"Despair" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... afflicted father; who, summoning all his fortitude, admonished the dismayed troops, that the loss of a single soldier was of little importance to the republic. [45] The conflict was terrible; it was the combat of despair against grief and rage. The first line of the Goths at length gave way in disorder; the second, advancing to sustain it, shared its fate; and the third only remained entire, prepared to dispute the passage of the morass, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... vicious habits, at enmity with God, and a skulking fugitive from thine own conscience? Oh, how idle the dispute whether the listening to the dictates of prudence from prudential and self-interested motives be virtue or merit, when the not listening is guilt, misery, madness, and despair.'[293] The self-love which Butler has analysed with so masterly a hand is wholly compatible with the pure love of goodness. Plato did not think it needful to deny the claims of utilitarianism, however much he gave the precedence to the ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... the remembrance of that Being in whom, and from whom, are all power and mercy, flashed on his brain like a burst of hope—like a sunbeam on the dark ocean of despair. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... Some were murdered from purely political hostility, and others on account of their prominence in religious movements distasteful to the people. Intolerance, contempt for law, a sense of wrong under the influence of the laws of landlord and tenant then in existence, and despair caused by their sufferings, constituted the incentives to atrocities which threw a hue of blood and gloom over ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... round buildings, and with precipices on three sides of him, the ancient lord of Dunseveric had need to walk cautiously and provide himself, when possible, with something to hold on to. Some time at the end of the seventeenth century the reigning lord, giving up in despair the attempt to render habitable a home more suited to a seagull than a nobleman, being also less in dread than his ancestors of sea pirates and land marauders, determined to build himself a house in which he could live comfortably. He selected a site about a mile inland from the original ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... with fire will burn thy body fair, Or cast thy sweet limbs piecemeal through the air; The fates shall work thy punishment alone, And thine own memory of our kindness done. "Alas! what wilt thou do? how shalt thou bear The cruel world, the sickening still despair, The mocking, curious faces bent on thee, When thou hast known what love there is in me? O happy only, if thou couldst forget, And live unholpen, lonely, loveless yet, But untormented through the little ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... dying in despair, They lay till woman came To soothe them with her gentle care, And feed ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... by the pealing laughter of wild trumpets. The whispering of trees, the murmuring of fountains, harp-tones, and gentle song gushing forth from an overflowing bosom, are the sounds in which love abides. But this is the very thundering and shouting of hell in the trance of its despair.' ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... countenance of Magdalen Graeme.—"Yes, Roland," she said, "thine eyes deceive thee not; they show thee truly the features of her whom thou hast thyself deceived, whose wine thou hast turned into gall, her bread of joyfulness into bitter poison, her hope into the blackest despair—it is she who now demands of thee, what seekest thou here?—She whose heaviest sin towards Heaven hath been, that she loved thee even better than the weal of the whole church, and could not without reluctance surrender thee ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... resources of the people, but he could not estimate the degree of their resistance when animated by the spirit of liberty or religion. Providence, too, takes care of those who strive to take care of themselves. A great leader appeared among the suffering Hollanders, almost driven to despair—the celebrated William of Nassau, Prince of Orange. He appeared as the champion of the oppressed and insulted people; they rallied around his standard, fought with desperate bravery, opened the dikes upon their cultivated fields, expelled their invaders, and laid the foundation ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... fear and horror is sufficient of itself alone (to say nothing of other things) to constitute the penalty of purgatory, since it is very near to the horror of despair. ...
— Martin Luther's 95 Theses • Martin Luther
... gives the answer: there I read Resurgam[2] everywhere, So easy said Above the dead— So weak to anodyne despair. ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... I forget! You do not know him. Yet I shall doubtless be his wife." There was an eternity of despair ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... I spoke of despair and frustrated hopes in the cities where the fires of disorder burned last summer. We can—and in time we will—change that despair into confidence, and change those frustrations into achievements. But violence will never ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Lyndon B. Johnson • Lyndon B. Johnson
... wrung her hands and turned her tear-stained flower-crowned face to Heaven, looking so lovely in her despair—for she was indeed a beautiful woman—that assuredly the sight of her would have melted the hearts of any less cruel than were the three fiends before us. Prince Arthur's appeal to the ruffians who came ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... In despair, he turned and fled from the oncoming soldiery. Across the compound he ran, his revolver still clutched tightly in his hand. At the gates a sentry halted him. Werper did not pause to parley or to exert ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... must be as you say: Heaven and hell are of our own contriving. Poor fool! And I have held my head so high, faced the world so fearlessly and contemptuously! . . . to find that I am this, this! My God, Monsieur, but you have stirred within me all the hate, the lust to kill, the gall of envy and despair! But live," his madness increasing; "live to die in bed, no kin beside you, not even the administering hand of a friendly priest to alleviate the horror of your death-bed! God! do men go ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... exclaimed, as he accosted her, "London has been searched for you! At the Embassy my staff are reduced to despair. Telephones, notes, telegrams, and personal calls have been in vain. Since lunch-time yesterday it seemed to us that you must have found some other ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... with eyes unnaturally enlarged, fleeing among a rabble of devils—the evil passions. It fled wildly here and there and every way was blocked. The child fell on its knees, screaming dumbly—you could see the despair in the staring eyes, but all was drowned in the thunder of Tibetan drums. No mercy—no ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... as his words, restored confidence to many of his people, who were already yielding to a feeling of despair. The count and the lieutenant fervently, but silently, grasped ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... one of the amusements of a New England population. Must we call it an amusement to go and see the acted despair of Medea? or the dying agonies of poor Adrienne Lecouvreur? It is something of the same awful interest in life's tragedy, which makes an untaught and primitive people gather to a funeral,—a tragedy where there is no acting,—and one which each one ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... sung before. I wondered to hear myself, and I was not surprised the people applauded. It was a love song, but what did I care for the stupid man who stood and rolled his eyes at me sentimentally while I sang it? I was in a frenzy, not of love, but despair. This last knowledge that has come to me has put the final touch. To be an actual beggar, as I may be before long, leaves nothing more but death—and that would be peace ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... powerless in humiliation and chagrin. It was as if he were possessed with all the devils, after one of these unaccountable conflicts with Ursula. He hated her as if his only reality were in hating her to the last degree. He had all hell in his heart. But he went away, to escape himself. He knew he must despair, yield, give in ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... a nickname he has got. Cotogni, the sculptor, was in despair for a model last year. Griggs and two or three other men were in the studio, and somebody suggested that Griggs was very near the standard of the ancients in his proportions. They persuaded him to let them ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... of the pagan brood that originally possessed it. Many were the consultations held upon the subject without coming to a conclusion, for though everybody condemned the old name, nobody could invent a new one. At length, when the council was almost in despair, a burgher, remarkable for the size and squareness of his head, proposed that they should call it New Amsterdam. The proposition took everybody by surprise; it was so striking, so apposite, so ingenious. The name was adopted by acclamation, and New Amsterdam the metropolis was ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... them dropped a burning torch on his neighbor and set fire to his clothes; this led to a fight which soon became general, and they began to bang one another right and left with anything that came to hand. Blood was flowing freely and the dragoman was in despair. He rushed into a stable and came out with a wooden pitchfork with which he drove them back, and restored order ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... the parapets, and fighting from there most valiantly slew many of the enemy, but was himself struck by an arrow and died. And then, since it was late in the day, the Persians retired to their camp in order to assail the wall again on the following day; but the Romans were in despair since their leader was dead, and were purposing to make themselves suppliants of Chosroes. On the following day, therefore, they sent the bishop of the city to plead for them and to beg that the town be spared; so he took with him some of his attendants, who carried fowls and wine and clean loaves, ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... but when, towards the end of 1827, an opportunity occurred of becoming possessed of a type-foundry, the partners, perhaps with the desperation of despair, did not hesitate to avail themselves of it. This new acquisition naturally only appeared likely to precipitate the catastrophe, and Barbier prepared to leave the sinking ship. At this juncture Madame ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... mechanism, taking all its springs into his own hand, and deciding by whom, how, and on what conditions each article should be produced, transported, exchanged and consumed? Ah! although there is much suffering within your walls; although misery, despair, and perhaps starvation, may call forth more tears than your warmest charity can wipe away, it is probable, it is certain, that the arbitrary intervention of government would infinitely multiply these sufferings, and would extend among ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... ha' done. And whiles the innocent maun suffer wi' the guilty—aye, that's a part of the punishment of the guilty, when they come to realize hoo it is they've carried others, maybe others they love, doon wi' them into the valley of despair. ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... contrasts of differently placed choirs, contrasts of sentiment—love, hate, hope, despair, joy, sorrow, brightness, gloom, pity, scorn, prayer, praise, exaltation, depression, laughter, and tears—in fact all the emotions and passions are now expected to be delineated by the voice alone. It may be said, in passing, that in fulfilling these expectations choral singing has entered on ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... "The March of the Pilgrims" came to an abrupt end. John Lansing Birch laid down his viola and bow, whirled about, and flung out his arms in despair. "Oh, this crowd is hopeless!" he groaned. "Never mind any other instrument, providing yours is heard. This march is supposed to die away in the distance! You murder it in front of ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... she uttered the marriage vow, how little did she think that soon would her broken spirit devote time, energies, life, to the good of others; as an act of duty and, but for the faith of the Christian, of despair. For several years she only wept with others when they sorrowed; fair children followed her footsteps, and it was happiness to guide their voices, as they, like the morning stars, sang together; or to listen to their evening prayer as they folded their hands ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... why should he despair that knows to court it With words, fair looks, and liberality? What, hast not thou full often struck a doe, And borne her cleanly by the ...
— The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... if they were shaken by the wind, 'that orphan child! If I were alone, I could die with gladness—perhaps even anticipate that doom which is dealt out so unequally: coming, as it does, on the proud and happy in their strength, and shunning the needy and afflicted, and all who court it in their despair—but what I have done, has been for her. Help me for her sake I implore you; not for ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... glared at me for a moment with starting eyeballs, and a dreadful despair seemed to settle on his face. He threw himself on his knees before ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... which could be ascertained. The man seemed to be in a low desponding state. Some small medicines were administered, but he evinced no symptoms of restoration. He rather appeared to be pining away, with some secret mental canker. The very spirit of despair was depicted in his visage. Young Wheaton, a brother of the Doctor, and Lieutenant C. Morton, United States Army, visited him daily in company, with much solicitude; but no effort to rally him, physically or mentally, was successful, and he died this morning. "He died," said ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... tried to shake him off. The more I labored, the closer he clung to me, as if fearful that I should escape his grasp. I believed that my last moment had come. I gave myself up in despair, and thought of Flora—what would become of her. I asked God to forgive all my sins—which seemed like a mountain to ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... struggle was from time to time renewed convulsively, and as if by some sudden impulse; but at last the vain strife subsided, and the poor animal remained perfectly motionless, the image of exhaustion and despair. ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... always let my friend have the last word but one. I now asked him if he could deny the enlightenment of which he boasted led as often to despair as it did to Nirvana. If his knowledge were so all-inclusive, why had it failed to suggest some path up or down which he could peacefully ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... enemy, and his last words were of you. He begged your forgiveness; he implored that you forget that black moment. He was young, he said; and they offered him a thousand crowns. In a moment of despair ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... illusion. To be sure there were the boots untouched, the coat, the hat, and the portmanteau; but where—oh where—were the watch and the plethoric pocketbook, with its bunch of bank-notes and other minor memoranda? Gone—spirited away; and with a shout of despair old Grobey summoned ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... right into ruin. By all human laws Of man's heart I forbid it, by all sanctities Of man's social honor! The Duke droop'd his eyes. "I obey you," he said, "but let woman beware How she plays fast and loose thus with human despair, And the storm in man's heart. Madam, yours was the right, When you saw that I hoped, to extinguish hope quite. But you should from the first have done this, for I feel That you knew from the first that I loved you." Lucile This sudden reproach seem'd ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... my voice as the wave sank, and I felt once more free, and in sheer despair forced the boat lower down the tunnel; but this time, when the tide came in again, I had to lie right back, the boat rose so high, and I felt the dripping seaweed hanging from the roof weep coldly and slimily over my face; when, before the next wave ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... a rose from her hair, And she hid her young heart within it. I could hardly speak from despair, Till she gave that rose from her hair, And leaned out over the stair With a blush as she stooped to pin it. She gave me a rose from her hair, And she hid ...
— When hearts are trumps • Thomas Winthrop Hall
... the perspiration poured down his face. But with the energy of despair he drove his pole again and again into the water. As the afternoon waned, and night drew near, the limit of his endurance was reached, and he knew that he could do no more. He had struggled for life, but to no purpose. Rest was all that he cared for now. His head began to swim, and he sank exhausted ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... your places!" I saw the cause: the regiments on our right were retreating. I was astounded, for we were expecting an order to advance instantly. At that moment Lieutenant Handy, an aide of our brigade commander, rode up, pale, excited, his hands flung up as if in despair. My men ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... letter touching a passion to be overcome; necessarily therefore a passion that was vanquished, and the fullest and bravest explanation of his shifting treatment of her: nor would she condescend to urge that her lover would have said he loved her when they were at Steynham, but for the misery and despair of a soul too noble to be diverted from his grief and sense of duty, and, as she believed, unwilling to speak to win her while his material fortune was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of Steve, who, she understood, was superintendent of a large plant some two hundred miles removed from Hanover, and of the time when the slightest flicker of her eyes made him glad for all the day, or the suggestion of a pout brought him to the level of despair. Perhaps she thought, too, of the very few moments as his wife during which she had wished things might have been as he wanted. No, not really wished—but wondered how it would have been. And of Mary she thought a great deal—that was to be expected. ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... silent followed between the two; Blunt striving to draw his knife, and Myles, with the energy of despair, holding him tightly by the wrist. It was in vain the elder lad writhed and twisted; he was strong enough to overbear Myles, but still was not able to clutch ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... very tipsy when he came home, and that when he called him, he had found the window open, and it appeared that he had been unwell—he supposed that he had thrown his trousers out of the window. Time flew, and the boatswain was in despair. "Could they ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... within the French lines. Since then the combined attack by land and sea, planned and eagerly wished for by the two commanders, had been deferred from day to day. But Pepperell was not idle, and he was unable to understand despair. To him a repulse was the starting point of a new attempt. But now, with half his camp in hospital, with French and Indians threatening him in the rear, and the great battlements of Louisburg still formidable, he dared not risk an ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... slow recruiting, the defiance of Massachusetts and Connecticut—almost crushed the President. Never physically robust, he succumbed to an insidious intermittent fever in June and was confined to his bed for weeks. So serious was his condition that Mrs. Madison was in despair and scarcely left his side for five long weeks. "Even now," she wrote to Mrs. Gallatin, at the end of July, "I watch over him as I would an infant, so precarious is his convalescence." The rumor spread that he was not likely to survive, and ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... God knows. But shame, like all powerful things, will work for harm as well as for good; and just as a wholesome and godly shame may be the beginning of a man's repentance and righteousness, so may an unwholesome and ungodly shame be the cause of his despair and ruin. But judge for yourselves; think over your past lives. Were you ever once—were it but for five minutes— utterly ashamed of yourself? If you were, did you ever feel any torment like that? In all other misery and torment one feels ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley
... bring demonstrations against the truths of faith. It appears therefore that he takes the objections to be insoluble only in respect of our present degree of enlightenment; and in this Reply, p. 35, he even does not despair of the possibility that one day a solution hitherto unknown may be found by someone. Concerning that more will be said later. I hold an opinion, however, that will perchance cause surprise, namely that this solution has been discovered entire, and is not even particularly difficult. ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... |avenue, Rissa talked long and earnestly | |with her mother. Then she retired to her | |room, turned on the gas and, clothed, lay | |down upon her bed to await death and | |relief from troubles that have driven | |older heads to despair. | | | | At the inquest yesterday afternoon the | |grief-stricken mother told the story of | |her daughter's difficulties. She said that | |Rissa had declared she could not live if | |compelled to give up either of her ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... in the hospital instead of sitting, too drunk to move out in the rain on the quay. And suddenly she knew quite well. He had said love was a hunger, and she would understand some day that it was as tigerish a hunger as drink hunger or any other. In that moment of utter disgust and pain and despair she understood that that hunger had come to her though she did not yet comprehend it. It had taken hold of her now—she writhed at the indignity of the thought, but she knew quite well that she actually wanted his presence with her whether he were rude and overbearing, ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... Mr. Spenlow, more like Punch than I had ever seen him, as he energetically struck one hand upon the other—I could not help noticing that even in my despair; 'that YOU Will NOT talk to me of ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... their sins may be. This is an article of faith, and without holding it you could not die a good Catholic. Some doctors, it is true, have before now maintained the contrary, but they have been condemned as heretics. Only despair and final impenitence are unpardonable, and they are not sins of our ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... it comes of indignation at not being understood and another great part from despair of being understood—and that while all the time the person thus indignant and despairing takes not the smallest pains to understand the neighbor whose misunderstanding of himself makes him so sick ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... the man's trade, so I had expected to detest the man himself; and behold, I liked him. Poor devil! he was essentially a man on wires, all sensibility and tremor, brimful of a cheap poetry, not without parts, quite without courage. His boldness was despair; the gulf behind him thrust him on; he was one of those who might commit a murder rather than confess the theft of a postage-stamp. I was sure that his coming interview with Carthew rode his imagination like a nightmare; when ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... seeing that this iniquity was discovered, and that they and the murderer were obnoxious to the French, were seized with despair, and, fearing that our men would exercise vengeance upon them for this murder, withdrew for a while from our settlement.[207] Not only those guilty of the act but the others also being seized with fear came no longer to the settlement, as they had been accustomed ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... therefore must of necessity be damned. There was no room for me to escape. I went about with my heart full of these thoughts, little better than a distracted fellow; in short, running headlong into the dreadfullest despair, and premeditating nothing but how to rid myself out of the world; and, indeed, the devil, if such things are of the devil's immediate doing, followed his work very close with me, and nothing lay upon my mind for several days but to shoot ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... thought, with indignant despair, that he had not behaved at all as an only son should—especially an only son just returned to a widowed mother after four years' absence. How could anyone suppose that in four years there would be no debts—on such a pittance of an ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... on the threshold of his hut, and raising his thin hands above his gray head, as a sign of indignation and despair, he ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... keenly alive to all impulses, and so unsupported by any moral convictions, would suffer in so keen a contest waged under such unequal and cruel conditions. It was in truth a year of great passion and great despair. Defeat is bitter when it comes swiftly and conclusively, but when defeat falls by inches like the fatal pendulum in the pit, the agony is a little out of reach of words to define. It was even so. I remember the first day of my martyrdom. The clocks were striking ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... and home with me shall no one despair: in my purlieus do I protect every one from his wild beasts. And that is the first thing which I offer ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... for his situation. Deserted, as he imagines, by the object of his dearest affections, Rosalie Summers, who is supposed to have eloped with a villain of high rank of the name of Plastic, he goes to London and finds his brother in the last stage of ruin and despair by gambling, and stops his hand just at the moment he is attempting suicide. In the end he reforms the brother, discovers his Rosalie, and finds that she is innocent and faithful; and by a series ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... tell you, Madam, how it shall be managed—If you don't choose to go to London, it is, nevertheless, best that your relations should think you there; for then they will absolutely despair of finding you. If you write, be pleased to direct, to be left for you, at Mr. Osgood's, near Soho-square. Mr. Osgood is a man of reputation: and ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... move against you, it is not to be depended that he will succeed in collecting such evidence as he must need. At this date much of the evidence that may once have been available will have been dissipated. You are rash to despair ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... papers with which he had provided himself to a gendarme; however, he had only a very confused idea of what had happened. He had left Vernon without any breakfast, seized every now and then with hopeless despair and raging pangs which had driven him to munch the leaves of the hedges as he tramped along. A prey to cramp and fright, his body bent, his sight dimmed, and his feet sore, he had continued his weary march, ever drawn onwards in a semi-unconscious state by a ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... perusal, they had got the better of their prejudices, and either acquired or affected a truer taste. A few others stood aloof, merely because they had long before fixed the articles of their poetical creed, and resigned themselves to an absolute despair of ever seeing anything new and original. These were somewhat mortified to find their notions disturbed by the appearance of a poet, who seemed to owe nothing but to nature and his own genius. But, in a short time, the applause became unanimous, every one ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... into a volcano, from the peak of which the flame streamed up, not red alone, but, delicately green and blue, pale rose and pearly white, while crimson sparks leapt and fell again in the midst of that rainbow, not of hope, but of despair; and dull explosions down below mingled with the roar of the mob, and the infernal hiss and ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... she be rich and fair, Yet she is both wise and kind, And, therefore, do thou not despair But thy faith ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... Pierre, and asked him if I could by any means be conveyed as far as the valley. He sent, to my great satisfaction, for a sedan-chair. Meanwhile, I exercised myself by walking up and down my room, for I feared the guides would despair of me if they saw me stumble at every step. I was profoundly humiliated, and only weighty reasons prevented me from resuming my woman's dress. At last I bethought myself of an expedient. I made a parcel of my silk petticoat and my boots (brodequins), ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... surging with the sound of rushing waters. The tumultuous feelings so strongly excited, so completely overthrown that evening in the conservatory with Helene, would not subside. They beat upon his desolate heart in great waves of rage, remorse, despair, and love, like the beating of lonely ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... the mill!" He went on saying this over to himself, as if he would mutter down every pain in this dull despair. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... her, to her handkerchief and her gloves, was haunted by a vague mystery of worshipfulness, and drew him towards it with wonder and trembling. When they parted for the night, she shook hands with him with a cool frankness, that put him nearly beside himself with despair; and when he found himself in his own room, it was some time before he could collect his thoughts. Having succeeded, however, he resolved, in spite of growing fears, to go to the library, and see whether it were not possible she ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... pitch is appropriate; and, on the other hand, for the interpretation of what may be called the graver and deeper feelings, such as awe, reverence, humility, grief, and melancholy, and the more impassioned emotions, as disgust, loathing, horror, rage, despair, as well as for the expression of all very serious and impressive thought, sentential pitch of a degree somewhat lower than normal pitch is appropriate. The degree of elevation and depression must be determined by the judgment and good taste of the reader; but it must be borne in mind ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... to be taken, and would in time be given to the Gentiles, who, the Lord affirmed, would prove more worthy than Israel had been. We gather from Luke's account that in contemplation of this awful penalty, "they," whether priestly rulers or common people we are not told, exclaimed in despair, "God forbid!" ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... not paid the old doctor's bill, and as they were afraid that he would ask them for it if they went to see him again, her father took the girl to Beaujon, and they thought that he should have gone mad with despair and shame when one of the house-surgeons, without mincing his words, told them in a chaffing manner, that she was in ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... estimate of human nature,—in other words, that by making education repressive and devitalising, by introducing externalism, with its endless train of attendant evils, into Man's daily life, and by making him disbelieve in and even despair of himself, it has done more perhaps than all other influences added together to deprave his heart and ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... was like other histories. It was copied from books. His Journal rose out of his own experience and observation. His history was read, and perhaps read with eagerness, because at the time when it appeared there was a strong interest felt in the Corsicans. In despair of maintaining their independence, they had been willing to place themselves and their island entirely under the protection of Great Britain. The offer had been refused, but they still hoped for our ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... expire. Fond impious man, think'st thou yon sanguine cloud Raised by thy breath, has quench'd the orb of day? To-morrow he repairs the golden flood And warms the nations with redoubled ray. Enough for me: with joy I see The different doom our fates assign: Be thine Despair and sceptred Care; To triumph and to die are mine." He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... of Intellect in which he is confined. He asks himself the question, "Whence come I—Whither go I—What is the object of my Existence?" He becomes dissatisfied with the answers the world has to give him to these questions, and he cries aloud in despair—and but the answer of his own voice comes back to him from the impassable walls with which he is surrounded. He does not realize that his answer must come from ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... like heliotrope and taste like possum the year 'round, and Uncle Zack swearing it's just a big race track where everybody's horse will win, and doubtless the Colonel's word for it that it's a perpetual spring flowing with ice-cold mint juleps, I quite despair of the child's salvation. How ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... South Barracks, West Point, was the despair of the worthy inspector who spent his days and nights in unsuccessful efforts to keep order among the embryo protectors of his country. Poe, the leader of the quartette that made life interesting in Number ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... most certain, according to the Scriptures. The Flood was universal as to mankind; but from thence follows no necessity at all of asserting the universality of it as to the globe of the earth, unless it be sufficiently proved that the whole earth was peopled before the Flood, which I despair of ever seeing proved." It was not, however, until the comparatively recent times in which the belief entertained by Poole and Stillingfleet was adopted and enforced by writers such as Dr. Pye Smith, ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... Such was his fate, who flew too near the sun, Shot far beyond his strength, and was undone; Such is his fate, who creeping at the shore The billow sweeps him, and he's found no more. Oh! for some god, to bear my fortunes fair Midway betwixt presumption and despair! "Has then some friendly critic's former blow Taught thee a prudence authors seldom know?" Not so! their anger and their love untried, A woe-taught prudence deigns to tend my side: Life's hopes ill-sped, the Muse's hopes grow poor, And though they flatter, yet ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe
... truly; but we are not to overlook what he said of himself on another occasion. "I have, nevertheless, several resources in view, and do not despair of succeeding pretty well in ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... the old man grieved and wrung his hands in despair. How could he help being startled by such a thing! He had put the child in the trough and seen her after he had laid her in it, and knew exactly where he had left her, and now to be unable to find her just a moment after was quite ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... corridors of the Catacombs: an alley filled with reeking bones of dead men; while from the cross-arches, waiting for the poor man's coming on, ghastly shapes look out:—sickness and want and sin and grim despair ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... certainly was not. He was one of those nervous natures, as prompt to hope as to despair, going to all extremes, at times foolishly gay, and at others as grave and melancholy as Hamlet. There were days when Menko did not value his life at a penny, and when he asked himself seriously if suicide were not the simplest means to reach the end; and again, at the least ray of ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... struggle and despair, a company of surveyors came one evening to Hogstad, which was the first farm at the entrance of the parish to mark out the line of a new railroad. In the course of conversation, Lars perceived it was still a question with ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... chance lay in a raft; but both Sweers and I, as sailors, shrank from the thought of such a means of escape. We might well guess that a raft would but prolong our lives in the midst of so wide a sea, by a few days, and perhaps by a few hours only, after subjecting us to every agony of despair and of expectation, and torturing us with God alone ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... every ray of sunshine in my heart, for every breath of happiness in my life; while he—" her voice broke suddenly; it came muffled as she continued quiveringly—"while he—he's not dependent on me at all!" After a little interval, she went on, more firmly, but with the voice of despair. "That's the pity of it. That's what makes us women nowadays turn to something else—to some other man, or to some work, some fad, some hobby, some folly, some madness—anything to fill the void in our hearts that our husbands forget to fill, ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... seen Chard, who is in despair about the address; but he has determined, by my advice, to defer his presentation to Wednesday se'nnight, in case we hear nothing ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... might have been without such a volley of shot,) and not have so mangled their bodies after they were slain. From such cowardly and cruel foes no mercy can be expected; and every one sent against them must despair if he finds himself in danger of being overpowered, and wrought up to desperation and revenge when he finds himself any thing near ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... early times as to its right connection. But the difficulties raised as to this verse even where it stands are not so serious as was once thought. As Ball says in loc., "The cuneiform records have thrown unexpected light on difficulties which were the despair of bygone generations of scholars," and quotes one which makes Astyages the captive of Cyrus. J.H. Blunt attempts to shew, not very satisfactorily, that the king of v. 2 was Darius. A note in Husenbeth's Douay version, still less so, quietly ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney
... better without interruptions. It is strange, Eleazar said, that one who loves God as truly as Jesus, should abandon himself to grief. Eleazar's words caused the Essenes to drop into reveries and dreams, and when they spoke out of these their words were: his grief is more like despair. And in speaking these words they were nearer the truth than they suspected, for though Jesus grieved and truly for Joseph, there was in his heart something more than ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... tangle of her love affairs Wilmot Allen threaded a path of hope, despair, and cynicism. There were times when she seemed to have a return of her childhood infatuation for him; there were times when he feared that in one of her moments of impressionable enthusiasm she would marry some other man in haste, and repent at leisure. ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... lulled a little, and I proceeded to Caragola Ghat and took up my dawk, which had been twenty-eight hours expecting me, and was waiting, in despair of my arrival, for another traveller on the opposite bank, who however could not cross ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... day she got up in the depths of despair; at her wit's end, I suppose, in other words, for a new sensation. Suddenly it occurred to her that the Catholic church might after all hold the key, might give her what she wanted! She sent for a priest; he happened ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... Mothe almost in a sob, and, forgetting that he, too, wore a sword, he would have sprung upon him barehanded in his despair had not Hugues forced him to ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... Christ's sake, that we do not merit the remission of sins by our works? [Experience shows—and the monks themselves must admit it—that] The consciences of the pious will have no sufficiently sure consolation against the terrors of sin and of death, and against the devil soliciting to despair [and who in a moment blows away all our works like dust], if they do not know that they ought to be confident that they have the remission of sins freely for Christ's sake. This faith sustains and quickens hearts in that most violent conflict with despair [in the great agony of death, in the ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... those immense countries which swelled the pride of the catholic crown—but failed. Stripped of all resources he took flight and repaired to Jamaica, where he implored in vain of the governor of that island, the help of England. Almost in despair, and without means, he resolved to visit Hayti, and appeal to the generosity of the black Republic for the help necessary to again undertake that work of liberation which had gone to pieces in his hands. Never was there a more solemn hour for any man—and that man the ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... old-green, did not touch any one; and we know that Chaucer, when he was a page, had a superb costume, of which one leg was red and the other black. Laughter was inextinguishable; it rose and fell and rose again, rebounding indefinitely; despair was immeasurable; the sense of measure was precisely what was wanting; its vulgarisation was one of the results of the Renaissance. Panegyrics and satires were readily carried to the extreme. The logical spirit, ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... mild Esli had charge of the sewing-class, and the class had got into bad ways; carelessness and chattering prevailed, so Esli came in despair to me, and I talked to the erring children. They were sorry, made no excuses, and promised to be different in future. I left them repentant and thoroughly ashamed of themselves, and went ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... born in this confounded Britain! I should have got on all right with Parisian readers. But I don't despair even here. They can reject my MSS., but they can't take out my brains. I daresay I shall stumble across some man at last with courage enough to stand by me in the beginning and help me force open the British public's jaws and cram my ideas down its throat; and that once done, it ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... and blood, but songs of peace and quiet and deep contentment. When our women sang, like all women who try to voice the thoughts within them, they sang their poems in a sadder key, all filled with care, and cried of love's call to its mate, of resignation and sometimes of despair. ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... of Mr. Chitterling Crabtree. Our worthy embarked his fortune in a speculation so certain of success;—crash went the speculation, and off went the friend—Mr. Crabtree was ruined. He was not, however, a man to despair at trifles. What were bread, meat, and beer, to the champion of equality! He went to the meeting that very night: he said he gloried in his losses—they were for the cause: the whole conclave rang with shouts of ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... removing obstructions, After these and more, it is just possible there comes to a man, woman, the divine power to speak words; Then toward that man or that woman swiftly hasten all—none refuse, all attend, Armies, ships, antiquities, libraries, paintings, machines, cities, hate, despair, amity, pain, theft, murder, aspiration, form in close ranks, They debouch as they are wanted to march obediently through the mouth of ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... began to despair of present success; whilst I, in default of any brighter idea, proposed that he should take legal advice on the subject. So we went to a certain avocat, in a little street adjoining the Ecole de Droit, and there purchased as much wisdom as might be ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... are delicious!" he averred—"But the ghastly spectre of matrimony does not at present stand in my path, luring me to the frightful chasms of domesticity, oblivion and despair. What was it the charming Russian girl Bashkirtseff wrote on this very ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... his easy-chair half a dozen times and roamed aimlessly about the room, stopping to pick up a book, reading a line and laying it down again. Mrs. horn dropped so many stitches that she gave up in despair, and said she ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith |
