"Desolation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ungodly world had trampled both tables under foot, God came to judge it, who is a consuming fire and a jealous God. He so punishes ungodliness that he turns everything into sheer desolation, and neither government nor the governed remain. We may, therefore, infer that the world was the better the nearer it was to Adam, but that it degenerated from day to day until our time, when the offscouring and lowest filth of humanity, as it ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... a seat on the omnibus or a tramp uphill, and we find ourselves abruptly in the village street. Then did each page as I turned it over bring some fresh recollection of one's unspeakable sense of newness and desolation; the haunting fear of doing something ludicrous; the morbid dread of chaff and of being "greened," which even in my time had, happily, supplanted the old terrors of being tossed in a blanket or roasted at a fire. Even less, I venture to think, was ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... feeling of discontent and loneliness came over all our hearts. Little Nelse, who had been Peter's favourite, went round behind the pig-stye, where none might disturb him, and sat down on the projecting end of a trough to "have a cry", in his usual methodical manner. But old "Alligator Desolation", the dog, had suspicions of what was up, and, hearing the sobs, went round to offer whatever consolation appertained to a damp and dirty nose and a pair ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... Circle is winter indeed: there is no sun to gladden with his beams the hearts of the voyagers; but all is wrapt in darkness, day and night, save when the moon chances to obtrude her faint rays, only to make visible the desolation of the scene. The approach of winter is strongly marked. Snow begins to fall in August, and the ground is covered to the depth of two or three feet before October. As the cold augments, the air bears its moisture in the form of a frozen fog, the icicles of which are so sharp as to be painful ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... tornado, with the water at its height, leveling whole towns, descended and beat upon that house, and it fell. In the morning there was no house there, and the waves in their fury rushed madly on. Then these little children "stood and wept on the banks of the river," and the desolation and fear in the careful mother's heart, none but herself and ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... detractions made to the slander of the Duke of York,[227] declared that, if it were not for the Duke's good advice and counsel, he, my lord the Prince himself, and others in his company, would have been in great peril and desolation." "Moreover," (continued the Prince,) "the Duke, as though he had been one of the poorest gentlemen of the realm who would have to toil and struggle for the acquirement of his own honour and name, laboured, and did his ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... him, although it was beyond our beat, or, rather, I should say, beside it. Not but what we might have grazed there had it been our pleasure, but that it was not worth our while, and scarcely worth Jasper Kebby's even; all the land being cropped (as one might say) with desolation. And nearly all our knowledge of it sprang from the unaccountable tricks of cows who have young calves with them; at which time they have wild desire to get away from the sight of man, and keep calf and milk for one another, although it be in a barren land. At least, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... victories, one which had almost been a defeat and which left both armies so exhausted that months passed before either was in condition to resume the war. It was the month of June before the armies were again put in motion. Now the wintry desolation was replaced by a scene of green woodland, shining lakes and attractive villages, the conditions being far more ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... think at all, but went from one alarm to another. Now there she sat alone, without her mother, and began to realize that it was all over,—that they would never see nor hear each other again in this world. And such a sense of loneliness, of utter desolation, took possession of Wiseli, that she believed herself uncared for and forgotten by everybody, and feared that she should be left there alone to die in the dark. The poor child laid her head down upon her bundle, and began to cry, bitterly and ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... quiver of grief which was felt in all hearts throughout the colony that men learned the fatal news. The banks of the great river repeated this great woe to the valleys; the sad certainty that the father of all had disappeared forever sowed desolation in the homes of the rich as well as in the thatched huts of the poor. A cry of pain, a deep sob arose from the bosom of Canada which would not be consoled, because its incomparable bishop was no more! Etienne de Citeaux said to his monks after the death of his ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... this desolation we looked in vain for any signs of life. It was not until we sought out the house of a captain of dragoons, a friend of my companion the Comte, that we found a human being in these solitudes. The house was, indeed, a melancholy ruin, but by the gate was a lodge, and in the lodge a concierge. ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... the morning of the 19th, having made sail, we steered S.E. by E. along the coast, and soon passed the S.E. point of the bay of St Barbara, which I called Cape Desolation, because near it commenced the most desolate and barren country I ever saw. It is situated in the latitude of 54 deg. 55' S., longitude 72 deg. 12' W. About four leagues to the east of this cape ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... wherever you may go; and if I have left my heart's affections at New Plymouth, you shall see that I have brought with me none the less of courage and fidelity to my leaders and my countrymen. The dearer my home, the more energetic shall be my efforts to preserve it from desolation. Besides,' he added, In an undertone, so that only Standish should hear: 'I much prefer going boldly into the midst of the enemy, even at the risk of my life, to remaining here to assist in constructing ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... can get for nothing. I mean the public rabble, the mob, not the individual. The only time you can trust the public is when their sympathies are aroused over some great public calamity that brings death and desolation. Then the public is of one mind, the public then ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... nature of it is penal, to be a punishment of sin: take away this relation to sin, and death wants the sting. But, in its first appointment, and as it prevails generally over men, aculeata(201) est mors, it hath a sting that pierceth deeper, and woundeth sorer than to the desolation of the body, it goeth into the innermost parts of the soul, and woundeth that eternally. The truth is, the death of the body is not either the first death or the last death: it is rather placed in the middle between two deaths: and it is the fruit of the first, and the root of the last. There ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... associations, by a community of interest; why will ye be led away by a cruel and misguided philanthropy, or by designing demagogues? why will ye strive to inflict the most irreparable injury upon the objects of your misplaced sympathy? reduce to ruins this fair fabric of liberty, and this happy land to desolation? Your own leaders acknowledge that, hitherto, your agitation, far from bettering the condition of the slaves, has only made it worse; and in some respects this is true. So long as you confine yourselves to making or hearing abolition ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... the most heroic courage and endurance. It is a heroic tate, in which love of adventure and zeal for science have combated with and conquered the horrors of an Arctic winter, the six months' darkness in silence and desolation, the excessive cold, and the dangers of starvation. It is impossible here to go into any of the details which rendered the tale of Arctic voyages one of the most stirring in human history. All we are concerned with here is the amount of new ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... crowned by overhanging turrets, embattled, where, instead of banners, now waved long grass and wild plants, that had taken root among the mouldering stones, and which seemed to sigh, as the breeze rolled past, over the desolation around them. The towers were united by a curtain, pierced and embattled also, below which appeared the pointed arch of a huge portcullis, surmounting the gates: from these, the walls of the ramparts extended to other towers, overlooking the ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... thunder of the surge is in his ears, and the roar of the surf under the broken reef will not let him be quiet; "keep back but twelve feet from me," is his last prayer, "and there billow and roar as much as thou wilt."[29] But even the grace of a tomb was often denied. In the desolation of unknown distances the sailor sank into the gulfs or was flung on a desert beach. Erasippus, perished with his ship, has all the ocean for his grave; somewhere far away his white bones moulder on a spot that ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... and its light recedes; ascend, and a higher hill is seen beyond, and a wider space is yet to be traversed. And they tell us, that this is vanity; this the worthlessness of human desire; this the misery and desolation of the human heart. But how little do they know of the throbbings of that heart! How poorly have they studied the secrets of the human breast! How imperfectly do they understand the feebleness and the strength of man's fortitude and will! If the bright object still gleams in the horizon, if ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... The beautiful child, clasped close to his breast, her face buried on his shoulder under his shaggy locks, was a strange contrast to his appearance, but only added to the look of piteous helplessness and desolation, as she hung upon him in her alarm ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... stubborn crew Of errant saints, whom all men grant To be the true church militant; Such as do build their faith upon The holy text of pike and gun; Decide all controversies by Infallible artillery; And prove their doctrine orthodox, By apostolic blows and knocks; Call fire, and sword, and desolation, A godly, thorough reformation, Which always must be carried on, And still be doing, never done; As if religion were intended For nothing else but to be mended: A sect whose chief devotion lies In odd perverse antipathies; In falling out ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... for herself. Anna's affection for her adopted brother was perfectly unconscious and selfless; she never indulged in unwholesome introspection; she never asked herself why her heart ached that night, and a sense of loneliness and desolation ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... confidential; because it narrates a tragic experience that is all too common in actual life; because its tragedy is enhanced by dramatic contrasts, the splendour of the bright, breezy, sunlit garden contrasting with the road of ashen spiritual desolation the soul must take; the splendour of the gorgeous stiff brocade and the futility of the blank, soft, imprisoned flesh; the obstreperous heart, beating in joyous harmony with the rhythm of the swaying flowers, changed by one written word into ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... sad history of the succeeding five years let us draw a veil. We have no heart to picture its suffering, its desolation, its hopelessness. If, in the beginning, there was too much pride in the heart of Mrs. Ellis, all was crushed out under the iron heel of grim adversity. If she had once thought too much of herself, ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur
... general favorite, but turned to me as to a friend and teacher. He is poor, and it was possible for me to guarantee him a good education. I began to help him from the longings of a lonely life. I wanted a son and a friend in my inward desolation. I craved the companionship of this pure and happy nature. I felt such a reverence for him that I hoped to find the sensuous element in me purged away by his purity. I am, indeed, utterly incapable of doing him harm; I am not morally weak; nevertheless ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Oxford Street, purposely to take a glance at it; it is now occupied by a respectable family, and by the lights in the front drawing-room I observed a domestic party assembled, perhaps at tea, and apparently cheerful and gay. Marvellous contrast, in my eyes, to the darkness, cold, silence, and desolation of that same house eighteen years ago, when its nightly occupants were one famishing scholar and a neglected child. Her, by-the- bye, in after-years I vainly endeavoured to trace. Apart from her situation, she was not what would be called an interesting child; she was neither pretty, nor quick ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... their size and isolation are more beautiful than young ones and are little likely to be injurious to health, and ends them by raising mounds and sticking into them dense belts of quick-growing trees like poplars to hide as speedily as possible the desolation of bricks and mortar he has created. It is this senseless outdoor work of the builder and his nurseryman which stands most in need of revision from time to time in suburban residences, but which rarely receives it from a silly notion, amounting to tree worship, which ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... peaks that tower on high. Then leave that hill that gleams with ore, And fair Sudarsan's heights explore. Then on to Devasakha(735) hie, Loved by the children of the sky. A dreary land you then will see Without a hill or brook or tree, A hundred leagues, bare, wild, and dread In lifeless desolation, spread. Pursue your onward way, and haste Through the dire horrors of the waste Until triumphant with delight You reach Kailasa's glittering height. There stands a palace decked with gold, For King Kuvera(736) wrought of old, A home the heavenly artist planned And fashioned ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... when the people, which had thereabout Long wayted, saw his sudden desolation, They gan together in tumultuous rout And mutining to stirre up civil faction For certain losse of so great expectation: For well they hoped to have got great good And wondrous riches by his innovation: Therefore resolving to revenge his blood They rose in armes, and ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... and there were many hills. We could not ask Lord Beaconsfield to do more than walk, which he did sturdily enough, tugging up the long hills, though they were probably the first he had ever seen, for his part of Long Island had been level ground. What must he have thought of that chaotic desolation, where most of the woods and a good many of the fields were set up at foolish angles against other woods and fields and where there was no sign of ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... was not even a sheep in sight, the side of the valley below us being a rugged mass of desolation, only redeemed by patches of whortleberry and purple heath with the taller ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... disobedience, pointed out to you your duty—a duty which you were forced to perform afterwards by necessity. Then be it so; let me perish on these black rocks, as I shall, and my bones be whitened by the chilly blasts which howl over their desolation. But mark me, cruel and vindictive man! I shall not be the only one whose bones will bleach there. I prophesy that many others will share my fate, and even you, admiral, may be of the number,—if I mistake not, we shall lie side ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... ruins. This country was worthy at that period of the name of Green-Land (Groenland) which the Northmen gave to it, but the annual and great increase of the glaciers, has rendered it since that epoch a land of desolation. ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... features of absurdity in the delusion, ferocity in the popular excitement, and destruction along the path of its progress, which belonged to the witchcraft proceedings here, and shows that any people, given over to the power of contagious passion, may be swept by desolation, and ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... this there is nothing presenting any special difficulty to the modern geologist or geographer; but with the early dweller in Palestine the case was very different. The rocky, barren desolation of the Dead Sea region impressed him deeply; he naturally reasoned upon it; and this impression and reasoning we find stamped into the pages of his sacred literature, rendering them all the more precious as a revelation of the earlier ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... set fire to the house and everything within sight that could burn. After which they marched away singing patriotic hymns. When they had gone Liosha crept out of the cave wherein she had hidden, and surveyed the scene of desolation. ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... whole internal trade. They forced the natives to buy dear and to sell cheap. They insulted with impunity the tribunals, the police, and the fiscal authorities of the country. They covered with their protection a set of native dependants who ranged through the provinces, spreading desolation and terror wherever they appeared. Every servant of a British factor was armed with all the power of his master; and his master was armed with all the power of the Company. Enormous fortunes were thus rapidly accumulated at Calcutta, while thirty millions of human ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the hieroglyphs of haggard gum-trees, blown into odd shapes, distorted with fierce hot winds, or cramped with cold nights, when the Southern Cross freezes in a cloudless sky of icy blue. The phantasmagoria of that wild dream-land termed the Bush interprets itself, and the Poet of our desolation begins to comprehend why free Esau loved his heritage of desert sand better than all the bountiful ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... he could not resist the spell that impelled him to the society where Edith might at least be seen, and the circle in which he lived was one in which her name was frequently mentioned. Alone, in his solitary rooms in the Albany, he felt all his desolation; and often a few minutes before he figured in the world, apparently followed and courted by all, he had been plunged in the ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... the desolation which reigned between the Strand and the City in that fatal summer, now drawing to its melancholy close. More than once in her brief pilgrimage Angela drew back, shuddering, from the embrasure of a door, or the inlet to some ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... wide valley with a level plain at its heart, with many clumps of stunted birches and hardy firs. Here was the great grazing for young beasts in the summer, away here in the glen, but now only stillness and desolation. A wide burn rumbled and splashed on its gravelly banks in front of us, and we could hear the deep noise ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... few words whence I had come, what had made me undertake the voyage, and how I safely arrived at the port after twenty days' sailing; when I had done, I prayed him to perform his promise, and told him how much I was struck by the frightful desolation which I ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... Sylvia, Rufus Dawes began to brood over a desperate scheme. The intelligence that the investigation he had hoped for was not to be granted to him had rendered doubly bitter those galling fetters of self restraint which he had laid upon himself. For five years of desolation he had waited and hoped for a chance which might bring him to Hobart Town, and enable him to denounce the treachery of Maurice Frere. He had, by an almost miraculous accident, obtained that chance of open speech, and, having ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... ascended the throne, he proclaimed a new aera of happiness and glory. The annals of the second Justin [23] are marked with disgrace abroad and misery at home. In the West, the Roman empire was afflicted by the loss of Italy, the desolation of Africa, and the conquests of the Persians. Injustice prevailed both in the capital and the provinces: the rich trembled for their property, the poor for their safety, the ordinary magistrates were ignorant or venal, the occasional remedies appear to have ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... whose savage ear The Lapland drum delights to hear, When Frenzy with her bloodshot eye Implores thy dreadful deity— Archangel! Power of desolation! Fast descending as thou art, Say, hath mortal invocation Spells to touch thy stony heart: Then, sullen Winter! hear my prayer, And gently rule the ruin'd year; Nor chill the wanderer's bosom bare Nor freeze the wretch's ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... tongues. Are we for war? let it be levied upon our unruly passions. This is laudable ambition. This is honourable war, producing the peace and happiness of man. This is real glory to God and man, the very opposite to those horrors of desolation which gives joy among the devils of hell—the burning cities, the garments rolled in blood, the shrieks of the wounded, and the sickening miseries of the widows and orphans ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... were no longer regarded as good beings that had come from heaven, but as ruthless destroyers, who, invulnerable to the assaults of the Indians, were borne along on the backs of fierce animals, swifter than the wind, with weapons in their hands, that scattered fire and desolation as they went. Such were the stories now circulated of the invaders, which, preceding them everywhere on their march, closed the hearts, if not the doors, of the natives against them. Exhausted by the ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... religion. Thus he objects to the repetition of a generation in Saint Matthew's genealogy; to Matthew's call; to the quotation of a text from Isaiah, which is found in a psalm ascribed to Asaph; to the calling of the lake of Tiberius a sea; to the expression of Saint Matthew, "the abomination of desolation;" to the variation in Matthew and Mark upon the text, "the voice of one crying in the wilderness," Matthew citing it from Isaias, Mark from the Prophets; to John's application of the term "Word;" to Christ's change of intention about going up to the feast of Tabernacles ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... through the mellow autumn evening with a warmer, kindlier glow in his heart than he had known through all the dreary weeks that had followed his return from the war. For the war had wrought desolation for him in a home once rich in the things that make life worth while, by taking from it his mother, whose rare soul qualities had won and held through her life the love, the passionate, adoring love of her sons, and his twin brother, the comrade, chum, friend of ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... the poop was like the return of wanderers after many years amongst people marked by the desolation of time. Eyes were turned slowly in their sockets, glancing at us. Faint murmurs were heard, "Have you got 'im after all?" The well-known faces looked strange and familiar; they seemed faded and grimy; they had a mingled ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... as they are, always linger in this mortal sphere. The agitation of mind has very much impaired my health. * * * * Why, why was not I taken when my darling husband was called from my side? I have been allowed no rest by those who, in my desolation, should have protected me. * * * * How dearly I should love to see you this very sad day. Never, dear Lizzie, think of my great nervousness the night before we parted; I had been so harassed with my fears. * ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... effectual curtains against prying eyes, added to the sense of loneliness, of insecurity, of unknown dangers lurking behind that crippled archway, or beneath the shadows of the projecting eaves, whence the perpetual drip-drip of soot water came as a note of melancholy desolation. ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... Denifle, La desolation des eglises, monasteres hopitaux en France vers le milieu du xv'ieme ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... after all was out of order, not the fiddlestick; the body, not the mind. I walked out; met Mrs. Skene, who took a turn with me in Princes Street. Bade Constable and Cadell farewell, and had a brisk walk home, which enables me to face the desolation here with more spirit. News from Sophia. She has had the luck to get an anti-druggist in a Dr. Gooch, who prescribes care for Johnnie instead of drugs, and a little home-brewed ale instead of wine; and, like a liberal physician, supplies the medicine he prescribes. ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... sweeping, gentle spurs clothed with wild olive woods containing trees of immense size. The lower reaches of the Zhob and Kundar are hemmed in by rugged limestone walls, serrated and banded with deep clefts and gorges, a wilderness of stony desolation. Looking eastwards from the Kaisargarh, one can again count the backs of innumerable minor ridges, smaller wrinkles or folds formed during a process of upheaval of the Suliman Mountains, at the close of a great ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... for refuge did the inaccessible shore present. Again and again the lieutenant asked himself what would become of him and his comrades, even if they should survive the peril of shipwreck, and gain a footing upon the cliff. What resources could they expect to find upon that scene of desolation? What hope could they entertain that any portion of the old continent still existed ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... done to death under the name of Jesus in the dens of the Inquisition, or slaughtered by thousands in the sack of towns; if our wives and daughters had been shamed, if our houses had been burned, our goods taken, our liberties trampled upon, and our homes made a desolation, then, my reader, is it not possible that even in these different days you and I might have been cruel when our hour came? God knows alone, and God be thanked that so far as we can foresee, except under the pressure, perhaps, of invasion by semi-barbarian hordes, or of dreadful ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... to Save the Famous Ferry Station, the Chief Inlet to and Egress from San Francisco—Fire Tugs and Vessels in the Bay Aid in Heroic Fight—Fort Mason, General Funston's Temporary Headquarters, has Narrow Escape—A Survey of the Scene of Desolation 69 ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... force of habit, still went among the wagons and urged the old arguments against Oregon—the savage tribes on ahead, the forbidding desolation of the land, the vast and dangerous rivers, the certainty of starvation on the way, the risk of arriving after winter had set in on the Cascade Range—all matters of which they themselves spoke by hearsay. All the great West was then unknown. Moreover, Fort Hall was a natural division ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... heart of woe, Flattery wakes no exultation; And Fancy's flash but serves to show The darkness of my desolation! ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... He complained that it was terribly lonely. 'It is the Desolation,' he would quote, 'spoken of by Daniel the prophet.' He would spend hours travelling those eerie shifting corridors of Space with no hint of another human soul. How could there be? It was a world of pure reason, ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... round, knocking at every door and announcing the conflagration. Fusees were introduced at every favourable aperture, and especially into the shops covered with iron of the tradesmen's quarter. The fire engines were carried off: the desolation attained its highest pitch, and each individual, according to his disposition, was either overwhelmed with distress or urged to a decision. Most of those who were left formed groups in the public places; they crowded together, questioned each other, and reciprocally asked advice: many ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... Through the forest vast and vacant, Rang that cry of desolation; But there came no other answer Than the echo of his crying, Than the echo of the ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... were nowhere to be found, Save one brass mausoleum on a mound (I knew it well) spared by the artist Time To emphasize the desolation round. ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... popular, the most sought-after girl at the picnic that afternoon; she was never short of a cavalier to wait on her lightest behest; she was her prettiest, her most charming self. The American whispered to her that a picnic without her would be a desolation and he had half a mind to stop another week at his aunt's—but Gertrude was not enjoying herself. From behind the gorse bushes, from between the moss-grown boulders, from beneath the dark foliage of the Scotch firs, there peeped at ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... edge of a black moor, under shelter of a rocky dip, in a treeless country. It must have been a terrible change for a bachelor about town, like Walter Tyrrel, to come down at twenty-eight from his luxurious club and his snug chambers in St. James' to the isolation and desolation of that wild Cornish manor-house. But the Tyrrels, he knew, were all built like that; Le Neve had been with three of the family at Rugby; and conscience was their stumbling- block. When once a Tyrrel was convinced his duty lay ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... stone, the village, the Vicarage, the church, the churchyard and the gravestones of the dead are alike naked and black, blackened as if fire had passed over them. And in their grayness and their desolation they are one with each other and with the network of low walls that links them to the last solitary farm on the High Moor. And on the breast of the earth they show, one moment, solid as if hewn out of her heart, and another, slender and ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... Beauty in desolation was her pride, Her crowned array a glory that had been; She faltered tow'rds us like a swan that died, But although ruined she was ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... Philip also.... My brother was often at the South Kensington Museum, and, in order to make some sort of secondary life for myself, I paid for a few lessons at the Art Schools. I was coming back from them this evening, when I saw the abomination of desolation walking alive down the long straight street and the rest is as this gentleman ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... her frame. While sharing in the hardships and the hazards of my struggle for life, her heart, sustained by its own deep enthusiasm, triumphed over every obstacle. But she was returning to a house of mourning and of woe, where life would be one blank of desolation and stupor, to be wakened to bitter consciousness by intelligence of our doom. The sense of my responsibility, the full appreciation of the living death which, through my agency, had fallen upon a home as hallowed as ever love and joy consecrated to happiness, had burned up my eyeballs ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... the north-west, the horses being a little fresher than for some days past. Halted at four o'clock, having gone ten miles through a country which, for barrenness and desolation, can I think have no equal; it was a continued scrub, and where there was timber it chiefly consisted of small cypress: we saw no water as usual, but stopped on some burnt grass near the base of a low range of stony hills west of ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... what we could for him. Meantime some of us had gathered bits of boxes and wood, and made a fire and boiled water. Tea-cups, coffee, sugar, and biscuits were found, and we made a splendid feast in the midst of the desolation. Horrid, you will say, to think of food among the dead and wounded. And yet that coffee certainly was very good. Somehow I believe the Boers understand roasting it ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... coffee-drinking and music in the Piazza San Marco, everything fitted into my lazy, idle nature and weakness of body, as if I had been born to the manner of it and to no other. Do you know I expected in Venice a dreary sort of desolation? Whereas there was nothing melancholy at all, only a soothing, lulling, rocking atmosphere which if Armida had lived in a city rather than in a garden would have suited her purpose. Indeed Taglioni seems to be resting her feet from dancing, there, with a peculiar zest, inasmuch as ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... American statesman of a later day, Abraham Lincoln. Compared with Lincoln, Jefferson is indeed a mere amateur in the use of words. Lincoln would not have scattered in his utterances overwrought phrases about "death, desolation and tyranny" or talked about pledging "our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honour." He indulged in no "Flights of Oratory." The passion in the Declaration is concentrated against the King. We do not know what were the emotions of George when he ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... staring vacantly into the darkness, which had come on with that abruptness which begins to be noticeable in September. His elbows were on his knees, and his body was sunk far forward in an attitude of desolation. ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... had seen them both laid side by side in their lonely grave in the west gulch; and those four months would ever be a blot of horrible blackness on his life. Should he ever be able to forget the blank desolation that had closed in upon him night after night as he sat by his lonely hearth or paced the floor, his steps alone breaking the awful stillness? Yet he had forced himself to stay and face it, had continued his work and his method of ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... Mr. Rives, in his "Life of Madison," "the people saw a power which had but lately carried war and desolation, fire and sword, through their own country, and, since the peace, had not ceased to act toward them in the old spirit of unkindness, jealousy, arrogance, and injustice; on the other an ally who had rendered them the most generous assistance ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... suppositions they returned to the willow-tree, but neither there nor for a furlong around did they discover anything. The prince's people had already taken Jurand to Niedzborz, and the whole neighborhood was a complete desolation. The Bohemian observed further, that the dog that ran ahead of the guide and found Jurand would also have discovered the young lady. Then Zbyszko breathed freely, for he was almost sure that Danusia had remained at home. He was even able to explain why she did so. Danusia ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... lighting up the faces of the dead with an unearthly glare. At this moment some drops of rain fell from a passing cloud, like tears from the pitying eyes of an angel, who, sailing through the skies, had stopped for a moment in her flight to look down sorrowfully on the scene of desolation which man, the worm of a day, had caused in a moment of ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... these gentlemen assured me, that having satisfied his curiosity, no earthly consideration should tempt him to undertake a second journey by land to the capital; for that he believed the whole world could not furnish a like picture of desolation and misery. What a contrast is here exhibited to the ease and convenience with which our journey was made! But the whole treatment of the Dutch embassy seems to have been proportioned to the degree of importance which the Chinese attached to ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... of, suddenly drops into a day, making it a memorable date forever; a joy that transmutes itself into exaltation and a higher range of energy. Naturally, we count such an experience divine, and offer our gratitude to God, the giver of all blessings. But a tragedy of sorrow, a darkness of desolation impenetrable and seemingly final, also falls suddenly into a day, and inexpressible amazement and incredulity that it can be real are added to the pain. But it is real. The sunshine has vanished; ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... portraits in which he followed the Naturalists, but his principal works were landscapes. Jagged rocks and mountains, wild dells and lonely defiles, with here and there robbers, hermits, or soldiers, make his most effective pictures. There is a deep sense of desolation, almost of fear, in them which is very impressive. Sometimes he painted serene landscapes and poetic figures; but his best works are not of this sort. His pictures are in the principal public and in some private galleries. He also left about ninety ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... standard of their order; and no one can forget the many peers in Charles I.'s time, such as Falkland, or the Spencers (Sunderland), or the Comptons (Northampton), who felt and owned their paramount duty to lie in public self-dedication, and died therefore, and oftentimes left their inheritances a desolation. 'Thus far'—oh heavens! with what bitterness I said this, knowing it a thing undeniable by W. W. or by Sir George—you, the peerages that pretend to try conclusions with the English, you—French, German, Walloon, Spanish, Scottish—are ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... presence to vex them in their decrepitude than that of some gray custodian, who should come to the gate with clanking keys, and admit the wandering stranger, if he gave signs of a reverent sympathy, to look for a little while upon the reserved and dignified desolation. It is a shame to tempt these sad old cities into unnatural activity, when they long ago made their peace with the world, and would fain be mixing their weary brick and mortar with the earth's unbuilded dust; and it is hard for the emotional traveller to restrain his sense of outrage at finding ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... were fired, and then, to make more sure of attracting the lifeboat men, a tar-barrel, fastened to the end of a spar, was thrust out ahead and set on fire. By the grand lurid flare of this giant torch the surrounding desolation was made more apparent, and at the fearful sight hearts which had hitherto held up began ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... there came upon them, in that cozy, little, two-room apartment, a feeling of desolation and vastness, and a terrible loneliness such as they had never dreamed of in the great twelve-room house in Winnebago. They kept close to each other. They toiled up the winding stairs together and stood a moment on the ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... stone floors; and by another gesture he indicated the fierce thorny growths of the forest in which he hunted those vivid insects,—the luxuriant savannas, the gigantic ferns and palms, the hush and shining desolation, the presence of the invisible fever and death. There was a touch, too, of inexpressible sadness in his half-ignorant mention of the exiles at Cayenne, who were forbidden the wide ocean of escape about them by those swift gunboats keeping their coasts ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... judgment which, with cold, unfeeling cruelty, after long deliberations, should condemn millions of innocent people to extortion, to rapine, and to blood, and should devote some of the finest countries upon earth to ravage and desolation,—does any one think that any servile apologies of mine, or any strutting and bullying insolence of their own, can save them from the ruin that must fell on all institutions of dignity or of authority that are perverted from their purport to the oppression of human nature in others ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Io knew, for anything not close before her eyes, she came to him, as inevitably, as unerringly as steel to the magnet, and was folded in his arms. Io heard his deep voice, vibrant between desolation and passion: ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... very long. We heard the cries of some wild animals, which had been attracted by our fire, and a flock of geese passed over during the night. Even these strange sounds had something pleasant to our senses in this region of silence and desolation. ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... camp, for the reason that solitude at times has its charms. When the lamp outside the tent door was extinguished, and all was enveloped in darkness and fog to an overwhelming degree, a feeling of loneliness and desolation stole over me, though it soon left me when I thought of the glories of the coming day, when all ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... a summer shower. Henry knew instinctively that Ninian's death had killed her. She might live for many years, but she would be a dead woman. She would show very little, nothing, to those who looked to see the signs of woe, but in her heart she would hoard her desolation, keeping it to herself, obtruding her sorrow on no one ... waiting patiently and silently for her day of release, when, as her faith told her, she and her son ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... it—I must hasten. We have no right to peer beyond the boundary God has drawn for us. I saw His hell—I saw His hell, I tell you. It is peopled with the damned—silent, horrible, distorted in the midst of ashes and desolation. It was a memory that, like the snake of Aaron, devoured all others till yesterday—till yesterday, by ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... nothing. No bear swung across the path, no izard showed itself on the cliffs. The keen, sharp air cut our cheeks and warned me that we were approaching the summit of the ridge. On all sides were silence and desolation. ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... be let loose to murder our citizens, and butcher our women and children, this war will be a war of extermination. The first stroke of the tomahawk, the first attempt with the scalping knife, will be the signal of one indiscriminate scene of desolation. No white man, found fighting by the side of an Indian, will be taken prisoner—instant destruction will be his lot. If the dictates of reason, duty, justice, and humanity, cannot prevent the employment of a force which respects no rights and knows no wrong, ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... to-day, as he sat in the sunshine and looked about him, he saw for the first time grandeur in the saw-toothed, snow-covered peaks outlined against the dazzling blue of the western sky. For the first time he saw the awing vastness of the desert, and the soft pastel shades which made their desolation beautiful. He breathed deep of the odorous air and stared about him like a blind man who ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... which has called the world with all its living creatures into one animated being, especially reveals Himself in the desolation of great pestilences. The powers of creation come into violent collision; the sultry dryness of the atmosphere; the subterraneous thunders; the mist of overflowing waters, are the harbingers of destruction. Nature is not satisfied with the ordinary ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... two feet in diameter I observed were broken at no great distance from the ground, and the branches of many of the largest and tallest so much so that the desolation already exhibited equalled that of a furious tornado. The sun was lost to our view, yet not a pigeon had arrived. All on a sudden, I heard a general cry of, ...
— True Stories about Cats and Dogs • Eliza Lee Follen
... count, and deep hatred mounted to his face, as the blood would to the face of any other. "If a man had by unheard-of and excruciating tortures destroyed your father, your mother, your betrothed,—a being who, when torn from you, left a desolation, a wound that never closes, in your breast,—do you think the reparation that society gives you is sufficient when it interposes the knife of the guillotine between the base of the occiput and the trapezal muscles of the murderer, and allows him who has caused ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... anything beyond a gentle word; and yet his loss fell on them both with a great horror in it: they mourned him passionately. He had passed away from them in his sleep, and when in the gray dawn they learned their bereavement, unutterable solitude and desolation seemed to close around them. He had long been only a poor, feeble, paralyzed old man, who could not raise a hand in their defence, but he had loved them well: his smile had always welcomed their return. They mourned ...
— A Dog of Flanders • Louisa de la Rame)
... exhausted when the morning came and still no result. As the former day had ended in fire and desolation, so the present one—it was Wednesday, July 10th—commenced with desolation and fire. The news of Maddaloni's flight was like pouring oil upon the flames. If he had escaped, his effects should atone for it. Already the day before ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... hogs. They drink up all the moisture and corral all the winds from this small strip which lies at their feet. Scarcely once in a year do they spare a drop of rain for these lower planes. And so within sight of their white summits lies this stretch of utter desolation. ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... when she had moaned away the worst of her pain, she fell asleep. When she awoke it was already growing dark, and the knocking at her door, which roused her, was like a call from the peace of dreams to the desolation of reality. When she had turned on the light she received from the hands of the waiting servant that which had become a most rare visitant in the blankness of ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... up its head, and lo! a great blue heron. Seeing us approach, it spread its long wings and flew solemnly across to a dead tree on the other side of the lake, enhancing rather than relieving the loneliness and desolation that brooded over the scene. As we proceeded it flew from tree to tree in advance of us, apparently loth to be disturbed in its ancient and solitary domain. In the margin of the pond we found the pitcher-plant growing, and here ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... have brought captives to their capitals as slaves, but they did not root out every trace of cultivation, or regarded it with haughty scorn. But, when their turn of punishment came, the whole world was filled with mourning and desolation, and all the relations ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... been close shut when the crowd went down the High Street, were partially open as Daniel slowly returned; and light streamed from them on the otherwise dark road. The news of the successful attempt at rescue had reached those who had sate in mourning and in desolation an hour or two ago, and several of these pressed forwards as from their watching corner they recognized Daniel's approach; they pressed forward into the street to shake him by the hand, to thank him (for his name had been bruited ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... were once more on our way through the vast ruined city, which loomed at us on either side in the grey dawning in a way that was at once grand and oppressive. Just as the first ray of the rising sun shot like a golden arrow athwart this storied desolation we gained the further gateway of the outer wall, and having given one more glance at the hoar and pillared majesty through which we had journeyed, and (with the exception of Job, for whom ruins had no charms) breathed a sigh of regret that we had not had more time to explore ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... of lightning would perhaps have pierced the clouds that hung over me: even though it were but a passing ray, it would have enabled me to catch a momentary glimpse of the Beloved of my heart—but this was denied me. Instead, it was night, dark night, utter desolation, death! Like my Divine Master in the Agony in the Garden, I felt that I was alone, and found no comfort on ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... and of the further fact that the damage once done may prove practically irreparable. So important are these investigations that I herewith attach as an appendix to my message certain photographs showing present conditions in China. They show in vivid fashion the appalling desolation, taking the shape of barren mountains and gravel and sand-covered plains, which immediately follows and depends upon the deforestation of the mountains. Not many centuries ago the country of northern China was one of the most fertile ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... deserted brick-kiln, surrounded by long uneven mounds and ridges of ice, with three poplars mounting guard over it. Flights of rooks hung over the barren ground, and wheeled in the air with discordant clamor as we passed—the only living moving things in the utter desolation of the scene. As I looked there was an exclamation from one of the workmen, and the engine began to slacken. ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... Here was a scene of chaos—rigging tangled and swinging loosely from masts and yards; sails torn and shreds still clinging to ropes and spars; loose planks of her deck cargo lying all over the place, and a general air of abandon and desolation difficult to describe. ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... waylaid him for his rent (a day overdue), and he was very curt. That was to keep back the "O God, how rotten I feel!" with which, in his room, he voiced the desolation ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... own country, and the whole of the national churches of all countries, from the principles and the examples which lead to ecclesiastical pillage, thence to a contempt of all prescriptive titles, thence to the pillage of all property, and thence to universal desolation. ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... in the room was very low, and the lady received but a momentary impression of a man's figure bowed over a white table. She chose a chair at once with her back towards him, and resting her brow on her forefinger, disposed herself for desolation. ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... surrounded by its sleepy barracks. Suddenly you are in the fires and awful slaughter of Napoleon's wars. The flower of France is being pitilessly cut down for the lust of one man's ambition; and when that is spent, and the wail of the widowed country pierces heaven with its desolation, a costly asylum is built for the handful of soldiers who are left—and the great Emperor has ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... in death, was ages old; its cold desolation showing plainly on the screen. No fires poured now from a hot throat; the molten sea that once had raged within had hardened and choked that vast throat with rock that had frozen to make one enormous plain. Ringed about by the jagged sides of the tremendous volcano, the floor within seemed ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... martyrdoms of the flesh, in weary hours, strange experiences, unhappy tempers, restless struggles, unrequited triumphs,—in the glare of midnight lamps, and of wild, haggard eyes,—in sorrow, want, desolation, despair, and madness. Born in sorrow, the book trails a pathway of sorrow through the ages. And each book in the Parisian library stands for all this,—some that were produced with tears having been always read ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... for some time, but no sign or sound of life could he detect in its silent desolation. "I must have been mistaken," he muttered, with a final glance at the windows of the first story. "There's ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... remains, you read, almost as in a book, the history of the ancient prosperity and power of Ireland, and of its gradual destruction by wars, sieges, famine, and pestilence, till it was brought to its present state of poverty and desolation. ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... make thy officers peace, And thine exactors righteousness; Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, Desolation nor destruction within thy borders; But thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, And thy ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... such desolation there lived a dozen students, in a small nest of studios that I need not say were rented to them at a price within their ever-scanty means. It was marveled at among the boys in the Quarter that any of these exiles lived to see the light of another ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... themselves, and their fratricidal wars, increased the measure of public calamity, so that soon, overrun by foreign enemies and destroyed by her own sons, France became a vast field of disorder and desolation. ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... me," Paul said to himself. "In many ways, of course, it is the best thing that could happen." And yet he found himself thinking of nothing but the utter desolation of Rudham, when May's bright presence should be removed from it, when he could no longer hope for a passing glimpse of her in ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... ever? I know not. He may arise again in his wrath and fill the land with desolation; for that earthquake we felt yesterday was but a wild throe of the giant struggling ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley |
