"Depressing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... under these and other, similarly depressing circumstances, the nightly receipts were about L60, the expenses being L80; and on the last—an author's—night, there was an excellent and enthusiastic house, yielding, to the best of my recollection, about L140, but ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... young men, they were too dismayed at the unexpected difficulties which had started up in their way to give any opinion whatever. This uncertainty was terrible, and all felt that it would have a most depressing effect upon themselves and upon the whole expedition; for how could they tell, after journeying for hundreds of miles, whether every step might not take them further from ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... love and hope in her heart did not lift her above the depressing influence of that mournful last view of her home. Was the thing that she was going to do worth while? Was anything in life worth while? The little town had a half-awakened Monday-morning look. Every one seemed to be beginning another week with an "Oh, dear me!" sort ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... an old person of Crowle, Who lived in the nest of an owl; When they screamed in the nest, he screamed out with the rest, That depressing old person ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... the policeman, who had befriended Bessie when she was lost, the latter because she thought Mrs. Granby "such fun." To have Mrs. Fleming come in, as she presently did, was bliss indeed to Lily, who delighted in pitting the cheery, lively little Mrs. Granby against the melancholy, depressing Mrs. Fleming. Nor was ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... England during the past four months was possible. An existence from which the sun's rays are almost always obliterated by the inclement weather, by snow and by fog. I cannot describe the sensations caused by the dismal gloom of the sunless days — a most depressing life — especially in December, when it would suddenly turn dark, compelling one to work by gaslight when the clocks indicated that it was high noon. Not till then did I realize why some people are said to worship ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... a horrid bad cough, and my big, dull room is depressing. We are all depressed, I am afraid. Being accustomed to have plenty to do, this ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... peasants all work together to repair the roads, so the whole community would work together to seek truth and the meaning of life, and, I am sure of it—truth would be found very soon, man would get rid of his continual, poignant, depressing fear of death ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... appearance, some modestly, others with a studied air of confidence, loudly greeting those they knew. The presence of so many rivals and the frigidity of the office-boy made my heart heavy. I was still a novice at the game, and the least mark of hostility was apt to have a depressing effect on my spirits, though, as a rule, it only ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... the farmers' income by establishing a security commodity reserve that will protect the market from price-depressing stocks and protect the consumer from ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Lyndon B. Johnson • Lyndon B. Johnson
... that night when you couldn't fit your plans to mine which has made me write this letter. When I came home from Harbor Light I found Bettina waiting up for me, and she broke down as the depressing realities of your work were forced upon her. I was very toploftical, Anthony—and was prepared to read her a sermon on the duties of a doctor's wife, when all at once I had a vision of myself in that rosebud organdie. I hated ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... somewhat of damp—was a long, low room leading straight into the garden, and the whole effect was rather depressing. At supper-time, Barbara was made acquainted with the rest of the household, which consisted of an adopted niece—a plump girl of about seventeen, with very red cheeks and a very small waist—and two boys about twelve, who ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... unlovely and unwomanly in Maggie not to be happy; not to be a little excited, not perhaps, sometimes, to have been a little trying. For a great happiness is often depressing to those who have to witness its exultation, prolonged day after day. Ordinary mortals feel outside of it, and it strikes them with a vague, but certain, fear. Mary often said to herself—"I would not be so silly about any one as Maggie is about Allan. I ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... states condemnation of slavery was rare. Among the people of Georgia, the depressing experience of the colony under a prohibition of it was too fresh in memory for them to contemplate with favor a fresh deprivation. In South Carolina Christopher Gadsden had written in 1766 likening slavery to a crime, and a decade afterward Henry Laurens wrote: "You know, ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... which impressed and mystified the sensitive Chinaman. 'The Englishman's face was first filled with a deep pleasure, and then he seemed to be thinking), of something depressing and sad; for the smile went from his mouth and there were tears in his eyes when he thanked me for what I had said. Can it be that he has, or has had, some great trouble in his life, and that he fights recklessly to forget it, or that Death has no terrors ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... not slur the nub; he shouts it at you—every time. And when he prints it, in England, France, Germany, and Italy, he italicizes it, puts some whopping exclamation-points after it, and sometimes explains it in a parenthesis. All of which is very depressing, and makes one want to renounce joking ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the flagging conversation languished, drawn out into detached phrases, which had no particular meaning. Madame Nanteuil, the servant, the coke fire, the lamp, the plate of sausage, awaited Felicie in depressing silence. The clock struck one. Chevalier's suffering had by this time attained the serenity of a flood tide. He was now certain. The cabs were not so frequent and their wheels echoed more loudly along the street. The rumbling of one of these cabs suddenly ceased ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... these regretful conclusions are a sequel to the early disappointments and sorrows of my younger days, for, I admit, that though I thrived after a fashion under their depressing influence, they had, most necessarily, a peculiar effect upon ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... an even keel. Other men stand at the levers of the Kingston valves which, when open, flood the ballast tanks with water and secure the submergence of the boat. Most of the underwater boats to-day sink rapidly on an even keel. The old method of depressing the nose of the boat so as to make a literal dive has been abandoned, partly because of the inconvenience it caused to the men within who suddenly found the floor on which they were standing tilted at a sharp angle, and partly ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... led him to believe that the white color was solely due to the excessive development of air-bubbles in the hair shaft. Popular belief brings the premature and especially the sudden whitening into connection with depressing mental emotions. We might quote the German expression—"Sich graue Haare etwas wachsen lassen" ("To worry one's self gray"). Brown-Sequard observed on several occasions in his own dark beard hairs which had turned white in a night and which he epileptoid. He closes his ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... unfounded, as all who recollect the incidents detailed in former pages will readily believe. Her health still continued so delicate as frequently to occasion her aunt some anxiety. Through the winter, strange to say, she had not suffered, but the spring brought on, at intervals, those depressing feelings of languor which Mrs. Hamilton hoped had been entirely conquered. The least exertion or excitement caused her to suffer the following day, and therefore, except at very small parties, she did not appear even at home. No one could suspect from her quiet and controlled ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... be depressing, but it certainly is an instructive lesson to go back just a hundred years ago, when the condition of Europe was in many respects similar to that which prevails now. The problems that unrolled themselves before the nations afford useful points of comparison. The great enemy was then ...
— Armageddon—And After • W. L. Courtney
... bestowed particular notice upon him in various ways, and always treated him with much consideration. As regarded merely his physical comfort, Boone's situation was, at this time, rather enviable than otherwise; but he felt a depressing anxiety with regard to his wife and children, and doubted the safety and prosperity of the Station, without his own watchfulness and superintendence. He therefore determined to escape from his captors at the earliest possible period, and very ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... forest, wherein he saw many things not salutary to notice, to a great stone house like a prison, and he sought shelter there. But he could find nobody about the place, until he came to a large hall, newly swept. This was a depressing apartment, in its chill neat emptiness, for it was unfurnished save for a bare deal table, upon which lay a yardstick and a pair of scales. Above this table hung a wicker cage, containing a blue bird, and another wicker cage containing three white pigeons. And in ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... a narcotic, alcohol is a narcotic. If chloroform is an anaesthetic, alcohol is an anaesthetic. If one is essentially a depressing agent, so is the other. Their strong resemblance no one can question. The chief difference is that the alcoholic narcosis is longer continued, and its ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... she did not believe he would ever gain sufficient strength to bear removal from that house of sorrow. The air of the ward was hot, damp, and lifeless. Sickening odors rising from the streets of the filthy city drifted in through its open windows. The whole atmosphere of the place was depressing, and suggestive of suffering that could only ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... most depressing news to me; but I walked along till I came to a street running north, when I stopped, and pointing in ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... fortune and adversity with an equal mind, and he displayed stoical courage throughout prolonged illness of a most depressing type. ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... part. As for the children they will build snow-houses, and sit down in them, thus ensuring permanent bad colds, and the other member of your family, if she returns home, will 'look before and after, and sigh for what is not.' Is not that a sufficiently depressing picture? Dear papa, you know that, like the bad little boys in a certain class of Sunday School literature, I can't be ruled except by kindness. Now see what an immense opportunity I have given you to govern me according to approved ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... for souls not lucre, hearts not wealth, let the poor be put in some place where they can hear fairly without being unduly exhibited. The chapel we are noticing has a spacious appearance within, and has none of that depressing dulness which makes some people very sad long before they have been ministerially operated upon. From side windows there comes a good light; and from the roof, which has a central transparency, additional clearness is obtained. The light from the ceiling would be improved if ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... inasmuch as he piled up fact upon fact, and was at the same time, as the French manner is, dramatic, with large gesticulations that made his gown flutter restlessly about him like the wings of a bat. It was a depressing fact that afterwards, as the Minister opposed to Bismarck, he was so ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... the shadows lengthen toward evening. The artist in painting a desert scene employs short harsh shadows if he desires to suggest the excessive heat. These shadows suggest the relentless noonday sun. The overcast sky is universally depressing and it has been found that on a sunny day most persons experience a slight depression when a cloud obscures the sun. Nature's lighting varies from moment to moment, from day to day, and from season to season. It presents the extremes ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... friendship and captivity of Louis, has traced with the pencil of nature the free portrait of his virtues as well as of his failings. From this intimate knowledge we may learn to suspect the political views of depressing their great vassals, which are so often imputed to the royal authors of the crusades. Above all the princes of the middle ages, Louis the Ninth successfully labored to restore the prerogatives of the crown; but it was at home and not in the East, that he acquired for himself and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... environment to his heart's content, indeed—or to his heart's despair. For all this had rather the effect of chilling, of depressing him. It was very splendid; it was very luxurious and cheerful; it was appropriate and personal to her, if you like; no doubt, in its fashion, in its measure, it, too, expressed her. But, at that rate, it expressed her in an aspect which Peter had instinctively made it his habit to forget, ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... things imaginable: they were as thick as her wrist, but round, longer and hollow, white china inside and covered with brown wrapping. The wires of each, she discovered, led over a little wheel and down again to a swinging clock-like weight. In addition to this there were strange depressing handles on the wall by a dial with a jiggling needle and clearly ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... is the spring-key proper. S2, is the upper contact screw against which the spring normally presses. In this position the galvanometer G is in circuit with the opposite coatings of the condenser C. On depressing the contact S2, is broken and S1, is made. This brings the battery B in circuit with the condenser coatings. On releasing the key it springs up and the galvanometer receives the effect of the charge of the condenser as ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... believe, pneumonia. On the fifth day she died. I would have kept her remains with us in the boat, but Magee insisted that she be buried at sea, claiming that the presence of her body would have a constantly depressing effect upon us. I offered a prayer and said an improvised burial service over her, we wrapped her in a blanket, and weighting her body with an anchor buried her. My heart went into the sea with her, and but for my ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... this country, too often with the idea that the higher class are their tyrants and oppressors; and, with a feeling akin to revenge, they are often inclined to make their employers in Canada suffer in their turn. This feeling is the effect of certain depressing causes, often remote and beyond the reach of legislation, but no less real on that account; and just in proportion to the degree of poverty and servility which exists among the labouring class in the particular part of the United Kingdom from which they come, will be ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... happiness to both; to Mr. Gibson the most so, of course; for his range of intelligent and cultivated society was the smaller. Indeed, there was no one equal to himself among the men with whom he associated, and this he had felt as a depressing influence, although he had never recognized the cause of his depression. There was Mr Ashton, the vicar, who had succeeded Mr. Browning, a thoroughly good and kind- hearted man, but one without an original thought in him; whose ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... men—ah! to all of us in our faithless times—the events that befall ourselves, seem to be one of two things equally horrible, the play of a blind Chance, or the work of an iron Fate. I know not which of these two ghastly thoughts about the circumstances of life is the more depressing, ruining all our energy, depriving us of all our joy, and dragging us down with its weight. But brethren, and friends, there are but these three ways for it— either our life is the subject of a mere chaotic chance; or else it ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... her except at her prettiest. Needless to say, he never meets anything but "prettiest" manners either. No matter how "out of sorts" she may be feeling, his key in the door is a signal for her to "put aside everything that is annoying or depressing," with the result that wild horses couldn't drag his attention from her—all because neither she nor he has ever slumped into the gray ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... appetite would certainly have attracted the attention of Bangs or any other fellow diner, and Bangs would as certainly have commented upon it. Also, he passed a restless night, troubled by vaguely depressing dreams. The girl was in them, but everything was as hopelessly confused as his ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... is a man with every attribute of human kind. Centuries of barbarism have had the same deteriorating effects on Africans as Prichard describes them to have had on certain of the Irish who were driven, some generations back, to the hills in Ulster and Connaught; and these depressing influences have had such moral and physical effects on some tribes, that ages probably will be required to undo what ages have done. This degradation, however, would hardly be given as a reason for holding ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... this multitude of small sympathetic pains and depressions by laughter, which, as we have seen, breaks up our train of mental activity and prevents our dwelling upon the distressing situation, and which also provides an antidote to the depressing influence in the form of physiological stimulation that raises the blood-pressure and promotes the circulation of the blood. This, then, is the biological function of laughter, one of the most delicate and beautiful of all nature's adjustments. ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... those dull, drab, depressing days when somehow or other it seemed as if there wasn't anything anywhere for anybody to do. It was raining outdoors, so that Alice could not amuse herself in the garden, or call upon her friend ...
— Alice in Blunderland - An Iridescent Dream • John Kendrick Bangs
... 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. We were animated ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... concerned with the spiritual interests of humanity. But it is none the less true that the way in which it sets about satisfying spiritual needs is superficial and shallow. If this were the right way, the outlook would indeed be dreary. Would it not be depressing to be obliged to agree with those who say: "Thought is a form of force. We walk by means of the same force by which we think. Man is an organism which transforms various forms of force into thought-force, an organism the activity of which we maintain by what we call ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner
... the lights, the haze of smoke and the scent of food were depressing. The whole atmosphere rolled forward to meet him as he came through the doors. He had no subtle temperament. It did not offend his imagination, but it sickened his senses, even though he knew that in five ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... approached perhaps charily; yet Rainham, as his acquaintance progressed, found himself from time to time brought up with a certain surprise, as he discovered, under all his savage cynicism, his overweening devotion to a depressing theory, a very real vein of refinement, of delicate mundane sensibility, revealed perhaps in a chance phrase or diffidence, or more often in some curiously fine touch to canvas of his rare, audacious brush. The incongruities of the man, his malice, his coarseness, ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... only a few days less than a year that he had been absent from her. Still, to start on a brisk walk, and on such an errand as hers, on a dry clear wintry morning, through the rarefied air of these chalky hogs'-backs, was not depressing; and there is no doubt that her dream at starting was to win the heart of her mother-in-law, tell her whole history to that lady, enlist her on her side, and ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... of misfortunes with which Bonaparte was overwhelmed at this crisis, it seems as if Fortune had been determined to show that she did not intend to reverse the lot of humanity, even in the case of one who had been so long her favourite, but that she retained the power of depressing the obscure soldier, whom she had raised to be almost king of Europe, in a degree as humiliating as his exaltation had been splendid. All that three years before seemed inalienable from his person, was now reversed. The victor ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... were very conducive to introspection; that wealth which he imagined within his grasp did not now look so all-in-all sufficing, and yet he had deemed it the end and all-in-all of life. Even with his past experience—the depressing, deteriorating effects, mental and physical, of years of poverty in its most squalid and depressing form, "shabby-genteel" poverty—he realized that even the possession of wealth might leave something to be desired. ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... partly from 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 ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the cold penetrating, and the atmosphere depressing, and so was the conversation. It is better here on the hilltop, even though, now and then, ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... between lofty buildings connected overhead with bridges, and finally appeared in Bankside amidst heaps of old iron and broken glass, the two principal articles of merchandise in those parts. A dismal, most depressing region, one on which the sun never shone, gloomy on the brightest day. It was impossible to enter it without feeling an instantaneous check to all lightness of heart. The spirits were smitten as if with paralysis directly St. Saviour's was passed. ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... and ascending of the red-hot lava 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 asked, "What ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... suppressing the symptoms for a short time. They take advantage of the fact that the breathing is much easier when the stomach and intestines are empty. They also resort to the use of medicines that have a depressing effect. When the veterinarian is examining a horse for soundness, and he suspects that the animal has been "fixed," he usually gives the horse as much water as he will drink and then has him ridden or driven rapidly up a hill ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... succeed, if only some one would give me the opportunity. After waiting twenty years, the State Library gave me the opportunity. This lack of confidence upon the part of the public is one of the most depressing features of adult blindness. Thus far, I have considered the subject from the point of view of one who has been blind from early infancy, but now I shall view it from the standpoint of one deprived ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... 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 ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... through the world. He scanned Shaftesbury Avenue with a jaundiced eye, and thought that he had never seen a beastlier thoroughfare. Piccadilly, however, into which he shortly dragged himself, was even worse. It was full of men and women and other depressing things. ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... world that lay about me, a world of shadows and a white, low-lying mist that filled every hollow and swathed hedge and tree; a lowering earth and a frowning heaven infinitely depressing. But the eastern sky was clear with an ever-growing brightness; hope lay there, so, as I walked, I kept ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... bottom, the level of the mercury can be raised or depressed so as to bring the ivory point exactly to the surface of the mercury in the cistern. In some barometers the cistern is fixed, and the ivory point is brought to the level of the mercury in the cistern by raising or depressing the scale. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... Comet's) my attention was drawn to a number of casuarinas—those leafless, dark trees, which always make a sad impression on the traveller; even a casual observer will notice the dull, depressing sigh which comes from a grove of these trees when there is ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... growled and grumbled between his teeth in the intervals of smoking. Was it only the hot wind that wrung from him these demonstrations of discomfort? Or was there some secret anxiety in his mind which assisted the depressing influences of the day? There was a secret anxiety in his mind. And the ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... fighting, as distinguished from the raiding, in the air, not so much because our machines were better and certainly not because they were more numerous, but because in the air youthful ingenuity and daring had its chance unfettered by the restraining and depressing hand of regimental mediocrity; and where machine-made discipline was at a discount, youth and enterprise were at a premium. This general rule was subject to exceptions caused by the ding-dong race of scientific invention, and for the moment the Germans ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... 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 ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... but the present experience was new to him. Had there been some rocks at hand, or a single tree, he might have made himself feel at home, but this immense stretch of flat land, water-soaked and becoming fast wrapped in the darkness of night, was truly depressing. ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... Cecilia!" cried he; "Words such as these, hung there not upon me an evil the most depressing, would be almost more than I could bear—would make me too blest ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... tail coat and went out. If there was any accident I was determined to be described in the papers as "the body of a well-dressed man." To go down to history as "the body of a shabbily-dressed individual" would be too depressing. Beautifully clothed, I jumped into a taxi and drove to Celia's greengrocer. Celia herself was keeping warm by paying still ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... I do realize what a mistake you made in living the repressed life you did all those early boyhood years. What a pity your parents reared one of your sensitive and imaginative nature in the gloomy old doctrines of a depressing religion, which so misrepresented the God of love: and how odd that your father and mine should have been born of the same parents, educated in the same schools, and yet be no more alike in beliefs or methods of life than two people of a different ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... established a tea table in the bay window, had embroidered a cover for the wide couch, had burned the big wooden bowl that was supposedly always full of nuts or grapes or red apples. But these touches were lost in the mass of less pleasing detail. The "body Brussels" carpet was worn, the wall paper depressing, the woodwork was painted dark brown, with an imitation burl smeared in by the painter's thumb. The chairs were of several different woods and patterns, the old black walnut sideboard clumsy and battered. About ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... twenty-one years, a month, and two weeks, you will not add a day, nor an hour. You understand me, sir," he continued, biting his thin lips and depressing his eyebrows; "this evening you seek a new master. I do not choose that the word impossible shall be pronounced in my house; I am too old now to begin to learn ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... works, in those which are distinguished for the richest fancy, the deepest feeling, the most lively poetic spirit, is, of talent, or at least of a noble nature, which will struggle its way out of narrow and depressing circumstances. This is the case with his three novels, and with this purpose in view, it is really an important state of existence which he describes,—an inner world, which no one understands better than he, who has himself, drained out of the bitter cup of suffering and renunciation, ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... interesting matter, but, on the whole, it is depressing. It seems very dull to be bad. Perhaps the editor desired to create this impression; if so, he has succeeded. Hannah More had fifty times more fun in her life than all these courtesans and criminals put together. The note of jollity is entirely absent. It was ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... It was a depressing little room; it was so clean, and looked as though it were never used. A ship imprisoned in a glass bottle stood upon the mantelpiece, and there were shells from far-away places, pictures of ships in sand—all the things ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... up in the most depressing atmosphere conceivable. Reuben, who was to have the farm, developed a shy and hopeless taciturnity under the pressure of the family chagrin and privations, and found his only relief in the emotions and excitements of Methodism. Sandy seemed at first more fortunate. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the accession of Mr. Wade to the Presidency, for the fulfillment of pledges of appointment based thereon, and who were still importunate for impeachment, the business element of the country at large was tiring of it and its depressing effect upon the commercial activities. Even Senators and Congressmen were being moved to a sense of the obstructive and somewhat ridiculous phases the impeachment movement was beginning to take on—and not a few of those who in its earlier stages had honestly ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... necks, and busts were all destroyed, leaving the lower part of them—mere quadrangular pillars, without arms, or legs, or body—alone standing. The sacrilege sent universal dismay into the city, and was regarded as a most depressing omen, and was done, doubtless, with a view of ruining Alcibiades and frustrating the expedition. But all efforts were vain to discover ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... more substantial elements of the repast by dessert, more devastating even than the rear manoeuvres. At last there was nothing but an aching china blank. The men looked round the table for something else to "nash," but everywhere was the same depressing desolation. Only in the centre of the table towered in awful intact majesty the great Bar-mitzvah cake, like some mighty sphinx of stone surveying the ruins of empires, and the least reverent shrank before its austere gaze. But at last the Shalotten Shammos ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... through the suburban hills. In the meantime, Paul had lost no 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 to what ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... honest charms and hearty good fellowship of the Honourable Jake, always placed a large padded arm-chair in number forty-eight before the sessions, knowing that the Honourable Jake's constituency would be uniformly kind to him. There Mr. Botcher was wont to sit (when he was not depressing one of the tiles in the rotunda), surrounded by his friends and their tobacco smoke, discussing in his frank and manly fashion the public questions ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... unpromising could 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
... this depressing state of mind and body a girl whom she had coached in the college graduated and was about to return to her home in Virginia. She was several years Virginia's junior, pretty, warm-hearted and charming, and possessed the ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... They were depressing trips through miles and miles of devastated villages and small cities. From two to three days each were spent in front-line posts on the Amiens-Bethune, Albert-Peronne, Bapaume-Soissons, St. Mihiel, and back of the Argonne sectors. Often, the ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... 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, long sleep, and little food. Reads and writes from eight to ten hours ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... jerky sentences, often moistening her dry lips, and there was something in her eyes which made Pearl afraid—the very air of the room seemed charged with discords. Pearl struggled to free her heart from the depressing influence. ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... windows. Even in winter it must be, if not a cheerful, an interesting abode to dwell in. In duller days, when skies are leaden, and the more you see around you the less you like it, its dreamy look of age and strangeness within and without may have a somewhat depressing influence. The aches and agonies of so many generations may gain an ascendancy over the exuberant joys that made their life worth living. It would sometimes seem that if fondness for the supernatural must be indulged, an old edifice like this would prove a haunt more attractive, and certainly ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... under cover until wanted for use. This accumulation is inodorous, and rapidly becomes dry. The commode can stand in any convenient place in or out of doors. For use in bedrooms, hospital wards, infirmaries, etc., the commode is invaluable. It is entirely free from those faint, depressing odors common to portable water-closets and night-stools, and through its admission one of the greatest miseries of human life, the foul smells of the sick-room, and one of the most frequent means of communicating infection, may be ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... alone, she too seemingly not in the best of spirits. There was something depressing in the stillness of the house. Mrs. Waltham had her volume of family prayers open before her; her handkerchief ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... that it be always the same; but generally a temperature between 80 and 90 degrees F. is found most agreeable. At this temperature a bath is termed "indifferent," because it is neither stimulating nor depressing; it is employed purely for cleansing the body. Every part of the body should be well soaped, and from ten to fifteen minutes should be given to washing all the exposed surfaces. The best time for such a bath is just before going to bed, though there is no objection to taking it during the day, ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... a solemn spectacle, a drama, but a drama dismal and depressing. That man was not happy, and yet I envied him his happiness. How explain this except by the fact that happiness is within us, within each of us, and is the desire for what we do ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... who by experience knows So much of trial and of woes, Late prone to kindle and to melt, To feel whatever could be felt, To suffer, and without complaint, All anxious hopes, depressing fears; Her heart with untold sorrows faint, Eyes heavy with unshedden tears, Through every keen affliction past, Can that high spirit sink at last? Or shall it yet victorious rise, Beneath the most inclement ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... night by falling; hence the night is so much swifter. Happiness takes years to build; but misery swoops like an avalanche. Such, and even more depressing, are the thoughts young folk give way to when their first great trouble rushes and sweeps them into a desert, trackless ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... to the southward. The weather, too, changed, the sky becoming overcast with a pall of dull grey snow—laden cloud accompanied by a dismal murky atmosphere and a temperature of ten degrees below zero. The wind sighed and moaned over the icy waste; but, excepting for this dreary and depressing sound, there was absolute silence, the silence of ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... of unseasonable and depressing warmth, with lowering but not rainy sky, I woke this morning to find the land covered with a dense mist. There was no daybreak, and, till long after the due hour, no light save a pale, sad glimmer at the window; now, ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... had borrowed his short stocks for delivery would be in no condition to repay for them, the next day, when they should be returned to him. The "short" man was himself, therefore, "long" stocks he had bought to cover his "short" sale. In depressing the price he had been working against his own pocket instead of against the bulls he had thought he was opposing. All was confusion and black despair. There is, indeed, no blacker place than the floor of the Stock Exchange after ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... and yet I could not cast it from me. My only, my great resource was prayer—great and supporting it was. Let any one, placed as I was, try it, and they will find that I in no way overrate it. Whenever I felt the miserable depressing feeling coming on, I fled instantly to that great source of comfort, of all true happiness, ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... nothing like so numerous, still our men agreed that for general conditions they preferred the Ypres sector to this, and it certainly was a most depressing spot. One of the great troubles was the number of canals, which, owing to the destruction of the dams and locks, etc., were now affected by the tides, causing them to overflow and flood our defensive works. This was another ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... raise our eyes and our souls with them. The outlook is confined within the narrowest limits. Palm trees, banyan trees, houses, walled gardens, everywhere restrict it. The fields are small, the trees and houses numerous. Nothing distant is to be seen. To the European the prospect is depressing. But to the Bengali it is his very life. These densely inhabited plains are his home. They have, therefore, all the attraction which familiar scenes in which men have grown up from childhood always have. A Bengali prefers them to high mountains. He loves the sight ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... should utter such things. But when they described the brutal blows he had rained on poor Patsy's face, and the chair he demolished when he vainly attempted to kick Patsy, Watson waxed secretly hilarious and at the same time sad. The trial was a farce, but such lowness of life was depressing to contemplate when he considered the long ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... was set going and soon from the after tube, a big stream of the compressed vapor rushed. It acted on the ship instantly and sent the craft ahead at a rapid rate. By elevating or depressing the tube the craft could be sent obliquely up or down. Then, by forcing the air from the forward tube, the Mermaid ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... the keyboard by drawing the finger along over the keys, thus depressing them in very rapid succession. The word is derived from the ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens
... hour, and the next, also, passed away with the same ominous stillness; and the desponding girl began seriously to fear, that the Americans had indeed retreated from the vicinity, and left her and the country alike at the mercy of the foe. But just as this depressing thought was taking possession of her mind, a sound reached her ears from afar, that caused her suddenly to start to her feet with a look of joy and animation that, for weeks, had been a stranger ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... no bad after-taste, it is followed by no depressing reaction; it calls for no repentance, brings no regret, entails no remorse; pleasure too often makes necessary repentance, contrition, and suffering; and, if indulged to the extreme, it brings degradation ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... like the idea of it," growled old Mr. Fernald. "The houses all look well enough until one goes inside. But they're terrible, terrible! Why, they are actually depressing. I haven't shaken off the gloom of that room yet. We own land enough on the other side of the river. Why couldn't we build a handsome bridge and then develop that unused area by putting up some decent houses for our people? It would increase the value of the property and at ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... responded. "That's on the face of it. Probably not half a dozen men know the inside. Orders may have been issued to support the stock—that is, to buy all offered in order to keep the price from declining farther. It's hard to say, at this distance. It's possible that the depressing rumours may have originated with the very men who ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... which it" has pleased "God to call them." As it is a reductio ad absurdum of the conventional type of education, my objection to it is that it makes the best possible provision for securing the end which the conventional type seems to have set before itself,—in other words, for depressing the vitality of the child, for starving his faculties, for arresting his growth. As such, it has not even the merit of being sordidly useful; for unless stupidity is a better thing than intelligence, slowness than alertness, helplessness than initiative, lifelessness ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... funeral with the clergyman riding, the mourners riding, and the coffin creaking as it swings between the bearers, is one of the most depressing things on this earth, particularly when the procession passes under the wet, dank dip beneath the Rockcliffe Hotel, where the sun is shut out and all the hill streams are wailing and weeping together as they go ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... admit. I was not in nearly such a vainglorious mood as I had been back in the Swede's barroom, with the waterfront applauding me. If Newman had offered to dodge around the corner with me, I'd have gone. The aspect of that empty wharf was depressing, and there was something sinister about all these unusual circumstances surrounding our joining the ship. I began to feel that there was something wrong about the Golden Bough besides her bucko mates, and I possessed the superstitions of my kind. But Newman did not offer to dodge around ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... cemetery, with its wreaths of beadwork and artificial violets, has ever a most depressing appearance. That of Monaco is like any other, we find the usual magnificence, and usual tinsel. Many beautiful trees, shrubs, and flowers, however, relieve the gloom, and every ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... To these depressing influences, and the hardships occasioned by a meagre and uncertain income, was added a new grief—the loss of his first-born, Araluen, whose memory he enshrined years afterwards in a poem of pathetic tenderness. He returned to Sydney ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... more comfortable for us. Yet it is one of the faults peculiar to us Bothams that, with all the desire there was to make us regardless of self, we never had confidence and proper self-respect instilled into us, and the want of this gives us a depressing feeling, though I hope it is less seen by others than by ourselves.... We do not intend to stay more than a week, and thou may believe we shall have enough to do. We have to make special calls on the Carter Halls, Dr. Bowring, ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... darkness, and again terror rode heavily astride his neck. What further pitfalls and dangers lay ahead he could not guess; but that he was as far as ever from liberty he was quite willing to believe, so depressing is utter absence of light to one in ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... being thus miraculously possessed of the haven, assaulted the city also on that side; but their whole fleet was shamefully routed, and ten thousand of their men were killed. Yet this loss, instead of depressing their spirits, increased their courage, and on the twenty-ninth of May, early in the morning, they approached the walls with greater violence than ever; but so undaunted was the resolution of the Christians, that they repulsed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... struggling Parson Adams. College fellowships were less open to talent then than now, and patrons were never too propitious to the uncouth giant, who had to force his way by sheer labour, and fight for his own hand. Accordingly, the young scholar tried to coin his brains into money by the most depressing and least hopeful of employments. By becoming an usher in a school, he could at least turn his talents to account with little delay, and that was the most pressing consideration. By one schoolmaster he was rejected on the ground that his infirmities would excite the ridicule of the ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... them. Out among the rocks he had found a fleck of gold no larger than the head of a pin, and this new sign gave them all fresh enthusiasm. Taking off their boots both Rod and Wabi joined the old pathfinder in midstream. But each succeeding pan added to the depressing conviction that was slowly replacing their hopes. The shadows in the chasm began growing longer and deeper. Far overhead the dense canopies of red pine shut out the last sun-glow of day, and the gathering gloom between the mountains gave warning that in this mysterious world of the ancient ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... much a conviction as a suspicion that Tancred had conveyed to the young Emir, when the pilgrim had confessed that the depressing thought sometimes came over him, that he was deficient in that qualification of race which was necessary for the high communion to which he aspired. Four-and-twenty hours before he was not thus dejected. Almost within ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... his "Lands of the Bible," contends that an earthquake capable of depressing a straight line of the length of the Ghor and 'Arabah, must have convulsed all the lands of Canaan, Moab, Ammon, Edom, and the Desert, with their inhabitants; but that no such convulsion took place, for Zoar on the east, and Hebron on the west, ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... The depressing and exhaustive force of military life on the soldiers is gradually accumulative, or the power of resistance gradually wastes, from the beginning to the end of service. There is an apparent exception to this law in the fact, that, in the British ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various |
