"Low spirits" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Congress assume a more auspicious aspect. Adieu, dear sir. The little Band will no doubt do their duty, but what can be done against the army of slaves? Alexander Wolcott!! We must drink the cup of disgrace to the dregs! Yours, in low spirits, ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... into Leonard's face, though he moved neither eye nor lip; but his counsel appealed to the judge, and the pursuit of this branch of the subject was quashed as irrelevant; but the Doctor went down in very low spirits, feeling that his evidence had been damaging, and his hopes of any ray ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... an expression of more entire mildness, I may almost call it of benignity and kindliness, than that which played over his features during the whole interview. If, therefore, he was at this time out of health and in low spirits, his power of self-command must have been even more extraordinary than is generally supposed; for his whole deportment, his conversation, and the expression of his face, indicated a frame in perfect health, ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... more and more that I was losing my fretfulness and low spirits. The first disclosures of the little bandbox-maker created within me a wish that soon became a plan. I questioned her about her daily occupations, and she informed me that on leaving me she must go, with her brother, ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... sensation in her veins, the sobs rose in her throat, but she swallowed them down and constrained her voice to calmness. "My lady, I hope you will come back to us as well as you used to be. I trust you will hope so too, my lady, and not give way to low spirits." ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... water, and suddenly, after walking a short distance, I return home wretched, as if some misfortune were awaiting me there. Why? Is it a cold shiver which, passing over my skin, has upset my nerves and given me low spirits? Is it the form of the clouds, or the colour of the sky, or the colour of the surrounding objects which is so changeable, which have troubled my thoughts as they passed before my eyes? Who can tell? Everything ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... disease which, even in its incipient and early stages, when its presence is often unsuspected, is most injurious to the skin and complexion. It usually commences with unnatural sallowness, debility, and low spirits. As it proceeds, the gums become sore, spongy, and apt to bleed on the slightest pressure or friction; the teeth loosen, and the breath acquires a foetid odor; the legs swell, eruptions appear on different parts of the body, and at length the patient sinks under general emaciation, diarrhoea, ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... brought it down in time to intercept Clarence as he was starting in rather low spirits for another crowded hour of anything but glorious ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... steal this evening with you through the big, echoing, college archway, and away south under the street lamps, and away to dear Brash's, now defunct! But the old time is dead also, never, never to revive. It was a sad time too, but so gay and so hopeful, and we had such sport with all our low spirits and all our distresses, that it looks like a kind of lamplit fairyland behind me. O for ten Edinburgh minutes - sixpence between us, and the ever-glorious Lothian Road, or dear mysterious Leith Walk! But here, a sheer hulk, lies poor Tom Bowling; ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... from a talent that he had introduced into his own house and indorsed in the eyes of the commercial and professional public? Virgilia saw that what she had to contend against was vanity, and she went away in very low spirits. If Prochnow had but come to Roscoe Orlando's notice through the ordinary channels! If his patron were not glowing, palpitating, expanding with the conscious joy of discovery! But crude ore brought to light by our own pick ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... petty tyrannies, neglects, and terrors have not the alleviation of the experience that 'this also shall pass away;' time moves with a tardier pace, and in the narrower sphere of interests, there is less to distract the attention from the load of grievances. Hereditary low spirits, a precocious mind, a reserved temper, a motherless home, the loss of her only congenial companion, and the long-enduring effect of her illness upon her health, had all conspired to weigh down the poor girl, and bring on an almost morbid state of gloomy discontent. Her father's second marriage, by ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Washington I always called upon Mr. Blaine. The fascination of the statesman and his wonderful conversational power made every visit an event to be remembered. On one occasion he said to me: "Chauncey, I am in very low spirits to-day. I have read over the first volume of my 'Twenty Years in Congress,' which is just going to the printer, and destroyed it. I dictated the whole of it, but I find that accuracy and elegance can only be had at the end of a pen. I shall rewrite the ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... him any good. He drooped and he died. Well, years after, the other, whose name was McVey, came back. He was of the same wicked stock as the old folks I've been telling ye of. Well, one day, he was in low spirits like, and he chanced to be talking to my father, and says he, "It's one of the sins I'll have to 'count for at the Judgment that I took the good out of M'Pherson's food till he died. I sat opposite to him ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... Brackett was not giving way to his grief. There was too much to be done for that. He was trying to set up the overturned stove, and make things more comfortable. At the same time his cheery tones were raising the low spirits of his companions, and causing them to take a ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... having been transferred to my canoe, we once more started on in very low spirits and not feeling at all comfortable as to the future, but fondly hoping to arrive at the 'Highlands' station by night. To make matters worse, within an hour of sunrise it came on to rain in torrents, wetting us to the skin, and even necessitating ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... in some measure regained your strength, look seriously into this subject, if you wish. It is an important one for all. I am afraid I gave you an overdose of anodyne last night, and am to blame for your low spirits of this morning. Own, William," I said, smilingly, "that you were terribly hypped, and fancied ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... heard certain news of Argyle's discomfiture. It was in vain to seek for any circumstance in his affairs that might mitigate the effect of the severe blow inflicted by this intelligence, and he relapsed into the same low spirits as at Philip's Norton. No diversion, at least no successful diversion, had been made in his favour: there was no appearance of the horse, which had been the principal motive to allure him into that part of the country; and what was worst of all, no desertion from ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... a corner and was in low spirits; then he began to think of the fresh air and the sunshine; and he was seized with such a strange longing to swim on the water, that he could not help telling ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Mine won't give you a headache, unless the pins get twisted. It's a finer specific for low spirits feminine, than any stupid drugs. A ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... and goodness,—had before this time in some degree affected his spirits[1013], and rendered him less disposed to exert his faculties: for he had originally a very strong mind, and cheerful temper. He assured me, he never had felt one moment of what is called low spirits, or uneasiness, without a real cause. He had a great many good stories, which he told uncommonly well, and he was remarkable for 'humour, incolumi gravitate[1014],' as Lord Monboddo used to characterise it. His age, his office, and his character, had long given him ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... out, she learned, which probably meant that she was still asleep. Lorelei ascended to her new home in low spirits. Now that she saw the place in strong daylight, she was vaguely disappointed. On the evening previous, the superintendent had lighted it brilliantly, but now it was gloomy, and there was dust and disorder everywhere. The previous occupant ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... A trouble of some sort?" asked Rupert, with a start, for he was remembering Nealie's low spirits at teatime and wondering where the ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... Mark, "but he is generally madder than that. He's in comparatively low spirits to-day. Perhaps it is the heat that affects him. Whew! how hot it is! I think I shall take a bath in the ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... Bertrand, a versifier of some repute and Paris correspondent to The Critic. He had a very comfortable suite of rooms, and we found some pleasant fellows smoking and talking. It struck me, however, that Bertram himself was absent and in low spirits, and when everybody except ourselves had gone, I rallied him on his moping preoccupation. He fenced with me for a while, but at last, flinging himself on a sofa, ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... prognostications, Maggie Oliphant played her part brilliantly that night. Her low spirits were succeeded by gay ones; the Princess had never looked more truly regal, nor had the Prince ever more passionately wooed her. Girls who did not belong to the society always flocked into the theater ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... I am expected to be something more than mortal. Everyone else is encouraged to complain, and to be weak and silly. But I must have no feeling. I must be always in the right. Everyone else may be home-sick, or huffed, or in low spirits. I must have no nerves, and must keep others laughing all day long. Everyone else may sulk when a word of reproach is addressed to them, and may make the professors afraid to find fault with them. I have to bear with the insults of teachers ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... own that I started for the city in but low spirits, and with no inclination to join in the frivolous conversation that was going on in the railway carriage. On arriving at the office I was surprised to find that Figgis, our head clerk, was not there. He gave ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain
... more laughed heartily, he became meek again, and told me that the moment he began to realize Capital, it was his intention to marry this young lady. He added as a self-evident proposition, engendering low spirits, "But you can't marry, you know, while you're ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... reflections which were naturally excited by his dismal reading, and disconsolate situation, Bertram, for the first time in his life, felt himself affected with a disposition to low spirits. "I have been in worse situations than this too," he said;—"more dangerous, for here is no danger; more dismal in prospect, for my present confinement must necessarily be short; more intolerable for the time, for here, at least, I have fire, food, and shelter. Yet, with reading ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... over the matter all day, and by evening I was in low spirits again; for I had quite persuaded myself that the whole affair might be some great hoax or fraud, though what its object might be I could not imagine. It seemed altogether past belief that any one could make ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... he had lost in this dream of the uninjured chair. Even though Heidi had promised not to do anything, there still remained the lively dread that his deed might be found out in some other way. He allowed Heidi to do what she liked with him, for he was reduced to such a state of low spirits and meekness that he was ready to give his help to Clara ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... fulfilling his own doom in this expedition, and should die in Greece. On the evening before the departure of his friends, Lord and Lady B——, from Genoa, he called upon them for the purpose of taking leave, and sat conversing for some time. He was evidently in low spirits, and after expressing his regret that they should leave Genoa before his own time of sailing, proceeded to speak of his intended voyage in a tone full of despondence. "Here," said he, "we are all now together—but when, and where, shall we meet ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... in the doctrine of work as the best preventive of low spirits, and he kept his men at it. No sooner was the fort finished than he began to build the vessel. Two of his carpenters, we remember, had deserted. "Seeing," he says, "that if I should wait to get others from ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... moment but in very low spirits. What on earth would happen to poor old Peter? I could do nothing even if I wanted, and, besides, my first duty was to my mission. I had made this very clear to him at Lisbon and he had agreed, but all the same it was a beastly reflection. Here was that ancient worthy left to the tender mercies ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... old friends the Makololo, he found them in low spirits owing to protracted drought, and Sekeletu was ill of leprosy. He was in the hands of a native doctress, who was persuaded to suspend her treatment, and the lunar caustic applied by Drs. Livingstone and Kirk ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... themselves they had to go without, a condition of things that spoke little for the soldierly feeling of the guard. All attempts to elude the vigilance of the latter during the day had failed, and as darkness drew on, Glazier and his friend felt in very low spirits. They came to a halt a few minutes before dark, and were quartered in an old building for ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... unceasing activity, and affectionate care and attentions ever since our arrival at this place. He had nursed Adam with the tenderest solicitude the whole time. Poor Samandre was willing to have taken his share in the labours of the party had he not been wholly incapacitated by his weakness and low spirits. The severe shock occasioned by the sudden dissolution of our two companions rendered us very melancholy. Adam became low and despondent, a change which we lamented the more as we had perceived he had been gaining strength ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... you have a friend in deplorably low spirits, and you are afraid he will make away with himself—accordingly you rob him of his knife or other such instrument: to which side ought ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... to his belief in God and living a sane life. Whenever he feels bad or in low spirits, a drink of coffee or a small amount of whisky is enough to brace him. He believes that his remedy is better than that used in slavery which consisted mainly of ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... naturally in low spirits at leaving what had been her home so many years, and where the two strong attachments of her life—for my mother and myself—had been formed. She had been walking in the churchyard, too, very early; and she got into the cart, and sat in ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... could observe in him is what you saw yourself to-night-a slight relish for an acquaintance with the barrel. He sometimes drains a drop—indeed, sometimes too much—out of it, when he gets our backs turned; but then he pleads low spirits three or four times a day—indeed, so often that, upon my word, he'll soon have the barrel pleading the ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... of constantly recurring complaints of depression—low spirits, a "cloud upon my spirits; headache, even pain and violent pain." He was disappointed at not getting to see the "Terrible;" was low and depressed. "Went to Bath. Delighted with Torquay; interested at Exeter; the service there ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... in Florence, the birth of a second son, Percy Florence Shelley, helped Mary out of her sense of bereavement. Subsequent letters still occasionally admit 'low spirits'. But the entries in the Journal make it clear that the year 1819-20 was one of the most pleasantly industrious of her life. Not Dante only, but a motley series of books, great and small, ancient and modern, English ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... her, so well-directed that it entered her magazine, blew her up, destroying at the same time not a few of her captors. Towards the evening the steamer was got off, and the order was then given for the boats to return out of gun-shot for the night. British seamen are not apt to indulge in low spirits or to give way to melancholy, but those engaged in the expedition might well have been excused had they done so. Had they been successful the case would have been different, but as yet nothing had been accomplished; still probably ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... have endorsed the sentiment just then. Perhaps Andy's low spirits were intensified by the uncomfortable motion of the ship, which was beginning to strike landsmen with that rolling headache, the sure precursor of a worse visitation. Suffice it to say, that the mass of groaning misery in the steerage and cabins, on the subsequent night, ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... They all have 'drones,' which sound a particular note or notes continually, while the tune is played on the 'chanter.' Shakespeare himself tells us of another variety—viz., the Lincolnshire bagpipe, in Hen. 4. A. I, ii, 76, where Falstaff compares his low spirits to the melancholy 'drone of a ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... he suffered much from low spirits, and the letters which he then wrote under the influence of that hypochondria and despondency contain some of the gloomiest bursts of discontent with himself and with the world, which he ever gave vent to either in prose or verse. He describes himself as the "sport, the miserable victim of rebellious ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... but, being in earnest conversation, had forgotten at last to turn back, and had gone on along the avenue, till they were far from the old mansion and quite out of sight. They had been talking of Paul's approaching departure, and they were both in low spirits ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... the steamers stuck fast. As I was walking the poop of the diahbeeah, I noticed with the telescope an antelope standing on the summit of an ant-hill about a mile and a quarter distant. There is no change so delightful as a little sport if you are in low spirits; thus, taking the rifle, I rowed up the river for about half a mile in the small boat, and then landing, I obtained the right wind. It was exceedingly difficult to approach game in these extensive treeless flats, and it would have been quite impossible, had it not been for the innumerable ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... Brandt, with a very positive shake of her white-capped head. "You were singing to conceal your low spirits. What ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... April.—Our leaving Aix this morning was really melancholy. French friends, hearing of our approaching departure, flocked in to bid us farewell. They were in miserably low spirits, deploring the state of their unhappy country, weeping over the fate of their sons and husbands, who had marched with the national guard in pursuit of the ex-Emperor; and full of fears as to the calamities this might bring upon them. You are ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... under the menace of irreparable calamity, so gloom of spirit is a very contagious thing, very difficult to dissimulate. Perhaps the best practical thing for a naturally melancholy person to try and do, is to treat his own low spirits, as Charles Lamb did, ironically and humorously; and if he must spin conversation incessantly, as Dr. Johnson said, out of his own bowels, to make sure that it is the best thread possible, and of ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... ascribe the numerous complaints which prevail? How many sweet creatures of your sex languish with a weak digestion, low spirits, lassitudes, melancholy, and twenty disorders, which, in spite of the faculty, have yet no names, except the general one of nervous complaints? Let them change their diet, and, among other articles, leave off ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... my chamber for several days, my physician prescribes society to relieve low spirits; but in the present state of mine, the remedy ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... proper vigor; only by exercise can we equalise the circulation and distribute the blood evenly over every part of the body; only by exercise can we take a cheerful and wholesome view of life, for exercise assists the digestion, and a good digestion is a sovereign antidote to low spirits; only by exercise can the brain be strengthened to perform the labor demanded of it." [2] No sensible man will try to do without it. If any man does so he will pay the penalty. As to the amount of exercise and the kind of exercise every man must judge ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... one of them, 'she lives but over the way.' The other consented; and calling at the door, they were shown up stairs, but found the faded beauty dull and spiritless, unable or unwilling to converse on any subject. 'How's this?' cried one of her consolers, 'are you ill? or is it but low spirits chains your tongue so?'—'Neither,' replied she: ''tis hunger I suppose. I ate nothing yesterday, and now 'tis past six o'clock, and not one penny have I in the world to buy me any food.'—'Come with us instantly to a tavern; we will treat you ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... which we have just seen the issue; though it may be that his secret remorse on this account in part occasioned his disquiet. But there were other reasons, which his family not long afterwards came to understand, for the gloom and low spirits which now oppressed the ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... caught a fever, which she communicated to her foster-mother, and which occasioned her death in a few weeks, whilst Phebe slowly recovered. The gardener's heart was broken—he had long been subject to occasional fits of low spirits. Whether from accident or not was never fully ascertained, nor even closely investigated; but he was found one morning drowned, in a pond of water which ornamented the east corner of the garden ground. As my own family was numerous, and my stipend limited, I behoved ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... chronometer. The usual daily clearance has been making in the City for an hour or more; and the human tide is still rolling westward. 'The streets have thinned,' as Mr Gills says, 'very much.' It threatens to be wet to-night. All the weatherglasses in the shop are in low spirits, and the rain already shines upon the cocked hat of ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... unnecessary glee, "You spend your time in trifles."—Is a Nautical Drama a "trifle," I should like to know? I can't be quite the thing, for this incident affects me almost to tears. I have had a depressing day. Bed in low spirits. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various
... husband. "He's restless. He'll get over this idea in a few days." He urged this hope against his wife's despair, and argued himself into low spirits. ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... did not much like his tone at the time, but set it down to an attack of low spirits, to which he grew very subject as the years went on. I went down to the kraal and watched till within an hour of sunrise; then, as no thieves appeared, returned to the station. As I came near I was astonished to see a figure sitting in my father's chair. At first I thought it must be a drunken Kaffir, ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... is used here as a personification of melancholy, or low spirits. It was not an uncommon affectation in England at this time. A letter to the 'Spectator', No. 53, calls it "the distemper of the great and ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... visitors rolled in on us the day after our arrival. Several of them, who had suffered affliction during the Doctor's absence, seemed to be much affected on seeing him again. All were in low spirits. A severe drought had cut off the crops, and destroyed the pasture of Linyanti, and the people were scattered over the country in search of wild fruits, and the hospitality of those whose ground-nuts (Arachis hypogoea) had not failed. Sekeletu's leprosy ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... a fair statement of the facts," she rejoined, with another quick, inquisitive look at me; "but you are in low spirits to-day—which is not at all like you. Is it ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... Consequently in my History, I say as little as may be of the two dwindling stars. Poor devils! I liked the one, and the other has a little wife, now lying in! There was no man born with so little animosity as I. When I heard the C. J. was in low spirits and never left his house, I could scarce refrain ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... you would. Having everything on earth you want, and being thoroughly spoilt, like all men of the present day, you would naturally have low spirits." ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... after an unusually long playtime in low spirits. He kept on blowing his nose hard, and now and then dried his eyes behind his spectacles. The boys nudged one another. He cleared his throat loudly, but could not make himself heard, and then beat a few strokes on ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... window. Barbara, in ordinary dresss, pale and brooding, is on the settee. Charley Lomax enters. Coming forward between the settee and the writing table, he starts on seeing Barbara fashionably attired and in low spirits. ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... of extraneous digestive aid, a cheerful soul in a family is an abiding source of digestive energy to all in social contact. It affects the digestive energy of all, as the breeze the fire, as the clearing sky the low spirits from the gloom of chill and fogs. The eyes that do not glisten with higher life, the lines upon the face that are not alive with cheerful, kindly emotions, the frowning look, the word that cuts deeply, have their repressive effects upon digestive ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... she didn't think the children would care to go. She gave Johnnie the message, and then the whole matter passed out of her mind. The family were in low spirits that morning because of Cousin Helen's having just gone away; and Elsie was lying on the sofa fanning herself ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... condition of things; and my plea of being an Englishman, and in the civil service of my country, would have been a death-warrant. I must acknowledge, too, that I had fairly thrown it away by my adoption of the Prussian sabre. I might well be now in low spirits; for the guillotine was crushing out life at that moment in every province of France, and the thirst of public curiosity was to be fed by nothing but blood. Yet, even in that moment, let me give myself credit for the recollection, my first enquiry was for the fate ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... in very low spirits, and her mother's and Kate's affectionate kindness only brought the despised tears into her eyes. She could hardly touch her breakfast, and was relieved when Kate left the table, and began to look after ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... 15, so ill that he can barely write a note to Cecil warning him of the approach of a Spanish fleet, the news of which has just reached him from Jersey. He grew little better at Bath, and in October we find him again at Sherborne, in very low spirits, sending by Cobham to the Queen a stone which Bartholomew Gilbert had brought from America, and which Raleigh took to be a diamond. Immediately after this, he set out on what he calls his 'miserable journey into Cornwall,' no other than his customary autumn circuit through the Stannary ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... lived there all my life in fine weather. I wish I was there now with all my heart. However, I had sufficient bad luck on my last visit to have disgusted most people. Poor Matchless, who was as good as her name implied, died of inflammation of the lungs; and I started one morning in very low spirits at her loss, hoping to cheer myself up by ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... sore-throat too sincerely to do justice to the rest of his friends and his breakfast. Mr. Aylett was never talkative, and his unvarying, soulless politeness to all produced the conserving effect upon chill and low spirits that the atmosphere of a refrigerator does upon whatever is placed within it. Mrs. Sutton's motherly heart was yearning pityingly over the lovers who were soon to be sundered, while Mabel's essay at cheerful equanimity imposed upon ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... which their minds had been very prone to revert. Besides Mrs Love there were two other visitors, but they too failed to cheer the old couple up. One of the visitors, a laundress of the Temple called Mrs Oliphant, had done her best, poohpoohing such melancholy talk, and attributing the low spirits in which the old women found themselves to the bleakness of the February weather, and promising them that they would find a new lease of life with the advent of spring. But Mrs Betty especially had been hard ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... where men of all nationalities sat sipping vishnap and limoni, and extinguishing by their Babylonian chatter the strains of a very indifferent band. I was making the circuit of the gardens in tolerably low spirits; I had expended my last piastre, had emptied my cigar-case, had listened to a violent objurgation from the landlord of the Byzance Hotel and was now bound home at the expense of the Consular funds—a failure confessed. Nobody likes ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... of his dear Peggy," said Ella, archly; who was, by the way, very fond of teasing him whenever opportunity presented; and could not even now, despite her previous low spirits, forbear a little innocent raillery—her temperament being such, that wit and humor were ever ready on the slightest provocation to take the ascendancy, as old wine when stirred ever sends its sparkling ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... Adooley, of whom Richard Lander retained a friendly remembrance, was in low spirits. His town had just been burnt, his generals and his best soldiers had perished in a battle with the people of Lagos, and he himself had had a narrow escape when his house and all his treasures ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... provided than that, and at last, before a couple of months had passed away, our farewells were said and we started for Liverpool, in low spirits with our partings, but full of hope and eager ambition, since at the great western port we were to take our passage in one of the great steamers for the West Indies, where we would have to change into a smaller trading vessel which would take ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... in low spirits, and at last they saw the walls of the king's castle towering before them, and a noble company going to and fro ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... shortness of breathing, and foul breath, a distaste for food, swollen eyes and feet, and low spirits; discharges of different colours, as red, black, green, yellow and white from the womb. It differs from the flowing of the courses and from too abundant menstruation, in so far as it keeps no certain period, and is of many colours, all of ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... merciful was the goodness of God, that perhaps M. de Bragelonne might recover, particularly if he did not move in the slightest manner. Frere Sylvain added, turning toward his assistants, 'Above everything, do not allow him to move even a finger, or you will kill him;' and we all left the tent in very low spirits. That secretary I have mentioned, on leaving the tent, thought he perceived a faint and sad smile glide over the lips of M. de Bragelonne when the duc said to him, in a cheerful, kind voice, 'We shall save you, vicomte, we ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... speaking their thoughts variously about the beginning of the fire, and the rebuilding of the City. Then to Sir W. Batten's and took my brother with me, and there dined with a great company of neighbours, and much good discourse; among others, of the low spirits of some rich men in the City, in sparing any encouragement to the poor people that wrought for the saving their houses. Among others, Alderman Starling, a very rich man, without children, the fire at next door to him in our lane, after ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... the door ajar at his back, a pair of vigilant human orbs were upon him, the ritualistic organist, who was in very low spirits, drew an emaciated and rather unsteady hand repeatedly across his perspiring brow, and talked ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., Issue 31, October 29, 1870 • Various
... could not dispense was the cheap comfort of tobacco. Idleness would have been impossible to him if he had been a millionaire, and labour was his refuge from despondency. Like most humourists, he had low spirits, though his "genial sympathy with the under side of things," to quote his own definition of the undefinable, must have been some solace for his woes. He could read all day without wearying, so that he need never be alone. As a talker no one surpassed him, or perhaps ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... perceive it, because the excitement keeps her up while you are here; and she naturally makes an effort, you know. But if you were to see her as we do after you are gone;—you cannot think how it sets the Greys talking about her low spirits." ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... is undergoing repairs, and throw yourself on his mercy; then feign low spirits, and make him think it is his duty to entertain ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... distinctly. Why it reminded him of his forgotten dead wife, he could not tell; nor why it made him more concerned than he had hitherto been for Caroline's fading girlhood. He was glad to recollect that he had promised to pay Wynne, the magistrate, a visit that evening. Low spirits and gloomy thoughts were very much his aversion. When they attacked him he usually found means to make them march in double-quick time. The hymn followed him faintly as he crossed the fields. He hastened ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... the time I mention, gathered up like a ball opposite a small, low window that looked upon the bluff headlands now fast becoming dim and misty as the night approached. He was apparently in low spirits, and hummed in a species of low, droning voice, the following ballad, at the end of each verse of which came an Irish chorus which, to the erudite in such matters, will suggest the air ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... to run amuck and pause not until he had reduced the splendor to smithereens. And in that injustice of chronic self-excuse which characterizes all human beings who do not live by intelligently formed and intelligently executed plan, she was now trying to soothe herself with blaming him for her low spirits; in fact, they were wholly the result of her consciously unworthy mode of life, and of an incessant internal warfare, exhausting and depressing. Also, the day would surely come when he would ask how she was contriving to keep up such imposing appearances on their eighteen hundred a year; ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... grim outcome of his fear. He tried to tell himself that he was inventing horrors, that the fire might be the simple truth, that Ryder's talk with the girl might actually have ended in farewell—at least a temporary farewell—and that his consequent low spirits had taken him off to mope ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... agreed upon the hotel, and neither could blame the other because it proved second-rate in everything but its charges. They ate a poorish table d'hote dinner in such low spirits that March had no heart to get a rise from his wife by calling her notice to the mouse which fed upon the crumbs about their feet while they dined. Their English-speaking waiter said that it was a ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... was made upon Oscar's heart. The feeling of sullenness with which he awoke, had subsided into something resembling "low spirits." Nor was this all the effect his mother's conversation had upon him. As he lay awake in the morning, he had planned the secret destruction of a beautiful sled which had been given to George, the winter ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... she had accomplished her errand, and was on the way back to her father's farmhouse, she was all tenderness and forgiveness and admiration for the newly-revealed Lane, but then, as the fates would have it, just as she began to think of her cruelty to him, and of the terribly low spirits into which she must have thrown him, the familiar jocund whistle broke upon her ears, and when she stood still in a dreary amaze at this, she could hear the steps of the lover, who ought to have been altogether ...
— Bulldog And Butterfly - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... scene, and the visitor saw at once that his old friend was unlike himself. The Canon was exceedingly alert from the moment Mark came into the room, trying to catch up the faintest indication, in his voice or movements, as to whether he were in good or low spirits; he almost thought he heard a quick sigh as Mark sat down. He could not see that Mark was undeniably thinner and paler than he had been only a few weeks ago, and that his eyes looked even more bright ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... met Belloc he remarked to the friend who introduced us that he was in low spirits. His low spirits were and are much more uproarious and enlivening than anybody else's high spirits. He talked into the night, and left behind in it a glowing track of good things. When I have said that I mean things that are good, and certainly not merely bons mots, ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... kahuna claims what statesmen call a "pull" with his deities that enables him to have his prayers answered, while opposition kahunas are snubbed. After a couple of days the kahuna drops around to see how his victim is getting on, and generally he finds him in low spirits, with a meagre appetite, because this process is as reliable as its opposite, which is called faith-cure. If a man can sufficiently persuade himself that nothing ails him, he is almost sure to recover from an illness ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... was in very low spirits. 'What is it, Yasha?' Platonida Ivanovna said to him: 'you seem somehow all loose ends to-day!'... In her own peculiar idiom the old lady's expression described fairly accurately Aratov's mental condition. He could not work and he did not know himself what ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... for some time seen very plainly that you are eprise, and have been extremely uneasy at the discovery. You must have observed my silent gravity, surpassing that of mere illness and its consequent low spirits. I had some thoughts of writing to Susan about it, and intended begging her to do what I must now do for myself—that is, beg, warn, and admonish you not to entangle yourself in a wild and romantic attachment which offers nothing in prospect but poverty and distress, ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... back on past years, he could see nothing but misery. But the case was not really so, one could feel sure. There had been a vast deal of enjoyment about his home and his lot; it was forgotten then. A man in very low spirits, reading over his diary, somehow lights upon and dwells upon all the sad and wounding things; he involuntarily skips the rest, or reads them with but faint perception of their meaning. In reading the very Bible, he does the like thing. He chances upon that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... to comfort her mother in the latter's fits of low spirits, but had never heard such sad words as these before. The poor child could say nothing in reply; the terrible thought that she herself was bringing new woes to be endured almost broke her heart She clung about her mother's neck and ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... conscience blamed him for admitting, even in this manner, a doubt of the true faith. He reached home overwhelmed with grief; meat was set before him, but he refused to eat; and when his friends visited him and ascertained the cause of his low spirits, he refused their proffered consolation, saying, "I shall go down mourning to the grave for these words." On the third day, while he was still lamenting his imprudent concession, the Bishop sent for him, but he refused ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... through a period of low spirits, caused by an acute consciousness of her own littleness and inferiority, Ephie so far recovered her self-confidence that she was able to look at her divinity when she met him; and soon after this, she made the intoxicating discovery that not only did he return her look, but that ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... From this last trouble the Broxton and Hayslope farmers, on their pleasant uplands and in their brook-watered valleys, had not suffered, and as I cannot pretend that they were such exceptional farmers as to love the general good better than their own, you will infer that they were not in very low spirits about the rapid rise in the price of bread, so long as there was hope of gathering in their own corn undamaged; and occasional days of sunshine and drying winds flattered ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... weeks' confinement, I am beginning to walk across the room. They have been six horrible weeks; anguish and low spirits made me unfit ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... to have been loath to go. Nancy Lincoln had long been ailing and in low spirits, thinking much of what might happen to her children after her death. Abraham loved the country-side, and he had good friends in the miller and his kind old mother. But the vagrant Thomas would have his way. In the brilliancy of the Western autumn, ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... novelty of her new situation, however, Emilie was absent and thoughtful; she was dispirited, and yet she was not subject to low spirits either. There was a cause. She had a tender conscience—a conscience with which she was in the habit of conversing, and conscience kept whispering to her the words—"What things soever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye also to them." In vain she tried to silence ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... the course of the last few years. The crowd was ablaze with diamonds, painted cheeks, and bright-colored silks. It was a babel of blatant self-consciousness, a miniature of the parvenu smugness that had spread like wild-fire over the country after a period of need and low spirits. ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... in the summer of 1915 when Lord K. had summoned me to ask some question, he appeared to be in particularly low spirits, and presently he showed me a communication (a telegram, I think it was) from Sir J. French, intimating that one of the New Army divisions which had recently proceeded across the water had not borne itself ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... day—little doing. Thomson in very low spirits, thinking everything is going wrong. News we get from a padre is that in France everything goes badly. Pirie, M.O. to the Lancs, has just looked us up and reports no progress here. We are certainly making little speed, and it is now announced, whether correctly or not, that Achi Baba is to ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... selfishness, her character was, on the whole, innocent and generous. But the ladies of her train, sharpsighted in such matters, had for some time discovered that a poignant jest at the expense of the Lady Edith was a specific for relieving her Grace of England's low spirits, and the discovery saved their ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... the day, I am well-nigh overcome with thirst and weariness. I am too thirsty to eat, and, miserably tired and disgusted, one gets an instructive lesson in the control of the mind over the body. Much of my fatigue comes of low spirits, born of disappointment at being conducted back ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... wearing to his wife." On the other hand, there can be no manner of doubt that his wife wore him. "Why is it," he had said to Forster in one of the letters from which I have just quoted, "that, as with poor David (Copperfield), a sense comes always crushing on me now, when I fall into low spirits, as of one happiness I have missed in life, and one friend and companion I have never made?" And again: "I find that the skeleton in my domestic closet is becoming a pretty big one." Then come even sadder confidences: ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... other, how has she been crucified between two thieves!" Experience had not then taught that it was better to let such effusions pass for what they were worth, and Defoe was sentenced to stand in the pillory, and suffer fine and imprisonment He does not seem to have been in such low spirits as we might have expected during his incarceration, for he employed part of his time in composing ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... their doleful responses, trilled along the woodside; reminding me sometimes of music and singing birds; as if it were the dark and tearful side of music, the regrets and sighs that would fain be sung. They are the spirits, the low spirits and melancholy forebodings, of fallen souls that once in human shape night-walked the earth and did the deeds of darkness, now expiating their sins with their wailing hymns or threnodies in the scenery of their transgressions. They give me a new sense of the variety and capacity of that ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... marriage and free leave to do what he liked in the house—at his own expense; the old "bear," that pattern of a thrifty parent, kindly consenting not to demand the rent and drain the savings to which David imprudently owned. David went back again in low spirits. He saw that he could not reckon on his father's help ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... as usual to her room to lie down. She had a headache and was in very low spirits. Elma glanced at her once or twice and determined not to worry her; but Maggie she considered her lawful prey. She had given Carrie no promise, and felt sure that Maggie and Carrie between them were at the bottom of the mystery. ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... They went. Low spirits rose on the scented May breeze. The dinner was a success. Afterward they met friends, who were regaled with a humorous ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... understand their meaning, in which hope you may easily believe I was disappointed, though my desire to understand what they represented continued on the increase. In this dilemma I determined to apply again to the shopkeeper from whom I bought the tea. I found him in rather low spirits, his shirt-sleeves were soiled, and his hair was out of curl. On my inquiring how he got on, he informed me that he intended speedily to leave, having received little or no encouragement, the people, in their Gothic ignorance, preferring to deal with an old-fashioned ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... winter or summer, had he climbed this hill without recalling something that made him happy, or to which he was looking forward. Now it was a dull, weary walk. He slipped in the damp snow, his knees were stiff, either from the party yesterday or from his low spirits; he felt that it was all over with the coasting-hill for that year, and with it, forever. He longed for something different as he threaded his way in among the tree-trunks, where the snow fell softly. A frightened ptarmigan screamed and fluttered a few yards away, but everything else ...
— A Happy Boy • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... journey, excited that pensive interest with which the human mind is ever disposed to listen to the farewell words of a man of genius. The journal of Gray feelingly showed how the gloom of ill health and low spirits had been irradiated by objects, which the Author's powers of mind enabled him to describe with distinctness and unaffected simplicity. Every reader of this journal must have been impressed with the words which conclude his notice of the Vale of Grasmere:—'Not a single red tile, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... Robert Stevenson must proceed upon his voyage of inspection, part by land, part by sea. He left his wife plunged in low spirits; the thought of his loss, and still more of her concern, was continually present in his mind, and he draws in his letters home an interesting picture ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... old age comes, and brings weakness and sickness, and low spirits, still they have comfort. They can say with David again, 'I have been young, and now am old, but never saw I the righteous forsaken, nor ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... rapid. All in low spirits. We are tortured by hunger. Sir Arthur dreams of banquets in his sleep. Harrows our feelings by his accounts of them. Bildad very ill. No longer ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... Power, kindly putting his arm on his shoulder; "you're just as happy as I am. A fellow with a clear conscience can't be in low spirits very long. Don't you remember the pretty verse I read to you the other day, and which made me think of ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... visible respectability. Poor Vjera saw in his face what was passing in his mind, but her own expression of sadness did not change. On the contrary, since his last outbreak of triumphant satisfaction she had been more than usually depressed. For a long time the Count did not again notice her low spirits, being absorbed in the contemplation of his own splendid future. At last he seemed to recollect her presence at his side, glanced at her, made as though to say something, checked himself, and began humming snatches from an old opera. But either ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... family connections. When therefore any of our relations come on a visit, I don't see them for fear lest I should be ridiculed. All I can manage to eat are a few mouthfuls of anything tender enough for my teeth; and I can just dose a bit or, when I feel in low spirits, I distract myself a little with these grandsons and grand-daughters of mine; that's all I'm ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... fault upon Providence, or bad luck, or something outside their own power. But we seem always to be denied this happy style of thinking, and cannot put aside what comes into our heart more quickly, and has less stir of outward things, to lead it away and to brighten it. So that I fell into sad, low spirits; and the glory of the year began to wane, and the forest grew ...
— Slain By The Doones • R. D. Blackmore
... have eaten. But every period of life has its own playthings; and I was now chiefly engaged with the deep chasm and the huge boulder. Chasm and boulder had come to have greatly more of interest to me than the delicate berries, or than even that sovereign dispeller of ennui and low spirits, an ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... hallucination; lycanthropy^; brain storm^. vertigo, dizziness, swimming; sunstroke, coup de soleil [Fr.], siriasis^. fanaticism, infatuation, craze; oddity, eccentricity, twist, monomania (caprice) 608; kleptodipsomania^; hypochondriasis [Med.] &c (low spirits) 837; melancholia, depression, clinical depression, severe depression; hysteria; amentia^. screw loose, tile loose, slate loose; bee in one's bonnet, rats in the upper story. dotage &c (imbecility) 499. V. be insane &c adj.. become insane &c adj.; lose one's senses, lose one's reason, lose one's ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Anne's confusion and low spirits, her womanly shrewdness told her at once that no harm could be done by revealing Bob's name; and she answered, 'His ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy |
