"Depressing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... altered by the depressing influence of his long imprisonment that, had I not known it was he who spoke, I should scarcely have recognised it, so sad was it, and so unlike to the merry, cheerful voice we had been accustomed to hear. I pondered this much, and thought of the terrible decline ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... lay on the sofa in her own room. She was still weak, but oh! the relief of being back again and of ending that terrible nightmare which had oppressed her for—how long? Even the depressing effect of the drug could not quench the exaltation of finding herself free. She went over the details of the night one by one. She must do it, she thought. She must never lose grip of what happened or forget ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... of this depressing conversation a courier arrived from Stamford to Dr. Cavendish, recalling him immediately to return thither, the invalid there having sustained an alarming relapse. The good doctor, sincerely reluctant to quit Thaddeus (whom he still knew by no other name ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... Zetland dwellings stand a favourable comparison with those of the Western Islands. There is a bareness and desolation about the misery of a Harris house that is tenfold more depressing. It is a poor house and an empty one - a decaying, mouldy shell, without the pretence of a kernel. Whereas in Zetland there is usually a certain fulness. There are bulky sea-chests, with smaller ones on the top of them; chairs, with ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... and ah are most commonly used as signs of these depressing passions, it must be confessed that they are sometimes employed by reputable writers, as marks of cheerfulness or exultation; as, "Ah, pleasant proof," &c.—Cowper's Task, p. 179. "Merrily oh! merrily oh!"—Moore's Tyrolese Song. "Cheerily ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Had it not been for that promise he would certainly not take that long walk day after day, in summer heat and winter storms, for hope had long since died in Tony's heart. At least, so he told himself, but somehow the walk home always seemed twice as long as the walk down, after hearing those depressing words "No letter ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... inordinate quantity of laudanum, in a case where the most active emetics, in the largest doses, were resorted to in vain. But most poisons, particularly the corrosive, are attended with so much exhaustion, that it would seem perilous to administer tobacco, lest by its own depressing effects, the powers of vitality might be irrecoverably extinguished. In many instances, however, it appears that it may be administered in small ...
— A Dissertation on the Medical Properties and Injurious Effects of the Habitual Use of Tobacco • A. McAllister
... occasional note of a visit on shore, generally reached by a walk of half a mile over sand, and of talks with shop people and fishermen. But such lighter relief was rare. The bulk dealt with channels and shoals with weird and depressing names, with the centre-plate, the sails, and the wind, buoys and 'booms', tides and 'berths' for the night. 'Kedging off' appeared to be a frequent diversion; 'running aground' was of almost ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... away!" But that wasn't easy when they were face to face. Mrs. Churchley had every intention of getting, as she would have said—she was perpetually using the expression—into touch; but her good intentions were as depressing as a tailor's misfits. She could never understand that they had no place for her vulgar charity, that their life was filled with a fragrance of perfection for which she had no sense fine enough. She was as undomestic as a shop-front and as ...
— The Marriages • Henry James
... Turin. I had not been able to detect the slightest trace of that which in the language of asceticism is called unction. I know not why, but that grave and downcast aspect, enlivened only by a few occasional flashes of ponderous clerical wit, the atmosphere depressing as the plumbeus auster of Horace, in which I had been brought up under the rule of my priest,—all seemed unknown at Rome. There I never met with a monsignore or a priest who did not step out with a pert and jaunty air, his head erect, showing off a well-made leg, and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... itself is very sensitive to contact with water below the natural temperature of the skin. The plunge bath is specially depressing to every human energy, and should never be indulged by the debilitated. The daily bathings of nursing children are cruel and life-depressing. Their little bodies are always clean in the physiological sense when their ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... possibly be imagined. The new maid was sad, ugly of countenance, far from strong physically, and in every way hopeless and depressing. She listened, unemotionally, to my glowing description of the situation. Finally she said, "Ay tank ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... proved not superfluous on the whole. He created at once a great deal of noise and raised the spirits of the company, which were beginning to be depressing. And every minute he cried ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... him. Then he begged her to look upon herself merely as his tenant; he and Talbot would share the same cabin, and she could occupy his in perfect peace and security, and be safely away from the depressing influences of the town and its disease-laden atmosphere. Then she grew very grave, and said simply in a sweet tone that echoed through all the ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... sister, I say, remarked that there would be ships lost at sea and men drowned this night. My daughter Felicia, the brightest-tempered creature of the female sex that I have ever met with, tried to give a cheerful turn to her aunt's depressing prognostication. "If the ships must be lost," she said, "we may surely hope that the men will be saved." "God willing," I put in—thereby giving to my daughter's humane expression of feeling the fit religious tone that was all it wanted—and then went on with my written record of the events and ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... I myself experienced, and saw in others, on the day we left our hateful prison, I do not wonder that sudden transitions from the depressing effects of imprisonment, sorrow, chagrin, impatience, or feelings bordering on despair, to that of liberty and joy, should so affect the vital organs, as to bring on a fatal spasm; or that the sudden exhilarations of the animal spirits, might produce phrenzy. ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... home, however, had a depressing effect on him; when he had been previously much overworked it seemed as though the absence of the customary strain allowed him to fall into a ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... of the somewhat depressing effect of her worn garments, she displayed a natural elegance, a perfect form and graceful movements, and Guy, accustomed as he was to estimate at a glance the material condition of people, divined that this woman felt some embarrassment. ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... dull and depressing enough, that same evening, something before seven. The spacious and impressive lounging-rooms were but sparsely tenanted, other than by the ennuied corps of servants; and the few members who had lent the open doors the excuse of their presence were of the elderly type that ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... or less important part in their production. Notwithstanding the fact that they are regarded as being different, and that the treatment and symptoms of the two conditions vary widely, there can be no doubt that certain depressing influences, in every way similar, play an important part in ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... purposes which he endeavoured to promote? There is no man of whose penetration higher ideas have been justly formed, or who gave more frequent proofs of an uncommon penetration into futurity than Cromwell; and yet succeeding times have sufficiently discovered the weakness of aggrandizing France by depressing Spain, and we wonder now how so much policy could fall into so gross an errour, as not rather to suffer power to remain in the distant enemy, than transfer it to another equally divided from us by interest, and far more formidable ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... quality and in large quantities, are manufactured. The paper, household furniture, pottery, crockery, and even glass generally in use, are of home production, which will give the reader an idea of the present native resources of the country, developed not by fortuitous aid, but under the most depressing circumstances. ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... sultry. The clear and glowing daylight was gone, exchanged for the dull, hazy, and depressing atmosphere of a summer's night. The cricket chirped in the walls, and the beetle hummed his drowsy song, wheeling his lumbering and lazy flight over ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... Arctic night seems to be much more generally comprehended. Nearly all writers upon the subject, whether those who have themselves experienced its effects, or those whose knowledge is derived from study, dwell with great force on the terribly depressing effect upon the physical organization of natives of the median zones caused by the long Arctic night whenever brought within its influence. Though much less has been written or said concerning the interminable day, its effects ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... much exposed to the winds, and should germinate there, the plant which should be able to live in this place would always be badly nourished, and the individuals reproduced there continuing to exist under these depressing circumstances, there would result a race truly different from that living in the field, though originating from it. The individuals of this new race would be small, scraggy, and some of their organs, having developed more than others, ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... Mrs. Partington, plumes and patchouli, and to disturb his rest with a soaring and beautiful song of future promise. But Raggles would awake to a sense of shivering cold and a haunting impression of ideals lost in a depressing aura of potato salad ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... the station to help Hilary to catch his train. The enterprise was a failure; it was not a job at which either Margerison was good. They had to wait in the detestable station for another. The annoyance of that (it is really an abnormally depressing station) worked on Hilary's nervous system to such an extent that he might have flung himself on the line and so found peace from the disappointments of life, had not Peter been at hand to cheer him up. There were certainly points about young ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... tarried on and on amid tumultuous scenes for another twenty-four hours, awaiting the taking of proper steps by Mr. Bryan, that more precious time was lost. Hour after hour, within the refuge of our hotel parlour, itself a most depressing chamber, I sat, my hands clasped, my charges clustered about me, our trunks packed, our lesser belongings bestowed for travel, awaiting word from him. None came. I am loath to make the accusation direct, but I must tell you that I never ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... times in our every-day lives when all things seem to wear a depressing aspect, turn which way we will. They were wearing it that day to Constance. Apart from home troubles, she felt particularly discouraged in the educational task she had undertaken. You heard the promise ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... followed were spent in mournful motionlessness at the back of that room where the trembling host of lights seemed to give animation to dead things. During the two days various activities brought me distraction, at first distressing, then depressing. ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... the house in which he was accustomed to live, Saul had felt the vigour of the morning, and eaten his cold fat bacon, sitting on the cart, without discontent. But now it was afternoon—which, we all know, brings a somewhat more depressing air—and the budless thickets stood so close, so still, Saul became conscious that his load was a corpse. He had hoped, in a dull way, to fall in with a companion on this made road; the chances were against ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... morning; the air was fresh and exhilarating, and full of mirthful inspiration. But Paullus Arvina rose unrefreshed and languid, with his mind ill at ease; for the reaction which succeeds ever to the reign of any vehement excitement, had fallen on him with its depressing weight; and not that only, but keen remorse for the past, and, if possible, anxiety yet keener ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... often be right; but we should not give ourselves the airs of prophets on that account. There are many superficial analogies of the same character. My predecessor, Professor Dicey, pointed out some of them, to confirm his rather depressing theory that history is nothing but an old almanac. Let me take a common one, which, I think, may illustrate our problem. There is a certain analogy between the cases of Caesar, Cromwell, and Napoleon. ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... meet the ears and eyes. The mountains, the Bay of Naples, the sail to Capri and the Blue Grotto are fully equal to my expectations.... The squalid-looking people, however, and their hopeless fate make one's stay at any of these Italian resorts most depressing. Troops of beggars beset one all along the streets and roads, and with tradesmen there is no honesty. For instance, a man charged some twenty francs for a shell comb, then came down to seven, six, five, and finally ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... have to add, that the various rates of such changes, appropriate to the different styles of music, are further traits having the same derivation. The slowest movements, largo and adagio, are used where such depressing emotions as grief, or such unexciting emotions as reverence, are to be portrayed; while the more rapid movements, andante, allegro, presto, represent successively increasing degrees of mental vivacity; and do this because they imply that muscular activity ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... to think of the doings of the Parnells, the witcheries of Mistress Betty, and the despotism of old madam, during the next month. Indeed, Mistress Betty was so reverent, so charitable, so kind, so gentle as well as blithe under depressing influences, and so witty under stagnation, that it would have been hard to have lived in the same house with her and have been her enemy: she was so easily gratified, so easily interested; she could suit herself to so many phases of this marvellous ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... uninviting, the bureau-washstand was of the cheapest, and the reflection Michael saw in its warped mirror would have made any boy with a particle of vanity actually suffer. Michael, however, was not vain. He thought little about himself, but this room was depressing. The floor was covered with a nondescript carpet faded and soiled beyond redemption, and when his trunk was placed between the bureau and the bed there would be scarcely room for the one wooden chair. It was not a hopeful outlook. The boy took off his coat and sat down ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... back area behind Vimy ridge. We took over from the 54th Canadian Infantry on the night 7/8th May in the third line, which included the village of Vimy. The whole area from Neuville St. Vaast, across the ridge and down to the village, was a depressing sight; villages and fields ravaged by the fire, not of one, but of many battles. Neuville St. Vaast had once been a town of some size; now one looked in vain for even one standing wall. There was more of Vimy left and under collapsed houses were deep dug-outs of German origin. At ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... brought me to my sixteenth year." His naturally robust frame was overtasked, and his nervous constitution received a fatal strain. His shoulders were bowed, he became liable to headaches, palpitations and fits of depressing melancholy. From these hard tasks and his fiery temperament, craving in vain for sympathy in a frigid air, grew the strong temptations on which Burns was largely wrecked,—the thirst for stimulants and the revolt against restraint ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... slime. Certain it is that on passing the place one's heart contracted. When one entered the grounds it was much worse. An oppressive, inexplicable silence hovered about the house, where the faces at the windows had a depressing aspect behind the small old-fashioned, greenish panes. The she-goats, straying along the paths, languidly cropped the first shoots of grass, with occasional "baas" in the direction of their keeper, who seemed as bored as they, and followed visitors with a listless eye. ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... depressing circumstances, the camp was by no means inactive during the winter. Those who were well were kept busy repairing wagons, and making, in a rude way, such household articles as were most needed—chairs, tubs, and baskets. Parties were sent out to the ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... a sigh, "the Andersons will get our place in the end, after all, and we shall be obliged to associate more or less with multi-millionaires for the rest of our days. It's depressing ethically; but there's no use in quarrelling with one's own flesh and blood, if it is a modern girl, for one would be quarrelling most of the time. We must make the best of it, Carry, ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... country with reference to business could hardly be better. While the four years of the administration now drawing to a close have not developed great speculative expansion or a wide field of new investment, the recovery and progress made from the depressing conditions following the panic of 1907 have been steady and the improvement has been clear and easily traced in the statistics. The business of the country is now on a solid basis. Credits are not unduly extended, and every phase of the situation ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... they allowed me to enter without a sign of welcome or congratulation. I will now confess to you alone that I was much mortified by this, although I did not complain of it. I comforted myself by reflecting that the times were bad and depressing, and that in their afflictions the people could not even present a glad, cheerful countenance to the father of their country. But now it falls to my lot to hear that they can make merry and rejoice, and that they have only saved up the joy in their ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... skeptical of those characters who grow up to mature beauty, all unsuspicious of the fatal dower, and are some day startled by a discovery of their possessions. She knew, too, that female loveliness was an all-potent spell, and, depressing as were the circumstances of her life and situation, she felt that a brighter lot might be hers, without any very remarkable or seemingly inconsistent course ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... shocks constantly repeated, was caused and recovered. Metals recorded evidences of fatigue. Drugs caused identical effects on metals and animals—some exciting; some depressing; some killing. Some poisonous chemicals killed pieces of metal, rendering them immobile and therefore incapable of registering records on the apparatus. In some cases antidotes were promptly administered, and saved the life of ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... from propriety, and various other collateral causes, that rarely as we meet with people of brilliant parts, there is almost ever some objection to our desire of meeting them again. Yet to live wholly alone is chearless and depressing; and with you, at least," taking Cecilia's hand, "I find not one single obstacle to oppose to a thousand inducements, which invite me to form a friendship that I can only hope may be as lasting, as I am sure ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... Rose in his shirt-sleeves, on a camp-stool, and ever and anon he sighed deeply. There was that in his countenance for which even his depressing circumstances failed to account. Again and again he looked at the little kopje, at the milk-pail at his side, and at the brown pony, who a short way off cropped ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... in the United States, and almost as common among the middle classes of England, Germany and Scandinavia—does himself a serious disservice, and that he is uneasily conscious of it. Having got himself a wife to his austere taste, he finds that she is rather depressing—that his vanity is almost as painfully damaged by her emotional inertness as it would have been by a too provocative and hedonistic spirit. For the thing that chiefly delights a man, when some, woman has gone through the ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... love a woman, for heaven's sake, says he, take care that she be safe bound beyond your reach. All attainment is dead-sea fruit. But how is anyone to believe this depressing sort of doctrine when the woman in question is such an engaging divinity as his Caroline Ashley, interpreted by Miss IRENE VANBRUGH at the very top of her form? The doctrine, indeed, may be hanged for the nefarious half-truth it is; but this would still leave you free to appreciate ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 16, 1916 • Various
... entered without difficulty, he came to a standstill, oppressed with the sense of impending danger. With his electric torch he carefully surveyed the dilapidated staircase in front of him, the walls from which the paper hung down in depressing-looking strips. The house was, to all appearances, uninhabited. The door had yielded easily to his master-key. Yet this was the house connected with Number 700, New York, the house to which Lenora had ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... after all was the coloring. For the sea fog had a trick of painting every exposed object a sea gray which had a tinge of dull green in it. This, under the leaden sky of a San Francisco morning, had a depressing effect on first sight and afterward became a delight to the eye. For the color was soft, gentle and infinitely ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... was still blowing heavily; the ship was plunging furiously, and rolling so wildly that it was impossible to maintain one's footing without clinging to something; the continuous raving of the wind among the maze of spars and rigging, especially when the ship rolled to windward, was most depressing to listen to; and the appalling proportions of the vast liquid mountain ranges that, with dreary, persistent, remorseless monotony, came sweeping down upon us from the northward and westward, piling their hissing crests high around us, completed a picture which, for dreary ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... higher, and we are on the road in Aislaby village. The steep climb from the river and railway has kept off those modern influences which have made Sleights and Grosmont architecturally depressing, and thus we find a simple village on the edge of the heather, with picturesque stone cottages and pretty gardens, free from companionship with the painfully ugly modern stone house, with its thin slate roof. The ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... forgot for the moment the regrettable trend of his subjects towards Parliamentary Socialism, the excellent Grafin von Tolb forgot all that the Canon had been saying to her for the last ten minutes, forgot the depressing certainty that he would have a great deal more that he wanted to say in the immediate future, over and above the thirty-five minutes or so of discourse that she would contract to listen to next Sunday. And Cicely listened with the wistful ...
— When William Came • Saki
... hopefully; but there was no response from the children, and the weight that had been settling down upon him, in the region of his chest, noticeably increased. He tried to shake it off, it was so depressing—like the accruing misfortune ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... a depressing consciousness of being one of a degenerate generation, and of a limited experience in the matter of county balls; partly also to express her conviction that principle is ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... back to-night, but with them were mingled new depressing ones. Nothing now perhaps could have caused him such distress as the thought that Rowan and Isabel would never marry. All the love that he had any right to pour into any life, he had always poured with passionate and useless yearnings ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... prisoners. There can be no doubt whatever that the Russian army had suffered one of the most overwhelming defeats in its history, and that after a fortnight's hard marching and nine days' hard fighting, with little food or sleep, it had been reduced by terrible losses and depressing fatigues to a condition bordering on extermination. Such was the result of Kuropatkin's first attempt to assume the offensive. Thereafter, fully three months of complete inaction ensued, and the onlooking world occupied ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... garret, into which came both wind and rain. She was a young girl, pale, silent, and with nothing to recommend her but her wretchedness and her resignation to it. She was never seen speaking to any other woman, and no song cheered her garret. She worked without interest and without relaxation; a depressing gloom seemed to envelop her like a shroud. Her dejection affected Maurice; he attempted to speak to her; she replied mildly, but in few words. It was easy to see that she preferred her silence and her solitude to the little hunchback's ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... thoughts came yapping and growling round me like a pack of curs—undignified, troublesome, vexatious thoughts; I chase them away for a moment, and next moment they are snapping at my heels. Experiences of a tragic quality, however depressing they may be, have a vaguely sustaining power about them, when they close in, as the fat bulls of Bashan closed in upon the Psalmist. There is no escape then, and the matter is in the hands of God; but when many dogs have come about one, one feels that one must ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... root there is suffering, not the loud protest of the Anglo-Saxon labourer, whose very loudness is a witness to his vitality—but passive, fatalistic, apathetic misery. Life has been often defined, but never in a more depressing fashion than by the peasant in Gorki's novel, who ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... dwelling to the back; but he walked steadily and directly up to the shallow portico between windows with hanging, partly slatted shutters. The house had been painted dark brown a long while before; the paint had weathered and blistered into a depressing harmony with the broken and mossy shingles of the roof, the rust-eaten and sagging gutters ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... difficulties lent attractiveness to the picture. They made heroes of his models, whose example he burned with enthusiasm to follow. Thus it will be seen that in the early morning he expected to meet bitter discouragements, to encounter poverty in its most depressing form, and to meet rebuffs on the right hand and on the left. He expected all this. He rather craved it from the sentimental, heroic standpoint, because the men he had chosen to follow had been compelled to force their ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey
... [Greek: hubris] he takes it upon himself to wield the avenging bolts of Jove, but finds that Jove rejects his assistance. He errs disastrously in his judgment, like any short-sighted mortal, and his work goes all agley. But when the end comes it is not depressing. We see no longer a revolting fratricide and the painful sacrifice of virtue to the meanest of passions, but the verdict of ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... and disobedience?" He remarks that arrest and trial by court-martial would soon cure the evil, but feared a conflict of authority over the head of the army would be highly encouraging to the enemies and depressing to the friends of the Union, and concludes: "Hence my long forbearance; and continuing, though but nominally, on duty, I shall try to hold out till the arrival of Major-General Halleck, when, as his presence will give me increased confidence in the safety of the Union, and being, as I am, unable ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... further trained in sharpness and accuracy, endowed with no small share of talent and with an ardent love for art, ambitious, vain in some respects, full of high spirits, and with a keen sense of humour, and not devoid of originality, he was daily chafed and galled in the depressing atmosphere of his home relations. He felt how illogical was the rigid methodicity, how unreasonable the arbitrary routine, how absurd the restrictions and restraints of his uncle's household regulations; he was eager to be quit of them, to turn his back upon them; ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... you," she declared. "I am tired. I have been losing all day, and altogether I have had a most depressing time." ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!' might be then, indeed, addressed to England with melancholy truth. Or more plainly (Professor Smyth adds), and in words seemingly almost intended for such a case, and uttered with depressing grief of heart, 'O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself!'" (Professor Smyth's Life and Work at the Great Pyramid, 1867, vol. iii. ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... complain. Snap me up for a tramp sometimes, or make disagreeable remarks about me. But generally I get along well enough. The undertakers are hardest on me. They say I exercise a depressing influence on their business by setting a bad example to other people; and one of 'em, over in Constantinople, he said a man who'd defrauded about fifty-four generations of undertakers ought to be ashamed to show his face in civilized society. But bless ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... can complain of them only if you never cross their thresholds. If you take this step you are lost, for you have parted with the correctness of your attitude. Venice becomes frankly from such a moment the big depressing dazzling joke in which after all our sense of her contradictions sinks to rest—the grimace of an over-strained philosophy. It's rather a comfort, for the curiosity-shops are amusing. You have bad moments indeed as you stand in their halls of humbug and, in the intervals of haggling, ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... and of which only the studious have hitherto enjoyed the monopoly. Thus, at least, have I considered the vocation I have chosen, not vainly or inconsiderately, but with a profound conviction of the greatness of my undertaking, and with a depressing consciousness that my power and acquirements may prove inadequate for the ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... casualties kept up at this rate, there would not be very many cattle to deliver in Wyoming by the time we got there. After the buffalo stampede we rounded up our scattered herd and went into camp for a couple of days' rest before proceeding on our journey north. The tragic death of Cal Surcey had a very depressing effect on all of us as he was a boy well liked by us all, and it was hard to think that we could not even give him a Christian burial. We left his remains trampled into the dust of the prairie and his fate caused ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love
... well-scrubbed bare floor. There was nothing but the plainest of "fixings" in the apartment, but they had been set in position by the deft hand of a woman of taste. The bed on which the unconscious man had been placed was narrow and hard. Its coverlet was a patchwork affair of depressing hue. ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... of my friends, and with them of beautiful Quebec. I had met with much of kindness and hospitality, but still I must confess that the excessive gaiety and bustle of the city exercise a depressing influence. People appear absorbed by the fleeting pleasures of the hour; the attractions of this life seem to overbalance the importance of the life to come; and among the poor there is a large amount of sin and sorrow—too many who enter the world without a blessing, and depart from it ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... ill, Douglas," said Paulina; "and illness has unnerved you. Pray do not give way to these depressing thoughts. Consult some other physician than the man ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... colleges scattered all over the city, constituting the world renowned University of the same name, was "done" the next day, but done in a hurry. It is a depressing business to pass by so much, giving but a glance here and there, and not be able to see so many things more at leisure, Magnificent libraries and museums, grand churches and chapels, and extensive buildings and botanical gardens, were rushed through and passed by, as if the charm and beauty ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... a thick yellow fog the next morning, and with it rain and a sticky, depressing dampness which crept through the window-panes, and which neither a fire ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... instead of lightening, the sky had grown murkier and murkier and darker and darker, until, in many parts of the hotel, people had been forced to turn on the lights. Over and about everything hung that moist, indefinably depressing atmosphere that makes one rail at fate and long for the blessing of the sun ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... unwelcome; undesirable, undesired; obnoxious; unacceptable, unpopular, thankless. unsatisfactory, untoward, unlucky, uncomfortable. distressing; afflicting, afflictive; joyless, cheerless, comfortless; dismal, disheartening; depressing, depressive; dreary, melancholy, grievous, piteous; woeful, rueful, mournful, deplorable, pitiable, lamentable; sad, affecting, touching, pathetic. irritating, provoking, stinging, annoying, aggravating, mortifying, galling; unaccommodating, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... this day was very heavy, and in addition to Captain Baird, General Baj Singh and Major Bhikam of the Kashmirs, and about 60 men, were killed; an ominous outset for the defence, which at first had a very depressing effect upon the troops, the majority of whom, it must be remembered, were of newly raised regiments, and without any British troops to give them confidence. Everything therefore depended upon the vigilance and calmness of the few British officers, one of whom unfortunately, Captain ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... August and September the thermometer rarely fell below 103 deg. during the night, and often rose to 115 deg. by day. Dust storms were frequent. A veritable plague of flies tormented the unhappy soldiers. The unhealthy climate, the depressing inactivity, and the scantiness of fresh meat or the use of condensed water, provoked an outbreak of scurvy. At one time nearly all the followers and 50 per cent of the troops were affected. Several large drafts were invalided to India. The symptoms were ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... can be the hottest. Abadan, the ever-growing oil port, which is in Persia and on the starboard hand as you go up the Shatt-el-Arab, if not actually the winner according to statistics, comes out top in popular estimation. Its proximity to the scorching desert, its choking dustiness and its depressing isolation, are characteristics which it shares with countless other places among these mud plains. But it can outdo them all with its bleached and slime-stained ground in which nothing can grow, its roaring furnaces and its all-pervading ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... the promise of the child of twelve years and held her to it, and has given her strength "as her day" to redeem it, all through the dazzling brightness and the depressing shadows, through the glory and the sorrow of her life, as a Queen and ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... failed in turn. The tedious engineering work which two of them involved was rendered more depressing by adverse conditions of weather and by ill-health among Grant's men. Natural grumbling among the troops was repeated and exaggerated in the North. McClernand employed the gift for intrigue, which perhaps had helped him to secure his command, in an effort to get Grant ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... brandy he regarded the treaty venomously. As though loath to let it go, his hands played with it, as a cat plays with the mouse between her paws. Watching him breathlessly, Everett feared the end was not yet. He felt a depressing premonition that if ever the treaty were to reach Washington he best had snatch it and run. Even as he waited, the end came. An orderly, appearing suddenly in the light of the candles, announced the arrival, in the room adjoining, of "the Colonel Goddard and ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... non-expansion slide-valve chests, much as in the ordinary way with steam: a motor which gave her, in spite of her bluff hulk, a speed of sixteen knots. It is, therefore, the simplest thing for one man to take these ships round the world, since their movement, or stopping, depend upon nothing but the depressing or raising of a steel handle, provided that one does not get blown to the sky meantime, as liquid air, in spite of its thousand advantages, occasionally blows people. At any rate, I had tanks of air sufficient to last me through ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... do suffer a good deal. My chariot-wheels often drag very heavily. I am not often in what you may call good spirits. And yet I am aware that I am writing now under the influence of a specially depressing disorder, and that I may misinterpret my real state of mind. No one ought to be happier, as far as advantages of employment in a good service, and kindness of friends, &c., can contribute to make one happy. And, on the whole, I know my life is a happy one. I am sure that I have a far larger ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ethical datives, and hysteron proteron to my (supposedly) admiring Latin pupils. If I were a soldier I should want to wear one of those enormous three-story military hats to render me tall and impressive. I have no desire to see a drum-major minus his plumage. The disillusionment would probably be depressing. Liking to wear my shako, I must continue to talk of objective complements instead of using ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... of the depressing insistence of that thought. And yet he was certain that in the last half-hour before death entered the cabin the Englishman had wanted to tell him something and had crucified the desire. There was ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... have taken some dope, thinking would brace him up," went on the young medical man, "and it had the opposite effect—a depressing action on the heart. Or, he may have taken a overdose of his favorite drug. That is what shall have to find out by making suitable inquiries of members ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... of Greek literature. France, in the time of Louis XIV., England, in the latter part of that time; in fact, each country as it grew polished at some cost of strength, carried this craze to a dangerous excess—dangerous as all things false are dangerous, and depressing to the aspirations of genius. Boileau, for instance, and Addison, though neither [2] of them accomplished in scholarship, nor either of them extensively read in any department of the classic literature, speak every where of the classics as having notoriously, ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... stretching in a perfectly straight line and at a perceptible rise. Indeed it was uphill work altogether. The ceaseless dripping of the rain made the whole scene as cheerless as it well could be. The snow had turned to cold dull rain, which was far more depressing. I wished the mineral springs at Borsek had never been discovered. It was too late to turn back to St Miklos, where I devoutly wished myself, so I had nothing to do but plod on with my waterproof tight round me. It was impossible to go fast, for in places the mud was ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... and it had the effect of depressing Nancy to an alarming degree and, in consequence, of ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... no great comfort from their company, to say the least of it; while the prospect of making a long sea passage with those two fellows was depressing. And my other thoughts in solitude could not be of a gay complexion. The crew was sickly, the cargo was coming very slow; I foresaw I would have lots of trouble with the charterers, and doubted whether they would ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... stoop over until his hands almost swept the floor. Then he would straighten himself up, fold his arms across his breast, and take a few steps forward or back. This movement completed, he would fling his arms above his head, or thrust them beneath his coat-tails, elevating or depressing his voice to suit the attitude assumed and the sentiment expressed. Arms and legs were continually in motion. It seemed impossible for him to stand still. In the midst of the most impassioned or ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... LIFE! thou lingering dream of grief, of pain, And every ill that Nature can sustain, Strange, mutable, and wild! Now flattering with Hope most fair, Depressing now with fell Despair, The nurse of Guilt, the slave of Pride, That, like a wayward child, Who, to himself a foe, Sees joy alone in what's denied, In what is granted, woe! O thou poor, feeble, fleeting, pow'r, By Vice seduc'd, by Folly woo'd, By Mis'ry, ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... the voices of the saints bade her go to Vaucouleurs, where she would find a knight, Robert de Baudricourt, who would conduct her to Charles. Months passed before Baudricourt would do aught but scorn her message, and it was not till February 1429, when the news from Orleans was most depressing, that he consented to take her in his train. She found Charles at Chinon, and, as the story goes, convinced him of her Divine mission by recognising him in disguise in the midst of his courtiers. Soldiers ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... has touched tobacco in any form, though much in the society of habitual smokers, but finds many hours in a close smoking room rather depressing. Has always taken a moderate amount of alcohol (pint of claret) once in the day, and finds himself rather stronger with than without it. Age fifty, health perfect; accustomed to much open-air exercise, ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... she had been told that father was ill and she could not bid him good morning. She had been treacherously glad, for father was depressing; but when days passed and she was still kept from him, it occurred to her that after all father was much, much nicer than Grandma, and that his eyes, though sad, were kind. The next and last time she ever saw him, the kind sad eyes ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... opportunity to probe into the mystery of Norman's remark. In return, Norman had rapidly sketched an outline of Colonel Howell's proposition and of the present situation. Norman's rapid words seemed at first to have rather a depressing effect on young Zept, and then, when the whole idea had been put before him, his usual animation rose ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... for the treatment of the manifestations of the tertiary period are the arsenical preparations and the iodides of sodium and potassium. On account of their depressing effects, the latter are frequently prescribed along with carbonate of ammonium. The dose is usually a matter of experiment in each individual case; 5 grains three times a day may suffice, or it may ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... propitious air: an anomaly indeed half explained by the fact that life in general, all round us, was perceptibly more theatrical. And there were other reasons, whether definitely set before us or not, which we grasped in proportion as we gathered, by depressing hearsay, that the French drama, great, strange and important, was as much out of relation to our time of life, our so little native strain and our cultivated innocence, as the American and English had been directly ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... country "hotel," or half-way house, is, perhaps, one of the most depressing fictions ever encountered by stage-passenger, or pedestrian afield: and depends so exclusively upon the imagination for any earthly distinction from the retired and neglected private hiding-place of some decayed and morbid agricultural family, that only the conventional swing sign-board ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 22, August 27, 1870 • Various
... businesslike specimens of oxygenated quartz, all of which occupied points of exhibit on the "whatnot." Over the carpet were spread a deer skin, and a rug made from the hide of a timber wolf. Bennington found all this interesting but depressing. He was glad when Mrs. Lawton returned and took up her ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... cordial, the mineral springs curative; nothing could be better for a depressed invalid than to spend the autumn here. So the doctors sent Michael to the Platten See. But they had forgotten that toward the end of the summer hail-storms had laid waste the whole district; and nothing is more depressing than a place ruined by hail. The vineyards, which usually resound during the vintage with joyous cries, now stand deserted: the leaves of the fruit-trees are coppery-green or rusty brown; they take their leave until the coming spring: all is silent and ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... handed a visiting card inscribed: "Rev. Ellis Shorter", and underneath was written in pencil, but in a hand in which even hurry could not conceal a depressing and gentlemanly excellence, "Asking the favour of a few moments' conversation ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... of the garrison of Fort Washington, 2,000 of whom were regular troops, was universally regarded as the most severe blow that the American cause had yet sustained, and it had a most depressing effect both in and out of the army, but more particularly in the army, as it tended to develop the growing antagonism between the commander-in-chief and General Lee, who had ineffectually advocated the evacuation ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... wealth, the capacity for production, of France, - the bright, cheerful, smokeless industry of the wonderful country which produces, above all, the agreeable things of life, and turns even its defeats and revolutions into gold. The whole town has an air of almost depressing opulence, an appear- ance which culminates in the great place which sur- rounds the Grand-Theatre, - an establishment in the highest style, encircled with columns, arcades, lamps, gilded cafes. One ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... by yourselves in this your own venerable and sovereign court. For it is usual, as you know well, with him whose ways are inscrutable, to manifest his own ineffable glory in blunting the perspicacy of the eyes of the wise, in weakening the strength of potent oppressors, in depressing the pride of rich extortioners, and in erecting, comforting, protecting, supporting, upholding, and shoring up the poor, feeble, humble, silly, and foolish ones of the earth. But, waiving all these matters, I shall only beseech you, not by the obligations which you pretend ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... recount instances which have come in his long experience, showing the soldier in the best light, revealing his pluck, his love of little children, his chivalrous championing of the weak, his handiness, his humour, his cheerfulness in depressing circumstances, his self-respect, and his honesty. What was it that struck his attention most about the tempting work of searching Prempeh's palace for treasure? That the work which was entrusted to a company of British ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... and to make great exertions, suffer heavy losses, and to contract considerable debts, disturbing the ordinary course of affairs by augmenting to a vast amount the circulating medium, and thereby elevating at one time the price of every article above a just standard and depressing it at another below it, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Monroe • James Monroe
... are made welcome. No more singular contrast is possible than between the gendarmerie and the priesthood, who are besides in smouldering opposition and full of mutual complaints. A priest's kitchen in the eastern islands is a depressing spot to see; and many, or most of them, make no attempt to keep a garden, sparsely subsisting on their rations. But you will never dine with a gendarme without smacking your lips; and M. Aussel's home-made sausage and the salad from his garden are unforgotten delicacies. Pierre ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the work of the three respective parties, and this re-acted in various ways on the Women's Suffrage propaganda. It might seem that this had a depressing effect, for the rigid neutrality in regard to party which always had characterised the National Societies for Women's Suffrage might easily seem dull and tame to the ardent party enthusiasts, and many of the Liberal women threw their energies by preference into the Women's ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... for mad Jane Ray, but I never could tell whether she really believed her insane or not. I was always inclined to think that she was willing to put up with some of her tricks, because they served to divert our minds from the painful and depressing circumstances in which we were placed. I knew the Superior's powers and habits of deception also, and that she would deceive us as willingly as ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... secure the active cooperation of "staid old Virginia," "the Mother of Statesmen," in the struggle, was, in the estimation of the Rebels, an assurance of victory to their cause. And the Secession of Virginia for a time had a depressing influence upon the ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... was noisy and crowded, but Beak street was gloomy and misty, depressing and lonely, in contrast. Jack found the right number, and as he hesitated before the house—the door of which was partly open—a man came abruptly out. He was tall and slim, dressed in dark clothes, and with a soft ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... nights were passed in long, Indian-like silence which ended in sleep. Tobacco scented the atmosphere of the hut with a heaviness that was depressing. Each man sat upon his blankets alternating between his pannikin of coffee and his pipe, with eyes lowered in deep thought, or turned upon the glowing stove in ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... said Cardo cheerfully, though the little pucker between his eyes seemed to speak of the same anxiety and fear. "Isn't the separation which we must bear enough to account for all sorts of fears and depressing thoughts? It is that only which dims the sunshine to me, and makes me feel as if I were losing all the light and happiness out of my life; but let us cast our fears to the wind, Valmai, for a year will see all our troubles over; in a year's time I shall have returned, ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... eminent for virtue, talents, and property, and, if you please, birth and standing in the land. They guide opinion; and, therefore, they govern. I am no leveller; I look upon an artificial equality as equally pernicious with a factitious aristocracy; both depressing the energies, and checking the enterprise of a nation. I like man to be free, really free: free in his industry as well as his body. What is the use of Habeas Corpus, if a man may not use his hands when he is out ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... last encountered a dusky Tinker lying among the weeds and rank grass, in the shade of the dwelling-house. A rough walking-staff lay on the ground by his side, and his head rested on a small wallet. He met Mr. Traveller's eye without lifting up his head, merely depressing his chin a little (for he was lying on his back) to get a better view ...
— Tom Tiddler's Ground • Charles Dickens
... circumstances? I fear the tunnel would prove a grand place for ruffians; and what hideous depredations and murderous attacks might not be committed in transit! Five minutes is in all conscience long enough to be under the depressing influence of a Hadean tunnel, but it would be an evil spirit who could tolerate it for the ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... Italy), and this house of moneyed ease, presumably unsaleable, had stood empty for several years. One went to it up a gravel drive, round a large, coarse grass-plot, with plenty of time to observe the degradation of its stuccoed front. Miss Haldin said that the impression was unpleasant. It grew more depressing as ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... of the South, or one-third its intelligence and progress; we shall contribute one-third to the business and industrial prosperity of the South, or we shall prove a veritable body of death, stagnating, depressing, retarding every effort to advance the ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... returned from Brighton in a very thoughtful mood. She said she had had a "heavenly visit." Such nice weather—such a contrast to dirty, dreary, depressing London! She had met several old acquaintances, they had had company every night, and had she only had a third evening dress her bliss would have been complete. As it was, a slight sense of inferiority had taken the keen edge off her ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... the yelling and clashing of spears; and how many of the attacking party fell could not be seen, but there was constantly the depressing sight of some brave defender of the women and children staggering away from the fence, to fall dead, or to creep away out of the struggle to where the weeping women eagerly sought to staunch his wounds ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... walking through a graveyard of slaughtered reputations wherein not many headstones show a few words of measured commendation. It is only the greatness and goodness of Mr. Adams himself which relieve the universal atmosphere of sadness far more depressing than the melancholy which pervades the novels of George Eliot. The reader who wishes to retain any comfortable degree of belief in his fellow men will turn to the wall all the portraits in the gallery except only the inimitable one of the writer ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... depressing were the brief proceedings that followed, and dreadfully suggestive of the helplessness of even an innocent man on whom the law has laid its hand and in whose behalf its inexorable machinery ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... to us, and depressing, was none the less reassuring. For Khalid, it seems, is not a myth. No; we can even see him, we are told, and touch him, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... light-hearted merry fellow as ever," exclaimed I, as I closed the letter; "how long, I wonder, will those buoyant spirits of his resist the depressing effect which contact with the harsh realities of life appears always sooner or later to produce? Strange, what he says about that Mr. Vernor; I am not conscious that I ever met the man till the evening of the ball, and yet I fancied there was something which seemed ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... vol"—which the West more briefly expresses by calling baggage "plunder." What little plunder our indifferent honesty had packed for this journey we had left with a certain stage-coachman, perhaps to follow us, perhaps to become his plunder. We were thus disconnected from any depressing influence; we had no character to sustain; we were heroes in disguise, and could make our observations on life and manners, without being invited to a public hand-shaking, or to exhibit feats in jugglery, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... corn-loft, where he stored grain when the harvest turned out too abundant for the usual storing-places. At that time it was empty, and to it the old man now conducted his young guest, adding, however, that he would probably not like it up there. The Hunter went up, and although the bare and depressing room received its small amount of light only through a hole in the roof, and there was nothing but a board and a chest to sit on, nevertheless he was well satisfied. "For," he said, "it is all the same to me, if I can only remain here until I feel certain that I haven't done ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... left. Still on and on they come. The moon is now sinking low, and the shadows are weird and ghostly. Auroras, phantom-like, flit in the northern sky, while some of them seem like frightened spirits flying before avenging enemies. The sight is depressing to Alec, and so he turns his eyes from beholding them while still ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... economy: they betray at once the mental condition of the individual. Joy is a great tonic, and acts on the vocal cords and mucous membrane as does an astringent; a brilliant and clear quality of voice is the result. Grief or Fear, on the other hand, being depressing emotions, lower the vitality, and the debilitating influence communicates to the voice a dull and ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... Fig. 2, and it will be found that any variety in the size of the cuneiform inscriptions may be produced by the same stylus, by simply depressing the angular end of it to a greater or less depth into the surface of the clay. In many of the most elaborate inscriptions, a certain lob-sidedness of the cuneiform character may be observed. This is due to the inscriber ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... a depressing sidelight on human nature that the achievement of eminence brings with it the malice and spite of petty minds and no one of prominence can avoid becoming the target of stupid and unscrupulous attack. It would ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... their heads that were different. Oh, yes,—and their dispositions; for the Billiken was a supremely cheerful person, while the Brown Teddy-Bear was a misanthrope. Sara had always known that he had something very depressing on his mind; and she was planning, now that he had learned to talk, to ask him what it was at the ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... hydrophobia and serpent poisoning are by no means parallel, the rationale of the methods employed in opening the emunctories of the skin are the same; and were it not for its powerful protracting effect and depressing action upon the heart, we might perhaps secure valuable aid from jaborandi (pilocarpus), since it stimulates profusely all the secretions; as it is, more is to be hoped for in the former disorder than in the latter. It would be desirable also to know what influence the Turkish bath ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various
... H——, I shall be in Ireland the whole month of July. I am coming first to Dublin, and shall afterward go to Cork. You really must not be away when I come, for if you are, I won't come, which is good Irish, isn't it? I do not feel as you do, at all, about the sea. Instead of depressing my spirits, it always raises them; it seems to me as if the vast power of the great element communicated itself to me. I feel strong, as I run by the side of the big waves, with something of their strength, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... most at heart. One more attempt he was bound to make, even at the risk of another failure. Accordingly in 1883 appeared "The Life Prisoner" (Livsslaven), which deserved a better fate than befell it. The critics found it depressing, compared it to Zola, and at the same time scolded the author because he lacked indignation and neglected to denounce the terrible conditions which he described. He replied to their arraignments in an angry but very effective letter. But that did not save the book. Truth to tell, "The Life Prisoner" ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... depressing circumstances that had occurred in this gloomy period, not the least painful was the death of Mrs. Judson's early friend, and companion in her eastern voyage, Mrs. Harriet Newell. Of less mental and physical vigor than Mrs. Judson, this amiable and ardent Christian ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... speech has depressing effect. Members, with one consent, go out to think over what he is probably going to say. Convenient arrangement for them, but does not add to hilarity of proceedings, or vary impression CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN'S ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... dawn of rest and blessing, When our God will come and save us From the vile body's bands depressing, And the evils that enslave us. Death soon will come, From woe deliver, And take us home Then all together. ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... horror, the interest of the book lies not so much in its revelation of Dickens's literary genius as in its revelation of those moral, personal, and political instincts which were the make-up of his character and the permanent support of that literary genius. It is by far the most depressing of all his books; it is in some ways the most irritating; yet its ugliness gives the last touch of honesty to all that spontaneous and splendid output. Without this one discordant note all his merriment might ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... sad and imprisoned state impressed me deeply; and while from time to time I replenished my fire, and hoped to hear some friendly step upon the stair, my heart grew gradually heavier, and every gloomy and depressing thought suggested itself to my imagination. My most constant impression was that the troops were retiring beyond the Coa, and that, forgotten in the haste and confusion of a night march, I had been left behind to fall a prisoner to ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... thy youth was trayned to, Thy soft downe Pillow, was a helme of steele: The could damp earth, a bed to ease thy toyle, Afrigted slumbers were thy golden sleepes: Hunger and thirst thy sweetest delicates, Sterne horror, gastly woundes, pale greesly death: 1320 Thy winde depressing pleasures and delights, And now so soone hath on enchanted face, These manly labours luld in drowsy sleepe: The Gods (whose messenger I heere do stand) Will not then drowne thy fame in Idlenesse: Yet must Philippi ...
— The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge • Anonymous
... laughter. The book mixes humor with its tragedy; the sorrows of Uncle Tom and the dark story of Cassy are relieved by the pranks of Black Sam and the antics of Topsy. With all its woes, the story somehow does not leave a depressing effect; it abounds in courage and action; the fugitives win their way to freedom; the final impulse is to hopeful effort against the wrong. Its basal motive was the same as that of the Abolitionists, but its spirit and method were so ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... method—and the music—were different. The results in winning sinners, so far as they owed anything to the hymns and hymn-tunes, were apt to be a new generation of Christian recruits as sombre as the singing. "Lebanon" set forth the appalling shortness of human life; "Windham" gave its depressing story of the great majority of mankind on the "broad road," and other minor tunes proclaimed God's sovereignty and eternal decrees; or if a psalm had His love in it, it was likely to be sung in a similar melancholy key. Even in his gladness ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... see Dr. Jones's prescriptions. Thank you. Ay, I thought so. My dear madam, the mistake here has been in depressing nature instead of strengthening; in narcotics instead of stimulants. The main stimulants which leave no reaction are air and light. Promise me that I may have my own way for a week,—that all I recommend will be ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
