"Sullen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... disposition, originally, perhaps, less severe than that of Nicholas, was darkened and vitiated in him from his early days. Custine already remarked the expression of deep melancholy in the Grand Duke; and all those who have seen Alexander II. since have been struck with his sour and sullen morosity. No smile ever lights up this "humane" Czar's face. His uneasy glance is that of the misanthrope; his brow seems overcast as with the lowering shadow of a tragic fate. The harsh way in which he was brought up by his martinet father, without the slightest ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... then, turning his head, remained silent for a while. The sullen roar of the great city invaded the quiet room through the open windows, the heavy regular tread of a policeman on his beat, a shrill whistle hailing a hansom from a house some few doors distant up the square, and then an answering ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... particularly—there was a show of rebellion among the people; but our light-rays cowed them instantly, and in no instance did we have to kill or injure any one. Through Miela I made speeches everywhere. It was not my wish to hold the country in sullen subjection, and to that end I appealed to their patriotism in this coming war against Tao and the Twilight People. This aspect of the matter met with ready response, and everywhere our meetings ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... nevertheless she could retreat behind a baffling air of stolidity—almost of sullenness—when she chose, and that was precisely the mask she wore for Bill. In reality she was far from stolid and anything but sullen. ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... woeful measures wan Despair— Low sullen sounds his grief beguiled, A solemn, strange, and mingled air, 'T was sad by fits, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... almost under ground, whose bare and reeking walls seemed as though impregnated with tears; a lamp placed on a stool illumined the apartment faintly, and showed Dantes the features of his conductor, an under-jailer, ill-clothed, and of sullen appearance. ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... become impaired by the exposures which it was necessary to encounter, in travelling through this wilderness. Doctor —— was a changed man; most painfully was this the case. He was not only moody and sullen in his temperament, and at times unhappy to the last degree; but he did not seem to take that pleasure which he once did in the society of his wife and children. Now and then he would drink hard, and become intoxicated, in which case he abused me most shamefully, and I bore all for the sake of ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... Turbulent region, but a little more external than Insanity, are the regions of Roguery and Pessimism, which appear immediately at the ear and on the lower angle of the jaw, which is marked as Melancholy on account of its sullen gloom, which looks always on the unfavorable side. The organ manifested behind the jaw through the inner ear or meatus auditorius is one of sensual selfishness which, when predominant, produces Baseness or disregard of all duties for our own indolent ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, November 1887 - Volume 1, Number 10 • Various
... was English consul at Naples about the middle of the seventeenth century, happening on one ocassion to be in Florence, visited the Menagerie of the Grand Duke. At the farther end of one of the dens he saw a lion which lay in sullen majesty, and which the keepers informed him they had been unable to tame, although every effort had been used for upwards of three years. Sir George had no sooner reached the gate of the den, than the lion ran to it, and evinced ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... A sullen and portentous dawn hung in the sky when the little party left the cabin. In the east the entire firmament was ensanguined with sinister crimson and barred with long reefs of purple-black clouds in motionless suspense. Upon the earth the red glare fell ominously; the eastern ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... droops my lord, like over-ripen'd corn, Hanging the head at Ceres' plenteous load? Why doth the great Duke Humphrey knit his brows, As frowning at the favours of the world? Why are thine eyes fix'd to the sullen earth, Gazing on that which seems to dim thy sight? What see'st thou there? King Henry's diadem, Enchas'd with all the honours of the world? If so, gaze on, and grovel on thy face, Until thy head be circled with the same. Put forth thy hand, reach at the glorious ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... willingly into the little conspiracy against the extension of Mr. Grayson's knowledge, even Churchill, under the whip and spur of Harley's will, promising a sullen silence. The case itself presented aspects that stirred these men, calling as it did for an alertness of mind and delicacy of handling that appealed to their sense of responsibility; hence it aroused their interest, which in turn ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... criminal act, we may call the effect of our victory peace, or obedience, or what we will, but the war is not ended; the hostile mind continues in full vigor, and it continues under a worse form. If your peace be nothing more than a sullen pause from arms, if their quiet be nothing but the meditation of revenge, where smitten pride smarting from its wounds festers into new rancor, neither the act of Henry the Eighth nor its handmaid of this reign will answer any ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and regaining his seat. The ice had been thinner than he supposed, and he was too much of an expert to risk breaking through. "But why are you so cold to me?" he asked gloomily, with a sullen glance; "you, whose whole nature is the reverse? Do you know you are gloriously beautiful—you, whom I have always regarded as a woman of the world, seem to have suddenly developed ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... these hundred and fifty years, without ever learning so much as what a lion's head is like. But with good modern stuffing and fetching, I can manage now to make a child really understand something about the beast's look, and his mane, and his sullen eyes and brindled lips. But if I'm bothered at the same time with a big bony box, that has neither mane, lips, nor eyes, and have to explain to the poor wretch of a parish schoolboy how somehow this fits ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... ranged about and fading away to the remote edges of the screen were antithetical scenes, each scene a picture, and he the onlooker, free to look at will upon what he wished. He saw these other scenes through drifting vapors and swirls of sullen fog dissolving before shafts of red and garish light. He saw cowboys at the bar, drinking fierce whiskey, the air filled with obscenity and ribald language, and he saw himself with them drinking and cursing with the wildest, or sitting at table with them, under ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... heavens were still black and lowering. Over against us was the Monte Generoso, very sombre, and scarred with snow-white torrents; below, the dull, sullen slopes of the Monte Bisbino, and the lake of Como; further on, the Mendrisiotto and the blue-black plains of Lombardy. I have been at the top of the Monte Bisbino several times, but never was more impressed with it. At all times, however, it is ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... slender, graceful, with a funnel-shaped top. All day and all night these stacks were smoking; from the first, the larger one, rolled a heavy black smoke, very gloomy, waving with a slow and continued movement like the plume of some sullen warrior. But the other one, the tall and slender pipe, threw off a series of little white puffs, three at a time, that rose buoyant and joyous into the air like so many white doves, vanishing at last, melting away in the higher sunshine, only to be followed ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... virtuous, amiable, and obsequious to the last degree, she never met with a proper return of affection, or even of complaisance, from her husband; and the malignant ideas of faction still, in his sullen mind, prevailed over all ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... Pao-ch'ai was in such low spirits that she would not even speak to him, and concluded that the reason was to be sought in the incident of the previous day. Madame Wang seeing Pao-y in a sullen humour jumped at the surmise that it must be due to Chin Ch'uan's affair of the day before; and so ill at ease did she feel that she heeded him less than ever. Lin Tai-y, detected Pao-y's apathy, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... gaze upon my face, Yet meet with no confusion there: One only feeling could'st thou trace; The sullen calmness of despair. ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... suddenly stretched out what seemed to be a reef of breakers for miles under the sullen rain-clouds, and, with instant attention, the yawl was put about to ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... "In sullen silence. She doesn't deign to speak to me; but with her cousin it is quite another matter. He had the hardihood to call upon her in my presence, and you should have seen her. By Jove, sir! she flew out at him like a tigress. Doctor Guy departed without standing on the order of his ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... flying here and there to bestow last touches on the different members of her cast. "Now, Clare, you must remember not to give such a shriek when you go on, mustn't he, Jappy? Just a dull, sullen ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... Staines started for Cape Town. Staines paid her every attention, when opportunity offered. But she was sullen and gloomy, and held ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... many scenes of dispute and crimination between the two brothers, until at last Clarence could no longer endure to have any thing to do with Edward, and he went away, with Isabella his wife, to a castle which he possessed near Tewkesbury, and there remained, in angry and sullen seclusion. So great was the animosity that prevailed at this time between the brothers and their respective partisans, that almost every one who took an active part in the quarrel lived in continual anxiety from fear ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... sullen stream Been doomed the cheerless shores to lave; Long has the Suttee's baneful gleam Pale glimmered o'er thy ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... utilized, and no room has been left for sanitation, or for parks and open spaces, where the people may breathe the pure air of heaven. These things are modern inventions of the West and have never yet touched the thought or the life of the East, where sullen heat, fetid atmosphere, and stifling surroundings are the natural inheritance of the men and women who throng the cities and crowd and elbow each other in the great ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... Watching the sullen fire, Hearing the dreary rain, Drop after drop, run down On the darkening window-pane; Chill was the heart of Bertha, Chill as that winter day,— For the star of her life had risen ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... the morning, the gale had died away, but the sky wept from low and ragged clouds, as if ashamed and sullen at the wrath of the day before. Water trickled in the cracks of the rock; and when David peered abroad, he looked into the thin drifting clouds. He had a great content in his heart, but the awe and the strange peace of the night had ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... communities to which they penetrated. Wherever there was a group of log cabins, thither some Methodist circuit-rider made his way or there some Baptist preacher took up his abode. Their prejudices and narrow dislikes, their raw vanity and sullen distrust of all who were better schooled than they, count for little when weighed against their intense earnestness and heroic self-sacrifice. They proved their truth by their endeavor. They yielded scores of martyrs, nameless and unknown men who perished at the hands of the savages, or by ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... minute, king, that thou canst give: Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow, And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow; Thou can'st help time to furrow me with age, But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage; Thy word is current with him for my death, But dead, thy kingdom cannot buy ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... the strike; while the unions watched in sullen despair, and the country clamored like a greedy child for its food, and the packers went grimly on their way. Each day they added new workers, and could be more stern with the old ones—could put them on piecework, and dismiss them if they did ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... people had not long been at the cabin when the parents arrived. The little Huldy, moaning piteously, with a stricken, terrified look in her big, childish eyes, was crouched upon the floor beside a rickety chair. Sammy, sullen and defiant, was at the desolate hearth, fumbling with unskilled hands at the sodden chunks of wood he ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... face took on a sulky look, his heavy lips were pouted, his glance sullen. Mr. Wilding, on the contrary, ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... the post-boy, stopping to give his horses breath, turned round to the carriage, pointing at the same time, with a significant gesture, to a tall thin gray house, something resembling a tower, that stood in the vale beneath. A small sullen-looking lake was in front, on whose banks grew neither tree nor shrub. Behind rose a chain of rugged cloud-capped hills, on the declivities of which were some faint attempts at young plantations; and the only level ground consisted ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... that in this good and pious priest he had a powerful and eloquent ally. After the first salutations had passed, M'Loughlin asked for a private interview with him; and when they had remained about a quarter of an hour together, the three sons were sent for, all of whom entered with silent and sullen resolution strongly impressed on their stern, pale, and immovable features. Father Roche himself was startled even into something like terror, when he witnessed this most extraordinary change in the whole bearing ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... and then these sullen vapors of doubt will roll off before the sunlight of domestic happiness. It will allure you to love Him who has given you so much to love. Yes," said I, gayly, "I shall visit you one day in happier moods; when you will wonder how you could have indulged all your present ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... reel hissing as the line spun away eighty or a hundred feet across the current, and far out into the lake; but he was fast, and after struggling for a time, he partially surrendered, and I reeled him in. Slowly, and with a sullen struggling, he was drawn towards the shore, sometimes with his head out of water, and sometimes diving towards the bottom. At last, he caught sight of me, and with renewed energy he plunged away again, clear across the ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... soothe the grieved, the stubborn they chastise, Fools they admonish, and confirm the wise: Their aid they yield to all: they never shun The man of sorrow, nor the wretch undone: Unlike the hard, the selfish, and the proud, They fly not sullen from the suppliant crowd; Nor tell to various people various things, But show to subjects, what ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... chirped and twittered in silly ignorance of its mistress's mood. Anger disfigured her beautiful mouth and eyes. The list of regrets stretched out to sinister length and included such pillars of society as Brutus and Sempronia, Bibulus and Portia. A cynical smile relieved Clodia's sullen lips. Did these braggarts imagine her blind to the fact that if lively Sempronia and stupid Bibulus could conveniently die, Brutus and Portia, who were wiping her off their visiting lists because her feet had strayed beyond the marriage paddock, would make short work ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... become a great favorite with us, and with all the officers of the regiment. He talked less than any man I ever knew, but there was nothing sinister or sullen in his reticence. It was sunshine,—warmth and brightness, but no voice. Unassuming and modest to the verge of shyness, he impressed every one as a man ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... felt a sullen resentment toward her brother, David, because he persisted in being friends with at least two of the girls in Oakdale High School ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... however, the place would hardly have appealed to Harvey and Henry Burns. The aged building seemed to creak and sway in the wind, as though it might fall apart from weakness and topple into the water. The stream plunged over the dam with a sullen roar, much as if it chafed at the barrier and longed to sweep it altogether from its course and carry its timbers with it. Once the lightning flashed into and through all the cobwebbed window-panes, and the mill gave out a ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... the sullen battle's roar, Dearer the greeting of thy gentle eyes When he, a-weary, torn, and bleeding lies, Than all the glory that ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... crowds who watched her departure from Durham House, in the Strand, were silent and sullen. Her youthful beauty and grace might win an involuntary cry of admiration, but the heart of the people was not hers. They recognised that she was but the tool of her father-in-law, whom, because of his ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... demonstrating; no shops, because the shopmen are mobilised; no anything, because everyone is out watching the fun. So you go into the square to watch also. You see little groups of revolutionaries looking sullen and laboriously class-hating. You see a lot of soldiers looking very ordinary but trying not to. The riff-raff scowl at the soldiers, who are ordered out to shoot at them. The soldiers scowl at the riff-raff ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... reached forth, grasped Morris warmly by the hand, and gave it so extreme a squeeze that the sullen householder fell back. Profiting by this movement, the lawyer obtained a footing in the lobby and marched into the dining-room, with Morris at ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "Huh!" growled the sullen youth. "Yer said I was to be perlite, an' when I start in ter be, you spring them old pertaters on a ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... case of any contretemps, is less reassuring to the travellers who venture shoreward on the risky craft. The loan of the captain's boat makes the visit to Dongalla an experience of unalloyed pleasure, but the people appear morose and sullen. A dignified youth, in purple turban and checked sarong, attempts to do the honours of his native place, but his comrades, oppressed by vague suspicions, close the heavy doors of their wooden houses, and peep through the interstices of the bamboo shutters as we thread the narrow alleys, escorted ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... our Eyes[t], and the Joy of our Hearts. Let us not content ourselves, in such Circumstances, with keeping the Door of our Lips[u], that we break not out into any Indecencies of Complaint; let us not attempt to harden ourselves against our Sorrows by a stern Insensibility, or that sullen Resolution which sometimes says, It is a Grief, and I must bear it[w]; but let us labour, (for a great Labour it will indeed be,) to compose and quiet our Souls, calmly to acquiesce in this painful Dispensation, nay, cordially ...
— Submission to Divine Providence in the Death of Children • Phillip Doddridge
... their allies, at the treaty of Ghent. Many never returned to the homes of their fathers—entire villages were depopulated, and their sites overgrown in a few years with shrubbery. Those who came back from the active campaign of 1814, were sullen and desponding. As an evidence of what they had suffered, and how completely they had been abandoned by their allies, the transactions of the first treaty at Springwells, at the close of the war, may be referred to. The tribes were literally ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... conveying them to the landing steps, a short distance of about fifty yards. Upon their landing, we were much pleased to observe that the people offered them neither violence nor insult. They were received with a sullen silence, and a lane was made for them to pass into the town. The poor old clergyman who had survived the passage, was left on board, in the care of two benevolent persons, until he could be safely and comfortably conveyed on shore. ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... is ringing like a bee tree," said a sullen little voice over their heads, and Mowgli slid down a tree trunk very angry and indignant, adding as he reached the ground: "I come for Bagheera and not for thee, fat ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... our company I had been particularly sorry for. He wasn't a bad sort at all; he was more dazed than anything else; didn't understand the army manner; the army snobbishness. This lieutenant couldn't look at him without making him sullen. ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... business. For an hour he strolled about, his right hand never far from the butt of the automatic that lay along his groin, his eyes never too far from the unwilling Nau-hau beside him. For Nau-hau, in sullen volcanic rage, was ripe to erupt at the slightest opportunity. And, so strolling, Van Horn was given to see what few white men have seen, for Langa-Langa and her sister islets, beautiful beads ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... belongs to its consummation. In its earlier and struggling states, light does but reveal darkness. It makes the darkness palpable and "visible." Of which we may see a sensible illustration in a gloomy glass-house, where the sullen lustre from the furnace does but mass and accumulate the thick darkness in the rear upon which the moving figures are relieved. Or we may see an intellectual illustration in the mind of the savage, on whose blank ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... submitted, accepted his favors, and bound themselves to plot against him no more. To the widows and children of those who had fallen in the war he restored the estates and honors of their families. Finally, as some were still sullen, and refused to sue for a forgiveness which might imply an acknowledgment of guilt, he renewed the general amnesty of the previous year; and, as a last evidence that his victory was not the triumph of democracy, but the consolidation of a united Empire, he restored the statues of Sylla ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... the sullen instrument, That, from the Master's bow, With pangs of joy or woe, Feels music's soul through every fibre sent, Whispers the ravished strings More than he knew or meant; Old summers in its memory glow; The secrets ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... zenana, and his quick access of anger showed that the gift had come from some other hand than his. Savage jealousy, therefore, had prompted the act of injustice inflicted upon the unfortunate washerman. I knew my master so well his sullen moods, his outbursts of passion, that already I could arrive at ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... mothers,—eighteen dreadful hours, hungry until she was ready to gnaw her hands, a prey to all childish imaginations; and here at her stern guardian's last visit she sat, pallid, chilled, almost fainting, but sullen and unsubdued. The Irishwoman, poor stupid Kitty Fagan, who had no theory of human nature, saw her over the lean shoulders of the spinster, and, forgetting all differences of condition and questions of authority, rushed to her ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... slower—more slowly still.' And he rose and stood up for a moment in the carriage with his arms crossed. The artillerymen, who had begun to make a kind of hostile demonstration, changed their minds and saluted. The sullen looks of the royal soldiers was the only jarring note in the display of intoxicating joy with which the Neapolitans welcomed the bringer of their freedom; freedom all too easily had, for if anything could have purified the Neapolitans from the evil influences of ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... it and a stinging tree called Salato. As the tale goes, they were two brothers, and had each his plot of ground and a distinct boundary. One morning Tutunga stretched over his boundary and crossed to Salato. Salato was displeased and complained to Tutunga, but he was sullen and made no reply. The affair was referred to the parents; who decided that the two should separate, and that Salato should go further inland, and be sacred and respected; and so it is, no one dares to touch it. On the other hand, Tutunga was severely ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... sense of his father's displeasure resting on him, and the prospect of the day school before him. Both father and mother were touched sometimes when they caught the sad expression of his face; but he was no longer sullen; and if a pettish word escaped him, he seemed to catch himself up quickly before it could ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... roused himself, and, climbing higher over the ragged, sharp, prickly crystals, reached up and took hold of the stone, passed it under him, and it fell away down for a few feet, and then there was a sullen splash. ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... corral and storehouses, the school and office and quarters of the agency, the watch-lights twinkling like the stars above. Close at hand, loosely huddled along the bank, the grimy, smoke-stained lodges of Kills Asleep's sullen band, and in their midst, surrounded at respectful distance by a squatted semicircle of old men and braves, all muffled in their blankets, and by an outer rim of hags and crones and young squaws and children and snarling dogs and ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... the work progressed, he had seasons of bitter scorn, of infinite self-contempt, of sullen gloom and sardonic gaiety. Keogh, with the patience of a great general, soothed, coaxed, argued—kept him ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... and I walked out, and Hugh limped after me, whistling dolorously (that is a custom of the English), and we came upon the three Saxons that had bound me. They were now bound by my men-at-arms, and behind them stood some fifty stark and sullen churls of the House and the Manor, waiting to see what should fall. We heard De Aquila's trumpets blow thin ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... you to risk your money," replied George, with sullen dignity. "I have friends who will back me when they see that ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... went the sun, Below the sullen clouds that walled the west, Below the hills, below the shadowed world. The moon looked over the clear eastern wall, And slanting rose, and looked, rose, looked again, And searched for silence in her yellow fields, But found it not. For there the staggering carts, Like overladen beasts, crawled ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... them for market. There was an Ethiopian slave, who worked under my orders, a powerful, broad-shouldered, and most malignant wretch, whom my master found it almost impossible to manage; the bastinado, or any other punishment, he derided, and after the application only became more sullen and discontented than before. The fire that flashed from his eyes, upon any fault being found by me on account of his negligence, was so threatening, that I every day expected I should be murdered. I repeatedly requested ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... lie with your legs ungainly huddled, And one arm bent across your sullen cold Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you, Deep-shadow'd from the candle's guttering gold; And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder; Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head.... You are too young to fall asleep for ever; And ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... which, with comly Grace, Did twenty Garnets now outface: Nay, to the Wonder to add more, Declare unheard-of things before; And thousand Myst'ries does unfold, As plain as Oracles of old, By which we steer Affairs of State, And stave off Britain's sullen Fate. Let's then, in Honour of the Name Of OATES, enact some Solemn Game, Where Oaten Pipe shall us inspire Beyond the charms of Orpheus Lyre; Stone, Stocks, and e'ery sensless thing To Oates shall dance, to Oates shall sing, ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... she could run no longer, then to hasten along panting until breath and strength were recovered. When it was either of the Peckovers who sent her, she knew that reprimand was inevitable on her return, be she ever so speedy; but her nature was incapable alike of rebellion and of that sullen callousness which would have come to the aid of most girls in her position. She did not serve her tyrants with willingness, for their brutality filled her with a sense of injustice; yet the fact that she was utterly dependent upon them for her livelihood, that ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... stall, With the wild stress of instinct goes distraught, And frets her horns, and bellows through the night. The stream runs black; and the far waterfall That sang so sweetly through the summer eyes, And swelled and swayed to Zephyr's softest breath, Leaps with a sullen roar the dark abyss, And howls its hoarse responses to the wind. The mill is still. The distant factory, That swarmed yestreen with many-fingered life, And bridged the river with a hundred bars Of molten light, is dark, and lifts its bulk, With dim, uncertain ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... the new colony. Reprisals followed reprisals, and it is not easy to say on which side lay the largest amount of savage fury. At the same time, the Acadians remained true to the spirit and letter of the oath they had taken. "They had relapsed," says the chronicler, "into a sort of sullen neutrality." This was considered just cause of offence. The oath which had satisfied Governor Phipps, did not satisfy George II. A new oath of allegiance was tendered, by which the Acadians were required to become loyal subjects of the English Crown, to bear ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... that," said Phil, "or the screwworms will be working in it sure." He was taking down his riata and watching the bull, who was rumbling a sullen, deep-voiced challenge, ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... somewhat broad and unconventional for a young lady. Courtland promised to send her some books, and even ventured to suggest some American and English novels not intensely "No'th'n" nor "metaphysical"—according to the accepted Southern beliefs. A new respect and pitying interest in this sullen, solitary girl, cramped by tradition, and bruised rather than enlightened by sad experiences, came over him. He found himself talking quite confidentially to the lifted head, arched eyebrows, and aquiline nose beside him, and even thinking what a handsome high-bred BROTHER she might ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... men; watched his manner of eating, his neat disposition of his food on his plate; saw him move his chair back with a slight expression of annoyance, unmarked by any one else, as Will Foushee spit on the floor beside him. All this I observed, in a mood half envious, half sullen,—a mood which pursued me that night into my little attic, as I peevishly questioned with myself wherein lay ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... again, but no relief was brought us. I with others climbed aloft. Not a sail was in sight. In vain—in vain we scanned the horizon, the calm continued, and the ships floated idly on the smooth, sullen, treacherous water. Yet who that could by any possibility have seen those two fine, well-appointed men-of-war would have supposed that so much suffering, alarm, and dread existed on board them! Death had not yet visited us, but we could ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... his existence was a succession of brute obedience to brute awareness, for it was only thus that one survived. There was the danger-sense on those days when the great-toothed cats roamed the valley, and the males-who-will-bring remained huddled and sullen in the caves above the great ledge; there was the hunger-sense when provender was low, and Gor-wah drove them out with grunts and gibes to hunt the wild-dogs and lizards and lesser beasts; and not infrequently there was ...
— The Beginning • Henry Hasse
... first dazzling success of the Simiacine Expedition began to subside. The thing took its usual course. At first the experts disbelieved, and then they prophesied that it could not last. Finally, the active period of envy, hatred, and malice gave way to a sullen tolerance not unmixed with an indefinite grudge towards Fortune who had favoured the brave ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... Convener. "We expect you to get them. You are our prospector, dig them up." As he thought of the work that lay before him, and of all he was expected to achieve, his heart sank. These wild, independent men of the West were not at all like the degraded men of the ward, fawning or sullen, who had been his former and only parishioners. A horrible fear had been growing upon him ever since his failure, as he considered it, with the Convener's congregation the night before. It helped him ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... inhabitants of the house are part of the Neerchokioo tribe of the same (Shahala) nation. On entering one of the apartments of the house, Captain Clark offered several articles to the Indians in exchange for wappatoo; but they appeared sullen and ill-humored, and refused to give him any. He therefore sat down by the fire opposite the men, and taking a port-fire match from his pocket, threw a small piece of it into the flame; at the same time he took his pocket-compass, and by means of a magnet, which ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... German race; and Berlin, with all its wealth and its two million inhabitants, strikes the foreigner as one of the most commonplace capitals of the civilized world. The Southern and Western German is gay and genial, courteous and expansive; the Prussian is sullen, reserved, and aggressive. The Southern and Western German is sentimental and generous; the Prussian is sour and dour, and only believes in hard fact. The Southern and Western German is an idealist; ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... sat in sullen silence, and Arnold, who had been brooding over his private grievances, ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... atrocities had served to arouse the Americans as nothing else could. As soldiers, they had usually run away at the first fire. As scouts, their minds were wholly fixed upon plundering. Burgoyne had sharply rebuked them for it. Ever sullen and intractable under restraint, their answer was at least explicit, "No plunder, no Indians;" and they were ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... had created endured after the dream was dead. She felt no longer as she had felt over night, and lay in a sort of obtuse sensibility of conscience. She got up and dressed, her mind still clouded and sullen, and her prayers were said in a sort of middle state between fervour and indifference. Her father attributed her mood to the old cause; several times he was on the point of speaking, and she held him for the moment by the lappet of his coat and looked affectionately ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... faltered more or less In my great task of happiness; If I have moved among my race And shown no glorious morning face; If beams from happy human eyes Have moved me not; if morning skies, Books, and my food, and summer rain Knocked on my sullen heart in vain:— Lord, Thy most pointed pleasure take And stab my spirit broad awake; Or, Lord, if too obdurate I, Choose Thou, before that spirit die, A piercing pain, a killing sin, And to my ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sometimes asserted, that it protects the interests of the whole community, but simply that it protects those of the majority. In the United States, where the poor rule, the rich have always some reason to dread the abuses of their power. This natural anxiety of the rich may produce a sullen dissatisfaction, but society is not disturbed by it; for the same reason which induces the rich to withhold their confidence in the legislative authority makes them obey its mandates; their wealth, ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... hopelessness. On the third day he smiled; it was in recess that she detected him at it. An organ-grinder's monkey in the school-yard called it forth, a sweet, glad smile, which lit up his dense features as the sun at twilight will pierce through and illuminate for a few minutes a sullen cloud-bank. Miss Willis saw in a vision on the spot a refuge from hopelessness. Behind that smile there must be a winsome soul. That spiritless expression was but a veil or rind hiding the germs of sensibility and reason. This was discovery number one. After it came darkness again, so far ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... word Assassin, which they have left in the language of modern Europe as their dark memorial, is derived from the hashish, or opiate of hemp-leaves (the Indian bhang), with which they maddened themselves to the sullen pitch of oriental desperation, or from the name of the founder of the dynasty, whom we have seen in his quiet collegiate days, at Naishapur. One of the countless victims of the Assassin's dagger was Nizam al Mulk himself, ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... sent up the last smile Of his power, to baffle the storm. And, behold O'er the mountains embattled, his armies, all gold, Rose and rested; while far up the dim airy crags, Its artillery silenced, its banners in rags, The rear of the tempest its sullen retreat Drew off slowly, receding in silence, to meet The powers of the night, which, now gathering afar, Had already sent forward one bright ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... from the khor, and had dismounted, the beasts being held in groups of four, while the rifle-men knelt in a long line with a woolly, curling fringe of smoke, sending volley after volley at the Arabs, who shot back in a desultory fashion from the backs of their camels. But it was not upon the sullen group of Dervishes, nor yet upon the long line of kneeling rifle-men, that the eyes of the spectators were fixed. Far out upon the desert, three squadrons of the Halfa Camel Corps were coming up in a dense close ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the rain went, on falling; the valley seemed surrounded by cascades, the streams rushed and thundered down, and the main river swept by the walls of the fort with a sullen roar; while, as if dejected and utterly out of heart, the British flag, which had flaunted out so bravely from the flagstaff, as if bidding defiance to the whole hill-country and all its swarthy tribes, hung down and clung and wrapped itself about the flagstaff, the halyard singing a dolefully ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... intent, scarcely breathed; the younger man moved restlessly in his chair, the dazed light in his eyes clearing to sullen consciousness. ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... turned away his head as Redcap had told him to do, and stood listening with all his might. A strange sullen muttering came from the chest, of which he could only distinguish these mysterious words, "Beware of a coming tree," and then the lid shut as slowly as it had opened, and the locks were locked with a jerk, as if by ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... hardship and suffering that they had so recently passed through, I was compelled to confess to myself that they were by no means a prepossessing lot; they, one and all, O'Gorman and Price not excepted, wore that sullen, hang-dog, ruffianly expression of countenance that marks the very lowest class of British seamen, the scum and refuse of the vocation. Still, we had not far to go, and I consoled myself with the reflection that they would probably prove good enough ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... the earth, that hath not scent nor song, Nor hope of aught, nor memory, nor dream, Nor any speech upon its sullen tongue, Nor any liberty of running stream; Not of the earth, that hath forgot to smile; But, strangely wafted o'er the frozen sea, As from some hidden Cytherean isle, Veil within veil, ...
— The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... which I had extricated him. At this last assertion before the lady, he took fire, and flatly denied it. I was too proud to enumerate the many instances of scholastic assistance that he had received at my hands, so I became sullen and silent, my opponent in an equal degree brisk and loquacious. My fair companion rather enjoyed the encounter, and ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... cadenza. At the same moment he threw his head backwards, and the light fell full upon the handsome, effeminate face, with its ashy pallor and big, black brows, of the singer Zaffirino. At the sight of that face, sensual and sullen, of that smile which was cruel and mocking like a bad woman's, I understood—I knew not why, by what process—that his singing must be cut short, that the accursed phrase must never be finished. I understood that I was before an assassin, that he was killing this woman, and killing me also, ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... purpose of good, nor any purpose, in fact, beyond that of curiosity, it was traced: and enough was soon ascertained to have blown to fragments any possible conspiracy emanating from this Barratt, had that been of any further importance. However, in spite of all that money or art could effect, a sullen growl continued to be heard amongst the populace of villainies many and profound that had been effected or attempted by this Barratt; and accordingly, much in the same way as was many years afterwards practised in London, when a hosier had caused several young people to be prosecuted ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... the steel floor, was lying unconscious in his berth. The pointer on the steam-gauge fell back, the engine slowed down, crisp commands came from pilot-house to engine-room, sharper messages passed between engine and fire rooms, while overworked men grew sullen and threatened to throw down ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... him. It might have been four seconds, though it seemed longer, when we saw the ice fly up rapidly in three or four places half a mile from the schooner as the ball came skipping along, and, bounding off the edge of the ice-field, plunged into the sea with a sullen sudge, throwing up a white fountain ten or a dozen feet high, which fell splashing back. We ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens |
