Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Spiritless   Listen
adjective
Spiritless  adj.  
1.
Destitute of spirit; wanting animation; wanting cheerfulness; dejected; depressed.
2.
Destitute of vigor; wanting life, courage, or fire. "A men so faint, so spiritless, So dull, so dead in lock, so woebegone."
3.
Having no breath; extinct; dead. "The spiritless body."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Spiritless" Quotes from Famous Books



... way, the pleasure of the jockey in setting up the tail of the horse artificially. If I had a horse with a tail not able to sit up, I should feed the horse, and curry him into good spirits, and let him set up his own tail. When I see a poor, spiritless horse going by with an artificially set-up tail, it is only a signal of distress. I desire to be surrounded only by healthy, vigorous plants and trees, which require constant cutting-in and management. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... Mathias are also adduced by Dr. Drake as examples of poets who have gained much by Old Norse borrowings, but these borrowings are invariably scenes from a chamber of horrors. It occurs to me that perhaps Dr. Drake had begun to tire of the spiritless echoes of the classical schools, and that he fondly hoped that such shrieks and groans as those he admired in this essay would satisfy his cravings for better things in poetry. But the critic had no adequate knowledge of the way ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby

... undertake, was better than to aid an opposition utterly nerveless and servile and altogether devoid of so much as the desire for efficient action. It was no time to stay with the party of weakness; it was right to strengthen rather than to hamper a man so pacific and spiritless as Mr. Jefferson; to show a readiness to forward even his imperfect expedients; to display a united and indignant, if not quite a hostile front to Great Britain, rather (p. 055) than to exhibit a tame and friendly feeling towards her. It was ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... otherwise; but I have erred, I have misjudged. I thought that your Gods were false; puny creations of a nerveless brain; but they are strong, I own their power! It may be that the great ones of old have wearied of our spiritless race, and abandoned us. So perchance you may be wise to turn to the new-comers!" Her voice failed her, but as they knelt by her side her hands wandered over their heads and lingered with a caressing movement among Hilda's locks. She seemed to have forgotten Jean, whom she doubtless believed to ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous

... Europe, family, that is, hereditary riches, marked with titles and symbols from the sovereign, is the chief source of distinction. In England, more regard is paid to present opulence and plenty. Each practice has its advantages and disadvantages. Where birth is respected, unactive, spiritless minds remain in haughty indolence, and dream of nothing but pedigrees and genealogies: the generous and ambitious seek honour and authority, and reputation and favour. Where riches are the chief idol, corruption, venality, rapine prevail: arts, manufactures, commerce, ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume

... say, of every one of these neighbours. There they were, every day and all the days, just the same, echoing his own stagnation. They pained him all round the top and back of his head; they made his legs and arms weary and spiritless. The air was tasteless by reason of them. He ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... by his appearance at that moment, as usual, with a child in either hand, and a very sad picture it was, so mournful and spiritless was his countenance, with the hectic tint of decay evident on each thin cheek, and those two fair healthful creatures clinging to him, thoughtless of their past loss, unconscious of that which impended. Little Owen, after one good stare, evidently ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... And for the moment one would hardly have recognized the sallow, spiritless face, that with all the delicacy of boyhood still, at times looked so exceedingly old. "No, no, Mr. Halifax, who ever heard of a man beginning ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... presentiment that their divinities were dead, and that there was nothing left for them to do but rejoin them. Even at this period of confusion, when the catastrophe of 1848 was calculated to give them a momentary hope of the return of the Bourbons, they showed themselves spiritless and indifferent, speaking of rushing into the melee, yet never quitting their hearths ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... incessantly denounced the "shiftlessness" of letting a new threshing machine stand unprotected in the open, he eventually built a shed for it. When she sniffed contemptuously at his notion of fencing a hog corral with sod walls, he made a spiritless beginning on the structure—merely to "show his temper," as she put it—but in the end he went off quietly to town and bought enough barbed wire to complete the fence. When the first heavy rains came ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... and at first the popular favor was entirely on the side of Eric, while Montagu found few or none to back him. But he fought with a fire and courage which soon won applause; and as Eric, on the other hand, was random and spiritless, the cry was soon pretty fairly divided ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar

... miles along the shore of the lake, and found the soil fertile and generally well cultivated, especially with the vine, though there were tracks apparently too marshy to be put to any agricultural purpose. We met now and then a flock of sheep, watched by sallow-looking and spiritless men and boys, who, we took it for granted, would soon perish of malaria, though, I presume, they never spend their nights in the immediate vicinity of the lake. I should like to inquire whether animals suffer from the bad qualities of the air. The lake is not nearly so beautiful ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... as she talked, naturally and with ease, and before she had finished the first page of the story her listener had settled herself comfortably among her pillows, a look of interest on her usually spiritless face. ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd

... which begins "To Fanny fair could I impart," &c., it is most exact measure, and yet, let them both be sung before a real critic, one above the biases of prejudice, but a thorough judge of nature,—how flat and spiritless will the last appear, how trite, and lamely methodical, compared with the wild warbling cadence, the heart-moving melody of the first!—This is particularly the case with all those airs which end with a hypermetrical ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... representing the expedition of William the Conqueror, is curious and valuable as an historical monument, though it cannot be proved to be contemporary. As a work of art it is singularly spiritless, and devoid of merit of any kind. One of the fancy figures on the border reveals the indelicacy of the ladies (a queen, perhaps, and her handmaidens) who wrought it in a way which would be startling to any one who had taken the manners and morals of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... left it a youth, filled with all the aspirations, the fire, the courage, the faith, of a lofty and spiritual temper. He returned to it a man aged before his time, worn, weary, crushed, spiritless, with ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida

... empty library and paused at the open door of the room beyond. The somber light from the two tall windows fell upon the figure of the girl. She was sitting before Andrew Bolton's desk, her head upon her folded arms. Something in the spiritless droop of her shoulders and the soft dishevelment of her fair hair suggested weariness—sleep, perhaps. But as the young man hesitated on the threshold the sound of a muffled sob escaped the quiet figure. He turned noiselessly ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley

... the green garth, and sometimes die there, I did not see much of the Canons; but the cats seemed to me very sad-depressed, nostalgic even, I might describe them, if there had not been something more languid, something faded and spiritless about their habit. It was not that they quarrelled. I heard none of those long- drawn wails, gloomy yet mellow soliloquies, with which our cats usher in the crescent moon or hymn her when she swims at the full: there lacked even that comely resignation we may see ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett

... his regular contributions to the Courier in 1811-12 are not only vastly inferior to his articles of a dozen years before in the Morning Post but fall sensibly short of the level of the letters of 1809, from which extract has just been made. Their tone is spiritless, and they even lack distinction of style. Their very subjects, and the mode of treating them, appear to show a change in Coleridge's attitude towards public affairs if not in the very conditions of his journalistic employment. They have much more of the character of newspaper ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill

... into the spirit of an author, even into the spirit of a game; and it makes all the difference both to us and to that into which we enter. A game without any spirit is a poor affair; and association in which there is no spirit falls to pieces; and a spiritless undertaking is sure to be a failure. On the other hand, the book which is meaningless to the unsympathising reader is full of life and suggestion to the one who enters into the spirit of the writer; the man who enters into the spirit of the music finds a spring ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward

... and watery, the subject is nervous, dropsical, consumptive and derangement of the important functions follows almost invariably. Excessive intellectual activity often produces weak state of the system, and the person thus affected becomes languid, spiritless, and an easy prey to disease. This mental cause and its bodily results may be classified in the following order. Mental Cause: EXCESSIVE MENTAL EXERTION, which produces waste of ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... upon me as physical weakness increased. The grand and massive scenery which, on the upward journey, had aroused every enthusiastic impulse of my nature, was now tame and spiritless. My thoughts were turned in upon myself—upon the dreadful fate which apparently lay just before me—and the possible happiness of the existence beyond. All doubt of immortality fled in the light of present realities. So vivid were my conceptions of the future that at times I longed ...
— Thirty-Seven Days of Peril - from Scribner's Monthly Vol III Nov. 1871 • Truman Everts

... leads in rows, full to the brim with the morning's milk. At the further end the great churn could be seen revolving, and its slip-slopping heard—the moving power being discernible through the window in the form of a spiritless horse walking in a circle and driven by ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... hours in the glorious entertainment of flying. On the third, he soared across middle France, and within sight of the snow-clad Alps. These vigorous exercises gave him restful sleep; he recovered almost wholly from the spiritless anemia of his first awakening. And whenever he was not in the air, and awake, Lincoln was assiduous in the cause of his amusement; all that was novel and curious in contemporary invention was brought to him, until at last his appetite for novelty ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells

... expired the same evening. The hill near Kandy, on which the official residences of the Governor and Colonial Secretary are built, is covered in many places with the deserted nests of the white ants (termites), and these are the favourite retreats of the sluggish and spiritless cobra, which watches from their apertures the toads and lizards on which it preys. Here, when I have repeatedly come upon them, their only impulse was concealment; and on one occasion, when a cobra of considerable length could ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... forlornest of all created animals when it rains. Who can help laughing at sight of a flock of them huddled up under lee of a barn, limp, draggled, spiritless, shifting from one leg to the other, with their silly heads hanging inert to right or left, looking as if they would die for want of a yawn? One sees just such groups of other two-legged creatures in parlors, under similar circumstances. The truth is, a hen's life at best ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson

... Lady Canning is not satisfied with Stapleton's book, particularly with that part of it in which he attempts to answer Lord Grey's speech, which she thinks poor and spiritless; he is not disposed to be very severe on Lord Grey, being in a manner connected with him. She is persuaded that that speech contributed to kill Canning; his feelings were deeply wounded that not one of his friends said ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... fancied I beheld the man who "drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night." That messenger, I am sure, could not have presented a visage more pale, more spiritless than my Helvetian. Recollecting that he had served in the Swiss guards, I was the less at a loss to account for his extreme agitation. "In what part of the chateau were you, Jean," said I, "when these balls were aimed at the windows?"——"There was my post," replied ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... regiment, which was just leaving for the lake on its usual road-mending detail, stood in spiritless silence to see the artillery pass; their Major, Whiting, as well as the sullen rank and file, seeming still to feel the disgrace of Cherry Valley, where their former colonel lost his silly life, and Major Stacia was taken, and still remained ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... to counsel, false of faith, Thoughtless, spiritless, or careless, changing course with every breath, Or the man who scorns his rival—if a prince should choose a foe, Ripe for meeting and defeating, certes he would choose ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold

... countenance, and, with the most polished and kindly tone, she asked to see Mr Root's own children. Mr Root looked silly, and Mrs Root distressed. The vapid and worn-out joke that their family was so large, that it boasted of the number of two hundred and fifty, fell spiritless to the ground; and disappointment, and even a slight shade of despondence, came over the ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... had forfeited the right to take any interest in June Tolliver. His nature was to look always for the easiest way. He never wanted trouble with anybody. Essentially he was peace-loving even to the point of being spiritless. To try to slip back into people's good will by means of the less robust virtues would be just ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine

... modern inventions and various processes, added to the general cheapening of books, led to its disuse. Its present application seems to be almost solely to diplomas and testimonials, and in point of quality, usually as poor and spiritless as the incapacity of most of its professors ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley

... argument is a different thing—it seems to me that the sun leaves the landscape, that I think away the whole vivacity and spirit of my original conception, and that the results are cold, tame, and spiritless. It is the difference between a written oration and one bursting from the unpremeditated exertions of the speaker, which have always something the air of enthusiasm and inspiration. I would not have young authors imitate ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... father and son were men of very different tastes and proclivities; and the former never understood the latter. In fact, Edward the Second was a man who did not belong to his century; and such men always have a hard lot. His love of quiet, and hatred of war, were, in the eyes of his father, spiritless meanness; while his musical tastes and his love of animals went beyond womanish weakness, and were looked upon as absolute vices. But perhaps to the nobles the worst features of his character were two which, ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt

... Plotinus, the father of all mystical philosophy in Europe (unless, as he himself would have wished, we give that honour to Plato), mapped out the upward road as follows:—At the bottom of the hill is the sphere of the "merely many"—of material objects viewed in disconnection, dull, and spiritless. This is a world which has no real existence; it may best be called "not-being" ("ein lauteres Nichts," as Eckhart says), and as the indeterminate, it can only be apprehended by a corresponding indeterminateness in the soul. The soul, however, always adds some form and determination ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge

... urine. Damie, dim. of dame. Dang, pret. of ding. Danton, v. daunton. Darena, dare not. Darg, labor, task, a day's work. Darklins, in the dark. Daud, a large piece. Daud, to pelt. Daunder, saunter. Daunton, to daunt. Daur, dare. Daurna, dare not. Daur't, dared. Daut, dawte, to fondle. Daviely, spiritless. Daw, to dawn. Dawds, lumps. Dawtingly, prettily, caressingly. Dead, death. Dead-sweer, extremely reluctant. Deave, to deafen. Deil, devil. Deil-haet, nothing (Devil have it). Deil-ma-care, Devil may ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... best pools in the river for fishing, could point out the best covers for game, knew where to find the first bird's-nest, and could climb the loftiest forest tree to obtain the young of the hawk or crow with more certainty of success than her gay companions. Their sports were dull and spiritless without ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie

... of those days thus hidden from sight, only occasionally lifting my head to peer out at the gray, desolate sea, or watch the dim, mist-shrouded coast line. It was all of a color—a gloomy, dismal scene, the continuance of which left me homesick and spiritless. Never have I felt more hopeless and alone. It seemed useless to keep up the struggle; with every league we penetrated deeper into the desolate wilderness, and now I retained not even one friend on ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish

... in her beautiful eyes now. There were not even tears. The blow had fallen. Fate had caught up with her. Its merciless onrush had overwhelmed her. She was crushed. She was broken under its sledge-hammer blow. She stood drooping, utterly, utterly broken and spiritless before the man's swift, brief indictment ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum

... smiling disdainfully, he remained immovable, with a firm heart, not permitting his tongue to accuse himself or any one else. And so at length, without having either made any confession, or being convicted of anything, he was condemned to death with the spiritless partner of his sufferings. He was then led away to death, protesting against the iniquity of the times; imitating in his conduct the celebrated Stoic of old, Zeno, who, after he had been long subjected to torture in order to extract from ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... the old buoyant energy, and he had lost the zest of muscular exertion which had done so much to sweeten his labour in the fields. It was as if a clog fettered his simplest no less than his greatest emotion; and his enjoyment of nature had grown dull and spiritless, like his affection for his family. With his sisters he was aware that a curious constraint had become apparent, and it was no longer possible for him to meet his mother with the gay deference she still exacted. There were times, even, when he grew almost suspicious ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... Spain to France during the twelve years that preceded the rising of 1808 are marked by acts of folly and unmanly complaisance that promised utterly to degrade a once proud and sensitive people. They were the work of the senile and spiritless King, Charles IV., of his intriguing consort, and, above all, of her paramour, the all-powerful Minister Godoy. Of an ancient and honourable family, endowed with a fine figure, courtly address, and unscrupulous arts, this man had wormed himself into the royal confidence; ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... forgotten myself as to venture to think of applying for temporary assistance; however—" Dandy Joe began to shuffle off in a spiritless way, when— ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham

... above two years, but now am endeavouring to have all my books ready and perfect against the Parliament comes, that upon examination I may be in condition to value myself upon my perfect doing of my own duty. At noon home to dinner, where my wife mighty musty,—[Dull, heavy, spiritless]—but I took no notice of it, but after dinner to the office, and there with Mr. Harper did another good piece of work about my late collection of the accounts of the Navy presented to the Parliament at their last session, which was left unfinished, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... the republican laid upon the table his huge hand, and tightly clenched his fingers as though he held between them the imaginary throat of the aristocracy of France; "but," continued he, "much as I hate a gentleman, ten times more strongly do I hate, despise, and abhor the subservient crew of spiritless slaves who uphold the power of the masters, who domineer over them, who will not accept the sweet gift of liberty, who are kicked, and trodden on, and spat upon, and will not turn again; who will not rise against their tyrants, even when the means of doing so are brought to ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... there would be no point in keeping the incident for the benefit of Attila. That Gunnar should first detect the imposture, and should then recognise the heart of his brother, is a fine piece of heroic imagination of a primitive kind. It would have been wholly inept and spiritless to transfer this from Gunnar to Attila. The poet of Atlaml shows that he understands what he is about. The more his work is scrutinised, the more evident becomes the sobriety of his judgment. His dexterity in the disposing of his ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker

... present at one of these colloquies. He was a plebeian himself, and this glimpse of the petty lives of the poor, this peep into sordid existences of idle sloth and spiritless resignation, stirred all the blood in his veins. In an instant, as he stood between the two old crones, with their drab faces and no outlook on life save that of the streets, now gloomy and empty, now full of sunshine and crowded traffic, the young man learned ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France

... of the American workingman will cause him to patiently endure all this is to brand him a spiritless slave, deserving not only slavery, but the shackles and the knout. He will not endure it much longer, and when his patience reaches its utmost limit— when he tires of filling his belly with the East wind supplied him in such plentitude ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... in danger. France's object has been and is to place Germany completely hors de combat. Her mortal enemy is in her power. France's first desire is not money or territory, but just security. France does not fear Germany in her present spiritless, unarmed state. France does not fear Germany at all. But the fruit of victory which she desires is that she should put it entirely out of the power of Germany to return to the struggle. The League of Nations is being arranged to stop warfare among all races. ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham

... pleasure in canvassing,' said he. 'I canvass poor men accustomed to be paid for their votes, and who get nothing from me but what the baron would call a parsonical exhortation. I'm in the thick of the most spiritless crew in the kingdom. Our southern men will not compare with the men of the north. But still, even among these fellows, I see danger for the country if our commerce were to fail, if distress came on them. There's always danger in disunion. That's what the rich won't ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Don Quixote exclaimed, "Art thou on the gallows, thief, or at thy last moment, to use pitiful entreaties of that sort? Cowardly, spiritless creature, art thou not in the very place the fair Magalona occupied, and from which she descended, not into the grave, but to become Queen of France; unless the histories lie? And I who am here beside thee, may I not ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... service without which the Government could have been conducted with neither efficiency nor honesty. The politicians were not the only persons at fault; almost as much improper pressure for appointments is due to mere misplaced sympathy, and to the spiritless inefficiency which seeks a Government office as a haven for the incompetent. An amusing feature of office seeking is that each man desiring an office is apt to look down on all others with the same object as forming an objectionable class with which ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... now what she had been to me; how she had made my great loneliness endurable; how, with her innocent, fearless nature, she had tried to rouse me from spiritless and unmanly dejection. And I could never hope to please her now by proving that I had learnt the lesson; she had gone from me to some world infinitely removed, in which I was forgotten, and my pitiful trials and struggles could be nothing ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey

... warned me that I was intruding on a household primitive in their hours, as in every thing else, and I rose to take my leave. But I could not be altogether parted with yet. It seems that they had found me a most amusing guest; while, to my own conception, I had been singularly spiritless; but the little anecdotes which were trite to me had been novelties to them. Fashion has a charm even for philosophers; and the freaks and follies of the high-toned sons and daughters of fashion—who wore down my gentle mother's frame, drained my showy father's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... disheartened Costa Ricans, who showed them that they might easily strangle the filibuster force by seizing the ill-guarded Rio San Juan. Led by Spencer, they secretly cut a road through the forest on the Costa Rican side, found the forts scarcely watched by a few spiritless sick men, and overwhelmed and scattered them without difficulty. At the same time they surprised and seized all the Transit steamers on the river and lake, so that thenceforward communication with the Atlantic was closed to General ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... like a choir-boy moving the Gospel from one side to the other. New inscription of Jansoulet's signature upon a slip, which the governor pockets with a negligent air and which operates on his person a sudden transformation. The Paganetti who was so humble and spiritless just now, goes away with the assurance of a man worth four hundred thousand francs, while Monpavon, carrying it even higher than usual, follows after him in his steps, and watches over him with a ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... now went on, but it was a spiritless affair. Every ear was turned to hear the muffled roar of the voices outside, which every moment increased in power as the mighty ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley

... will take care of me for the sake of his bird! That smiling, spiritless, indolent-minded man would rule Egypt! Am I then so much wiser than other folks, or do none but fools come to consult Hekt? But Rameses chose Ani to represent him! perhaps because he thinks that those who are not particularly clever are not particularly dangerous. If that is ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... is furnished by continual wars and plunder. Nor could you so easily persuade them to cultivate the ground, or to await the return of the seasons and produce of the year, as to provoke the foe and to risk wounds and death: since stupid and spiritless they account it, to acquire by their sweat what they ...
— Tacitus on Germany • Tacitus

... about Antha," replied Katherine. "Now we've got Anthony where we understand him; but Antha is still the spiritless cry baby she was when she came. She hasn't a particle of backbone. I'm getting discouraged about her." She pulled a patch of moss from the rock beside her and ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey

... in the children's study with a newspaper and be able to tell one everything when she came out; debates in Parliament, and I don't know what all. She was as good as a mother to her sisters and brother. But there never were such good children. I used to think them spiritless, they were so different to any children I had ever seen. In part, I set it down to a fancy Mr. Bronte had of not letting them have flesh-meat to eat. It was from no wish for saving, for there was plenty and even waste in the house, with young servants and no mistress to see after them; but ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson

... with their neighbors but also condemned his perpetuation of the old feud as unchristian. Hence it was a cause for much rejoicing to his mind to reflect that one male Howe at least survived to bolster up a spineless, spiritless, and decadent generation. To love one's enemies was a weak creed. Martin neither loved them nor pretended to. Never, never, would he forgive the insults the Websters had heaped upon his family. He wished no positive harm ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett

... her part she went through it at rehearsal in such a spiritless way that Laura could not have failed to remark it if she were not occupied with ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne

... to be dull and spiritless. Be active, sprightly, witty! Yours is not the way to attach your husband ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... crossed the Potomac, and after trifling away over one month's time, at last, on the 15th of July, got within nine miles of Winchester and Johnston's Army. Barring a spiritless reconnaissance, Patterson—who was a fervent Breckinridge-Democrat in politics, and whose Military judgment, as we shall see, was greatly influenced, if not entirely controlled, by his Chief of staff, Fitz John Porter—never got any nearer ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... leap from the car with the spring of anticipation that Bob did, and noticing his spiritless step his friend once more ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett

... and the subsequent progress of the Expedition which had so ignominiously failed, have no interest for the reader of Gordon's life. It failed to accomplish the object which alone justified its being sent, and, it must be allowed, that it accepted its failure in a very tame and spiritless manner. Even at the moment of the British troops turning their backs on the goal which they had not won, the fate of Gordon himself was unknown, although there could be no doubt as to the main fact that the protracted siege of Khartoum had terminated in its ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... talking in this spiritless, resigned way, complaining only on account of Celine; for, said she, it was enough to make one's heart break to see such an intelligent child obliged to tramp the streets after getting on so well at the Communal School. She could feel too that everybody now kept aloof from them ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... and a blessed relief from sterile legalism and unavailing self-effort—has in our time fallen into evil company and been interpreted by many in such manner as actually to bar men from the knowledge of God. The whole transaction of religious conversion has been made mechanical and spiritless. Faith may now be exercised without a jar to the moral life and without embarrassment to the Adamic ego. Christ may be "received" without creating any special love for Him in the soul of the receiver. The man is "saved," but he is not hungry nor thirsty after God. In fact he is ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer

... You are too spiritless a wife—A mournful tale, mixt with a few kind words, will steal away your soul. The world's too subtle for such goodness. Had I been by, he should have asked your ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore

... and weep, Till the salt current of my tears should sweep My soul, like floating weed, adown a fitful sleep, A lingering half-night through. Then when the mocking bells did wake My hollow eyes to twilight gray, I would address my spiritless limbs to pray, And nerve myself with stripes to meet the weary day, And labour for thy sake. Until by vigils, fasts, and tears, The flesh was grown so spare and light, That I could slip its mesh, and flit by night O'er sleeping sea and land to thee—or Christ—till morning light. ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley

... the American Encyclopedia. I wish to complete the set, and must, therefore, know the deficiencies. I have seen none of your acquaintance save the Biddles. To-morrow (if I should in the mean time receive a letter from you) I shall add something. You are the two most spiritless young persons I ever knew. Pray muster up energy enough to do something more than lounge on sofas. Go on Sunday to Ludlow's. Ask some of your friends often to dine with you. There is a little boy right opposite my window who has ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... so faint, so spiritless. So dull, so dead in look, so woebegone, Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night, And would have told him, half ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various

... degrees, and waiting at the hand of time for those fruits of generosity and courtship, which he since often reproached himself with having gathered much too green, when, yielding to the inability to resist him, and overborne by desires, he had wreaked his passion on a mere lifeless, spiritless body, dead to all purpose of joy, since taking none, it ought to be supposed incapable of giving any. This is, however, certain; my heart never thoroughly forgave him the manner in which I had fallen to him, although, in point of interest, ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... Places unintelligible; whereby the mind instead of being Raised and spirited in Singing The Praises of Almighty God and thereby being prepared to Attend to other Parts of Divine Service is Damped and made Spiritless in the Performance of the Duty at least such is the Tendency of the use of that ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... Cretans, answered him again: "O Thaos, now is there no man to blame, that I wot of, for we all are skilled in war. Neither is there any man that spiritless fear holds aloof, nor any that gives place to cowardice, and shuns the cruel war, nay, but even thus, methinks, must it have seemed good to almighty Kronion, even that the Achaians should perish nameless here, far away from Argos. But Thoas, seeing that of old ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... continued. The nightly admission of air by lifting the paper covering was insufficient to maintain the imprisoned creatures. They were happy, though captive, while in a mimic ocean, but miserable in a dark dungeon. Languid and spiritless, they lay supine, or crawled listlessly and aimlessly about. This would not do, and so light was again admitted freely to all but one side of the tank; there, a screen of yellow paper intercepted the direct rays of the sun, while upon the top they fell through ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... and more since the friends had met; and each secretly wondered how they had ever come to be friends. Sylvia had a country, raw, spiritless look to Mrs. Brunton's eye; Molly was loud and talkative, and altogether distasteful to Sylvia, trained in daily companionship with Hester to appreciate soft slow speech, and ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell

... indignant, and ready to conspire among themselves for the assumption of their disputed or their defrauded liberties. They industriously dispersed their remonstrance, and the king replied by a declaration; but an attack is always more vigorous than a defence. The declaration is spiritless, and evidently composed under suppressed feelings, which, perhaps, knew not how to shape themselves. The "Remonstrance" was commanded everywhere to be burnt; and the effect which it produced on the people ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... you derive no nourishment, and certainly you derive no exercise; for, being a soft, weak, spiritless thing, it offers no resistance whatever, and it looks a good deal like a streak of solidified fog and tastes like the place where an indisposed carrot spent the night. Next to our summer squash it is the feeblest imitation that ever masqueraded in a skin ...
— Eating in Two or Three Languages • Irvin S. Cobb

... campaign promised to be spiritless and without incident until John Van Buren, in his extended canvass for attorney-general, freely expressed his opinion of Horatio Seymour. Van Buren was not an admirer of that statesman. He had supported him with warmth in 1862, but after the development ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... agreeable qualities so well fitted her to adorn. Ere long, however, it was surmised that Victorine found herself not quite so happy in her union with the object of her first affection as she had anticipated she should be; she was pale, spiritless, and absent; sometimes started when addressed, as if only accustomed to the accents of authority unmingled with kindness; her cheeks were hollow, her eyes sunken and ray-less, and her smile was the very mockery of mirth; evidently she was not happy, and the apparently affectionate ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various

... unkind, objectionable. What are we to do? Many people let the whole tangle go, and just creep along, doing what they do not like, feeling unappreciated and misunderstood, just hoping to avoid active collisions and unpleasant scenes. That is a very spiritless business! What we ought to do is to find points of contact, even at the cost of some repression of our own views and aims. And we ought too to nourish a fine life of our own, to look into the lives of other people, which can be done perhaps best in large books, ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson

... could do nothing. He lingered near the mouth of the Chesapeake for a few days still and then sailed away to New York to refit. At the most critical hour of the whole war a British fleet, crippled and spiritless, was hurrying to a protecting port and the fleurs-de-lis waved unchallenged on the American coast. The action of Graves spelled the doom of Cornwallis. The most potent fleet ever gathered in those waters cut him off from rescue ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong

... extinct. The mien of majesty that ennobled all; the winning smile that rewarded the rifleman at his practice and the sapper at his toil; the inciting word that reanimated the recruit and recalled to the veteran the glories of Sicilian struggles—all vanished—all seemed spiritless and dull, and the armorer clinked his forge as if he were the heartless ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... lake. An attack upon Sackett's Harbour, in the absence of their fleet at Niagara, was resolved upon, so as to destroy "the forts, the arsenals, and the dock-yard, where the Americans had a frigate almost ready for launching, and several other vessels; but when this wavering and spiritless general reconnoitred the place, he would not venture an attack, and returned across the water towards Kingston. Then he changed his mind and went back to Sackett's Harbour; and (but not without more wavering and loss of time) our troops, about 750 strong, were landed. The Americans ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... Consum'd by fevers, spiritless, forlorn, Blasted by apoplexy's dreadful rage, My bleeding heart by keen remembrance torn, I past my prime in premature ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham

... the Imperial troops at Freiburg in Saxony, and by Ferdinand of Brunswick, who gained several petty advantages over the French, defeating Soubise at Wilhelmsthal and the Saxons on the Lutterbach. The spiritless war on this side was finally terminated during the course of this year (1762) by a peace between ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... for his old leader made the shock intensely painful. It was the first great wrench of his life, the first gap which the angel Death had made in his circle, and he felt numbed, and beaten down, and spiritless. Well, well! I believe it was good for him and for many others in like case, who had to learn by that loss that the soul of man cannot stand or lean upon any human prop, however strong, and wise, and good; but that ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... a large city in Hungary, suddenly grew sick two years ago, shortly after his father had suffered an attack of apoplexy and paralysis of the right side. He is spiritless, restless, not able to work, cannot use his right arm to write, is powerless to put his attention on anything, sleeps badly, etc. No treatment has any helpful effect. He is advised to seek distraction in Paris, but this, too, is of no avail. Then, after months ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... in Pall Mall, a mameluke's saddle was put on the vicious creature, who was led in, looking in a white heat of fury, wicked, with danger in his eyes, when, behold, the bey's chief officer sprung on his back and rode for half an hour as easily as a lady would amble on the most spiritless pony that ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various

... that mischievous boys had been mounting him on his horse, which needed only one slap to make it go a mile; but she was a spiritless woman, and replied indifferently, "You're ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie

... while in raising the more than equivocal character of his hero, by placing him in the picture-gallery of the Queen of Carthage, and giving him leisure to contemplate and to criticise, and poetically to describe to his silent and spiritless lounger-friend many noble and many touching works. In this passage we also obtain the great Latin poet's opinion of the ameliorating effect of "collections." The hero of the AEneid knew immediately he was among an amiable people. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... only go on setting him down for lax and spendthrift, incapable of knowing his own mind. He would be sorry, indeed, for her to guess how matters really stood with him. The truth was, he had fallen a prey to utter despondency, was become so spiritless that it puzzled even himself. He thought he could trace some of the mischief back to the professional knocks and jars Ocock's action had brought down on him: to hear one's opinion doubted, one's skill questioned, was the tyro's portion; he was too old to treat such insolence with ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... his uncle had been out round the farm. The boy was somewhat spiritless and weary-looking; he could not be pronounced to be ill or really weak now, yet there was something wanting in him which ought to have been there, making him more ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield

... his breath and beckoned to him a droopy-mustached, droopy-shouldered rider who was circling the herd in a droopy, spiritless manner and ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower

... rushing; or like the air, Benighted with the wing of the wild dove, Sweeping miles broad o'er the far southwestern woods With mighty glimpses of the central light — Or may be nothing — bodiless, spiritless." ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)

... "The Bible in Spain," though being nearer home they had to be more modest in their peculiarities. He establishes Welsh enthusiasm, hospitality and suspiciousness, in a very friendly manner. The poet-innkeeper is an excellent sketch of a mild but by no means spiritless type. He is accompanied by a man with a bulging shoe who drinks ale and continually ejaculates: "The greatest poet in the world"; for example, when Borrow asks: "Then I have the honour to be seated ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

... visualized the episode for him. In his mind there was an element of picturesqueness in that joint page of Holton-Montgomery history. He wondered whether Phil looked like her mother. Phil was pretty enough, though in repose she seemed rather spiritless. She was swinging herself in the swivel chair, carelessly, and since his reference to the old scandal he saw or imagined that he saw her manner change from courteous interest to a somewhat frosty indifference. His ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... want of real inner strength. How many faces one sees which, in ordinary circumstances, are comfortable, self-asserting, sufficient, and even bold; the lines of which, under difficulties, collapse and become mean, spiritless, and insignificant. There are faces which, in their usual form, seem to bluster with prosperity, but which the loss of a dozen points at whist will reduce to that currish aspect which reminds one of a dog-whip. Mr. Camperdown's countenance, when Lord ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... aside, what is more inept than the verse Harsh and troublesome, by Jupiter!, however Catullan. Nevertheless, Borbonius thought his epigram concluded elegantly in that line because he found in Catullus a similar one.[39] But, leaving aside such spiritless imitators, one can truly affirm of those ideas that conclude epigrams that there is a good deal of elegance in them when they are themselves distinguished and nicely cohere with the preceding chain of thought. ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole

... godfather to one of Lady Dawdley's boys, and hers is the only house where I am allowed to smoke unmolested; but I have never been able to admire Dawdley, a sly, sournois, spiritless, lily-livered fellow, that took his name off all his clubs the year ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... a man, so faint, so spiritless, So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone, Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night. And would have told him half his ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... a candidate canvassing in his own behalf, the campaign was devoid of exciting incidents. The personal canvass of Douglas was indeed almost the only thing that kept the campaign from being dull and spiritless.[860] Republican politicians were somewhat at a loss to understand why he should manoeuvre in a section devoted beyond question to Lincoln. Indeed, a man far less keen than Douglas would have taken note of the popular current in New England. Why, then, this expenditure of time and effort! ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... The spiritless one shook her head. But no. The only other customers of the house thus far had been the postman and two soldiers. The party might have passed. She and her parents were too busy to take note of what went on outside. A faint chill of desolation touched me. It would have been cheering ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... trenches. Indeed, except for this, the tiresome monotony of life was most irksome at this period. Day after day the incessant rain poured down. The supplies were bad, scanty, and irregular; the hospitals crowded with sick; field-sports impracticable; books there were none; and a dulness and spiritless depression prevailed on every side. Those who were actively engaged around Ciudad Rodrigo had, of course, the excitement and interest which the enterprise involved: but even there the works made slow ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... of government even more radical in the direction of Democracy; two wholly new Republics added to the list, one being China, the oldest and most populous country in the world, the other little Portugal, long accounted the most spiritless and unprogressive nation in Europe; a shift from autocratic British rule toward democratic home rule through all the vast region of South Africa; a similar shift in much-troubled Ireland; Socialism reaching out toward power through all central Europe; Woman Suffrage taking possession ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... steers and all horses object to the branding process. Even the spiritless little Indian ponies, accustomed to many ingenious kinds of abuse, rebel at this. A meek-eyed mule, on whom humility rests as an all-covering robe, must be properly roped ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford

... fancy, but I thought that in the look of mingled surprise and something like reproach which he gave me there was also a trace of grateful pleasure. But he said, in that tone of spiritless humility these poor souls ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... for somebody more charitable to himself than he himself could be. He had experienced a mean, spiritless happiness in noting the honors which the widow was heaping on his memory. Now he is furiously in love with that widow. He sallies from the hotel in haste ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern

... the women squabble terribly over their warrants of precedence: the gradations thereof would puzzle even the chamberlain of some petty German court. The Anglo-Indian ladies of Bombay struck me for the most part as spiritless. They had a faded, washed-out look; and I do not wonder at it, considering the life they lead. They get up about nine, breakfast and pay or receive visits, then tiffen, siesta, a drive to the Apollo Bunder, to hear the band, or to meet their husbands at the Fort, dine and bed—that ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins

... his best speed to the line of waiting horses. Slowing to a walk so as not to scare them, though as he discovered on examination most of them looked too bony and spiritless for that, he approached and carefully inspected the bunch. He took his time in the selection: the more haste in choosing a mount might prove less speed in the end. He tightened the saddle-girths and ran a finger along the head straps of the bridle of the horse picked to judge ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd

... form The secret ambush.[21] No. The sound of war Is as the voice of destiny to thee. Doubtless the course is safer far, to range 285 Our numerous host, and if a man have dared Dispute thy will, to rob him of his prize. King! over whom? Women and spiritless— Whom therefore thou devourest; else themselves Would stop that mouth that it should scoff no more. 290 But hearken. I shall swear a solemn oath. By this same sceptre,[22] which shall never bud, Nor boughs bring forth as once, which having left Its ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... that put him still more out of humour. "Never mind, don't try. Don't force yourself to smile." He sat down at the table with a weary movement. But his hunger did not seem to be so great, after all, as he only helped himself in a spiritless manner when the steaming dishes were brought in and placed in front of him, and ate in the same manner without ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig

... reports went up to the hovering great ships. The blueskins, said the reports, were spiritless and cowardly. They permitted themselves to be robbed. They kept out of the way. It had been observed that the population was streaming out of the city, fleeing because they feared the ships' landing-parties. The blueskins had abjectly produced all they'd promised ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster

... picturing the sweet face and lithe, active form which he had never seen. And all the while there was stealing about the old house at Stirling a pale, deformed child: small and attenuated in frame—quiet beyond its years, delicate, spiritless, with scarce one charm that would prove its lineage from the young beautiful mother, out of whose ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... the evening dusk, She now went slowly to that small kiosk, Where, pondering alone his impious schemes, MOKANNA waited her—too wrapt in dreams Of the fair-ripening future's rich success, To heed the sorrow, pale and spiritless, That sat upon his victim's downcast brow, Or mark how slow her step, how altered now From the quick, ardent Priestess, whose light bound Came like a spirit's o'er the unechoing ground,— From that wild ZELICA whose every glance Was thrilling fire, whose every ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... a tribe of cowering, toiling, sweat-begrimed, spiritless slaves to lift up their heads, straighten their backs, and throw off the yoke; and he led them forth with songs of victory and shouts of triumph from under the mailed hand and iron bondage of Pharaoh. He fired them with a national spirit, and welded and organised them into ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle

... Spiritless, and utterly indifferent to what his fate might be, Dick Varley rode along with his head drooping, and keeping his seat almost mechanically, while the mettlesome little steed flew on over wave and hollow. Gradually ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne

... see no glimmer of hope anywhere. Yet, she strove numbly against this enveloping despair. She told herself again and again that, somehow, relief would come before the dreaded crisis. The words were spiritless; they brought no conviction. Nevertheless, she kept repeating them mutely to herself, as she trudged drearily ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... have no distinctive literature and no great poets; our leading personage abroad of late seems to be the Honorable "Buffalo Bill" [laughter], and we use our adjectives so recklessly that the polite badinage indulged in toward each other by your New York editors to us seems tame and spiritless. In mental achievement we may not have fully acquired the use of the fork, and are "but in the gristle and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood." We stand toward the East somewhat as country to city cousins; about as New to Old England, only we don't feel half so badly ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... his letter, that they might expect to see their father at home on the following day, which was Saturday. Rendered spiritless by the ill-success of all their endeavours, he had yielded to his brother-in-law's entreaty that he would return to his family, and leave it to him to do whatever occasion might suggest to be advisable for continuing their pursuit. When Mrs. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... us?" exclaimed the stranger, with great vivacity. "Is it the puny and spiritless artisan, or the debased and crippled slave of the counter and the till, or the sallow speculator on morals, who would mete us out our liberty, our happiness, our very feelings by the yard and inch and ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... driving rain, was enough to arouse compassion in the hardest heart: there was something so utterly woebegone in his whole aspect—so weather-beaten, as if he had been rained upon ever since childhood. He seemed humbled to the ground—crushed and spiritless. ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies

... it have been for us to move to Guilford Street. Occasionally in the spiritless tones in which they now spoke on all subjects save the one, my mother and father would discuss the project; but always into the conversation would fall, sooner or later, some loosened thought to stir it to anger, and so the aching months went ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... and all thy plain delights, As dear to thee as once? And have thy joys Lost nothing by comparison with ours? Rude as thou art (for we return'd thee rude And ignorant, except of outward show) I cannot think thee yet so dull of heart And spiritless, as never to regret Sweets tasted here, and left as soon as known. Methinks I see thee straying on the beach, And asking of the surge that bathes thy foot, If ever it has wash'd our distant shore. I see thee weep, and thine are honest tears, A patriot's for his country: thou art sad At thought ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik

... tried to interest her with heavy information of various kinds, but she only smiled absently at that worthy man. Sam Ogilvy and Harry Annan attempted to goad her into one of those lively exchanges of banter in which Rita was entirely capable of taking care of herself. But her smile was spiritless and non-combative; and finally they let her alone and concentrated their torment upon Valerie, who endured it with equanimity and dangerously sparkling eyes, and an occasional lightening retort which kept those young men busy, especially when the epigram ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers

... himself on Stephen's neck, as they met like comrades after a desperate battle. Not one was there who did not claim a grasp of the boy's hand, and who did not pour out welcomes and greetings, while in the midst, the released captive looked, to say the truth, very spiritless, faded, dusty, nay dirty. The court seemed spinning round with him, and the loud welcomes roared in his ears. He was glad that Dennet took one hand, and Giles the other, declaring that he must be led to the ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... little if the student could neither speak nor write Danish correctly, but he must be able to define the finest points in a Latin grammar of more than 1200 pages. Attendance at religious services was compulsory; but the services were cold and spiritless, offering little ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg

... his pack with a spiritless effort and flopped into a chair as though in the last ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood

... spiritless resignation settled down upon the remainder. The most mutinous were quelled, and accepted their unspeakable lot with the ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini

... up to the hovering great ships. The blueskins, said the reports were spiritless and cowardly. They permitted themselves to be robbed. They kept out of the way. It had been observed that the population was streaming out of the city, fleeing because they feared the ships' landing-parties. The blueskins had ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster

... as you say, I cannot complain of this," Kit said in a dull, spiritless tone, "but it comes upon me ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.

... themselves with most remarkable cowardice. This occasioned general dissatisfaction among the Florentines; for they found themselves involved in an expensive war, from which no advantage could be derived. The magistrates complained of these spiritless proceedings to those who had been appointed commissaries to the expedition; but they replied, that the entire evil was chargeable upon the Duke Galeazzo, who possessing great authority and little experience, was unable to suggest useful measures, ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli

... from taking it into account. The primrose suggests to him some new device in classification, and he would be worried by the suggestion of any spiritual significance as an annoying distraction. Viewing all objects 'in disconnection, dead and spiritless,' we ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... reverend father in God began, and with him very unexpectedly began my dissatisfaction. His voice was thick, his delivery spiritless, and his candences ridiculous. His soul was so overlaid with brawn and dignity that, though it heaved, panted, and struggled, it could never once get vent. Speaking through his apoplectic organs, I could not understand myself: it was a mumbling hubbub, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... reference to the following, it must be explained that the first draft of the first part of the Amateur Emigrant, when it reached me about Christmas, had seemed to me, compared to his previous travel papers, a somewhat wordy and spiritless record of squalid experiences, little likely to advance his still only half-established reputation; and I had written to him to that effect, inopportunely enough, with a fuller measure even than usual of the frankness which always marked ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... what he has done it. He is a gambler, a swindler, and, as I believe, a forger and a card-sharper. He has lived upon the wages of the woman he has professed to love. He has shown himself to be utterly spiritless, abominable, and vile. If my clerk in the next room were to slap his face, I do not believe that he would resent it." Sir Harry frowned, and moved his feet rapidly on the floor. "In my thorough respect and regard for you, Sir Harry," continued ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope

... delegates should be elected from Massachusetts. He had partisans in the Assembly, and an informant on the committee to introduce legislation. Every move was reported to him. Never did Sam Adams dissemble more cleverly. So dull and spiritless did public matters seem, that Gage's informant thought it safe to go home on private business. Then Adams acted. Quietly laying his plans, on the morning of the seventeenth of June, 1774, he locked the door ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French

... I give thee sixpence! I will see thee damned first,— Wretch! whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance!— Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded, Spiritless outcast! ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various

... ourselves prepared for anything; the only thing we weren't prepared for was the thing that befell. We had expected 'him' to be offensive, and he wasn't. He was, quite simply, insignificant. He was a South American, a Brazilian, a member of the School of Mines: a poor, undersized, pale, spiritless, apologetic creature, with rather a Teutonic-looking name, Ernest Mayer. His father, or uncle, was Minister of Agriculture, or Commerce, or something, in his native land; and he himself was attached in some nominal capacity to the Brazilian Legation, in the Rue de Teheran, ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland



Words linked to "Spiritless" :   dull, spirited, vivification, apathetic, spiritlessness, spiritedness, unenthusiastic, thin, bloodless, meek, heartless, submissive, animation, brio, dispirited, invigoration



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com