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Sullen   /sˈələn/   Listen
Sullen

adjective
1.
Showing a brooding ill humor.  Synonyms: dark, dour, glowering, glum, moody, morose, saturnine, sour.  "The proverbially dour New England Puritan" , "A glum, hopeless shrug" , "He sat in moody silence" , "A morose and unsociable manner" , "A saturnine, almost misanthropic young genius" , "A sour temper" , "A sullen crowd"
2.
Darkened by clouds.  Synonyms: heavy, lowering, threatening.



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"Sullen" Quotes from Famous Books



... sketch which Lafontaine had given of his commanding-officer. He was a tall, stiff, but soldierly-looking person, with an expression, which, as we are disposed to approve or the reverse, might be called strong sense or sullen temper. But he had some reputation in the service as a bold, if not an able officer. He had saved the French troops in America by his daring, from the effects of some blunders committed by the giddiness of their commander-in-chief; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... us take their challenge up, 175 Yet champion have we none to match this youth. He has the wild stag's foot, the lion's heart. deg. deg.177 But Rustum came last night; aloof he sits deg. deg.178 And sullen, and has pitch'd his tents apart. Him will I seek, and carry to his ear 180 The Tartar challenge, and this young man's name. Haply he will forget his wrath, and fight. Stand forth the while, ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold

... ABERCORN wonder and FIFE tootle praise, His two thousand hearers raise cheering—raise cheering. Of wild would-be Scuttlers he proves the mad craze, And of Governments prone to small-beering—small-beering. Sullen Boers may prove bores to a man of less tact, A duffer funk wiles Portuguesy—tuguesy; But Dutchmen, black potentates, all sorts, in fact, To RHODES the astute ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various

... stood upright on his feet; and felt a lively sense of power and freedom as he was once more able to stretch out his arms and legs. In the house all was silent. The fire upon the hearth was glimmering with a sullen glow of red light; and it appeared to be about day-break; window there was none; but through a sort of narrow loop-hole penetrated a grey beam of early light. This however lent no aspect of cheerfulness ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey

... lust of gear shall drive him forth and hunger arm his hand, To win his food from the desert rude, his pittance from the sand. His neighbours' smoke shall vex his eyes, their voices break his rest, He shall go forth till south is north sullen and dispossessed. He shall desire loneliness and his desire shall bring, Hard on his heels, a thousand wheels, a People and a King. He shall come back on his own track, and by his scarce-cooled camp There shall he meet the roaring street, the derrick and the stamp: There he shall blaze a nation's ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling

... the common English passions for spending—above all by the passion for drink. Here, too, were men of a far lower type and grade—the waste and refuse of the vast industrial mill. Tressady knew a good many of them by sight—sullen, quick-eyed folk, who buy their "greeners" at the docks, and work them day and night at any time of pressure; whose workshops are still flaring at two o'clock in the morning, and alive again by the winter dawn; who fight and flout the law by a hundred arts, and yet, brutal and shifty as many of ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the window to where the Thames, black and sullen, but lit with a thousand fitful lights, flowed sullenly ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim

... "that the face is the index of the mind," the recipe for a beautiful face must be something that reaches the soul. What can be done for a human face that has a sluggish, sullen, arrogant, angry mind looking out of every feature? An habitually ill-natured, discontented mind ploughs the face with inevitable marks of its own vice. However well shaped, or however bright its complexion, no such face can ever ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... had told. The wonder was that in some north-east gale the little fleet of fishing vessels was not dashed to pieces by the huge breakers that came tearing in, to leap against the rocks and fall back with a sullen roar amidst the great boulders. And one storm would have been enough, but for the harbour, into which, like so many sea-birds, the luggers huddled together; while the great granite wall curved round them like a stout protective ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... the vanward clouds of evil days Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear Was with ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn

... ourselves too secure, I suppose—we were by no means out of hearing of the grim work that was going on a few miles away. The big guns, of course, are placed well behind the front line trenches, and we could hear their sullen, constant quarreling with Fritz and his artillery. The rumble of the Hun guns came to us, too. But that is a sound to which you soon get used, out there in France. You pay no more heed to it than you do to the noise the 'buses make ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder

... desolated the estate that it could not now be made to yield thirty thousand (30,000) rupees a- year. The Raja has ever since resided with a few followers in an island in the Ghagra. He has never openly resisted or defied the Government, but is said to be sullen, and a bad paymaster. He still holds the ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... day Reginald Pole, to clear himself of the charge of heresy, sent a fresh commission to Harpsfeld, to purge the diocese of Canterbury;[645] and the people, sick to their very souls at the abominable spectacles which were thrust before them, sank into a sullen despondency. ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude

... upon my face, Yet meet with no confusion there: One only feeling could'st thou trace; The sullen calmness ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving

... daughter of Brises. But as the sun must always be parted from the morning-light, to return to it again just before setting, so Achilleus loses Briseis, and regains her only just before his final struggle. In similar wise Herakles is parted from Iole ("the violet one"), and Sigurd from Brynhild. In sullen wrath the hero retires from the conflict, and his Myrmidons are no longer seen on the battle-field, as the sun hides behind the dark cloud and his rays no longer appear about him. Yet toward the evening, ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske

... the fiercest and most sullen-looking of all. They did not join in the general barking and uproar, but kept their heads buried in the straw. Once, as we were watching them, away off in a remote end of the building, an acrobat began his performance of walking on a rope and jumping through rings, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... to keep all the gain to herself. Being of the same fearless temper as her husband, she set off for the old Indian fort toward the close of a summer's day. She was many hours absent. When she came back, she was reserved and sullen in her replies. She spoke something of a black man, whom she had met about twilight hewing at the root of a tall tree. He was sulky, however, and would not come to terms; she was to go again with a propitiatory offering, but what it ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... 1535 "for the plucking down of idols and extinguishing of idolatry" was a first step in the long effort of the English government to force a new faith on a people who to a man clung passionately to their old religion. Browne's attempts at "tuning the pulpits" were met by a sullen and significant opposition. "Neither by gentle exhortation," the Archbishop wrote to Cromwell, "nor by evangelical instruction, neither by oath of them solemnly taken nor yet by threats of sharp correction, may I persuade or induce any, whether ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... sullen, unforgiving anger Sir John remained for a full year; when to his surprise and delight he received a summons to attend, at Whitehall, on the Queen, whose graciousness during his mayoralty he remembered with pleasure ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall

... to him now. And suddenly she said a very strange thing. "Lee, I been thinkin'—back there on Earth I was doin' a lot of things that maybe were pretty rotten—anglin' for his money for instance—an' not carin' much what I had to do to get it." She gestured at the sullen Franklin who was sitting on the couch. "You know—things like that. An' I been thinkin'—you suppose, when we get where we're goin' now, that'll be held ...
— The World Beyond • Raymond King Cummings

... the grating of a rusty key in the door caused a movement as well as one or two sighs and groans among the slaves, for the keepers had come to summon them to work. The Frenchman rose and followed the others with a hook of sullen indifference. Most of them were without fetters, but a few strong young men wore chains and fetters more or less heavy, and Foster judged from this circumstance, as well as their expressions, that these were rebellious subjects whom it was ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne

... the floor with a bloody forehead. Pan sat crouched on the platform, haggard and sullen, with face, shirt, hands ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey

... one more letter; and if, after she has received that, she keeps sullen silence, she must thank herself for ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... promises. They expected the English to show them the same consideration. But they were disappointed. The new masters of the fort had little patience with the Indian idlers, who loafed about at the most inconvenient times in the most inconvenient places, always begging, and often sullen and insolent. They frequently ordered them in no mild terms to be off. The chiefs received cold looks and short answers where they had looked ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney

... tossed his dollar onto the bar. "Give me a little red licker," he ordered, and grinned at the sullen proprietor as he filled his glass to ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx

... thirty-fifth day of his imprisonment, an hour after daybreak. His provisions for the next twenty-four hours had been brought to him, and, as usual, he had made an unsuccessful effort to induce his sullen jailer to inform him why he was confined, and when he should be released. Gloomy and disconsolate, he seated himself on the ground, and leaned his back against the end wall of his dreary dungeon. The light from the window above his head fell upon the opposite door, and illuminated the spot where ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

... Black Will was carefully and quietly sharpening his knife on one of the stones and casting back every now and then a meaning glance to his companions. The pertinacity with which he held to his idea began to tell on them, and they sat in an attitude of sullen and terrible suspicion. But Jem wore a look of contemptuous incredulity. However small a society may be, if it is a human one jealousy shall creep in. Jem grudged Black Will his captaincy. Jem was intellectually a bit ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... securing the independence of his country. Even at that early age, however, his mind was not easy to read, and his character was somewhat of a puzzle to those who studied it. "I see him much discontented with the States," said Leicester; "he hath a sullen deep wit. The young gentleman is yet to be won only to her Majesty, I perceive, of his own inclination. The house is marvellous poor and little regarded by the States, and if they get anything it is like to be by her Majesty, which should be altogether, and she may easily, do ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... passed away; the fagots under the caldron burned clear in the sullen, sultry air. The materials within began to seethe, and their color, at first dull and turbid, changed into a pale-rose hue; from time to time the Veiled Woman replenished the fire, after she had done so reseating herself close by the pyre, with her head bowed ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... the grieved, the stubborn they chastise, Fools they admonish, and confirm the wise: Their aid they yield to all: they never shun The man of sorrow, nor the wretch undone: Unlike the hard, the selfish, and the proud, They fly not sullen from the suppliant crowd; Nor tell to various people various things, But show to subjects, what they ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... Sullen and good, morbid and wise, are impossible conditions. The best test, both of a man's wisdom and goodness, is his cheerfulness. When one is not cheerful, he is almost invariably stupid. A sad face seldom gets into much credit with the world, and rarely deserves to. "Sorrow," ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... younger son of Hulaku, whose Mongol name was Tigudar, and who had been baptized in his youth by the name of Nicolas, but went over to Islam, and thereby gained favour in Persia. On the death of his brother Abaka he had a strong party and seized the throne. Arghun continued in sullen defiance, gathering means to ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... milk, &c. Jensen did not even think of ship's biscuits until I called his attention to the oversight. He demurred at first about buying them, but I told him I would not go until we had the biscuits aboard. Jensen was a very bluff, enigmatic sort of fellow, as I afterwards found out. He was of a sullen, morose nature, and I could never get much out of him about his past. He would not speak about himself under any circumstances, and at no time of our acquaintance was he any sort of a sociable companion. He was very hard upon the sailors under him, ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... too, as the unexpected procession came shuffling along—late shoppers, business men returning home, soldiers—all paused to gaze at this sullen visaged ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... with warlike native tribes around and in the heart of the country. The exchequer was exhausted. By the confession of the President (Burgers) the country was on the verge of bankruptcy.[1] The acceptance of the annexation was not unanimous, but it was accepted formally in a somewhat sullen and desponding spirit, as a means of averting further impending calamity and restoring a measure of order and peace. Whether this justified or not the act of annexation I do not pretend to judge. The results, however, for the Republic ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler

... diamond-shaped panes, had but two occupants; a man and a woman. They took no notice of my intrusion, a circumstance which, in the manner of dreams, appeared entirely natural. They were not conversing; they sat apart, unoccupied and sullen. ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce

... when a deep, sullen roar, easily distinguished by a seaman amid the howling of the tempest, struck on the ears of the crew. "Breakers! breakers ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston

... roar of the battle, but made no movement. Some of his councillors urged upon him to call out the loyal regiments at Bala Hissar, and to suppress and punish the mutiny. But the Ameer remained vacillating and sullen until the terrible night was over, and the last of the defenders, after performing prodigies of valour, and killing many more times than their own number of the enemy, succumbed to the attack, the British officers rushing out and ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... and found them of all shades of complexion from deep chocolate-brown to white. Their glossy black hair, redolent of cocoanut oil, was ornamented with fresh flowers, and their bright black eyes danced with fun or languished with sullen scorn. The younger ones were bright and happy in their expression, but the older ones seemed already to realize the curse that rests upon their decaying race, and to move with melancholy languor, as if brooding over it in stifled rebellion or resigned apathy. Some ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various

... capital Caesar would erect a new city called Neropolis. A flood of hatred rose and swelled every day, despite the flatteries of the Augustians and the calumnies of Tigellinus. Nero, more sensitive than any former Caesar to the favor of the populace, thought with alarm that in the sullen and mortal struggle which he was waging with patricians in the Senate, he might lack support. The Augustians themselves were not less alarmed, for any morning might bring them destruction. Tigellinus thought of summoning certain legions from Asia Minor. Vatinius, who laughed ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... sullen silence. He felt the reproach keenly in its simple truth; but his heart was too sore, the pain too bitter, to ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming

... hay of one of those sweet meadows, and looking like so many animated scarecrows at their work; or instead of some young farmer, on the seat of his clattering mower, or mounted high over his tedder, but as much alone as if there were no one else in the neighborhood, silent and dull, or fierce or sullen, as the case might be, the work is always going on with companies of mowers or reapers, or planters, that chatter like birds ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells

... might be, this Kor was a queer place with its legends, its sullen Amahagger and its mysterious queen, to whom at times, in spite of my inner conviction to the contrary, I was still inclined to attribute powers beyond those that are common even among very ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... looked in vain for some guiding hand to lead them out of a toil into which they had fallen so bravely and so blindly. A few more volleys, a new and irresistible charge, a shrill and warning command to die or surrender, and, with a sullen and tearful impulse, five thousand muskets are flung upon the ground, and five thousand hot, exhausted, and impotent men are ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... the evening before, in a narrow valley between the silver hills, the infantry stacked arms, broke ranks, and listened with sullen brows to two pieces of news. At Hanging Rock, between Unger's and Romney, the advance, composed of a regiment of militia and a section of artillery, had come into touch with the enemy. The militia had broken, the two guns had been ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... truer than it was either intelligible or pleasant, and said no more, but let poor, self-abused, fine- fellow Tom scold and argue and reason away till he was tired. She was not sullen, but bewildered and worn out. He got up, and left ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... wiser time shall come When this fine overplus of might, No longer sullen, slow, and dumb, Shall leap ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe

... I to him, "be seated," and he sat. I asked him if he would shake hands with me and my boys and make up. He was very sullen, but, at last, did so, not cheerfully, I fear, for he was not ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough

... Katvesera are under a score in number, and live chiefly on fish, though I noticed in the morning that a considerable quantity of land was under cultivation—apparently rice and barley. They were a sullen, sulky lot, and we had almost to take the hut by force. The Khivan, Gerome, and myself took it in turns to watch through the night. It was near here that the ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt

... world and human kind alone: A jolly god that passes hours too well To promise heaven, or threaten us with hell; 280 That unconcern'd can at rebellion sit, And wink at crimes he did himself commit. A tyrant theirs; the heaven their priesthood paints A conventicle of gloomy, sullen saints; A heaven like Bedlam, slovenly and sad, Foredoom'd for souls with ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... with Essie for her failure to be consoled and edified, and to appreciate the kindly condescension of the remark). You are not going to be sullen, I hope, Essie. ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw

... comes: his downcast sullen looke, Is over-waigh'd with mightie discontent.— I hope the brat is posted to his sire, That he is growne so lazie of his pace; Forgetfull of his dutie, and his tongue Is even fast tyde with strings of heavinesse.— ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen

... rear, where it sank so deep in the mud that it was impossible to move it. No attempt was made to remove more. The storm began at eleven o'clock. "The rain was unusually violent, and the night became so dark that it was difficult to see, except by the flashes of lightning. The men became sullen and indifferent—indisposed to work. I spent some time in collecting together such of them as were idle and urged them to carry off the boxes of ammunition from the magazine, and pass them aboard the boat. At length I learned from Captain Stewart that all the guns had ...
— From Fort Henry to Corinth • Manning Ferguson Force

... time the earful of people settled again into sullen quietude. The cold was not found propitious to quarrelling. Those who could subsided anew into lethargy, those who could not gathered in their outposts to make the best defence they might of the citadel. Most happily it was not an extreme night; ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... of them had an equal Aversion to austere, sullen, designing Knaves, of what Complexion, Magnitude, or Party soever. That both of them were Men of Wit and Satyr, but that Erasmus, according to the Genius of his Country, had more of the Humourist in him than Lucian, and in all Parts of Learning was infinitely ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... swear by ev'ry dish I ever broke, or platter." Straight to the flock, flight, covey, (we've no name In Albion, to designate such game.) Rush'd Ayala, whose hearty psho! psho! psho! Took the cranes off one leg,—discovering two, As up they rose, on rustling, sullen wing: "Well cook?" "Why, body of my soul, sir, there's the thing, Had you said psho! psho! to your roasted crane, Belike you'd seen ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 362, Saturday, March 21, 1829 • Various

... vain I batter at a senseless door, I'll to the keyhole train my tortured ear. (Listening.) Dead silence!... is it over—or, to come? Hark! was not that the click of meeting shears?... Again! and followed by the sullen thud of thumbs that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various

... many crucibles and the strange implements lying on the table as the things employed by dabblers in magic lore, whilst the great sullen wood and charcoal fire, which illumined the place with a dull red glow, was all in keeping with the nature of the occupations carried on there, as was the strange pungent smell that filled ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... in sullen silence to the door of the house in K Street. Well-dressed church-goers gazed curiously at the pair, and many facetious remarks were bandied about. Fragments of this found their way to the ear of Major Cragiemuir as he was taking his afternoon airing ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald

... two hours ago. There, he's skulking behind that white oak. Johann!" she commanded imperiously. Seeing that concealment was no longer practicable, the fellow sulkily came from his hiding-place and stood, with sullen countenance, in the path beside them. "Find out what he is doing ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton

... authority into a criminal act, we may call the effect of our victory peace, or obedience, or what we will, but the war is not ended; the hostile mind continues in full vigor, and it continues under a worse form. If your peace be nothing more than a sullen pause from arms, if their quiet be nothing but the meditation of revenge, where smitten pride smarting from its wounds festers into new rancor, neither the act of Henry the Eighth nor its handmaid of this reign will ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... and workmen by smashing the dams and laying the land under water. Fierce as they were, these fenmen read in the Wesleys a will to match their own and beat it; a scorn, too, which cowed, but at the same time turned them sullen. Parson Wesley they frankly hated. Thrice they had flooded his crops and twice burnt the roof ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... kind, but sullen Star, under which I had the Happiness to be born; yet I have had no time for Love; the bravest and noblest of Mankind have purchas'd my Favours at so dear a Rate, as if no Coin but Gold were current with our Trade— But here's Don Pedro again, fetch ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... would have fallen again; but Rand, seeing more in her face than her voice interpreted to his sullen ears, took her sullenly in his arms, and carried her to the cabin. Her eyes glanced around the bright party-colored walls, and a faint smile came to her lips as she put aside her bonnet, adorned with a companion pinion of the bright ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... head, closed his thin lips and fumbled with the hem of his smock in a significantly sullen manner. It was evident that he meant to defy me. His sharp little eyes sent a warning look at Gretel, who instantly ceased her mutterings and gave over asking God to bear witness to something or other. She was ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... sullen-faced man stood at the corner of O'Connell Bridge waiting for the little Sandymount tram to take him home. He was full of smouldering anger and revengefulness. He felt humiliated and discontented; he did not even feel drunk; and he had only twopence in his ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce

... window-ledge; her anxious eyes were fixed on Ermengarde, who was looking away from her, and whose pretty face wore a particularly sullen expression. ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... good deal of positive teaching. This last arrangement is particularly exasperating to Mr. Worrall. He regards it as sure to be known, a ridiculous confession of weakness on Isabel's part, and so on. However, in spite of his wrath and the aunt's sullen or tearful disapproval, she has stood firm, and matters ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... thy sullen isle, And gaze upon the sea; That element may meet thy smile, It ne'er was ruled by thee! Or trace with thine all idle hand In loitering mood upon the sand That earth is now ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various

... first years were past amidst Geneva bands, heads of lank hair, upturned eyes, nasal psalmody, and sermons three hours long. Plays and poems, hunting and dancing, were proscribed by the austere discipline of his saintly family. The fruits of this education became visible, when, from the sullen mansion of Puritan parents, the hotblooded, quickwitted young patrician emerged into the gay and voluptuous London of the Restoration. The most dissolute cavaliers stood aghast at the dissoluteness of the emancipated precisian. He early acquired and retained to the last the reputation ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... ran off, and soon returned followed by a most unprepossessing boy, who slouched in and stood looking about him, with a half bold, half sullen look, which made Mrs. Bhaer say to herself, ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... steep as is the incline, Johnson ascended it. The Saracen's Head, which had welcomed Paoli before now, received the travellers. There was now no more sullen fuel or peat. 'Here am I,' soliloquized the Rambler, with a leg upon each side of the grate, 'an Englishman, sitting by ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask

... tempest had a character of duration that rendered it easy to imagine it might be a permanent feature of the spot. The roar of the wind was without intermission, and the raging water answered to its dull but grand strains with hissing spray, a menacing wash, and sullen surges. The drizzle made a medium for the eye which closely resembled that of a thin mist, softening and rendering mysterious the images it revealed, while the genial feeling that is apt to accompany a gale of wind on water contributed to aid the milder influences ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... thick upon the ground. Thin and haggard, and with nothing left of his old self but his deep brown eyes and curling hair, and his unhappy name and fame, he turned back again to Pontiac. His spirit was sullen and hard, his heart closed against repentance. Had not the Church and Pontiac and the world punished him beyond his deserts for a moment's madness brought on ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the cheers of the delighted tenantry, as the three sons of their beloved landlord passed the threshold. The appearance of the "stranger" was received with no such demonstrations of welcome; on the contrary, there was a sullen silence, soon after broken by suppressed and angry murmurs. These were somewhat appeased by one of the sons introducing his "cousin," and endeavouring to joke the peasants into good-humour, by laughingly assuring them his "reverence" was but a bad drinker, and would not deprive them of much of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various

... things at an abrupt and incoherent rate, as if they were actuated by some possessing demon; they make an inarticulate noise, without any distinguishable sense or meaning. They sometimes screw and distort their faces to uncouth and antic looks; at one time beyond measure cheerful, then as immoderately sullen; now sobbing, then laughing, and soon after sighing, as if they were perfectly distracted, ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... on the countenance of Ithulpo, as the officer spoke of soon reaching a place of rest. Our attendant had, I found, managed to distribute a supply of the highly prized cacao among his countrymen; and while their features wore a look of sullen indifference as they received the ill-merited blows, I remarked that they seemed to bear up against the fatigue better than they had before done. As the sun rose higher the heat increased, till it became almost ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston

... servants are quite determined to stick in the place I let the leeches loose, and that generally sends the housemaids away. I wouldn't part with my darling leeches for all the world. Do you see how they are dancing now? That means rain. When they lie quite sullen at the bottom of the glass, then I know we are going to have fine weather. That one on the stalk—do you see how he is wriggling, poor sweet pet?—that one I call Fuzz, and this one at the bottom of the glass is Buzz. Then there are their children, Thunder and Lightning, and ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... forward and unloose the rope!" The man with the broken nose fixed his light eyes on the Captain's for a full five seconds. Bonnet's pistol muzzle was as steady as a rock. Then the sailor's eyes shifted and he obeyed with a sullen reluctance. Jeremy, liberated, climbed to his knees and stood up swaying. Just then there was a rush of feet behind. He turned in time to see Job Howland vanish head foremost over the rail in a long clean dive. The astonished crew ran cursing to ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader

... was about eighteen inches high and was carved out of stone, the eyes oddly enough being bone. Jones had cast longing glances on this idol, but did not dare to touch it, or in fact to go into the tower, as the natives were sullen and suspicious, and on more than one occasion showed signs ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory

... for the rest of my infancy, there being nothing in it remarkable, I shall pass it over in silence. I find that during my nonage I had the reputation of a very sullen youth, but was always the favourite of my schoolmaster, who used to say that my parts were solid and would wear well. I had not been long at the university before I distinguished myself by a most profound silence; ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... picture these men as the hot combatants of the year before. The brilliant, closely packed Rochester audience, the glare of a hundred gas jets, and an atmosphere surcharged with intense hostility, had given place to gray daylight, a sullen sky, and a morning assemblage tempered into harmony by threatened danger. The absence of the picturesque greatly disappointed the audience. The labour of reading a speech from printed proofs marred Conkling's oratory, and Curtis' effort to compliment ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... was Annabel who scored. For when at length she crossed Persis' threshold, a young man happened to be passing. A ravishing smile banished Annabel's look of sullen resentment. Her white-gloved hand fluttered ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith

... day at the Upfold Farm in spite of the children's unconscious mirthfulness. Old Marlowe locked himself into his workshop, and would see none of them, taking his meals there in sullen anger. Phebe's heart was almost broken with listening to Madame's earnest asseverations of her son's perfect innocence, and her eager hopes to find him when she reached home. It was nearly impossible to her to keep the oppressive secret, which seemed crushing her into deception and misery, and ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... time to her. Danvers persisted in his scheme boldly for a week and then, just as Marian was despairing and was casting about for another plan of campaign, he gave in. They were sitting apart in the shadow near one of the windows of the ball-room. He had been sullen all ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)

... in winter; the air transmits better. At night I hear more distinctly the steady roar of the North Mountain. In summer it is a sort of complacent pur, as the breezes stroke down its sides; but in winter always the same low, sullen growl. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... that, be what it might, he had as soon die of a wound as of thirst; but as the day wore on, it seemed as if the whole nature of the man were becoming changed. Sometimes he was boisterously loud in his merriment, sometimes sullen and silent; and when Eustace, unwearied, reiterated his arguments, he replied to him, not only with complete want of the deference he was usually so scrupulous in paying to his dignity, but with rude and scurril taunts and jests on his youth, his clerkly education, and his inexperience. Eustace's ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Africa; so a hundred others, who now submitted, accepted his favors, and bound themselves to plot against him no more. To the widows and children of those who had fallen in the war he restored the estates and honors of their families. Finally, as some were still sullen, and refused to sue for a forgiveness which might imply an acknowledgment of guilt, he renewed the general amnesty of the previous year; and, as a last evidence that his victory was not the triumph of democracy, but the consolidation of a united Empire, he restored ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... up-stream a long mile, black against the westward slope, the corral and storehouses, the school and office and quarters of the agency, the watch-lights twinkling like the stars above. Close at hand, loosely huddled along the bank, the grimy, smoke-stained lodges of Kills Asleep's sullen band, and in their midst, surrounded at respectful distance by a squatted semicircle of old men and braves, all muffled in their blankets, and by an outer rim of hags and crones and young squaws and children and snarling dogs and shaggy ponies, there with trailing war-bonnet ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... village viewed the vanguard of the ex-soldiers with sullen indifference. Silvanus Rock had told them not to worry their heads over the "efforts of an impractical dreamer to turn the town upside down." And who knew, if Rock didn't? As the days went by, however, and the invasion became ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... cannot compel the Southerners to hold elections and resume their share in the Government. It can go on without them. The same force which reopens the Mississippi can collect taxes or exact forfeitures along its banks. If Charleston is sullen, the National Government, having restored its flag to Moultrie and Sumter, can take its own time in the matter of clearing out the channel and rebuilding the light-houses. If a secluded neighborhood does not receive a Government postmaster, but is disposed to welcome ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... water amongst the rock Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit 340 There is not even silence in the mountains But dry sterile thunder without rain There is not even solitude in the mountains But red sullen faces sneer and snarl From doors of mudcracked houses If there were water And no rock If there were rock And also water And water 350 A spring A pool among the rock If there were the sound of water only Not the cicada And dry ...
— The Waste Land • T. S. Eliot

... in the slime, lifted their horny eyelids lazily, and leered upon him as he passed with stupid savageness. Lines of tall herons stood dimly in the growing gloom, like white fantastic ghosts, watching the passage of the doomed boat. All was foul, sullen, weird as witches' dream. If Amyas had seen a crew of skeletons glide down the stream behind him, with Satan standing at the helm, he would have scarcely been surprised. What fitter craft could ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... second woman with the two little ones came up and begged for the toy, something hard and sullen and cruel rose in the widow's heart, and she refused angrily to give up the thing. She hated those two boys who had been spared when her own was taken. She ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown

... well as Franklin, dreaded the effect of a serious collision between the citizens and the troops. At this time the feeling was one of sullen acquiescence in their presence. "Molineaux," he says, February 18, 1770, "to whom the Sons of Liberty have given the name of Paoli, and some others, are restless; but there seems to be no disposition to any general muster ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... of the girl opposite. She was looking down at her plate. He observed a little frown on her brow. When she raised her eyes to meet his, he saw that they were sullen, almost unpleasantly so. She did not turn away instantly, but continued to regard him with a rather disconcerting intensity. Suddenly she smiled. The cloud vanished from her brow, her eyes sparkled. He was bewildered. There ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... arranged with hellish dexterity, and the young knight, who so far had known the Teutons only from the battlefield, thought for the first time, that the fist was not sufficient for them, but that they must be overcome with the head as well. This was a sullen thought for him, because his great sorrow and pain had become concentrated into a desire for fight and blood. Even help for Danusia in his mind took the form of a series of battles either in troops or singly; and now he perceived that it ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... appearance of it, as to prevent her from perceiving my opinion; this, so far from calming the Gale, blows it into a hurricane, which threatens to destroy everything, till exhausted by its own violence, it is lulled into a sullen torpor, which, after a short period, is again roused into fresh and revived phrenzy, to me most terrible, and to every other Spectator astonishing. She then declares that she plainly sees I hate her, that I am leagued with her bitter enemies, viz. Yourself, L'd C[arlisle] and Mr. H[anson], ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... Wafted o'er sullen moss and craggy mound, Unfruitful solitudes, that seem'd t' upbraid The sun ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... sandy in the shallows, and a flock of wheeling gulls to possess it; before me rose the great crag of the Castle Rock, each plane and angle of its twisted slate pile cut sharply in light and shadow, and against this sullen grey background a newly flowered gorse ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland

... did not inquire by whose orders all that solemnity of mutes, and coaches, and black plumes, and crape bands, was appointed. If his vague and undeveloped conjecture ascribed this last and vain attention to Robert Beaufort, it neither lessened the sullen resentment he felt against his uncle, nor, on the other hand, did he conceive that he had a right to forbid respect to the dead, though he might reject service for the survivor. Since Mr. Blackwell's visit, he had remained in a ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... busy with the problem before it. The man's caution and his vindictive desire for vengeance were at war. He knew something, evidence that would tend to incriminate Hull, and he was afraid to bring it to the light of day. He worked automatically, and the man on horseback watched him. On that sullen face Kirby could read fury, hatred, circumspection, suspicion, ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine

... apart, and he leant against the partition in order to steady himself amidst the pitching and oscillation of the airship. The men about him looked tired and depressed; a few talked, but most were sullen and thoughtful, and one or two were air-sick. They all seemed to share the peculiarly outcast feeling that had followed the murders of the evening, a sense of a land beneath them, and an outraged humanity grown more hostile ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... Saturday would actually offend his religious sensibilities or not (for in America one gets used to seeing such sins committed even by the faithful), it was certain to offend his sense of the respect I owed him. And so, to avoid a sullen reception I decided to stop overnight in another Catskill town and not to make my appearance at Tannersville until the ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... two, specially appointed for the purpose, had seized him by the arms and was conducting him up the steps of the Town Hall. The rapidity and the unexpected nature of the movement threw him out of gear, and he was forced to adopt an attitude of sullen silence during the progress of the little party across the Council Chamber and through a doorway ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 153, November 7, 1917 • Various

... they clashed with sullen sound. The old ballad which tells of their fight says that they thought nothing for to flee, but stiffly for to stand. There they fought sore together, two miles away and more, but neither might the other harm for the space of a ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... in a tone half-sullen, half-timid; 'you want new girdles and fine clothes, do you? Well then, take care of your slave, or you may want them long. Voe capiti tuo—vengeance on thy ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... I have faltered more or less In my great task of happiness; If I have moved among my race And shown no glorious morning face; If beams from happy human eyes Have moved me not; if morning skies, Books, and my food, and summer rain Knocked on my sullen heart in vain:— Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take And stab my ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... that the citizens were in a state of panic, and that the natives were sullen and discontented. He thought there might be some grounds for the fear of a revolt, and decided that he had better examine ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 28, May 20, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... of a very different character: he was always sullen and morose, and disgusted every body, without regard to their rank or quality. Instead of commanding respect by the liberal distribution of his immense wealth, he was so perfect a miser as to deny himself the necessaries of life. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... in awkward silence, as stiff and as straight as a soldier on parade, was ready to be influenced by whatever course her caller chose to pursue; a kind word spoken at the start would melt her at once, where a harsh one would raise in her every sort of sullen hostility and obstinate resistance. She was, as Delia often said to herself, "as hard to manage as a kicking colt." Sometimes she was wonderfully docile, but her moods were variable, and oftenest she was headstrong and wilful, with a fierce repugnance ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann

... has been ridiculed and decried, is judicious and discerning compared with his explanation of Milton's political creed:—"Milton's republicanism was, I am afraid, founded in an envious hatred of greatness, and a sullen desire of independence, in petulance impatient of control, and pride disdainful of superiority. He hated monarchs in the State, and prelates in the Church; for he hated all whom he was required to ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh

... grave doubts as to the advisability of establishing civil governments in Cebu, Bohol and Batangas. In the first of these places the people were sullen and ugly. In the second there was a marked disinclination on the part of leading citizens to accept public office. There had been a little scattering rifle fire on the outskirts of the capital of the third very shortly before our arrival there, ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... bore the misery of last night—If you had goodness enough to see him in prison—And then begged me to hasten to you. I told him he must be more himself first—He promised me he would; and, bating a few sullen intervals, he became composed and easy. And then I left him; but not without an attendant; a servant in the prison, whom I hired to wait upon him. 'Tis an hour since we parted: I was prevented in my haste, to be the ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore

... they were particularly jealous of any inspection at Oppau, the site of the wonderful Haber synthetic ammonia plant. Lieut. McConnel, of the U.S. Navy, tells us:[1] "Upon arrival at the plant the Germans displayed a polite but sullen attitude. They seemed willing to afford the opportunity of a cursory inspection, but strongly objected to a detailed examination. On the third day of the visit the writer was informed that his presence had become a source of serious objection and that if his ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden

... Creatures, I have heard the call Ye to each other make; I see The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; My heart is at your festival, My head hath it's coronal, 40 The fullness of your bliss, I feel—I feel it all. Oh evil day! if I were sullen While the Earth herself is adorning, This sweet May-morning, And the Children are pulling, On every side, In a thousand vallies far and wide, Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm, And the Babe leaps up on his mother's arm:— I hear, ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth

... the Asas continued to persuade him and to twit him with cowardice, until at length the Fenris Wolf said, with a sullen growl: ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton

... curious to note how the old English practice of settling disputes with nature's weapons has taken root in Australia. It would 'gladden the sullen souls' of the defunct gladiators to watch two lads, whose fathers had never trodden England's soil, pull off their jackets and go to work "hammer and tongs," with all the savage silence ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood

... and excluded, Frivolous, sullen, moping, angry, affected, dishearten'd, atheistical, I know every one of you, I know the sea of ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... in such low spirits that she would not even speak to him, and concluded that the reason was to be sought in the incident of the previous day. Madame Wang seeing Pao-yue in a sullen humour jumped at the surmise that it must be due to Chin Ch'uan's affair of the day before; and so ill at ease did she feel that she heeded him less than ever. Lin Tai-yue, detected Pao-yue's apathy, and presumed that he was out ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... wayward children whom mercy would win over, though harshness might confirm them in their foolish resistance to authority. The Collector seemed to protest, but with gentle courtesy his objections were put aside. He leaned back in his chair, flushed and angry, as one after another, the sullen-looking rebels were fined, and having paid what was demanded, ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... the darkness silence had settled upon the streets of Havre de Grace. They who had trodden, for hours, with burning hearts around the sites of their desecrated homes, retired to the house of some charitable and more fortunate neighbor, to seek such rest as misery may hope. They went with sullen as well as sad brows, and as they passed one house in the village they muttered "curses not loud, but deep." This was the house in which Major Scott had found a refuge for himself and the prisoner, whom all his influence had scarcely been able to protect. To remove him from Havre de ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh

... He knew the chiefs. He was familiar with their language. Though he knew that they were in a state of great exasperation, and that they were preparing to enter upon the war-path, he mounted his horse and rode thither, without even an attendant. The chiefs received him with sullen looks; but they listened ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott



Words linked to "Sullen" :   cloudy, ill-natured



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