sombreness

His dark morning clothes and rather abstracted air created an atmosphere of sombreness about him of which she was suddenly conscious.

He came on keeping step to the sound of the drums with great gravity and dignity; and, in short, his stature, his gait, the sombreness of his appearance and his following might well have struck with astonishment, as they did, all who beheld him without knowing who he was.

They were eyes that masked the soul with a thousand guises, and that sometimes opened, at rare moments, and allowed it to rush up as though it were about to fare forth nakedly into the world on some wonderful adventure,--eyes that could brood with the hopeless sombreness of leaden skies; that could snap and crackle points of fire like those which sparkle from a whirling sword; that could grow chill as an arctic landscape, and yet again, that could warm and soften and be all a-dance with love-lights, intense and masculine, luring and compelling, which at the same time fascinate and dominate women till they surrender in a gladness of joy and of relief and sacrifice.

We were staying an hour's drive away in the town of Houlgate, the perfect antidote to the sombreness of the Normandy beaches.

Confusion, sombreness and discomfort clouded the area - residents' faces told it all.

The mood inside the cathedral was one of sombreness and reflection, but friends and colleagues spoke with joy and fondness as they paid tribute to a "brilliant" and "natural" presenter.

Whether we missed an open goal or just played direly, there was a mood of sombreness over the small crowd (about 120 or so) of Cardiff supporters who'd made the long trek to Lincolnshire.

"Economic performance allows gradually, with prudence and sombreness, for the state to start restoring, bit by bit, and healing old financial wounds," Neophytou said after the meeting.

It was years later that I realized that it was not the morning parade that gave these young men this air of sombreness. It was probably that sense of being custodians of a nation's honour that made them so intense.

For all their sombreness, Salcedo's works inhabit a realm of possibility: not only in the hope that historical memory might be reconfigured, but also in how they eschew didacticism and remain open to interpretation.

There was relief and a measure of glee but there was a restraint to the celebrations, the whole occasion shaped by the sombreness of the mood before kick-off.