The correct word is “gazed”. The verb gaze is used to describe the action of looking / staring at something for a long period of time – be it because that something being watched is impressive or simply because the watcher is distracted and pensive. In the passage, the word gaze does NOT impact the mood.
What really impacts the mood in the passage are the other words – marvels, profound, wonder, mysterious, spectacle and phenomena – since their meaning convey an idea of something unnatural, exciting and incredible happening before the eyes of the narrator.
The passage was taken from the book <em>A Journey to the Centre of the Earth</em> by Julio Verne. The narrator is struggling to describe his sensations when he finds a gigantic cavern and the Central Sea below the surface of the Earth.
The most accurate way to describe the excerpt is to choose the option - it is a dependent clause. This means that something needs to be added - you need to finish the sentence so that it becomes an independent clause, and not a subordinate one.
The boy's rendition of his late father's painting was an absolute monstrosity. It was unveiled right beside the old man's grave to a crowd of dishevelled bystanders, the ladies holding their billowing skirts down and the men scratching at their unkempt beards. It wasn't a particularly sacrilegious artwork, but the crowd would say otherwise. Hands jumped to mouths to keep a scream bottled in, eyes widened to the point of tearing. They'd never seen something quite like it.
