All 22 Uses of
solemn
in
Bleak House
- The subject was a woman, whose husband was ignorantly convicted of having murdered her; but on solemn appeal to a higher court, he was acquitted because it was shown upon the evidence that she had died the death of which this name of spontaneous combustion is given.†
Chpt Pref.
- The whole of that family are the most solemnly conceited and consummate blockheads!†
Chpt 7-9 *
- The court is, by solemn settlement of law, our grim old guardian, and we are to suppose that what it gives us (when it gives us anything) is our right.†
Chpt 13-15
- Oh, the solemn woods over which the light and shadow travelled swiftly, as if heavenly wings were sweeping on benignant errands through the summer air; the smooth green slopes, the glittering water, the garden where the flowers were so symmetrically arranged in clusters of the richest colours, how beautiful they looked!†
Chpt 16-18
- Not content with these precautions, Mr. Boythorn had himself composed and posted there, on painted boards to which his name was attached in large letters, the following solemn warnings: "Beware of the bull-dog.†
Chpt 16-18
- As the bell was yet ringing and the great people were not yet come, I had leisure to glance over the church, which smelt as earthy as a grave, and to think what a shady, ancient, solemn little church it was.†
Chpt 16-18
- It was grand to see how the wind awoke, and bent the trees, and drove the rain before it like a cloud of smoke; and to hear the solemn thunder and to see the lightning; and while thinking with awe of the tremendous powers by which our little lives are encompassed, to consider how beneficent they are and how upon the smallest flower and leaf there was already a freshness poured from all this seeming rage which seemed to make creation new again.†
Chpt 16-18
- The spectral voice repeats more solemnly, "Go away!"†
Chpt 19-21
- Towards London a lurid glare overhung the whole dark waste, and the contrast between these two lights, and the fancy which the redder light engendered of an unearthly fire, gleaming on all the unseen buildings of the city and on all the faces of its many thousands of wondering inhabitants, was as solemn as might be.†
Chpt 31-33
- The bell that rings at nine o'clock has ceased its doleful clangour about nothing; the gates are shut; and the night-porter, a solemn warder with a mighty power of sleep, keeps guard in his lodge.†
Chpt 31-33
- Dreary and solemn the old house looks, with so many appliances of habitation and with no inhabitants except the pictured forms upon the walls.†
Chpt 40-42
- All that prospect, which from the terrace looked so near, has moved solemnly away and changed—not the first nor the last of beautiful things that look so near and will so change—into a distant phantom.†
Chpt 40-42
- A certain person charges me, in the solemnest way, not to talk of Jo to any one, even my little woman.†
Chpt 46-48
- Then comes another certain person, in the person of yourself, and charges me, in an equally solemn way, not to mention Jo to that other certain person above all other persons.†
Chpt 46-48
- My Lady was desirous, Mr. Rouncewell," Sir Leicester skilfully transfers him with a solemn wave of his hand, "was desirous to speak with you.†
Chpt 46-48
- That he had charged his messenger to represent his perfect innocence with every solemn assurance be could send us.†
Chpt 52-54
- "I declare," he says, "I solemnly declare that until this crime is discovered and, in the course of justice, punished, I almost feel as if there were a stain upon my name.†
Chpt 52-54
- "My Lady, I came away last night from Chesney Wold to find my son in my old age, and the step upon the Ghost's Walk was so constant and so solemn that I never heard the like in all these years.†
Chpt 55-57
- Therefore I desire to say, and to call you all to witness— beginning, Volumnia, with yourself, most solemnly—that I am on unaltered terms with Lady Dedlock.†
Chpt 58-60
- Volumnia, in her room up a retired landing on the staircase—the second turning past the end of the carving and gilding, a cousinly room containing a fearful abortion of a portrait of Sir Leicester banished for its crimes, and commanding in the day a solemn yard planted with dried-up shrubs like antediluvian specimens of black tea—is a prey to horrors of many kinds.†
Chpt 58-60
- I saw but did not comprehend the solemn and compassionate look in Mr. Woodcourt's face.†
Chpt 58-60
- My husband drew a little nearer towards Ada, and I saw him solemnly lift up his hand to warn my guardian.†
Chpt 64-65
Definition:
-
(solemn) in a very serious (and often dignified) manner