low spirits

“Broxton and Hayslope farmers, on their pleasant uplands and in their brook-watered valleys, had not suffered, and as I cannot pretend that they were such exceptional farmers as to love the general good better than their own, you will infer that they were not in very low spirits about the rapid rise in the price of bread, so long as there was hope of gathering in their own corn undamaged; and occasional days of sunshine and drying winds flattered this hope.”

Adam Bede

“The father was not more than thirty, the most graceful and interesting creature you can conceive, but he looked constrained and ennuyé to death; at first, I thought he was in low spirits on account of his wife, but I soon found that his wife was a dreadful gêne to him; she was a cross, fretful, rigid woman, a great deal older than himself.”

Zoe: The History of Two Lives

“Poet, is known as the author of The Spleen, a lively and original poem in octosyllabic verse on the subject of low spirits and the best means of prevention and cure.”

A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

“Because the mental state of low spirits was thought to originate in the stomach or spleen (in men), or the uterus (in women), for which the Greek word is hystera, bubbling up to the brain and causing morbidity.”

Simon & Schuster: The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time