Sordidness

[W]e muſt not take this mercifull indulgence given to our defectuoſities, as a diſpenſation for the ſordidnes of our loves, but rather in a holy effect and contention of gratitude, ſtrain to love God the more purely, and irreſpectively to our ſelves, in regard of the tranſcendent benignity of this diſpenſation.

Every possible care was taken of him, and in a day or two he was able to walk into the study again, where he sat gazing at the sordidness and unneatness of the apartment, the strange festoons and drapery of spiders' webs, […]

A brooding Northerner, Verhaeren sees the sorrow, the travail, the sordidness, going on all about him, and loves the world just the same, […]

His was a nature—weak I own—that felt a sordidness in narrow means and their attendants; the ugliness of poverty pained his spirit.