Melancholy, British style

Usage examples of sombre.

Away to the back of the apse sparkled bits of gold and silver, half-seen skirts of velvet and of silk, a distant dazzling of the tabernacle among the sombre surroundings of green verdure.

It had an air of somewhat gloomy respectability, and was presided over by an angular lady whose appearance carried the suggestion that she must be in mourning for a near relation, since she wore a bombasine dress of sombre hue, without frills, or lace, or even a ribbon to lighten its sobriety.

Sugar considers tickling Caddie with a description of her faulty grammar made flesh: a procession of earnest moustachioed policemen, pretty skirts frou-frouing under their sombre overcoats.

During the two mortal hours of suspense, full of sombre thoughts and the most melancholy ideas, I could not help fancying that I was going to be plunged in one of these horrible dens, where the wretched inhabitants feed on idle hopes or become the prey of panic fears.

Blanche Creamer, who had taken such a fancy to him, or a chat with the Widow Rowens, who was very lively in her talk, for all her sombre colors, and reminded him a good deal of same of his earlier friends, the senoritas,--all these were distractions, to be sure, but not enough to keep his fiery spirit from fretting itself in longings for more dangerous excitements.

If to--day it flaunted its tower, its summer-houses, its outbuildings, in tints that the French so well call criard, one might be sure that tomorrow the dark Murray pines, the broad-leafed Moreton Bay fig tree, the inevitable Pinus insignis that dotted the lawn in front of the house, would interpose their rich sombre green between your vision and the brightness of colouring that offended it.

Yet, as soon as Cumshaw fancied he was observed, the mask of his face melted into a smile, and the sombre eyes sparkled with a humor that somehow seemed too real to be assumed.

Elle perce mal les feuillages denses des pruniers et le cantonnement immobile reste sombre.

She was still wearing the red Paisley dress which echoed her complexion so unfortunately, but the Honiton fichu and gold-set diamonds of the evening before lightened the sombre effect.

And now, excited by the near prospect of comparative rest and freedom, I exulted in the idea of exchanging the red--lined roads and yellow mullock heaps, the iron or wooden shanties, the sombre shadeless forest, amid which I had sojourned so long, for the cool streets, the lofty freestone walls, the massed flower thickets, and the unfamiliar luxuries of the City of the Sea.

Theos at once joined him, and the two friends, holding each other fast by the arm, gazed down on the silent, mighty multitude around them,--a huge concourse of the citizens of Al-Kyris, who, strange as this part of their behavior seemed, still paid no heed to the presence of their Laureate, but with pale, rapt faces and anxious, frightened eyes, riveted their attention entirely on the sombre, blackgarmented Prophet whose thin ghostly arms, outstretched above them, appeared to mutely invoke in their behalf some special miracle of mercy.

It is true that a hundred chalets dotted the Alps, or those mountain pasturages which spread themselves a thousand fathoms above the Leman, on the foundation of rock that lay like a wall behind Montreux, shining still with the brightness of a bland even, but all below was fast catching the more sombre colors of the hour.

Black marauders among blithe birds of peace and joy, they watched like sable spirits near the nests, or on some near sea rocks, sombre and alone, blinked evilly at the tall bright cliffs and the lightsome legions nestling there.

THE RIDE Peggy Davidson sat hunched up on a lop-sided pouf fe in front of the fire between her husband and the dark, sombre man who had, in some strange way, become part and parcel of their joint lives.

If you can stand a few hours of talk from an old smacksman you may hear a sombre litany of horror.