"Despair" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and Abner went to the post office and inquired for letters, but alas! none came. Poor Herbert was in despair. He thought his father would have instantly sent the money, or come out himself to take him home. Was it possible his father had forgotten him, or was indifferent to his absence? He could not believe it, but what was he ...
— Helping Himself • Horatio Alger
... know that you lack perseverance, you can, by constantly making a mighty effort to overcome this defect, compel yourself to persevere, and this would tend to give your children perseverance. So you see we need not despair because we have inherited faults from our ancestors, but we should determine all the more that we will not pass these defects on ...
— Almost A Man • Mary Wood-Allen
... pace. "That is so," he said. Then he looked at Maria in a kind of angry despair. He felt, in spite of his romantic predilection for her, that he wished she were a boy, so he could say something forcible. He realized his utter helplessness with these two girls in a city where he knew no one, ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... moaned Mysie, kneeling down, her legs unable to support her longer, "Oh, dear God, my heart'll break!" and a wild burst of sobbing shook her frame, and her grief overpowering flowed through the tears—a picture of utter despair and ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... a moment, half hopefully; then, as Gipsy only shook her head in reply, she gave up her useless attempt, and went sorrowfully away. In black despair Gipsy mentally went over the conversation, wondering how she could have convinced Miss Edith of her innocence. She could not allow herself to be cajoled by kindness into a confession of what she had not done, any more than she ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... educated upper class which was enslaved by idleness and tedium. Most of the "Intellectuals," with no outlet for their energies, were content to forget their ennui in vodka and card-playing; only the more idealistic gasped for air in the stifling atmosphere, crying out in despair against life as they saw it, and looking forward with a pathetic hope to happiness for humanity in "two or three hundred years." It is the inevitable tragedy of their existence, and the pitiful humour of their surroundings, that are portrayed with such insight and sympathy by Anton Tchekoff ...
— Swan Song • Anton Checkov
... corners of her mouth, having read somewhere that it is impossible to despair so long as the lips are kept in that cheerful position. But the fear at ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... lying on a flat rock, looking at the pond, and throwing pebbles into it. Later Quonab went to Myanos. On his return he found that Rolf had cut up a great pile of wood, but not a word passed between them. The look of sullen anger and rebellion on Rolf's face was changing to one of stony despair. What was passing in each mind the other could ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... wreckage of thy yesterday Design the structure of to-morrow. Lay Strong corner stones of purpose, and prepare Great blocks of wisdom, cut from past despair. Shape mighty pillars of resolve, to set Deep in the tear-wet mortar of regret. Work on with patience. Though thy toil be slow, Yet day by day the edifice shall grow. Believe in God—in thine own self believe. All that thou hast desired thou ...
— New Thought Pastels • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... meaning and feel the spirit of the piece. If he is timid and diffident he should be encouraged. Tell him that even Daniel Webster could not make a declamation at the first attempt; but that he did not despair; he did not cease his efforts; he persevered ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... into future times. I have still resources:—a pistol-shot can deliver me from my sorrows and my life: and I think a merciful God would not damn me for that; but, taking pity on me, would, in exchange for a life of wretchedness, grant me salvation. This is whitherward despair can lead a young person, whose blood is not so quiescent as if he were seventy. I have a feeling of myself, Monsieur; and perceive that, when one hates the methods of force as much as I, our boiling blood will carry us always ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... How welcome to the weary and the old! Day of the Lord! and truce to earthly cares! Day of the Lord, as all our days should be! Ah, why will man by his austerities Shut out the blessed sunshine and the light, And make of thee a dungeon of despair!" ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... almost say his despair, increased when, some days after his entry into the Venetian States, he received a letter from Moreau, dated the 23d of April, in which that general informed him that, having passed the Rhine on the 20th with brilliant success, and taken four thousand ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... when they were come to By-path Meadow, to the stile over which Christian went with his fellow Hopeful, when they were taken by Giant Despair, and put into Doubting Castle; they sat down and consulted what was best to be done; to wit, now they were so strong, and had got such a man as Mr. Great-heart for their conductor, whether they had not best to make an attempt upon the Giant, demolish his castle, and, if there ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... gasping for breath, "Mother, you will break my heart, indeed you will." She hid her face in the clothes of the bed by which she sat, and wept with a feeling of despair. ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... she to say or do. Her hand absolutely trembled as she put it lightly to the instrument. Thrice she bent her head down before she was able to say anything, and thrice she lifted it up in despair. ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... "practical" leap into the unknown. "'But' is an adverb, qualifying 'he,' showing what he is doing." Poor fellow, it was no joke to him, nor probably his fault, but that of circumstances. When released from the ordeal, we stood round together, awaiting sentence. He was in despair, nor could I honestly encourage him. "Look at you," he said, "as quiet as if nothing had happened"—I was by no means confident that I had cause for elation. "If I were as sure that I had passed as that you have, I should be skipping all over the place." I never heard of him again; but suppose from ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... like!" said his father; but nurse, with a look of despair, caught at his knickerbockers just as he was plunging into the dust again. "Not whilst I have power to hold you back, Master Dick," she said.—"No, sir, you haven't got the washing of him, and wild horses won't be equal to it if he ...
— Troublesome Comforts - A Story for Children • Geraldine Glasgow
... to be a good and honest girl. Had the lady of the house been very particular, and had others to whom she might afterwards have applied been the same, all her good intentions might have been frustrated, and she might have been driven to despair, if not to her former evil courses. It is perhaps fortunate that everybody in the world is not so particular as your very good people, and that there is an occasional loophole by which those who have erred are permitted to return to virtue. Mary left the room ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... disorganised a state as the commissariat, and Mr. Sydney Herbert, well-nigh in despair, had the bright inspiration of sending to the seat of war Florence Nightingale, the daughter and co-heiress of a Derbyshire squire, with a ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... Herbert with a shrug almost of despair, 'then begins the weary tramp back. One by one drop off the truisms, and the Grundyisms, and the pedantries, and all the stillborn claptrap of the marketplace sloughs off. Then one can seriously begin to ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... despair crossed the love-beaming face of Adrian, while with set teeth he murmured, "Yet they shall be saved!" Clara, visited by an human pang, pale and trembling, crept near him—he looked on her with an encouraging smile—"Do you fear, sweet girl? O, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... don't know how a woman feels when a man stands up for her as you did." It is the nature of her sex to adore hardy, courageous manhood. Beyond all power of expression, Alida felt her need of a champion and protector. She was capable of going away for his sake, but she would go in terror and despair. The words that had smitten her confirmed all her old fears of facing the world alone. Then came the overpowering thought of his loyalty and kindness, of his utter and almost fierce repugnance to the idea of her leaving him. In contrast ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... so, you, who at this moment shed tears with me; no one can burden his heart or his skin with another's pain. The measure of our sufferings is in ourselves.—You even understand my sorrows only by very vague analogy. Could you see me calming the most violent frenzy of despair by the contemplation of a miniature in which I can see and kiss her brow, the smile on her lips, the shape of her face, can breathe the whiteness of her skin; which enables me almost to feel, to play with ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... from his fit of anger to a paroxysm of despair. He seemed to be addressing some person invisible, but in the room: "Look here, ma'am, you've really been coming it too strong. A hundred thousand in six months, and now a thousand more! The 'ouse can't stand it; it WON'T stand it, I ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... believe that I possessed such a treasure when I looked back on the day that I first saw the mysterious word "Algebra," and the long course of years in which I had persevered almost without hope. It taught me never to despair. I had now the means, and pursued my studies with increased assiduity; concealment was no longer possible, nor was it attempted. I was considered eccentric and foolish, and my conduct was highly disapproved of by many, especially by some members of ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... Let us not slip the occasion.... But reassembling our afflicted powers Consult how we may henceforth most offend Our enemy; our own loss how repair, How overcome this dire calamity; What reinforcement we may gain from hope, If not what resolution from despair.'" ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... in rummaging every corner of the place, the assailants were going away in despair, convinced that their prey had escaped them; when a soldier, who was stooping down to look through the air-hole of a cellar, fell, shot through ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... do not let your mother come between us! That girl—she will make you marry that girl. She has money, whereas I—what am I? A mere castaway on life's sea! Yes, yes." She covers her face with her hands in a little paroxysm of despair. "Yes," faintly, "you will marry ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... cataract in Switzerland by their own obstinate folly.(869) Mr. Tickell's death was a determined measure, and more shocking than the usual mode by a pistol. He threw himself from one of the uppermost windows of the palace at Hampton Court, into the garden -an immense height! Some attribute his despair to debts; some to a breach with his political friends. I am not acquainted with, but am sorry for him, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... pleasant trivialities which attract a boy's mind in poetry. One thing, however, was clear to me even then. Dark and unintelligible though his poems appeared, they were certainly full of a deep, passionate feeling, a feeling that haunted my thoughts long after I had closed his book in despair. From that day, I condescended to think of him as of a sincere follower of a wrong cause, as of a sheep that had been ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... the sight of the fallen general, another Persian leader in a quadriga, who, from the richness of his dress and accoutrements, the height of his tiara, and his red chlamys, is probably Darius himself, stretches forth his right hand in an attitude of alarm and despair, while the charioteer urges his horses to precipitate flight. Nothing can exceed the vigor with which both men and animals are depicted in this unequaled mosaic. If the Grecian hero really represents Alexander the Great, the mosaic may probably be a copy of a picture by Appelles, the only ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... had been told by friends and neighbours, and even by comparative strangers, of kind words spoken by him, and generous help given, which had healed sick hearts, and opened the way out of depths of despair to some who were sinners, and to some who were only sufferers. And now this man came to tell how he also had been helped—saved, he called it, and he told it with tears in his eyes, though more than a generation had ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... of this verse terminated like myself in 'boots.'—Other efforts were equally successful—'bloom' suggested to my imagination no rhyme but 'perfume!'—'despair' only reminded me of my 'hair,'—and 'hope' was met at the end of the second verse, by the inharmonious antithesis of 'soap.' Finding, therefore, that my forte was not in the Pierian line, I redoubled my attention to my dress; I coated, and cravated, and essenced, and oiled, with all the ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... could not raise a finger nor utter a sound. The boards over his head waved like a shaken sheet, and the cabin whirled round, while the patch of light at his feet bobbed up and down like the reflection from a wavering candle. He closed his eyes with a terrible sigh of despair, and resigned himself to his fate. At that instant the sound of hammering ceased, and the door opened. It was six o'clock, and Pine had come to have a last look at his patients before dinner. It seemed that there was ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... I have been in despair. I couldn't have borne it, but Buck kept giving me hope. There were days, though, and nights, when you hardly ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... behindhand in alacrity, and presently we received another broadside from the brig, closely followed by one from the brigantine, the guns being in both cases aimed as before, with similar murderous results, and with a repetition of those heart-rending shrieks of agony and despair. ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... had no flicker of resentment at Lily! Lily (now that she had seen her) was to Eleanor merely the woman to whom Jacky belonged. Looking back on those months that followed her discovery of Lily, and contrasting the agony she had felt then with her despair about Edith now, she was faintly surprised at the difference in her pain. This was probably because faithlessness of the body is not so deadly an insult to Love as faithlessness of the mind. But Eleanor did not, of course, ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... reliance on their suiting the craving of some wealthy collector. Caterers unable to comprehend the subtle influences at work in the mind of the book-hunter, often make miscalculations in this way. Fitzpatrick Smart punished them so terribly, that they at last abandoned him in despair to ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... the hall of Home, Now Desolation's lair— Blood stains its hearth, and I must roam A pilgrim of despair, Leaving, when heart and brain grow cold, My weary ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... me much Despair in the Design of reforming the World by my Speculations, when I find there always arise, from one Generation to another, successive Cheats and Bubbles, as naturally as Beasts of Prey, and those which are to be their ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... ran down the driveway, Max waved his hand with a gesture of despair as if to indicate that this announcement certainly finished the prospect of getting ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... in the face of the younger boy were sudden and startling. One moment the coronation of hope; the next moment despair had thrown the coronet off; one more, and the hand of determination, — like Napoleon's, — had placed it firmly on his brow; and it was never shaken again. But he said nothing; and both waited a little, till thoughts ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... just as he was really beginning to despair of ever seeing her again and feeling more dejected and miserable every minute in consequence, he stopped in at one of the theaters to see an act or two of a new play in which an English actress of great reputation, not only because of her beauty but also for the artistic quality of her acting, was ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... suppression. That a young, good-looking, and accomplished caballero should have been the victim of not one, but even many, erotic episodes, did not strike the holy father as being peculiar; but that he should have been brought by a solitary unfortunate attachment to despair and renunciation of the world appeared to him marvelous. He was not unfamiliar with the remorse of certain gallants for peccadillos with other men's wives; but this Americano's self-abasement for the sins of his own wife—as he foolishly ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... blown Light vapors white, like thistle-down, That from their softened silver heaps opaque Scatter delicate flake by flake, Upon the wide loom of the heavens weaving Forms of fancies past believing, And, with fantastic show of mute despair, As for some sweet hope hurt beyond repair, Melt in the silent ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... dearest object of adoring love Her next to God, a prey to vile disease Hideous and loathsome, all the beauty marred That she had worshipped from her ardent youth Deeming it half divine, she could not bear, Her woman's strength gave way, and impious words In her despair she uttered. But her lord To deeper anguish stung by her defect And rash advice, reprovingly replied Pointing to Him who meeteth out below Both good and evil in mysterious love, And she was silenced. What a sacred power Hath hallow'd Friendship o'er the ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... where the operation is carrying on. Mr Banks happened to spoil a large quantity of it only by inadvertently touching a leaf which lay upon it. The old woman, who then presided over these mysteries, told him, that the process would fail; and immediately uncovered the hole in a fit of vexation and despair. Mr Banks regretted the mischief he had done, but was somewhat consoled by the opportunity which it gave him of examining the preparation, which perhaps, but for such an accident, would never ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... miles are run yearly through the "tickers" of New York alone. It is true that the record of the chattering little machine, made in cabalistic abbreviations on the tape, can drive a man suddenly to the very verge of insanity with joy or despair; but if there be blame for that, it attaches to the American spirit of speculation and not to the ingenious mechanism which reads and registers the ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... dangerous seas, with the rich cornfields of Thessaly within short and safe reach of their trenches? The seizure of the Thessalian granary, besides {181} helping to keep the Allies in plenty, would help to reduce the Royalists to despair by robbing them of the harvest to which they looked forward with strained eyes and tightened belts. In this wise both military and political problems could be ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... that his Grace of Wharton is determined to 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
... a deep morality of nature, and an overwhelming force of conviction. A space less than one of these pages contains such a picture of the devastation of the Carnatic by Hyder Ali, as may fill the young orator or the young writer with the same emotions of enthusiasm, emulation, and despair that torment the artist who first gazes on the Madonna at Dresden, or the figures of Night and Dawn and the Penseroso at Florence. The despair is only too well founded. No conscious study could pierce the secret of that ...
— Burke • John Morley
... Lord Lyttelton's distich about 'Love can hope when reason would despair;' there are Aaron Hill's famous lines on 'modest ease in beauty,' which, though it 'means no mischief, does it all.' There are Sir William Jones's 'To an Infant Newly Born;' Wolcot's 'To Sleep;' Luttrell's 'On Death;' and ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... to the hills and mountains and set himself to watch for the Little People. Every moonlight night he sat by a green hill, hoping that the Little People would come forth to dance, as is their way, but never did he chance to see them, and he began to despair of finding them. Nevertheless he was not sad, for he had his harp, and the songs which came to him were beautiful, and he cared even more for these than for the love of the Princess. One day, as he sat in the woods playing upon his harp, ...
— The Cat in Grandfather's House • Carl Henry Grabo
... man, with a sad smile irradiating for a moment the restless despair of his countenance, "it is not by choice that I am an intruder on your privacy; I will abstract myself so far as ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... later Marie, obeyed him to the letter! I could not understand it. I folded my arms and gave up the game in despair, and but for very shame I could have put my hands to my face and cried. He stood in the middle under the lamp, a head taller than the tallest of us; our master. And we stood round him trapped, beaten, for all the world like children. Oh, I could have cried! ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... purposely put him on all Things that might make him shine with most Splendor, to strike a reverend Awe into the Beholders. He flew into the thickest of those that were pursuing his Men; and being animated with Despair, he fought as if he came on Purpose to die, and did such Things as will not be believed that human Strength could perform; and such, as soon inspir'd all the rest with new Courage, and new Ardor. And now it was that ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... it. If Job's misery was an ordeal, all unmerited suffering cannot be pressed into the same convenient category. His individual privations and pains may have been compensated for by subsequent plenty and prosperity; but there are other just men who rot on the dunghill and die in despair. The author, therefore, wisely refrained from drawing on the legend more extensively than was absolutely needful for the materials of his poem, and from thus reducing a universal problem to the dimensions ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... French-Canadian militiamen deserted fast—'thirty or forty of a night.' There were not two hundred regulars available for a march across country. And on the 30th Carleton was forced to give up in despair. Within the week St Johns surrendered with 688 men, who were taken south as prisoners of war. Preston had been completely cut off and threatened with starvation as well. So when he destroyed everything likely to be needed by the enemy he had done all that could be expected of ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... from not knowing what variation to allow on the several bearings. The guns were removed in the hope to do away the differences, but they still continued to exist, nearly in the same proportion as before; and almost in despair, I at length set about a close examination of all the circumstances connected with them, in order to ascertain the cause, and if possible to apply a remedy; but it was long, and not without an accumulation of facts, before I could arrive at the conclusions ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... Miss Fosdick," he said. "You have helped me more than I can tell you. I was about to give up in despair before you came, and now—now I KNOW I shall write the best thing I have ever done. And you will be responsible ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... be guided so as best to preserve their fidelity and virtue is not so obvious. (18) All, both rulers and ruled, are men, and prone to follow after their lusts. (19) The fickle disposition of the multitude almost reduces those who have experience of it to despair, for it is governed solely by emotions, not by reason: it rushes headlong into every enterprise, and is easily corrupted either by avarice or luxury: everyone thinks himself omniscient and wishes ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza
... Kamehameha the Conqueror, who after fierce fighting and much ruthless destruction of human life united the island sovereignties in his own person, routed the forces of the King of Oahu in the Nuuanu Valley, and drove them in hundreds up the precipice, from which they leaped in despair and madness, and their bones lie ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... whose defeat, whatever glory it might reflect on her own arms, could be purchased only at the expense of Christian blood. She wrote in earnest terms to her husband, requesting him not to drive his enemies to despair by closing up their retreat to their own land, but to leave vengeance to Him to whom alone it belonged. She passed her days, together with her whole household, in fasting and continual prayer, and, in the fervor ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... vividly there for my disaster as it was not there for my service. The wretched child had spoken exactly as if she had got from some outside source each of her stabbing little words, and I could therefore, in the full despair of all I had to accept, but sadly shake my head at her. "If I had ever doubted, all my doubt would at present have gone. I've been living with the miserable truth, and now it has only too much closed round me. Of course I've lost you: I've interfered, and you've seen—under HER ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... a thought came to him as an inspiration. Cedric had been giving way to a perfect paroxysm of despair, and Malcolm had with some sternness remonstrated with him on his want of manliness and self-control. "You are making things worse," he said; "why don't you take your trouble like a man?" But the ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... on collecting money unheedingly, and Duncan was in despair. He appealed to Donald, but found very little satisfaction. Donald was working hard in the harvest fields, and came to Glenoro very seldom. Duncan could not but guess the reason; the minister's attentions to Jessie ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... a universally good appearance. Every thing at home and abroad seems verging towards a happy and permanent period. We are preparing for either war or peace. For although we are fully persuaded, that our enemies are wearied, beaten, and in despair, yet we shall not presume too much on that persuasion, and the rather, because it is our fixed determination to admit no terms of peace, but such as are fully in character with the dignity of independent States, and consistent with the spirit and intention ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... escaped, had retired. I was myself, I may say, forced up the narrow winding staircase by our soldiers, who rushed on like dogs of chase upon their prey; and when extricated from the passage, I found myself in the midst of a horrid scene. The scattered defenders were, some resisting with the fury of despair; some on their knees, imploring for compassion in words and tones to break a man's heart when he thinks on them; some were calling on God for mercy; and it was time, for man had none. They were stricken down, thrust through, flung from the battlements into the lake; and the wild ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... despair, until just at this time Colonel Scott informed me that there was a plan already devised that if executed with secrecy would open the Tennessee and save the National cause. I went immediately to Mr. Lincoln and talked the whole matter over. He said he did not himself doubt that the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... selection. After due consideration, she ordered a woodcock. Now woodcocks are expensive luxuries at Delmonico's, and the cost of one such bird represented more than the total contents of the lover's purse. He was in despair, but a lucky thought occurred to him. Turning to the lady, he asked with an air ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... that Julia should ever have children. This was the conviction of our physician. Her health and constitution seemed to forbid the hope; and the gloomy despair under which I suffered was increased by this reflection. Yet, even at that moment, while thus I mused and murmured, my poor wife had been unexpectedly and prematurely delivered of an infant son—a ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... below, but in too fine print for offhand reading by one in a hurry. The frame of the sufferer was bent, upheld by a cane, one hand poignantly resting on his back. The face was drawn with pain and despair. "For twenty years I suffered untold agonies," this person was made to confess in large print. It was heartrending. But opposite the moribund wretch was a figure of rich health, erect, smartly dressed, with a full, smiling face and ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... solemnity suddenly filled me with despair; I thought of how all these people would come into God's kingdom as easily as they were now rowing into the sunny bay this quiet Sunday morning, while I alone stood without hope of salvation. I saw ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... at all events. Yet there I was, and I could not move from the spot, however useless or absurd my presence there might be. It was a small low door, with broad nails beaten into it, through which the liberated passed, as they stepped from gloom and despair, into freedom and the unshackled light of heaven. I was not then in a mood to trust myself to the consideration of the various and mingled feelings with which men from time to time, and after months of hopelessness and pain, must have bounded from that barrier, into the joy of liberty and life. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... consolation in prayer, as usual, she had given herself up to dull despair, but only for a short time. Els had soon returned, and the firm, quiet manner with which her prudent, helpful friend and sister met her, and even tried to raise her drooping courage by a jest ere she sent her to their mother's ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... gladly, willingly, eagerly fly to his side, nurse him night and day, dwell with him in bliss and a wigwam if need be; but he—he was cold—he was changing—he would prove faithless to his humble, adoring village maid, and then there would be nothing left for her but despair. Then as his convalescence progressed she became insistent and Mrs. Davies weaker. Almira poured forth her plaint to her aunt by letter. Aunt Almira gave another dinner, to which some of the staff were bidden, and a mellow symposium it was, and over the oft-replenished ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... seemed in an agony of despair at being unable to speak, and after a slight resistance ceased his efforts and ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... politicians think the marks of a bold, hardy genius are only proofs of a deplorable want of ability. By their violent haste, and their defiance of the process of Nature, they are delivered over blindly to every projector and adventurer, to every alchemist and empiric. They despair of turning to account anything that is common. Diet is nothing in their system of remedy. The worst of it is, that this their despair of curing common distempers by regular methods arises not only from defect of comprehension, but, I fear, from some malignity of disposition. Your ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Parthians.[122] The population of the Roman empire felt its inferiority to its ancestors. One thing after another gave way. Nothing could serve as a fulcrum for resisting decline, or producing recovery. In such a period despair wins control. The philosophy is pessimistic. The world is supposed to be coming to an end. Life is not valued. Ascetic practices fall in with the prevailing temper. Martyrdom has no great terrors; such as it has can be overcome by a little enthusiasm. Inroads of barbarians ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... low tone, when Halbert declared his intention to escape, and the possibility he saw of achieving his purpose, but for the iron stanchions of the window—"Prove thy strength, my son, in the name of God" said the preacher. Halbert obeyed him more in despair than hope, but to his great astonishment, and somewhat to his terror, the bar parted asunder near the bottom, and the longer part being easily bent outwards, and not secured with lead in the upper socket, dropt out into Halbert's hand. He immediately whispered, but as energetically ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... 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
... paternal authority, has neither bowels of compassion nor fatherhood; it makes its experiments in anima vili. Never does it inquire into the horrible statistics of the suffering it causes. Does it know the number of brain fevers among its pupils during the last thirty-six years; or the despair and the moral destruction which decimate its youth? I am pointing out to you this painful side of the State education, for it is one of the anterior contingents ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... the secretary, and went upon the exchange and solicited an humble office for the purpose of studying the chances there. As soon as he considered himself fit to decide, he ventured in buying very heavily certain stocks, and lost nearly all his little property. He was in despair and wrote to his father, who sent back an unfeeling letter. It is told of him that he presented himself before his father with a loaded pistol in either hand, and threatened to shoot him, and then himself, if ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... was to devise means of leaving this money for M. Fouquet without his possibly learning from whom the gift had come. This idea, naturally enough, was the first to present itself to her mind. But although, on reflection, it appeared difficult to carry out, she did not despair of success. She would then ring to summon M. Fouquet and make her escape, happier than if, instead of having given a million, she had herself found one. But, being there, and having seen the boudoir ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... iniquities, to bind you in everlasting chains. Ye are but digging a pit for your souls, ye that sweat in your sins, and travel in them, and will not embrace this ransom offered. The key and lock of that pit is eternal despair. O consider how quickly your pleasures and gains will end, and spare some of your thoughts from present things, to give them to eternity, that thread spun out for ever and ever;—the very length of the days of the Ancient of ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... benefit, without which the mere consideration of the past benefit would not furnish a sufficient reason. Finally the author thinks that if this doctrine, which derives the resolution of the will from the representation of good and evil, were true, one must despair of human felicity, since it would not be in our power, and would depend upon things which are outside us. Now as there is no ground for hoping that things from outside will order themselves and agree together in accordance ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... and the train was crowded. People were standing all down the corridors, as usual. Nothing goes quicker than eight miles an hour, nothing is punctual, nothing arrives. The stations are filthy, and the food is quite uneatable. I often despair of this country, and if the Russians were not our Allies I should feel inclined to say that nothing would do them so much good as a year or two of German conquest. No one, after the first six months, has been ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... featureless abyss. Immermann intensely disliked it. He was, as he said, a lover of men; the worship of nature drained and exhausted the sympathies, the wills and the spirits of men. The passages in which Klingsor himself, in his moments of despair, and Merlin expose the emptiness of this philosophy, are among the best philosophic statements of the play. They are, how ever, too exhaustive. But they are good philosophy, if they are bad drama and poetry. Klingsor says ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... Ibsen is able to make us feel in "Ghosts." But we know something better than Ibsen, for Mrs. Pettingrew is no "Mrs. Alving." She is a plain, hard-featured woman who takes in sewing for a living, and she is quite unlettered, but she is a general in the army of spiritual forces. She does not despair, she does not give up like the half-hearted mother in "Ghosts," she does not waste her strength in concealments; she stands up to her enemy and fights. She fought the wild beast in Nelse's father, hand to hand, all his life, and he died a better man than ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... swore violently. In despair he looked up for a moment from the terrible medley and noted the gun-leader still staring down into the hollow ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... said, "it is the season of the great winds now. What a long voyage it has been! And you say it is a bad one. My husband is no doubt in despair, but another voyage is sure to be better; is it not so? I have not seen Loic upon the deck, but then my sight is not good. I am not from Audierne, mon pere, but from inland where we cannot ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... his lips pressed to hers, seemed as if he was waiting for her soul to issue forth that he might absorb and mingle it with his own. Just at the moment when the tears of the pitying beholders flowed fastest, and their ejaculations were most expressive of despair, Leocadia gave signs of recovery, and brought back gladness to the hearts of all. When she came to her senses, and, blushing to find herself in Rodolfo's arms, would have disengaged herself, "No, senora," he said, "that must not ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... sprung aleak; the sailor works at the pumps till, faint and weary, is heard from below, six feet of water in the hold; the boats are got ready, but, before they are into them, the vessel is dashed against a reef of rocks; some, in despair, throw themselves into the sea; others get on the rocks without any clothes or provisions, and linger a few days, perhaps weeks or months, living on shell fish, or perhaps taken up by some ship; others get on pieces of the wreck, and perhaps be cast on some foreign ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... little Miss Brown and her 'luvly miss'! their respective ends were drawing near. I went in one Friday, a week or so after the accident, and found Mrs Brown in tears and despair, and Miss Brown with a look of anguish on her poor little pinched face that was bad to see. ...
— The Grey Brethren and Other Fragments in Prose and Verse • Michael Fairless
... continue his conversations with the German Ambassador with a view to preserving the peace; that French Government, whose wishes are markedly pacific, sincerely desire the preservation of peace and do not quite despair, even now, of its being possible ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... of golden dreams had perish'd, And even Despair was powerless to destroy; Then did I learn how existence could be cherish'd, Strengthen'd and fed without the ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... would be vain to deny that to all idealists, of every shade of thought, the catastrophe came as a stupefying blow. "It is unbelievable, impossible," said one. "It can't last," added another. Reaction from that extreme of incredulity led many to take refuge in hopeless, inactive despair and cynicism. ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... immense wagons in which they take cattle to market. There were some thirty men in this tumbrel, whose sole crime was foolish exaltation of thought and threatening language. They were bound and gagged; heads hanging, jolted by the bumping of the cart; their throats parched with thirst, despair and terror; unfortunate beings who did not even have, as in the times of Nero and Commodus, the fight in the arena, the hand-to-hand struggle with death. Powerless, motionless, the lust of massacre ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... to make this last statement, and continued with the same peculiar implicity of distinctness, which a terrific thunder of "What?" from Wilfrid did not overbear: "I was quite mad that day I went to him. I think, in my despair I spoke things that may have led him to fancy the truth of what he has said. On my honour, I do not know. And I cannot remember what happened after for the week I wandered alone about London. Mr. Powys found me on a wharf by ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... may be said that never since leaving his native land was the spirit of Chandrapal more solitary nor more aloof from the things and the persons around him. Never did he despair so utterly of beholding that which he was most eager to find. Only when in the company of the Little Fellow, and in the hours reserved for meditation, was he able to shake off the sense of oppression and recover the balance of his soul. At these times he ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... away in mute despair. Utterly discouraged, completely in his power, she was at a loss what to do or say. There was little use in appealing to the better nature of a man, in his present condition. She thought of flight, but it was impossible. He barred the way. Meanwhile he watched her, as a beast of ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... as he was out hunting, he came upon a strange sight. An enormous python had caught an antelope and coiled itself around it; the antelope, striking out in despair with its horns, had pinned the python's neck to a tree, and so deeply had its horns sunk in the soft wood that neither creature ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... in the symbols of diadem and sceptre? What crest so haughty that has not bowed before a hand which could exalt or humble! What heart so dauntless that has not trembled to call forth the voice at whose sound open the gates of rapture or despair! That life alone is free which rules, and suffices for itself. That life we ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Wilkinson received at Oxford a letter desiring his instant presence at home. His father had been stricken by paralysis, and the house was in despair. He rushed off, of course, and arrived only in time to see his father alive. Within twenty-four hours after his return he found himself the head of a wailing family, of whom it would be difficult to say whether their wants or their griefs were most heartrending. Mr. ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... she did not go in at once. The March night was not cold, and she sat the step, hoping to see her mother's light go out in the second-story front windows. But it continued to burn steadily, and at last, with a gesture of despair, she rose ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... inoculate them with disease to save them from catching it accidentally; then you will take to politics, where you will become the catspaw of corrupt functionaries and the henchman of ambitious humbugs; and the end will be despair and decrepitude, broken nerve and shattered hopes, vain regrets for that worst and silliest of wastes and sacrifices, the waste and sacrifice of the power of enjoyment: in a word, the punishment of the fool who pursues the better before he ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... seaman departed on an American ship bound for Boston. But Elder was deeply attached to his master, and would have remained till the end had not his mind become somewhat unhinged by frequent disappointments and by his despair of ever securing liberation. When his companion, the lame seaman, went away, Elder developed a form of melancholy, with hallucinations, and appeared to be wasting away from loss of sleep and appetite. Permission for him to depart was therefore obtained, and from ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... to despair of gaining any real knowledge of astronomy, merely because they are not versed in recognising the constellations. For instance, they will say:—"What is the use of my reading anything about the subject? Why, I believe I couldn't even point out the Great Bear, were I asked to do so!" But if such persons ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... the cakes of ice, until within about 200 yards, when his course was barred by a long, thin, drifting floe. He tried to climb on it, but was too weak, then he raised his voice in melancholy howls of despair. I could not get to him, but he plucked up heart at length, and feebly paddling went around till he found an opening, swam through and came on, the slowest dog swimmer I ever saw. At last he struck bottom and crawled out. But he was too weak and ill to eat the meat that ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... coat, or from politeness, because he can't take it off—or go to the beach, where the sea breeze won't come, it's so far up the country, where the white sand will dazzle, and where there is no shade, because trees won't grow—or stand and throw stones into the water, and then jump in arter 'em in despair, and forget the way out. He'd better do anything ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... obtain by getting the control of the government? In a land where the dollar is almighty, "where the sin of not being rich is only atoned for by the effort to become so," do they doubt that such an oligarchy will generally succeed? Besides, banking and manufacturing stocks are not urged by despair to seek a controlling influence in politics. They know they are about equally safe, whichever party rules—that no party wishes to legislate their rights away. Slave property knows that its being allowed to exist depends on its having the virtual ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... on his cot and writhed in blind despair. Might not even his mother have deceived him! Might not she too have been acting! What did he care now for name or liberty, or life itself! The girl had mocked him with what he thought was love, when it ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... father had gone to the cupola, had followed him to talk with him. She had halted on hearing voices. Now, with despair in her eyes, the terrified girl stole away like one haunted and ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... despair. "Then there's no use talking about it. I'll never leave mother, never! I'll just have to go on practising out here as best I can, with nobody ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... kneeling where but five little days before her life had been filled with a love so perfect as to be beyond all power of thankfulness in words of praise, looked down upon her dead lover and felt her heart break within her in the utterness of her despair. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... because no choice was given to me. At the hotels in Egypt one has to dine at an hour fixed by the landlord, and no entreaties will suffice to obtain a meal at any other. So at four I dined, and after dinner was again reduced to despair. ...
— George Walker At Suez • Anthony Trollope
... of the sword that severed her last hope a new self-possession came to her—the quiet of despair. Her brain cleared, her fevered pulse became normal, the weariness that had racked her frame passed from her. She only asked to be alone for a little—alone with her love and her memories. She quarreled ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... scarcely any time for rest had been given the band since its departure from the fort the preceding evening; and only a short time for recuperation could be allowed even now. This was some hardship for the men, but for the girls, who, in addition to the terror and despair which had possessed them, had been compelled to travel through the forests at a speed which exhausted their strength, it was ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... cried I, turning to the negro postillion, but that sable worthy could not understand my question. The most expressive pantomimes were as unavailable as words, and so in despair I turned again into the porch, and stood in a reverie. I was clearly a fathom deep in love, and as my extreme height is but five feet eleven and a half, that is equivalent to saying that I was over head and ears in love with the strange lady. I began ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... healthy love between a man and a woman, even if that be transient, is likely to turn out better in all ways, and especially in bodily beauty, than the birth of the respectable commercial marriage bed, or of the dull despair of the drudge of that system. They say, Pleasure begets ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... to failure; the output of rumours would exceed the limits of an ordinary tome. There were indeed some enterprising spirits who did embark upon the task of collecting these rumours, but they dropped it in despair, before economy in foolscap was even thought of. These fanciful canards grew more nauseating as the Siege advanced in seriousness, until anything in the nature of news was deemed of necessity a lie. A local scribe, "The Lad," took the romancers severely to task in a series of pithy articles, which ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... pain with his wound and deeply mortified by the incursion of the Huns, breathed out his life in the one hundred and tenth year of his age. All of which is probably a judicious veiling of the fact,[7] that the great Hermanric was defeated by the Hunnish invaders, and in his despair ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... within the walls the fatal wooden horse, whereupon the goddess Minerva, ever favorable to the Greeks, punished him by sending two enormous serpents from the sea to destroy him and his two sons. The poet THOMSON well describes the agony and despair ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson |
