"Sullenness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to meat; but Odysseus, whose mind was full of his comrades, left every dish untasted, and sat without uttering a word. When she observed it, Circe rallied him for his sullenness: "Art thou afraid to eat?" she said, smiling: "have I not sworn to do thee no harm? Ah! thou art thinking of thy friends. Come, then, and I will restore them to thee." So she brought him to the stye where they ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... in the cunning of his nature, had learnt it, that young man's bearing, when presented to his father's brother, was anything but manly or engaging. Perhaps, indeed, so singular a mixture of defiance and obsequiousness, of fear and hardihood, of dogged sullenness and an attempt at enraging and propitiation, never was expressed in any one human figure as in that of Jonas, when, having raised his downcast eyes to Martin's face, he let them fall again, and uneasily closing and unclosing his hands without a moment's ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... Ready-made trousers bulged with the enormous muscular development of calf and thigh. The face, clean-shaven, was sullen with the fear inspired by the sudden entrance of Carroll and Leverage; and there was more than a hint of evil in it. As they watched, the sullenness of expression was supplanted by a leer, and then by a mask of professional placidity—the bovine expression which one expects to find in the average specimen of masculine ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... made them objects of curiosity. No crowd gathered; those they passed stared a little, raised their hands to their foreheads and went their way, yet underneath these signs of respect there was with some an air of sullenness, of hostility, that the visitors ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... least hopeful one of the seven seemed Dirk. None of them knew of his dangerous talent for imitation. None of them believed that he would make any attempt at reading, but thought he would shrink into deeper sullenness. All of them were mistaken. He reached for the book, glanced for a moment over the lines, and then read the verse, with so complete an imitation of Gracie Dennis, and yet with a voice and manner that so fitted the homely words and the homely scene described that the effect was actually better than ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... therefore, was a mystery, the probability being that they had been loitering about Dyea for a long time, waiting for the season to advance sufficiently to allow them to start for the Yukon. They seemed reserved to the point of sullenness, keeping by themselves and showing so much antipathy to any approach that they were ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... all the rest of the way, and the few miles of feverish excitement, which were followed by the few miles of sullenness, were finally succeeded by the ordinary cheerfulness of a travelling companion. The change was very much for the better. My feverish excitement had served to increase the constraint of Marion; and now, ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... officers with little direct censure, and rather as anecdotes calculated to astonish and amuse a new-comer. While the possession of a pipe, a newspaper, a little tea, etc., or the omission of some mark of respect, a saucy look or word, or even an imputation of sullenness, were deemed unpardonable offences. They were fed more like hogs than like men; neither knives, forks, nor hardly any other conveniences were allowed at tables. They tore their food with their fingers and teeth, and drank out of water buckets. The men's countenances ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... malignant. She had the feeling of one being pursued by some relentless and unscrupulous hunter. She heard him speaking through a cloud, and the only things really clear to her were the thoughts which she knew her mother must be thinking. She was frightened and ashamed, and the sullenness which is the refuge of most young people descended upon her like a darkness. Her face grew heavy and vacant, and she stared in front of her in the attitude of one who had nothing to do with what was passing. She did not believe ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... change of employer was not likely to make any change in their lot: their welfare would probably continue to depend on Truscomb's favour. The men hardly raised their heads as Mrs. Westmore passed; the women stared, but with curiosity rather than interest; and Amherst could not tell whether their sullenness reacted on Mrs. Westmore, or whether they were unconsciously chilled by her indifference. The result was the same: the distance between them seemed to increase instead of diminishing; and he smiled ironically to think of the form his appeal had ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... to get through time becomes sometimes the question,—unavoidably; though it strikes me as a thing unspeakably sad in a life so short as ours. The sullenness of a long wet day is yielding just now to an outburst of watery sunset, which strikes from the far horizon of this quiet world of ours, over fields and willow-woods, upon the shifty weather-vanes and long-pointed windows of ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... foolish Constance fancies that poor Dolores assisted in duping her. I really had to defend the girl; though I am just as angry myself when I watch her adamantine sullenness.' ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... blissfully unconscious of her hostility and played the part of host with complete ease of manner. Long before the meal was over, Grange had put aside his sullenness, and they were conversing ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... Negroes and certain more or less fortunate whites gained political control. The southern white men, weary and disgusted because of the outcome of their attempts at secession, maintained an attitude of sullenness and indifference toward the new regime and accordingly offered at first very little opposition to the Negro control of politics. The Negroes, upon their securing the right of suffrage, however, turned at once to their former masters for political leadership,[2] ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... unsightly lot, some of them having faces like badly baked bread, swollen cheeks, receding chins, and cracked and blistered upper lips. Indeed, not a man of them was handsome. Also, their tone of voice always contained a note of sullenness, as though they had a mind to knock some one on the head; and by their frequent sacrifices to Bacchus they showed that even yet there remains in the Slavonic nature a certain element of paganism. Nay, the Director's room itself they would invade while still licking their lips, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... possess a similar equipment, although her husband's finances were by no means equal to the necessary outlay. Finding her wish ungratified, she fell sick, and the symptoms soon became so alarming, that he (Dr. Grummidge) was called in. At this period the prominent tokens of the disorder were sullenness, a total indisposition to perform domestic duties, great peevishness, and extreme languor, except when pearls were mentioned, at which times the pulse quickened, the eyes grew brighter, the pupils dilated, and ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... represented all over the college, in all sizes and varieties of the limner's art. Arthur, who hung a little behind his sister, was different from her, being stout and square; but he, too, was not an attractive child, and there was a dormant sullenness in his under lip which showed he could be a very naughty one ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... flounces on a monument!' observed Mr. Fotheringham, in an undertone to Theodora, who started, and would have been angry, but for his merry smile. He then turned to the child, whose face was indeed stupefied with sullenness, as if in the resistance she had forgotten the original cause. 'What! you have not said it all this time? What's your name? I know you are a Benson, but how do they call you?' said he, speaking with a touch of the dialect of the village, ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the wood, of the blossom before the leaf, the cry of passing birds at night. Nay! the most familiar details of nature, its daily routine of light and darkness, beset him now with a kind of troubled and troubling eloquence. The rain, the first streak of dawn, the very sullenness of the sky, had a power, only to be described by saying that they seemed to ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... was a rather tall and shapely young woman, handsome in a coarse sort of way when her face was in a state of animation; in repose, its expression was marred by a too-great boldness in the big dark eyes and a suggestion of sullenness about the heavy, full-lipped mouth. She dressed well—"too well for an honest woman," was the dark verdict of ladies more reputable and less attractive—and, with a shrewdness surprising in one of her type, avoided the cheapening allure of cosmetics. She spent most of her days ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... but when you try to recall him, his image is always extremely plain. They say that he has bad health, and endures agony which from some motive of vanity he most carefully conceals. It is this, I fancy, which gives him from time to time an air of sullenness."[110] The other lady, who saw him at the same time, speaks of "the poor devil of an author, who's as poor as Job for you, but with wit and vanity enough for four.... They say his history is as queer as his person, and that is saying a good deal.... Madame Maupeou and I tried ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... Did he blame Mr. Bronte? "No! he did not: if anybody was wrong it was himself." Was he willing to go? "No! it gave him great pain." Yet he is not always right. I must be just. He shows a curious mixture of honour and obstinacy—feeling and sullenness. Papa addressed him at the school tea-drinking, with constrained civility, but still with civility. He did not reply civilly; he cut short further words. This sort of treatment offered in public is what papa never ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... entered, her face averted, her lovely bosom swelling, and the more charmingly protuberant for the erectness of her mien. O Jack! that sullenness and reserve should add to the charms of this haughty maid! but in every attitude, in every humour, in every gesture, is beauty beautiful. By her averted face, and indignant aspect, I saw the dear insolent was disposed to be angry—but by the ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... after we left Biloxi and the regions where stimulants could be obtained, became nervous, lost his appetite, and was now suffering from chills and fever. He was much depressed after leaving St. Marks, and had long fits of sullenness, so that he would row for hours without speaking. I tried to cheer him, and on one occasion penetrated the forest a long distance to obtain some panacea with which to brace his ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... from his lounging-place and moved on, as if inviting me to walk; while he answered, rather with bitter sullenness than the melancholy his ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... dragged with Sally to-day, almost to sullenness, and when she began to grow weary in the early afternoon, there was no reserve strength on which she could fall back. She suddenly became aware that she wanted support, aid, comfort. Finally she spilled a great armful of "empties" down on the long drain-board ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... to show themselves in the sullenness of some of the men, and I most reluctantly allowed them to kill one of our poor working animals, which was accordingly shot as soon as we encamped and ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... presence of her child, nor a subsequent visit from me, could rouse my sister. She looked on Clara with a countenance of woful meaning, but she did not speak. When I appeared, she turned away, and in reply to my enquiries, only said, "You know not what you have done!"—I trusted that this sullenness betokened merely the struggle between disappointment and natural affection, and that in a few days she would be reconciled to ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... debauchery, he, chaste and pure as he was, simply withdrew in silence when to look on was unbearable, but without the slightest sign of contempt or condemnation. His father, who had once been in a dependent position, and so was sensitive and ready to take offense, met him at first with distrust and sullenness. "He does not say much," he used to say, "and thinks the more." But soon, within a fortnight indeed, he took to embracing him and kissing him terribly often, with drunken tears, with sottish sentimentality, yet he evidently felt a real and deep affection ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... preparations and the gloomy twain were immersed in dry business. Apart from the monotonous scratching of their hurried pens there was but an occassional short remark uttered until the welcome sound of the tea-bell broke the spell of sullenness that had fallen ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... benefactor. The attitude of the invalid toward the cattleman was something like that of a peevish, perverse child toward an indulgent parent. When Raidler would leave the ranch McGuire would fall into a fit of malevolent, silent sullenness. When he returned, he would be met by a string of violent and stinging reproaches. Raidler's attitude toward his charge was quite inexplicable in its way. The cattleman seemed actually to assume and feel the character assigned to him by McGuire's intemperate ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... occasion expressed himself as follows: 'My own feeling is, that we have much injured Dost Mahomed, and may very well afford to let by-gones be by-gones. It would contribute much to the security of this frontier if open relations of goodwill were established at Kabul. There is a sullenness in our present relations, as if both parties were brooding over the past, and expecting an opportunity in the future. This keeps up excitement and unrest, and prevents our influence and institutions taking root. ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... proper judge; to despise its sentence, if it were possible, is not just; and if it were just, is not possible. Pope was far enough from this unreasonable temper: he was sufficiently "a fool to fame," and his fault was, that he pretended to neglect it. His levity and his sullenness were only in his letters; he passed through common life, sometimes vexed, and sometimes pleased, with the natural ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... overtaxing him. He slept badly, was growing moody and quick to take offence. One day when he had been distinctly uncivil he apologized for himself by saying that, standing with feet always in the wet, head always in the scorching sun, he had taken a hell of a cold. Certain it was that, without sullenness, he would give in to long fits of silence; and his wide, honest eyes were heavy again, as if the snow-blindness of the winter had its analogue in a summer torment from the sun. And his sometimes ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... went on apologising, as if he had been all in the wrong and the other all in the right, and getting no word in reply, only the same scowl and uncompromising sullenness. "I'll take jolly good care not to stroke that fellow the wrong way again," said Jim, afterwards; "and if I should, I won't waste my time in stroking him ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... unwillingness. I had already begun to like her better than the Doctor did, as I began to know her better. At first I had been somewhat at a loss as to her real disposition, between the constant civility of her manners, and the occasional sullenness of her manner. I was fast making up my mind that the civility was genuine; the sullenness, apparent only, the result of extreme shyness, despondency, and languor. As fast as she became more and more at her ease with me, just so fast did she become more and more engaging. She ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... presaging mind bodes horrid mischiefs! Every thing looks dark around me; and this woman's impenetrable sullenness and silence, without any apparent reason, from a conduct so very contrary, bid me fear the worst.—blame me, sir, if you think me wrong; and let me have your advice what to do; which ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... knot seemed fierce for action, fiery and panting with that wolfish thirst, to quench which blood must flow. But all the rest seemed dumb, and tongue-tied, and crest-fallen. The sullenness of fear brooded on every other face. The torpor of despairing crime, already in its own fancy baffled and detected, had fallen on every other heart. For, at the farther end of the room, whispering to his trembling hearers dubious and dark suspicions, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... Waverley in another apartment. With a heart which beat a little quicker, not indeed from fear, but from uncertainty and anxiety, Edward obeyed the summons. He found the two gentlemen standing together, an air of complacent dignity on the brow of the Baron, while something like sullenness or shame, or both, blanked the bold visage of Balmawhapple. The former slipped his arm through that of the latter, and thus seeming to walk with him, while in reality he led him, advanced to meet Waverley, and, stopping in the midst of the apartment, made in great ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... day and the beginning of the engagement, which subsequently opened at Miner's Theatre, was spent by the girl in coaching her protege. He was a year younger than she, a fact which tended to increase the influence that she promptly obtained over him. His sullenness having been overcome, he became a devoted and apt pupil. Having beheld himself in neat clothes and acquired habits of cleanliness, he speedily developed into a handsome youth of ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... a certain dogged sullenness about my companions, which proceeded from their belief, that we and all who remained at Strasbourg, were merely left to occupy the enemy's attention, while greater operations were to be ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... seemed to mind very much. Her generally good-tempered face wore a dogged sullenness, and she began to mutter something about such a thing never having been heard of; but Miss Rodney paid no heed, renewed the appointment for the next morning, and waved a ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... them. They had lived in remote moorland places since their birth. They had so little to say to each other that Lord Coombe sometimes felt a slight curiosity as to why they had married instead of remaining silent singly. There was however neither sullenness nor resentment in their lack of expression. Coombe thought they liked each other but found words unnecessary. Jock Macaur driving his sheep to fold in the westering sun wore the look of a man not unpleased with life and at least ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Aunt Lina's talk with, it must be confessed, indifference, mingled with a little sullenness, and quieted my impatience by inward ejaculations—a vast deal of good do those inward conversations produce, such mollifiers of the temper are they. "So, so," said I to myself, "my Aunt Lina's paragon is a 'lady-help.' Of all kinds 'of help' the very one I have endeavored ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... and made a great noise. As to weapons, I took them all into my side every night. But I needed none of all this precaution; for never man had a more faithful, loving, sincere servant than Friday was to me; without passions, sullenness, or designs, perfectly obliged and engaged; his very affections were tied to me, like those of a child to a father, and I dare say he would have sacrificed his life to save mine upon any occasion whatsoever; the many testimonies he gave me of this put it out of doubt, and soon convinced ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... himself, like his men, entirely to the fleet and island. Charles contrived to spread a report, that his displeasure was solely due to his disappointment at being balked of fighting with the Tunisians; and that instead of indignant grief at the perversion of the wrecked Crusade, he was only showing the sullenness of an aggrieved swordsman. Even young Philippe le Hardi, a dull, heavy, ignorant youth, was led to suppose this was the cause of his offence, and though daily inquiries were sent through the Genoese crews ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his scowls and his sullenness, his deficiency in the daring and impudence that had warmed their hearts towards Dick, and, above all, his strange knack of getting them into trouble—for he seldom received what he considered an indignity without making a formal complaint—all this brought him as much hearty dislike and contempt ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... smile, and Derrick fell back abashed, an unwilling admiration struggling with the sullenness of his submission. ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... Gideon had certainly worked hard, and he was not dissipated. If he wanted to roam the town by himself, there was no harm in it. The sullenness still showed in the black face; Heaven knew what he might do if he suddenly began to balk. Stuhk thought it wise to ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... the Roughness of a good Man," says Father; "and if a Temper subject to hasty Ebullitions is better than one which, by Blows and hard Usage, has been silenced into Sullenness, a Republic is better than an ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... the shire, Frank, My lord excepted: such as sue, and send, And send, and sue again; but to no purpose. Their frequent visits have not gain'd her presence; Yet, she's so far from sullenness and pride, That, I dare undertake, you shall meet from her ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... After this, Last Bull's sullenness of temper appeared to grow upon him. He was fond of drawing apart from the little herd, and taking up his solitary post on the knoll, where he would stand for an hour at a time motionless except for the switching of his long tail, and staring steadily westward as if he knew ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... answer, and something of sullenness had by this time crept into his voice. "I've got as much right to love you as any one else, haven't I? As much right as that ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... as among the very vivid moments of her life. The tragedy of his life seemed that he had failed in impressing himself. His keenness of mind had not made for bigness. Life had left an aggressiveness, a certain sullenness in the lines of his face. His mind and his soul had never found one another—was it because his heart had closed ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... you at your word, Captain," he announced, between sullenness and defiance. Captain Blood paused, shoulders hunched, hands behind his back, and mildly regarded the buccaneer in silence. Cahusac explained himself. "Last night I send one of my men to the Spanish Admiral ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... baby an' to get me dinner," says the boy, with hanging head, his silence arising more from shyness than sullenness. The potatoes have just been lifted from the fire by Mrs. Moloney, and are steaming in a distant corner. Paudheen looks wistfully ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... that tower'd, could see No cliff beyond him in the sky, His pinions were bent droopingly— And homeward turn'd his soften'd eye. 'Twas sunset: when the sun will part There comes a sullenness of heart To him who still would look upon The glory of the summer sun. That soul will hate the ev'ning mist, So often lovely, and will list To the sound of the coming darkness (known To those whose spirits hearken) as one Who, in a dream ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the wall; he seemed to have secluded himself from the busy multitudes which moved noisily and gaily around him, and nobody seemed to observe or to converse with him. He was fashionably dressed, but perhaps rather extravagantly; his face was full and heavy, expressive of sullenness and stupidity, and marked with the lines of strong vulgarity; his age might be somewhere between forty and fifty. Such as I have endeavoured to describe him, he remained motionless, his arms doggedly folded across his broad chest, and turning his sullen eyes from corner to corner of the room, as ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... some dream and looked like a child, but a sickly child, for the heat and the severe marching drill for les bleus were telling upon him. Faces of twenty different types, faces which by day masked their secrets with sullenness, defiance, or stolidity, could hide nothing in sleep, but fell into lines of sadness that gave a strange family resemblance to the stone soldiers on the tombs. Saddest of all, after Manoeel Valdez, perhaps, was the wrecked visage of Pelle, whose own particular cafard had been leading him a ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... please," said Shere Ali; and already his voice and his manner had changed. The sullenness had gone. Now he besought. His English training came to his aid. He had learned reverence for women, acquiring it gradually and almost unconsciously rather than from any direct teaching. He had spent one summer's holidays with Mrs. ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... go to Priscilla,' he said, with a touch of sullenness that was mere shyness and discomfort. 'Don't let me interrupt you and this young lady, Tom.' And before Mr. O'Brien could utter ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... them; the wise man will shape his conduct by them; the man of lofty soul will rise above them. But the temper in which they will be borne, yielded to, or surmounted, must be contingent on the belief concerning them. If they are regarded as actual evils, they will probably be endured with sullenness, or submitted to with defiance and scorn, or surmounted with pride and self-inflation. Even in the writings of the later Stoics, which abound in edifying precepts of fortitude and courage under trial, there is an undertone of defiance, as if the sufferer were contending with ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... you wants, an' I knows I don' know nothin' 'tall 'bout it," she objected, her sullenness ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... was not in the business; it was on the elopement I had planned; but I could not help seeing what I have just mentioned, and it recurred to me now with fatal distinctness. The awe was as great as the sullenness. Did that offer a good foundation for crime? I disliked Arthur. I had no use for the boy, and I wished with all my heart to detect guilt in his actions, rather than in those of the woman I loved; but I could not forget that tinge of awe on features too heavy ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... than our virtues, and exorbitant claims are quickly produced by imaginary merit. But captiousness and jealousy are likewise easily offended, and to him who studiously looks for an affront, every mode of behaviour will supply it; freedom will be rudeness, and reserve sullenness; mirth will be negligence, and seriousness formality; when he is received with ceremony, distance and respect are inculcated; if he is treated with familiarity, he concludes himself ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... severe. When a gentleman is cudgelling his brain to find any rhyme for sorrow, besides borrow and to-morrow, his woes are nearer at an end than he thinks for. So were Pen's. He had his hot and cold fits, his days of sullenness and peevishness, and of blank resignation and despondency, and occasional mad paroxysms of rage and longing, in which fits Rebecca would be saddled and galloped fiercely about the country, or into Chatteris, her rider gesticulating wildly on her back, and astonishing carters ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and intense alarm throughout the vessel, the Indian had viewed the sudden rushing of the crew towards him as an act of gratuitous hostility; and, without shrinking from the attack, had once more resumed his original air of dogged sullenness. It was evident to him, from the discussion going on, that some violence, about to be offered to his person, had only been prevented by the interference of the officer. With the natural haughtiness of his savage nature, he therefore rejected the overtures of the sailor, whose hand ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... with these creatures in a few minutes, and that all the trouble the fisherman has is to haul them up. But they are capricious, and, notwithstanding their voracity, there are times when they will not leave their holes upon any consideration. Such was their humour to-day. The cause of their sullenness was said to be a wind that rippled the surface of the water; but, whatever the reason, not ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... they have their faults, like all soldiers, and when they chance to be commanded by an officer who is unnecessarily harsh, or who speaks roughly to them, they manifest their displeasure by passive obedience and a stubborn sullenness. English soldiers, on the other hand, under such circumstances, proceed to acts of insubordination, and it is for military judges to say which mode of ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... ill-omened words had passed her lover's lips, that she would probably be at Miss Le Smyrger's house on the following morning. Those ill-omened words did pass her lover's lips, and then she remained at home. This did not come from sullenness, nor even from anger, but from a conviction that it would be well that she should think much before she met him again. Nor was he anxious to hurry a meeting. His thought—his base thought— was this; that ...
— The Parson's Daughter of Oxney Colne • Anthony Trollope
... names of wares, tools and operations, of which no mention is found in books; what favourable accident, or easy enquiry brought within my reach, has not been neglected; but it had been a hopeless labour to glean up words, by courting living information, and contesting with the sullenness of one, and the roughness ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson
... gloriously brilliant winter days by which Boston weather atones in an hour for a week of sullenness. Snow lay in a thin sheet over the Common, and here and there a bit of ice among the tree- branches caught the light like a glittering jewel. The streets were dotted with briskly gliding sleighs, the jingle of whose bells rang out joyously. The air was full of a vigor which made ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... at work with his eyeglass and his English, neither of which he was managing well enough to please her critical estimate. In fact, he laboured all day with the persistence, if not the sullenness, of a hard-driven slave. He did not have time to become tired. There was always something new to be done or learned or unlearned: his day was full to overflowing. He was a ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... however held out; and such was the condition of the emperor, that he could not immediately attack them. But the death of Francis gave him leisure to invade Saxony, and the elector was defeated at the battle of Muhlhausen, (1547,) and taken prisoner. The captive prince approached the victor without sullenness or pride. "The fortune of war," said he, "has made me your prisoner, most gracious emperor, and I hope to be treated ——" Here Charles interrupted him—"And am I, at last, acknowledged to be emperor? ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... childhood with the Princess Anne; and a close friendship had arisen between the girls. In character they resembled each other very little. Anne was slow and taciturn. To those whom she loved she was meek. The form which her anger assumed was sullenness. She had a strong sense of religion, and was attached even with bigotry to the rites and government of the Church of England. Sarah was lively and voluble, domineered over those whom she regarded with most kindness, and, when she was offended, vented her rage in tears ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Several times had he said to himself, "Were he not a Cameron, he would be a gallant fellow!" At length, one day Macpherson was severely wounded, and rescued from immediate death by the fearless intrepidity and fiery promptness of Cameron. Macpherson's stern sullenness was subdued. Ere yet recovered from his wounds, he clasped Cameron's hand in token of cordial friendship; and so far laid aside his distant coldness, as to invite Allan Cameron to accompany him to Glen Feracht, when their present ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... way. Lenny's eye followed him with the sullenness of despair. The tinker, like all the tribe of human comforters, had only watered the brambles to invigorate the prick of the thorns. Yes, if Lenny had been caught breaking the stocks, some at least would have pitied him; but to be incarcerated ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... was to be expected off Cape Horn. For what sailor entering this icy and tempestuous tract of waters but knows that here he must expect to find Nature in her most violent moods, crueller and more unreckonable than a mad woman, who one moment looks with a silent sinister sullenness upon you, and the next is shrieking with devilish laughter as she makes as if to ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... during the night and the early morning, every report with indifference. He only sat and smoked, hour after hour, in silence. But after it became known that de Spain had, beyond doubt, made good his escape, and had Nan with him, the old man's sullenness turned into rage, and when Gale, rankling with defeat, stormed in to see him in the morning, he caught the full force of Duke's wrath. The younger man taken aback by the outbreak and in drink himself, returned his abuse without hesitation or restraint. Pardaloe came between them before ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... instantly transformed to one of confusion. And Tresler could not help calling to mind the schoolboy detected in some misdemeanor. At first the confusion, then the attempt at bland innocence, followed by dogged sullenness. It was evident that Jake's conscience blinded him to the fact ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... countrymen, was by no means deficient in the shrewdness which is also their characteristic. He reflected, that from what he had observed on the memorable night when the Dwarf was first seen, and from the conduct of that mysterious being ever since, he was likely to be rendered even more obstinate in his sullenness by threats and violence. ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... birthright before they know what things mean; in the sweater's den, in the heartless side of business competition, in the drink hells, in frivolous pursuits and brainless amusements, in the insolence of wealth, and the sullenness of poverty—in every place or thing where despite is done to the Divine Humanity. Let us feel that whatever wrong is done to a single human being, throughout the world-wide family of man, is literally done ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... himself. He looked out at things from beneath knit brows; he held his elbows close to his sides, his fists clenched, his whole spiritual being self-contained and apart, watchful for enmity in what he felt but could not understand. But to this, his normal habit, now was added a sullenness almost equally instinctive. In some way he felt himself aggrieved by the girl's presence. At first it was merely the natural revolt of a very young man against assuming responsibility he had not invited. The resulting ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... very spirit of evil laid hold on Tom. When the powers of good are present in the heart, and can find no outlet in action, they turn to evil. Tom had the desire to be kind and generous; ambition was stirring in him. His sullenness and discontent were but the outward signs of the inward ferment. He could not put into action the powers for good without breaking away, in a measure at least, from ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... whom he might have relied, were shocked by his attempts to create a standing army commanded by Catholics, for such an army might prove as disastrous to their liberties as Cromwell's "New Model"; and the Whigs, too, were driven from sullenness to desperation by James's religious policy and despotic government. James, like his brother, claiming the right to "suspend" the laws and statutes which Parliament had enacted against Roman Catholics and Dissenters, issued a Declaration of Indulgence ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... proceeded to salute the two women with a sharp blow apiece of the knotted rope, and thus changed their rising fury into sullenness. ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... from Mr. Kennedy, with a warm expression of friendship on the part of his host, and from Lady Laura with a mere touch of the hand. He tried to say a word; but she was sullen, or, if not, she put on some mood like to sullenness, and said never a ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... so sorry!" she said to herself; but no such word was spoken to her aunt. Indeed, to her she said nothing; and it was not sorrow for her fault, but sullenness or indifference, or something that might easily be mistaken for these, that her aunt saw on her face as she came down-stairs. It was very provoking. The bread was ready for the oven, but the oven was by no means ready for the bread. And now for the next ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... the attendant, who seemed to take the lead in the circle, "how lovely and amiable are you even in your resentments! They are not with you a morose and gloomy sullenness brooding over imaginary wrongs, and collecting venom and malice from every corner to the heart. In your breast anger itself takes a milder form, and is gentle, generous and gay. Yet why, my Imogen, should you harbour ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... sin. To say we believe in God, and to live in sin, makes our belief of no effect. We must learn of Christ, or He will have died in vain for us. We must learn of Him, and He will help us to overcome our love of drink, our selfishness, and sullenness, and ill-temper;" for the gentleman knew something of Coomber, and so particularised the sins he knew to be his ...
— A Sailor's Lass • Emma Leslie
... greatly disparaged by sentimentalists,—anger. The disagreeable, by balking an instinct, by obstructing a wish or purpose, may arouse anger. The anger may blaze forth in a sudden destructive fury in an effort to remove the obstacle, or it may simmer as a patient sullenness, or it may link itself with thought and become a careful plan to overcome the opposition. It may range all the way from the blow of violence to burning indignation against wrong and injustice; it is the source of the fighting spirit. Without fear, purpose would never be born; without anger in ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... started back, making their way in gloomy silence through the woods and fields of the valley. Cunora was greatly disappointed, and soon began to show it as any child would, by maintaining a sullenness which she broke only when some trifling obstacle, such as a branch, got in her way. Then she would tear the branch from the tree and fling it as far as she could, meanwhile screaming with ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... upstairs, or more probably up a ladder, to the cock loft, to which the recusant apprentice had made an untimely retreat; a muttered answer was returned, and soon after Conachar appeared in the eating apartment. There was a gloom of deep sullenness on his haughty, though handsome, features, and as he proceeded to spread the board, and arrange the trenchers, with salt, spices, and other condiments—to discharge, in short, the duties of a modern domestic, ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... withdrawn Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom, And glorious ages gone Lie deep within ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... cliffs here and there, pierced with the holes of the sand-martin. It exhaled no fogs, and was never dull even on a November day, when the clay-lands five miles away breathed a vapour which lay blue and heavy on the furrows, and the miry paths, retaining in their sullenness for weeks the impress of every footmark, almost pulled the boots off the feet as you walked along them. At Marston, on the contrary, the rain disappeared in an hour; and the landscape always seemed ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... encountered the Swine-man. Teeth were his weapons, when it came to fighting. Montgomery followed with stumbling footsteps, his hands in his pockets, his face downcast; he was in a state of muddled sullenness with me on account of the brandy. My left arm was in a sling (it was lucky it was my left), and I carried my revolver in my right. Soon we traced a narrow path through the wild luxuriance of the island, going northwestward; and presently M'ling stopped, and became rigid with watchfulness. ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... and majestic. On the contrary, so far is this from being the fact, he is merely making an ass of himself. He is merely parading himself as an undignified fool, as that supremely contemptible figure—a grown-up baby. He may intimidate a feeble companion by his raging, or by the dark sullenness of a more subdued flame, but in the heart of even the weakest companion is a bedrock feeling of contempt for him. The way in which a man of uncertain temper is treated by his friends proves that they despise him, for they do not treat him as a reasonable ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... fallen down and made a great noise - as to weapons, I took them all into my side every night. But I needed none of all this precaution; for never man had a more faithful, loving, sincere servant than Friday was to me: without passions, sullenness, or designs, perfectly obliged and engaged; his very affections were tied to me, like those of a child to a father; and I daresay he would have sacrificed his life to save mine upon any occasion whatsoever - the many testimonies he gave me of this ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... gentleness hath made me great." It is a mighty lever; it moves the world; it moved it before Archimedes; it moves it still; but peevishness, fault-finding, scolding, cursing, premature censure, haughty and assuming ways, sullenness, ill-temper, whether in the field, the kitchen, the nursery, or parlor, will legitimately result in thriftlessness, revolt, departure, and contempt for white people! Many of the young generation have not ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... if Ann, frightened at finding herself so far out in the open, shrank back into the shadows. But having gone a little way into the open she was not again the same girl of the shadows. Her response to life seeming thwarted, there came an incipient sullenness in her view of that life which she had reached ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... will perceive, changed our abode, and that too without expecting, and almost without desiring it. In my moments of sullenness and despondency, I was not very solicitous about the modifications of our confinement, and little disposed to be better satisfied with one prison than another: but, heroics apart, external comforts are of some importance, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... sank down and waited silently, but with contracted face, till a paroxysm had passed. At last she reached the door. Bridget was awake and had heard her coming. "Holy Mother!" she exclaimed, startled out of her habitual sullenness by her mistress's agonised face. "Yer ill, ma'am! Let me help ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... states of America were subject to the government of England. True, they have acknowledged our independence. But pride first struggled as much as she could, and sullenness held off as long as she dare. They have withdrawn their claim upon our obedience, but do you think they have forgot it? To this hour their very news-papers talk daily of dissentions between colony and colony, and the disaffection of this and of ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... Laura, she continued in her sullenness, anticipating with resentment the assault about to be made upon ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... but that of Mephistopheles in the celebrated picture of the Game of Life could equal its terrific malignity, after-accounts drew it a very Saint John's for sweet serenity of expression. What was then called sullenness now took the name of resignation, and stupidity was quiet contempt. Indeed, I began to fear that they would give him a public triumph, and invite me to make the flag with which to grace it. I confess that I would almost have voted him ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... withdrawn, Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom; And glorious ages, gone, Lie deep within the shadow of ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... as far as he could toward the window of the lighted room, he could see Pasquale and Harrison. The woman, whoever she might be, was in the corner of the room beyond his vision. The prizefighter showed both in face and manner a certain stiff sullenness. He was insisting upon some point to which there was determined opposition. As the general turned half toward him once, the range-rider saw in his little black eyes an alert and greedy ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... displacency[obs3]. disrespect &c. 929; procacity[obs3], impudence; barbarism, barbarity; misbehavior, brutality, blackguardism[obs3], conduct unbecoming a gentleman, grossieret, brusquerie[obs3]; vulgarity, &c. 851. churlishness &c. adj.; spinosity[obs3], perversity; moroseness &c. (sullenness) 901a. sternness &c. adj.; austerity; moodishness[obs3], captiousness &c. 901; cynicism; tartness &c. adj.; acrimony, acerbity, virulence, asperity. scowl, black looks, frown; short answer, rebuff; hard words, contumely; unparliamentary ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... through the court when the solemn sentence was pronounced, rings in my ears at this moment. That cry struck a terror to the culprit's heart, which trial, condemnation—the approach of death itself, had failed to awaken. The lips which had been compressed in dogged sullenness throughout, quivered and parted involuntarily; the face turned ashy pale as the cold perspiration broke forth from every pore; the sturdy limbs of the felon trembled, and ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... a duke, waited behind our four chairs, to make their remarks on our style of eating in contrast with the polished performances at their late master's. But Mrs. Molasses had exactly four. The argument was unanswerable. Silence and sullenness reigned through the banquet; but on the retreat of the four gentlemen who did us the honour of attending, the whole tale of evil burst forth. What is the popularity of man? The whole family had already dropped from the highest favouritism into the most ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 348, December 27, 1828 • Various
... the Japanese; they are beginning to learn that the average English-speaking foreigner hates smiling, and is apt to consider it insulting; wherefore Japanese employees at the open ports have generally ceased to smile, and have assumed an air of sullenness. ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... of Bligh was occasioned by this fatal appetite: whether from sullenness, or conviction, he discouraged the vendors of rum, and attempted to obstruct their living on the vices of the prisoners. The landing of a still, and its seizure, was followed by a series of altercations, which led to the military rebellion, and terminated his government. This event roused ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... was conscious of the working of four minds: there was her own, sore with the past and troubled by a present in which her lover concealed his discomfiture under the easy sullenness of his pose. He, too, had the past shared with her to haunt him, but he had also a present bright with Henrietta's allurements yet darkly streaked with prohibitions, struggles and surrenders, and Rose saw that the worst tragedy was his and hers. It must not be Henrietta's. In their youth she ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... hollowness in his eyes which gave a singular power to his face. There must have been a vein of genuine strength and nobleness in the man, or he would have been too much crushed to show any thing but weak despair or brutal sullenness. Had Professor Valeyon's attention been directed to the point, he might have recognized his pupil as being now thoroughly grounded in the elements ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... the money my father gave you?" came the words at last, rolling from his lips in a tone of muffled sullenness. ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... answered Dominique, still with an awkward sullenness. "But it is merely my dismissal that I beg. I wish to return early to-morrow to Boisveyrac; the harvest there is gathered, to be sure, but no one can be trusted to finish the stacks. With so many dancing attendance on the military, ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and eccentric humour which marked Rienzi, and which had seemed a buffoonery to the stolid sullenness of the Roman nobles, still retained its old expression in his countenance, and he laughed loud as he saw the vermin hurry back to ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... an unusual sight, and the thought which his interpretation and words suggested, I marveled at his sullenness, for Blackana did not so much as lift his head to ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... your father, and my sister has longer hair than yours, and my money box is larger than yours." It is neither unkindly meant nor, by Englishmen, very unkindly taken. It is less offensive than the mature, corrosive sullenness of the Englishman; but it is the same thing. "The French foot-guards are dressed in blue and all the marching regiments in white; which has a very foolish appearance. And as for blue regimentals, it is only fit for the blue horse or the Artillery," ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... admiring words the Doctor expected, there only came a complaint of the difficulty of dealing with him; so well instructed, so respectful in manner, and yet there was a coldness, a hardness about him, amounting to sullenness, rejecting all attempts to gain his confidence, or bring him ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... you another thing, Mallett, which may seem a slight reason for my sullenness and quick temper; they've had secret-service men following me ever since I returned from Roya-Neh. They are into everything that I've ever been connected with; there is no institution, no security in which I am interested, that ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... shot on the high seas any more than he should be drowned in the rolling mud of the Vilaine—he was reserved for this day as a set-off to all the bitterness that had been meted out to him; he was to see the image of his dead love rise from the sea once more. And, meanwhile, his very despair and sullenness had been turned to his good. It would not be said, if history should take count of the fact, that while the Lord of Pulwick had served four years before the mast, he had ever disgraced his ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... so helpful before," Mary re- marked, and wondered what had induced such a change in place of former sullenness. ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson
... "haunted man." He was a professor of chemistry, who bargained with the spirit which haunted him to leave him, on condition of his imparting to others his own idiosyncrasies. From this moment the chemist carried with him the infection of sullenness, selfishness, discontent and ingratitude. On Christmas Day the infection ceased. Redlaw lost his morbid feelings, and all who suffered by his infection, being healed, were restored to love, mirth, benevolence and gratitude.—C. Dickens, The ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... associate habitually with the depraved; and it is very difficult indeed for the mature adult to preserve his brain and mind in sound condition when compelled to associate with the depraved. To those who are very impressible, the contagion of vice, bad temper, profanity, turbulence, lying, obscenity, sullenness, melancholy, etc., is as inevitable as ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... teeming with corn and wine and speaking everywhere (that is everywhere the phylloxera had not laid it waste) of wealth and plenty. The road runs constantly near the Garonne, touching now and then its slow, brown, rather sullen stream, a sullenness that encloses great dangers and disasters. The traces of the horrible floods of 1875 have disappeared, and the land smiles placidly enough while it waits for another immersion. Toulouse, at the ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... enlist to work," declared Grace, with some sullenness. "What's the fun of camping out if one has to work like a slave ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... considerable respect, a respect that had been greatly shaken by Cocardasse's audacious and insolent treatment of the satellite of Gonzague. Now the bravo seemed ready to resent receiving an order from his employer's go-between. Peyrolles prudently took no notice of his sullenness. "Good-evening, gentlemen," he said, and walked towards the door. As he reached it, he turned again and spoke significantly: "Remember—if you ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... among his admirable books, for which I rest his debtor; or, for any thing I know, or can guess to the contrary, he may be about to read a lecture on my weaknesses. He is welcome to them (as he was to my humble hearth), if they can divert a spleen, or ventilate a fit of sullenness. I wish he would not quarrel with the world at the rate he does; but the reconciliation must be effected by himself, and I despair of living to see that day. But, protesting against much that he has written, and some things he chooses to do; judging ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... spread to the drawing-room, and commissions of enquiry, in the shape of tea-parties, were held in every house relative to the strange milk-vender and his stranger shadow. To those who asked him any questions on the matter, and very few ventured to do so—for his manner, though civil, had reserve and sullenness, and there was in his deportment a decent propriety, that repulsed, or rather prevented, enquiry—he usually answered that he 'knew nothing of the woman who followed him;' 'that he dared to say it was from some whim;' 'that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various |
