Juhana is longing to get away from the dreary existence to a wider world.

Drunkenness was rife among the labourers in a dreary existence with too little to do.

It was a dreary, unrewarding existence, but her choices were limited.

The souls who live there have an empty, dreary existence, and even "lovers pass each other in silence".

Then he seemed to her as one forsaken, left alone with his sorrows to an existence companionless and dreary.

"I've told you what a dreary existence I'm having," she began, drooping a little.

Moments like that are made up by historians after the event to justify their own dreary existence.

So how could I settle down to this dreary existence?

He liked the man he had become, and he feared nothing more than slipping back into his dreary former existence.