the chilling rooms with the rest of the meat, being carefully scattered here and there so that they could not be identified. When he came home that night he was in a very somber mood, having begun to see at last how those might be right who had laughed at him for his ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... she looked. She had never seen anything so somber, so sinister, as that precipitous curtain of rock and its riband of ice. It looked like a white band painted on a ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... once more under the lee of the cliff, but toward noon they built their wooden wall another foot higher, driven to the work by the threatening aspect of the sky, which turned to a somber brown. The wind sprang up again, and it ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... "this is kind of you, and although I have been silent, I ask you to believe that deeply I appreciate your welcome escort. And now, enter with me, and we will drink a stoup of wine together, to the somber toast, 'God ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... the faint fragrance of burning pine logs stole up from the open hearth and floated about on the air, already slightly perfumed with the odor of chrysanthemums clustered together in quaint blue china bowls, little patches of gold-and-white coloring, where everything else was somber and subdued. She sank into a low basket chair before the fire, and, obeying her gesture, he seated ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... wall. It appeared that the third member had chosen to dally a few moments over his tobacco and a liqueur-brandy. Kirkwood could see him plainly, lounging in his chair and fumbling the stem of a glass: a heavy man, of somber habit, his black and sullen brows lowering and thoughtful above a ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... on our sensations and thoughts for its quality, but it in turn colors our entire mental life. It serves as a background or setting whose hue is reflected over all our thinking. Let the mood be somber and dark, and all the world looks gloomy; on the other hand, let the mood be bright and cheerful, and the world puts on ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... appeared in the doorway, he apparently did not realize it, though in fact the agitation the young man was concealing under that unfortunate manner was calmness itself in comparison with the state of mind behind Hiram's mask of somber stolidity. ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... not welcome. Constable and the men of the Barbizon school realized for the first time that outdoor conditions were totally different from the studio atmosphere, and while the work of such men as Corot, Millet, Daubigny, Rousseau, and Diaz is only slightly removed from the somber brown of the studio type, it recognizes a new aspect of things which was to be much farther developed than they ever dreamed. Just as Constable shocked his contemporaries by his - for that time - vivid outdoor ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... making some noise, incoherently suggestive of gratification, for he was as bad as any of us about the signorina, and then I was left to my reflections. These were less somber than the reader would, perhaps, anticipate. True, I was putting my head into a noose; and if the President's hands ever found their way to the end of the rope, I fancied he would pull it pretty tight. But, again, I was immensely in love, and equally in debt; and the scheme ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... with a sense of guilt that his mind was wandering from her, and he turned away from the window. He thought how much more peaceful it would be for a body to lie out in the moonlight than on a somber oak bedstead in a shadowy room with yellow, guttering candle-light and five solemn-looking chairs. And he thought again how strange it was that on a night like this Kennedy should come as an avenger seeking to kill rather than as a lover with high ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... restraints of regal state, and to live with a few choice friends in the freedom of a private lady. Unattended she rambled among the flowers of the garden; and in the bright moonlight, leaning upon the arm of a female friend, she forgot, as she gazed upon the moon, and the stars, and all the somber glories of the night, that she was a queen, and rejoiced in those emotions common to every ennobled spirit. Here she often lingered in the midst of congenial joys, till the murmurs of courtiers drew her away to the more ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... here and there bright red flowers—Indian paintbrush, Flo called them—added a touch of color to the gray. Glenn pointed to where dark banks of cloud had massed around the mountain peaks. The scene to the west was somber ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... merry maidens and many a mother, And many a warrior bronzed and bold. For her face was as fair as a beautiful dream, And her voice like the song of the mountain stream; And her eyes like the stars when they glow and gleam. Through the somber pines of the nor'land wold, When the winds of winter are ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... Henry or the horses came to his eyes. For all he knew, he might be going farther from the camp at every step. Putting aside caution, he made a trumpet of his two hands, and uttered the long, quavering cry that serves as a signal in the forest. It came back in a somber echo from the darkening wilderness, and Paul saw, with a little shiver, that the sun was now going down behind the trees. The breeze rose, and the leaves rustled together with a soft hiss, like a warning. Chill came into the air. The sensitive mind of ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... on just as I got fairly within the portal of the main amphitheater. It is about a mile wide, and a little less than two miles long. The crumbling spurs and battlements of Red Mountain bound it on the north, the somber, rudely sculptured precipices of Black Mountain on the south, and a hacked, splintery col, curving around from mountain to mountain, shuts ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... evening was almost of a sensational nature, and Mr. Clarkson had to keep all his wits about him to respond with sufficient agility to the sallies of his master. Usually it was all a very somber ceremony, with a good deal of groaning and snarling in asides. But to-night it ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... finishing its noonday feast when Miss Hortensia Price appeared. Miss Hortensia Price was straight and tall, with somber black eyes and thin, serious lips. Many of the children were greatly in awe of the dignified nurse; but Elsie Meyer ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... than others: it has its inconveniences, and great ones too. The soul indeed is exercised therein; but the body, the care of which I must withal never neglect, remains in the mean time without action, and grows heavy and somber. I know no excess more prejudicial to me, nor more to be avoided in this my ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... animated as she felt of and held up to the light one thing after another. "Mrs. Holcroft was evidently unnaturally large," she reflected aloud, "but then these things could be made over, and much material be left to repair them, from time to time. The dresses are of somber colors, becoming to a lady somewhat advanced in ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... tense dread. He begins to take a less somber view of the situation. Possibly his missing hat had been found and identified. Perhaps the London public thought both had been drowned. Might it not be that no search was made for him, his death being conceded? Strange if detectives were now on the ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... sternly and gloomily preoccupied with the darker features of religion exclusively. Winthrop corrects this judgment; he was a Puritan, though he was sunny and gentle; and there were many others who more or less resembled him. The reason that the somber type is the better known is partly because of its greater picturesqueness and singularity, and partly because the early life of New England was on the whole militant and aggressive, and therefore brought the rigid and positive qualities ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... twins were born in the great square house that set back from the road just on the outskirts of Fairtown. Their baby eyes had opened upon a world of faded portraits and somber haircloth furniture, and their baby hands had eagerly clutched at crystal pendants on brass candlesticks gleaming out of the sacred darkness that enveloped the ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... he turned into the churchyard, and went down the somber avenue of poplars to Chapel Road. Opposite the end of the avenue he saw the two little windows in the second floor; and in his passionate longing he seemed to see Ellen standing there and beckoning. He ran now, and took the stairs three ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... The somber black of Carmichael's evening dress stood out conspicuously among the blue and green and red uniforms. Etiquette compelled him to wear silk stockings, but that was the single concession on his part. He wore no orders. An order of the third or ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... picture for the eye of a delicate and beautiful second wife: one who loves to look on green meadows and glorious landscapes; one who has always wakened with a song and a ripple of laughter that fell on her father's heart like shower of sunshine in the somber green of ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... roundsman could not grasp the somber thought underlying Curtis's words, but a species of indeterminate suspicion prompted his ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... Portal, and twelve keen-eyed observers studied minutely screens and instrument panels connected to the powerful automatic lookout stations beneath the rims of the widely separated volcanic craters from which their craft could issue into Callisto's somber night. ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... somber—in a low tone.] No. Ven she vas little gel, Ay vas bo'sun on vindjammer. Ay never gat home only few time dem year. Ay'm fool sailor fallar. My voman—Anna's mother—she gat tired vait all time Sveden for me ven Ay don't never come. She come dis country, ...
— Anna Christie • Eugene O'Neill
... that pays, and that makes for a well balanced, useful, and happy life, is not necessarily and is not generally a somber, pious morality, or any standard of life that keeps us from a free, happy, spontaneous use and enjoyment of all normal and healthy faculties, functions, and powers, the enjoyment of all innocent pleasures—use, but ...
— Thoughts I Met on the Highway • Ralph Waldo Trine
... an effort to keep up hope in spite of the paleness which came to her lovely face, darted down both paths, glancing as she went at every bush and shrub. But she returned in a moment, and as she shook her head, her great eyes were somber. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... 'something' trees possess that make them know I'm there when I stand close and watch. I suppose I felt it then because I was in love, and love reveals life everywhere." He glanced a moment at the Lebanon looming gaunt and somber through the gathering dusk. A curious wistful expression danced a moment through his eyes. "Yes, Sanderson has seen it as it is," he murmured, "solemnly dreaming there its dim hidden life against the Forest edge, and as different from that other tree in Kent as I am from—from the ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood
... courts and camps, born and bred in the focus of a most gorgeous civilization, he was banished to the ends of the earth, among savage hordes and half-reclaimed forests, to exchange the splendors of St. Germain and the dawning glories of Versailles for a stern gray rock, haunted by somber priests, rugged merchants and traders, blanketed Indians, and wild bushrangers. But Frontenac was a man of action. He wasted no time in vain regrets, and set himself to his work with the elastic vigor of youth. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... says (Ep. lii ad Nepotian.): "Avoid somber," i.e. black, "equally with glittering apparel. Fine and coarse clothes are equally to be shunned, for the one exhales pleasure, the other vainglory." Therefore, since vainglory is a graver sin than the use of pleasure, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... MacGregor. It was rather late, but finding the quiet library pleasanter to her mood than her own room, she curled up in a comfortable chair and began to read. The book was Hardy's "Tess," and its strong and somber passion and tragedy filled her with pity and terror. Something in her was roused by the story; she felt that she understood and suffered with that ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... holly! oh, twine it with bay— Come give the holly a song; For it helps to drive stern winter away, With his garment so somber and long; It peeps through the trees with its berries of red, And its leaves of burnished green, When the flowers and fruits have long been dead, And not even the daisy is seen. Then sing to the holly, the Christmas holly, That hangs over peasant and king; ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... dotted or clustered along the naked twigs of the black alder, add an indispensable cheeriness to the somber winter landscape. Bunches of them, commonly sold in the city streets for household decoration, bring twenty-five cents each; hence the shrubs within a large radius of each market get ample pruning every autumn. The leaves turn black before ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... Sally was the brightness, the deliverance withheld. The corridor was wide and deserted and the black tiles with their gold borders seemed to converge upon her, hemming her into a cool magnificence as structurally somber as the architectural ...
— The Calm Man • Frank Belknap Long
... knows how devotedly! His conversation delighted, fascinated me; and he seemed to experience a pleasure in imparting to me the extensive knowledge which he had acquired. To me he unbent as, doubtless, to human being he never unbent before; in my presence his sternness, his somber moods, his gloomy thoughts vanished. It was evident that he had much preying upon his mind; and perhaps he loved me thus fondly because—by some unaccountable whim or caprice, or strange influence—he found solace in my society. The presents which he heaped ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... transfixed deer, quail, and rabbits came duly, and are mine, now, tomorrow, and for life. You were very fortunate to have won your archery triumphs where you could photograph them. I would give much indeed if I could have photos of the scenes of my brother's and my successes in the somber and game-thronged wilds of the gloomy Okefinokee Swamp. I think I sent you long ago the two numbers of Forest and Stream in which the history of that most wonderful of all my outings appeared. If I did not do so I will loan you the only copy ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... the snow lay deep, Ridged o'er with many a drifty heap; The wind that through the pine trees sung The naked elm-boughs tossed and swung; While through the window, frosty-starred, Against the sunset purple barr'd, We saw the somber crow flit by, The hawks gray flock along the sky, The crested blue-jay flitting swift, The squirrel poising on the drift, Erect, alert, his broad gray tail, Set to the north ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... grows darker still, Shadowed by Sorrow's somber wing, With glad defiance in my throat, I pierce the darkness with a ...
— Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson
... adventure, brave deeds, the glory of warriors, and the love of home. Accent, alliteration, and an abrupt break in the middle of each line gave their poetry a kind of martial rhythm. In general the poetry is earnest and somber, and pervaded by fatalism and religious feeling. A careful reading of the few remaining fragments of Anglo-Saxon literature reveals five striking characteristics: the love of freedom; responsiveness to ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... woods clothed in freshest verdure, and rugged hills running back through gradations of softening color into the distance. Inside, a ray of sunlight stretched across the polished floor, and gleams of brightness rested on the rows of books and somber paneling. Brantholme was old, but modern art had added comfort and toned down its austerity; and George, fresh from the northern snow peaks, was conscious ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... old man's face, the hushed footfalls, the tomblike repose of the building, in an electric flash of consciousness; I held the clue to the broken riata at last. Altascar took my hand, and we crossed the corridor to a somber apartment. A few tall candles were burning in sconces before ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... orange blossoms, which are emblems of virginity, nor does she have bridesmaids. Usually a widow chooses a very quiet wedding, but there is no reason why she should not have a "big wedding" if she cares to, except that somber ushers and a bride in traveling dress, or at best a light afternoon one with a hat, does not make an effective processional—unless she is beautiful enough to compensate ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... a funereal black coat, despite the heat, and a somber dark Stetson hat. He must have been fifty or more. His skin looked bloodless, and his eyes still had that hard, pale look. It was difficult to trust eyes like those. He ambled, rather than walked, and his lean, lanky legs would ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... Theophilus Opperdyke, the timorous boner whom Bannister College called the "Human Encyclopedia," roosted on the sacred Senior Fence, between the Gymnasium and the Administration Building. A gloomy silence, like a somber mantle, enshrouded the four members of '19, as they listened to a rollicking parody on, "Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?" chanted by some Juniors in Nordyke, with T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., as the object of solicitude. ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... passed was Castle Thunder, of bloody repute. This occupied the same place in Confederate history, that, the dungeons beneath the level of the water did in the annals of the Venetian Council of Ten. It was believed that if the bricks in its somber, dirt-grimed walls could speak, each could tell a separate story of a life deemed dangerous to the State that had gone down in night, at the behest of the ruthless Confederate authorities. It was confidently asserted that ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... the one window and the lowering day outside, the long narrow shop was somber. The ceiling seemed close above Chris's head. Heavy hand-hewn beams crossed it from one side to the other. A few dusty pieces of furniture stood about, whether for sale or for use Chris could not determine, and almost lost in the black shadows at the far end were what appeared to be boxes ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... darkly upon it all, so lost in his own somber thoughts that he did not hear the library door open, nor the soft rustle of a woman's dress as she ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... somber inflection, and said: "He 'ordered' you? Yes, I see; is your master always as hard to please as to-day, Henry? He certainly was ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... ancient broken wall encloses round, From tread of lawless feet, the hallow'd ground, And somber yews their dewy branches wave O'er many a motey stone and mounded grave: Where parish church, confus'dly to the sight, With deeper darkness prints the shades of night, And mould'ring tombs uncouthly gape around, And rails and fallen stones bestrew the ground: In loosen'd garb derang'd, ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... went on much as before, but with a new heaviness. Ellen, watching keenly, knew why the little house was so cheerless and somber. It had been Willy Cameron who had brought to it its gayer moments, Willy determinedly cheerful, slamming doors and whistling; Willy racing up the stairs with something hot for Mrs. Boyd's tray; Willy at the table, making them forget the frugality of the meals with campaign anecdotes; ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... landscape. Treeless and desolate hills rose on all sides. A few tumbled-down cottages of grey stone lay scattered upon the lower slopes among patches of shabby and forlorn cultivation. Here and there an outcrop of rock ran skywards into somber and precipitous ridges. The October wind passed to and fro over it all, mournfully singing, and driving loose clouds that seemed to drop weighted shadows among ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... Sentimental and romantic considerations, however, did not influence him altogether in his first important work. He had been kindled by Howells in Boston to a passion for realism which carried him beyond the suave accuracy of his master to the somber veracity of Main-Travelled Roads, Prairie Folks, and Rose of Dutcher's Coolly. This veracity was more than somber; it was deliberate and polemic. Mr. Garland, ardently a radical of the school of Henry George, had enlisted in the crusade against poverty, and he desired ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... sincere in the welcome that was implied in her voice and manner; while her face, together with her somber garb of mourning, was so expressive of sadness and grief that the girl's gentle heart was touched. Going forward, with that natural, dignity that belongs to those whose minds and hearts are unsullied by habitual pretense of feeling and sham emotions, Sibyl spoke a few well chosen words ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... hundred miles further south, having united with the Grande, and formed the Rio Colorado, does indeed, by dint of burrowing deeper and deeper into the sunless chasms, become at last sublime. But here it gives no hint of its future somber glory. I remained awake till we had crossed Green River, to make sure that no striking scenery should be missed by sleep. But I got nothing for my pains except the moonlight on the muddy water; and next time I shall go ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... the camp as they had expected had yet gone to sleep. Tandakora, somber and gigantic, gnawed the flesh from the big bone of a deer and then, throwing the bone into the fire, approached St. Luc. Robert saw them talking and presently De Courcelles and Jumonville came also. The four talked a little ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the cruelty peculiar to the modern in business. With its soft-shaded lamp, its two-toned rug, its Jacobean chairs, its magazine-laden cathedral oak table, its pot of bright flowers making a smart touch of color in the somber richness of the room, it was no place for the shabby, the down-and-out, the cringing, the ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... I must go. You understand better than the rest, I think, and I always count on you to help me off." As he spoke he rested his head on his hands and looked across the table into the fire. His eyes were somber and the strong lines in his face cut deep with a ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... solidez f. solidity. solitario solitary. solo alone; solo only; tan solo only. soltar to loosen, let go. soltero -a bachelor, unmarried person. solteron -a bachelor, old maid. sollozo sob. sombra shadow. sombrero hat. sombrio somber, gloomy. son m. sound. sonar to sound. sondear to sound. sonreir(se) to smile. sonrisa smile. sonar to dream. soplar to blow. soplo blowing, puffing. sordo deaf; secret; silent. sorna sluggishness, ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... becoming. The color should be light and attractive, but the style may be as simple as one pleases. Lilac is a pretty color for the older woman, and sunset yellow is becoming both to age and youth alike, when it is appropriately combined with some more somber shade. ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... upon the somber man in the cage and asked in my best and clearest English how much the tickets were. A blank stare was his only answer. He understood no English, and to save my life I could think of no German. I stammered and stammered but with no success, and in a few seconds a fat German lady with ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... old Rile Foster who had drawn apart from the rest and was eating his meal in solitude. The old man had taken a boot heel from his pocket and was studying it as if fascinated by the somber reflections it roused in him. Alden shook his head as he rose and moved toward ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... hobgoblins like that was plain endurance. This was a part of a somber sobering discovery that Rose had made during the first few days of her new life. Courage of the active sort she'd always had. The way she went up to North End Hall and wrested a job that didn't strictly exist, from John Galbraith, was an example of it. ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... fiord with wooded walls divides the Carlingford range from the mountains of Mourne. The great dark range thrusts itself forth against the sea in somber beauty, overhanging the wide strand of Dundrum Bay. The lesser bay, across whose bar the sea moans under the storm-winds, is dominated by the hill of Rudraige, named in honor of a hero of old days; but under the shadow of the hill stands a more ancient monument, that was gray with age before ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... in the rich pastures, cattle were quietly grazing, or resting beneath the shadows of the old trees, or frisking in the glad spring-time. The light and shade played upon the fresh landscape, as bright and somber imaginings sweep over a youthful heart; and as the young clergyman drank in all the glory and loveliness of the scene, his soul was filled with a rapture, which none can ever know but the earnest Christian, ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... lay grey and somber, shadowed by the winter sky. The wind stung her face and tweaked her fingers through her warm gloves. Directly in front of the Young house, she reined in her horse and contemplated it. How much had happened since she had married Frederick, and Ebenezer had married Helen Young—how ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... her. One day there appeared a pair of lovesick lavenders, but they never again bloomed. Evidently she was the kind of a girl who would be firm about those. Then, for a time—for two long weeks—E. G.'s hose were black; somber, mournful, unrelieved black. They had quarreled. After that they brightened. They became numerous, and varied. There was about them something triumphant, ecstatic. ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... impressed with the terrible scene they had witnessed, and the tremendously hazardous nature of the enterprise they had undertaken, to indulge in general conversation. Gradually, however, the steady, rapid motion, the sense of strength and reliance in themselves and each other, lessened the somber expression, and a general talk began, mostly upon Indian fights, in which most of the older settlers had at one time or ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... sun had not yet risen high enough to cast its rays upon the lake, and the mountain that threw somber shadows over the face of the lake, still hid the shining of the orb of day. The expectancy and hush that always precedes the bursting forth of shining light, enthralled all the wild ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... the lurking Indians, the long cold winters with their certain harvest of death from diseases which could be ascribed only to the will of God and met with resignation instead of skill, the succession of funerals as depressing as they were public and pervading—were well calculated to deepen the somber cast of the Puritan temper and accentuate the critical and introspective tendency of his mind. Inspection of one's own and one's neighbor's conduct was, indeed, always a Puritan duty; shut within the restricted horizon of a New England ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... acres, in a lonely neighborhood, And near a grove of somber pines the shackly farm-house stood; And all the folks, for miles around, did solemnly declare That ghosts and goblins horrible ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy
... the squares were thrown down and the grassy inclosures thrown open to the public. Of course the edges of the turf would be worn, and the paths would not keep their exact shapes. But the prison look would be banished, and the somber sadness of the squares would ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... horror in her blue eyes and her parted lips. She looked at him in utter dismay. No longer was he the debonair favorite of the High School. In his somber eyes, his thin cold lips, his tense shoulders, the young girl saw the savage. She looked from Charlie to the familiar garden, to Adam, scratching fleas, and beyond to the quiet herds in the Norton meadows. Surely Charlie's tale of killings had no place in this orderly life. Then her glance ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... rose a thick jungle, dark and gloomy—and very wet. Palm-like, the gigantic trees were, or fern-like, flinging clouds of feathery green foliage high against a somber sky of ...
— The Cosmic Express • John Stewart Williamson
... cabin scuttle, we stepped downward into the smallest and murkiest den in the world. The altar-like transom, surmounted by the closed dead-lights in the stem, together with the dim little sky- light overhead, and the somber aspect of every thing around, gave the place the air of some subterranean oratory, say a Prayer Room of Peter the Hermit. But coils of rigging, bolts of canvas, articles of clothing, and disorderly heaps of rubbish, harmonized not with this ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... are the affairs of the New Nederlanders. While the honest burghers are smoking their pipes in somber security, and the privy councillors are snoring in the council chamber, while Peter the Headstrong is undauntedly making his way through the east country, in the confident hope by honest words and manly deeds ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... common use and its rotten timbers are piled with honest unromantic merchandise. But once a gibbet stood on Wapping Wharf, and pirates were hanged upon it. It was the first convenient harborage for inbound ships to dispose of this dirty deep-sea cargo. So it was the somber motif of a pirate's life—his moment of reflection after he ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... arrived at the Presidio the guitars were tinkling and the sala was full of eager and somber faces. The Californians had come early, determined to witness the arrival of the Russians. Very pretty most of the girls were, and by no means a bevy of brunettes. There was hair of every shade of brown, looped over the ears, drawn high and confined by the high comb and the long pins; and Rafaella ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... back of his mate with a somber glow in his eyes that contrasted strongly with the forced smile of a moment before, and then retired to the cabin to go ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... rather fast at first as the sun had not yet set, picking their way through the woods, and soon left their comrades out of sight. The twilight now came fast, adding a mournful and somber red to the vast expanse of wilderness. The simile of an Indian fight returned to Dick with increased force. This was not like any battle with white men in the open fields. It was a combat of raiders who advanced secretly under ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... them. An inefficient, unemployed, disorganized Europe faces us, torn by internal strife and international hate, fighting, starving, pillaging, and lying. What warrant is there for a picture of less somber colors? ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... withal the most spontaneous, simple, and genuinely human poem Poe ever wrote. "The Haunted Palace," one of the finest of his poems, is an unequaled allegory of the wreck and ruin of sovereign reason, which to be fully appreciated should be read in its somber setting, "The Fall of the House of Usher." Less attractive is "The Conqueror Worm," with its repulsive imagery, but this "tragedy 'Man,'" with the universe as a theater, moving to the "music of the spheres," and "horror the soul of the plot," is undeniably powerful ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... alligators—palms growing so thick and rank that it is quite like looking into some vast conservatory, with the blue dome of the sky for glass. And here grow the magnolias in their wild, barbaric splendor of bloom, and the live-oaks, mighty of girth and spread, draped in somber gray moss as if for the funeral of some god of the deep green wood. At the fringe of the swamp, tempting you until near to jumping into the morass after them, are the huge fleurs-de-lis, each gorgeous blossom fully seven inches across its ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... showed her, partly because she had received it so long, partly because that detached frame of mind of the hopeless invalid made the life about her seem shadowy and unreal. Nothing really mattered much. She lay back in her chair with the little wistful smile, the somber light in her eyes that ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... decorously, their hair was smooth. Mounted policemen, glorious in buttons, breathing out authority, curvetted past, and everywhere and always the chug-chug-chug of the gleaming, fierce-eyed motor cars filled one's ears. They darted past, flaming scarlet, somber olive, and livid white; a crouching, masked figure intent at the wheel, veiled, shapeless women behind, a whir of dust to show where they ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... The somber forest, with its peculiar history, suggests to our minds the green woods of old England, where Robin Hood and his merry men were wont to pass their idle time; or the Black Forest of Germany, where thieves and highwaymen found concealment in days ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... could see, was moored parallel with the abrupt brick shore of a very narrow canal, with somber, uninviting houses close on either hand. It was as if a ship were tied up along the curb of a street. Up and down the gang planks and back and forth upon the deck hurried men in blouses with great, clumsy wooden shoes upon ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... philosophy in this regard. He says: "To transmute iron into gold two things are necessary. First, the annihilation of the iron; second, the creation of gold." Voltaire was a man of humor, of good nature, of cheerfulness. He despised with all his heart the philosophy of Calvin, the creed of the somber, of the severe, of the unnatural. He pitied those who needed the aid of religion to be honest, to be cheerful. He had the courage to enjoy the present and the philosophy to bear what the future might bring. And yet for more than a hundred and fifty years the Christian world has fought this man and ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... was passing behind the first cloud of the whole day just then. Somehow the added somber conditions had an effect on all the boys; for, with the temporary vanishing of the king of day, the shadows around them appeared to grow bolder, and issue forth ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... of the old houses of the city, a somber stone dwelling with a garden about it on a downtown square, on which business was already encroaching. We were admitted by a servant who seemed to walk over the polished floors with stealthy step as if there ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... observation itself, and imagination itself; which is prodigal of the true, the passionate, the common, the trivial, the material, and which at moments throws athwart realities, suddenly and broadly torn open, the gleam of the most somber ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... rode out into the middle of the street on his famous coal-black charger, John Barleycorn. There was a long hush. Then, with a wave of his hand, he gave the signal. One hundred bands burst into the somber and clanging strains of "The Face on the Bar-Room Floor." The great ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... of you," stammered Kate, rising. "I am—very much obliged to you." She held out a hand to him that was cold to the fingertips. All at once she felt so old, so young, so niched forever in a somber, gray life, so settled, so bound up by small formalities, so miserably ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... of the people of Lawrence with Governor Shannon did, however, have a somber and awful background. While this had been going on a boy had been murdered in the vicinity of Lawrence. Some young men rode out to see about it, and one of them was shot and killed. But a still more ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... breakfast with scant appetite. But his moodiness had company. Elsie sat at table tearful-eyed and drooping. Carmena's eyes were somber and her expression was hard. In reply to Lennon's polite inquiry for Farley she coldly replied that her father was ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... mill which the smugglers and pelota players frequent. There, he sits at a table, his cap still drawn over his eyes, with his friends: Arrochkoa, two or three others of the mountains and the somber ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... and ground pine. The word farvel, "farewell," was worked in green over the front door. The coffin, which was carried on a bier by the neighbors to the little cemetery not far away, was covered with flowers, and following it were a number of women clad in somber black with little white shawls tied under their chins, each carrying a wreath in her hands. The minister led the procession. He was dressed in a long black gown reaching to his heels, like the cassock of a Catholic priest; his hat was of felt, with a low ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... park where art had done no more than retouch nature. Here a placid stream suddenly transformed itself into an imposing waterfall, plunging with roars over a rocky cliff, and sending its spray whirling high in air to paint a hundred illusive rainbows amid outstretching tree-branches or against a somber background of stone. ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... his long-bladed hunting-knife, and then he and Shif'less Sol sprang into the boat. Each seized a man by the shoulders and lifted him in his powerful arms. It was a chance that one of the sleepers was Luiz, and, when he was snatched suddenly from blissful dreams to somber fact, he opened his eyes to see bending over him the same grave, tanned being who had rescued him ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... hurrying about on deck, was only shown by the somber figures who now and then passed in front of a single lantern. From out the engine room, already under water, arose the pound of heavy pounding and the weird crackling of the engines, as they ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... hidden by the forest and thickets. The dawn was cold, and Harry felt a little chill, but it soon passed, as the red edge of the sun showed over the eastern border of the Wilderness. Then the light spread toward the zenith, but the golden glow failed to penetrate the somber thickets. ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... four. The afternoon was waning. The thick, woolly gray that surrounded them assumed a more somber shade. Night was coming, pitchy and starless, doubly so for the two lost boys, adrift on the ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... between them. Plain black velvet and a lugubrious long vail were considered my only admissible wear, after my husband's ruin; but before the sale of our furniture, it was conceded that I might relieve the somber Venetian patrician's black dress with white satin puffs and crimson linings and rich embroidery of gold and pearl; moreover, before our bankruptcy, I was allowed (not, however, without serious demur on the part of Lawrence) to cover my head ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... heartiness in his voice when he came upon her in the library. She was not reading. Books, pleasures and all the joys of life had fled from her mind and she thought only of the disaster that was coming to the boy she had always loved. His heart smote him as he looked into the deep, somber, frightened eyes, running over with love ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... the princely pilgrim to the glories of monkish sainthood, that left an indelible impression on the fifteen-year-old boy. When he observed the Carthusians at Eisenach, weary and wan with many a vigil, somber and taciturn, toiling up the rugged steps to a heaven beyond the common heaven; when he talked with the young priests at the towns where he studied, and all praised the life of a monk to this young seeker ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... to shoulder. With a smothered groan he tried to tighten his clasp again. Then help came. Eager hands took his burden, and he felt himself being pulled back from the edge. He glanced up once and had a glimpse of somber twilight ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... a slow drizzle of rain which only added to the somber quiet of the city, and as the evening approached and wore on I felt myself caught in the irresistible tide of fearful anticipation which warned of the sixth appearance of the Head-hunter. The streets were deserted throughout the day, and with but few exceptions the only pedestrians ...
— The Homicidal Diary • Earl Peirce
... which reflects in the placid water the outlines of its graceful ogive. On the right, the hills stand close together in the form of a circus, and seemed to join their verdure-clad curves; on the left, they spread out until they become merged in the deep and somber masses of a vast forest. The valley is thus closed on all sides, and offers a picture of which the calm, the freshness, and the isolation penetrate ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... presently, when a gust of wind rushed in and Sheila shivered, he abruptly closed the door, barred it, and strode to the fireplace, throwing a fresh log into it. For a time he stood silently in front of the fire, his figure casting a long, gaunt shadow at Sheila's feet, his gaze on her, grim, somber lines in his face. Presently ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Flush, was a member of the household not to be ignored, and her one source of consolation, in being turned away from the Vallombrosa summer, lay in the fact that "Flush hated it," and was frightened by the vast and somber pine forests. "Flush likes civilized life," said Mrs. Browning laughingly, "and the society of little dogs with turned-up tails, such as abound ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... of the scene was tolerably plain to both of them. The little cleared space formed a natural amphitheater walled in by somber ranks of pines; and, standing higher, they could see over the heads of the clustering men. There was no difficulty in identifying the victim, the persecutor and the champion, for Weston stood stripped to blue shirt and trousers, with the big ax in his hand and his head thrown back ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss |
