"Sombreness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he," said Donatello, with unwonted sombreness; "the old house seemed joyous when I was a child. But as I remember it now it ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... azure of the deep sea. They were eyes that masked the soul with a thousand guises, and that sometimes opened, at rare moments, and allowed it to rush up as though it were about to fare forth nakedly into the world on some wonderful adventure,—eyes that could brood with the hopeless sombreness of leaden skies; that could snap and crackle points of fire like those which sparkle from a whirling sword; that could grow chill as an arctic landscape, and yet again, that could warm and soften and be all a-dance with love-lights, intense and masculine, ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... service Calvin has rendered to theological science and church discipline, there was an unnatural sombreness about him, which linked him rather with the Middle Ages and the hierarchical rule than with the glad, free spirit of a wholesome Christian life. At twenty-seven he had already drawn up a formula of doctrine and organization which ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... would inherit my property, and you may well guess that Aunt Jinkey's tub yonder would hold all his tears if I should make a sudden exit," and again he smiled in his pleasant way, as if with the purpose to relieve his words of all sombreness. ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... was quite inevitable that there should be strong reaction from any such work as this. To the warm blood and the poignant sense of the beauty of the world it brought a sense of chill, a forbidding sombreness and austerity. Carlyle's conception of Christianity was that of the worship of sorrow; and, while the essence of his gospel was labour, yet to many minds self-denial seemed to be no longer presented, as in the teaching of Jesus, as a means towards ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... gently leaned on the arm she proffered and left the studio with her, the rich glow and voluminous folds of his scarlet robes contrasting vividly with the simple black gown which Angela wore without other adornment than a Niphetos rose to relieve its sombreness. As she went with her uncle she looked over her shoulder and smiled an adieu to Florian,—he, in his turn lightly kissed his hand to her, and then addressed Prince Pietro, who, with the care of a man to whom expense is a consideration, ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... musical inheritance; for not only has she a wealth of folk-songs, but her famous composers, Balakireff, Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakoff—who are men of letters as well—have published remarkable editions of these national melodies. The Russian folk-songs express, in general, a mood of sombreness or even depression—typical of the vast, bleak expanses of that country, and of its downtrodden people. These songs are usually in the minor mode—often with sudden changes of rhythm—and based on the old ecclesiastical modes, the Russian liturgy being very ancient and having an historical ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... strive so sagaciously and diligently for culture; - in blithe and beautiful Paris, where they still live on happily in the illusion that they are the leaders of civilization; - in the not less self-satisfied London, immutably grim in its sombreness, hardened in its dangerous luxury and misery, full of intellectual life, but without much sign of improvement, like a strong, prosperous, hardened villain; - in wanton St. Petersburg, with its extremely polished, yet withal ever equally barbarous ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... that ran along its crest, and took a footpath, leading past the edge of a railway cutting, from which the wonderful old house could be plainly seen. She paused several times to look at it, wrapped in a kind of day-dream, which gave a growing sombreness to her harsh and melancholy features. Beyond the footpath a swing gate opened into a private ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... court was numerously represented, with every functionary in his utmost splendor of decoration, it was outnumbered by the brethren of the Holy Orders, whose gowns, for the most part of gray and black material unrelieved by gayety in color, imparted a sombreness to the scene which the ample light of the chamber could not entirely dissipate, assisted though it was by refractions in plenitude from heads bald and heads ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... passages, different as they are in every other feature, are at one. It will be noticed that in each of them the details selected for presentation have been chosen solely for the sake of a common quality inherent in them—the quality of sombreness and gloom in the one case, and the quality of Sabbath quietude in the other—and that they have been marshalled to convey a complete sense of this central and pervading quality. It is commonly supposed that what is called "atmosphere" in a description is dependent upon the ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... in a somewhat sobered frame of mind that we presently turned away and started homeward by way of Great Ormond Street. My companion was deeply thoughtful, relapsing for a while into that sombreness of manner that had so impressed me when I first met her. Nor was I without a certain sympathetic pensiveness; as if, from the great, silent house, the spirit of the vanished man had issued forth to ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... court, and the large number of people present are naturally and easily grouped. There is no stiffness nor awkwardness in the positions, nothing forced in the whole work. There are, in the crowd, ladies in bright colors to relieve the sombreness of the black-coated men, and the effect of the whole picture is pleasing and artistic, aside from its great ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... resplendent. The vista of those great rooms, reflected by numerous mirrors, was a scene of confusing beauty, with flowers everywhere, soft, glowing carpets underfoot, and the surging crowds passing back and forth. There was scarcely a black coat present, to yield touch of sombreness to the picture, but scarlet and blue, green and white, glowing with profusion of gold lace, and glittering with medals, together with gleaming shoulders, ruffles of white lace, and shimmering skirts ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... speaking which I liked. He knew how to refine his words by means of his expression. If they were very positive, his voice would hesitate; if too grave, a faint smile would lighten their sombreness. If he spoke ironically, his boyish eyes softened any touch of bitterness in the wisdom of ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... universal background that the story of the Hebrews is thrown; and in the new beginning which history takes with the call of Abraham, something like the later contrast between the church and the world is intended to be suggested. Upon the sombreness of human history as reflected in Gen. i.-xi., a new possibility breaks in Gen. xii., and the rest of the book is devoted to the fathers of the Hebrew people (xii.-l.). The most impressive figure from a religious point of view ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... which reminds Ferdinand of his drowned father. "As that is of the water, watery, so this is of the earth, earthy." He has earned his place among the greatest of our dramatists by his two plays, the theme of which matched his sombre genius and the sombreness of the ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... not festooned; "wedding bells" and canopies are out of date. The most approved setting is tall palms, ferns on standards concealed by a lower grouping, with a few potted plants in bloom to relieve the sombreness of the green. Large flowers like lilies, hydrangeas, chrysanthemums and peonies are most effective. Tulips are often employed at a spring wedding. One little country girl made good use of ordinary field clover in decorating her ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... but desolation,—a desolation utter and complete, a mere waste of tumbled sand, by daylight whitened here and there by irregular patches of alkali, but under the brooding night shadows lying brown, dull, forlorn beyond all expression, a trackless, deserted ocean of mystery, oppressive in its drear sombreness. ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... herself; "I can understand. There must be much of sadness in such a landscape, only it never comes that way to me. The sombreness and the sternness of it appeal to me, ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... dark and forbidding, like everything else under this wild gray sky; but Noll had long ago ceased to consider it as resembling a prison. It was home, now, and so took a fairer, brighter shape in his eyes. Beyond, the pines stood up against the sky, full of sombreness and inky shadow. ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... hour spent in the sombreness of the church, with the flickering candle light making grotesque forms of shadows on the wall and among the tall pews. The old minister reminded her of the one she had left at home, though he was more learned and scholarly, and when he had read the Scripture ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... glory of the tropic sunrise, Mr. Maxwell and I landed in Province Wellesley, under the magnificent casuarina trees which droop in mournful grace over the sandy shore. The somberness of the interminable groves of cocoa-palms on the one side of the Strait, the brightness of the sun-kissed peaks on the other, and the deep shadows on the amber water, were all beautiful. Truly in the tropics "the ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... in a howling November wind. At Bodega Bay he learned that Governor Rotscheff had passed there two days before with a party of guests that he had gone down to Sausalito to meet. Chonita awaited him in the North. A softer mood pressed through the somberness of his spirit, and the candle of hope burned again. Gold must exist elsewhere in California, and he swore anew that it should yield itself to him. The last miles of his ride lay along the cliffs. Sometimes the steep hills covered with redwoods rose so ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Miss Jim's mind was not to be judged by the somberness of her raiment. The novelty of selecting her own clothes, of consulting her own taste, of being rid of the entangling dangers of lace ruffles and flying furbelows, to say nothing of unwelcome suitors, gave her a sense of exhilaration and independence ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice |
