"Desperate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... desperate, that's all. And one night Billy had me meet him up by the cemetery—he came disguised in long black whiskers—and he told me that Potts was James Carruthers, better known to the police of two continents as 'Smooth ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... tender power of the sweet, old, much-tried love. Oh, no, no! It was Grif indeed; for as she neared the place where he stood, she saw his face in the lamp-light,—a grief-worn, pallid face, changed and haggard and desperate,—a sight that made her ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... had no more than left the sidewalk when he came within a foot of being ridden down by two horsemen who rode at so desperate a gallop that (the sound of their hoof-beats being lost in the uproar from Main Street) they were upon him before ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... collars for a young lady in her own circle to wear with her morning dresses? That was just it, he told himself. It was because she was in her circle, and because the collars were to be honored by being worn by such as she, that they became important, and the boys and their desperate needs sunk into insignificance. Well, he wished they would both go, and leave him to himself; give him a chance to rally from his momentary excitement, of ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... which gave Sir Thomas Howard an opportunity of coming up with Sir Andrew Barton in the Lion, whom he immediately engaged. The fight was long and doubtful, for Barton, being an experienced seaman, and having under him a determined crew, made a desperate defence, himself cheering them with a boatswain's whistle to his last breath. The loss of their commander, however, caused them to submit, on which they received fair quarter and good usage. In the meantime, Sir Edward attacked and captured the Jenny Perwin, after an obstinate resistance. Both ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... should know, whence it cometh. This is the more generous. For the delight seemeth to be, not so much in doing the hurt, as in making the party repent. But base and crafty cowards, are like the arrow that flieth in the dark. Cosmus, duke of Florence, had a desperate saying against perfidious or neglecting friends, as if those wrongs were unpardonable; You shall read (saith he) that we are commanded to forgive our enemies; but you never read, that we are commanded to forgive our friends. But yet the spirit ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... accompanied by the sergeant of marines. At eleven at night our party returned on board, bringing on a sledge Okotook, Iligliuk, and their son. That Iligliuk would accompany her husband, I, of course, took for granted and wished; but as the boy could do us no good, and was, moreover, a desperate eater, I had desired Mr. Bushnan to try whether a slight objection to his being of the party would induce Okotook to leave him with his other relations. This he had cautiously done; but, the instant the proposal was made, Okotook, without any remark, began ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... the Dark Drew a Decidedly Delightful Drawing, Depicting a Dictating, Domineering Despot; a Desperate Despoiling Demogogue; a Disdainful Duchess Dowager; a Dainty, Dressy Dandy, and a Downright Double-Dealing Dodger. Which drawing can be inspected at Cole's Book Arcade by anyone who can ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... 5-10. He alone is to be feared, and no combination of confederate kings need alarm, viii. 11-15. The prophet commits his message to his disciples, and with patience and confidence looks for vindication to the future, viii. 16-18. Desperate days would come, viii. 19-91, but they would be followed by a brilliant day of redemption when Jehovah would remove the yoke from the shoulder of His burdened people by sending them a glorious prince with the fourfold name. [Footnote ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... German crew immediately, first notifying Brazilian authorities and American consul. Have help when you notify them game is off, otherwise may take vessel away from you. They will stop at nothing; fleet desperate for coal. Cable acknowledgment these orders; also cable when orders fulfilled. Very anxious. "BLUE STAR ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... an hour before, and the issue of the conflict, other considerations apart, was without doubt. But there was her brother and his certain fate, if the two thousand dollars were not paid in by midnight. He was desperate. It was in reality for Diana's sake. He approached the table, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... cannot be beside you, cannot breathe The air you breathe; I cannot any more Stand face to face with beauty, which unnerves My shaking heart, and makes my desperate hand Fail of its purpose. Let me go hence, I pray; Forget you ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde
... booths, and every strip of bunting and every flag that could be got out were waving in Jaro on this great day of inauguration of the Civil Commission on the Island of Panay. To me it seemed anything but a peaceful time as the scouts were then out after a very desperate band of insurrectos, but I have never seen anywhere more beautiful ornamentation or more lavish display of wealth, and yet there was lacking in it all the genuine ring of cordiality and enthusiasm. In Iloilo there were many receptions and various kinds of entertainments given. Governor ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... not afraid of being never forgiven," rejoined Bessie. "I shall do some desperate act one of these days if I am kept idle. Think of the echoes in this vast house answering only the slamming of a door! and think of what they would have to answer if dear little unruly Justus were in the ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... husband had experienced. I am convinced it was due to the manful effort he made not to increase my distress by the sight of his own that he conquered his nervousness from that time, and was even able to strengthen and support me on my too frequent breakdowns. He attributed Richard's desperate action partly to depression arising from the effects of an accident, confided only to his brother, but partly also to the influence of unhealthy and pessimist literature on a mind already diseased, and he had said so to ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... confiscation of his fields, before bidding farewell to the paternal roof,—the peasant, whose story we have just told, makes a desperate effort; he leases new land; he will sow one-third more; and, taking half of this new product for himself, he will harvest an additional sixth, and thereby pay his rent. What an evil! To add one-sixth ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... not find a gentler word than, 'villany.'" Yet I was conscious at the same time that these were not my thoughts nor my ways of dealing; that they had been suggested to me by somebody else, and that but for my desperate position they would never have found room in me, as they are averse to my nature and repulsive to me. Money never played any part in my life, either as means or as aim. I consider myself incapable of using such a weapon, and I felt what a degradation ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... himself. He had read the 'Anabasis,' some Herodotus, three plays of Euripides, and was now making some desperate efforts on Aeschylus and Sophocles. Any Plato? David made a face. He had read two or three dialogues in English; didn't want to go on, didn't care about him. Ah! ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and flung herself into the sea, when the tide was running out; and her distracted parents never succeeded in recovering the body of the poor maniac. The worthless libertine, on whose account this desperate act was committed, decamped in the night; and so escaped the vengeance of the old fisherman ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... against Dr. Jarvis looked very plain. Innocent men do not take such desperate measures. And yet Nick was far from reaching a definite opinion ...
— The Crime of the French Cafe and Other Stories • Nicholas Carter
... resounded on the floor behind her. Giddy and dazed, with one agonising thought she turned, saw Rossi, and uttered a cry of relief. But he was coming down on her with great staring eyes, and the look of a desperate maniac. For one moment he stood over her in his ungovernable rage, and scalding and blistering words poured out of him ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... previously been made upon them; but their sufferings under Diocletian were still more formidable and disastrous. Paganism felt that it was now engaged in a death struggle; and this, its last effort to maintain its ascendency, was its most protracted and desperate conflict. It has been frequently stated that the Diocletian persecution was of ten years' duration; and, reckoning from the first indications of hostility to the promulgation of an edict of toleration, it may certainly be thus estimated; but all this time the whole Church ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... first few minutes seemingly all the powers of hell will contend every word, the next few, relief in a measure will come, more liberty in calling. In a very little while you will be dead to the room, dead to the chair, dead to everyone around you, dead to all and tremendously alive to your desperate need and emptyness; this conviction will grow as you increase calling upon Him. It maybe you'll weep, it maybe you'll perspire, it maybe your clothing will be deranged, it maybe your throat will get sore. Never for a moment let your mind rest on the condition of ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... the Ludlow Castle; and he commanded the Prince Frederick at the attack of the harbour of Carthagena, March 24, 1741. This young nobleman was one of the most promising commanders in the king's service. When on the desperate attack of the castle of Bocca Chica, at the entrance of the said harbour, he lost his life, both his legs being first shot off. The prose part of the inscription on his monument was the production of Mrs. Mary Jones of Oxford; who ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... shall die." Now who would not rather be on the footing he is now; under a covenant of mercy? Who would wish to hazard a whole eternity upon one stake? Is it not infinitely more desirable, to be in a state wherein, tho encompassed with infirmities, yet we do not run such a desperate risk, but if we fall, we may rise again? Wherein ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... wily, mean and desperate tricks of this renegade Mexican half-breed, if such was his nationality, the Boy Ranchers and their friends galloped along over the trail to Diamond X. On the way they looked for signs of any cattle ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker
... conducted a defence when the cause was not so grave or so desperate is well illustrated by a speech delivered four years later, the Pro Archia. The case here was one of contested citizenship. The defendant, one of the Greek men of letters who lived in great numbers at Rome, had been for years intimate ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... a new gaming-club,[64] of which Mr. Beauclerk had given me an account, where the members played to a desperate extent. JOHNSON. 'Depend upon it, Sir, this is mere talk. Who is ruined by gaming? You will not find six instances in an age. There is a strange rout made about deep play: whereas you have many more people ruined ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... looked for other than on that day to have fought or never-what desperate blows would not have been given, when every man should have fought in the sight of so noble a Queen, and so many fair ladies, our enemies to have taken them from us, and we to save our honours, not to be reft of them, your honour can ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... something of kindliness, fidelity, and happiness,—but withal slavery, which, so far as human aspiration and desert were concerned, classed the black man and the ox together. And the Negro knew full well that, whatever their deeper convictions may have been, Southern men had fought with desperate energy to perpetuate this slavery under which the black masses, with half-articulate thought, had writhed and shivered. They welcomed freedom with a cry. They shrank from the master who still strove for their chains; they fled to the friends that had freed them, even though ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... a rocky coast. Regiment after regiment was repulsed, and the Coldstreams still advanced. Saxe thought the battle lost, and begged the king and the dauphin to flee while time permitted. At the last desperate moment, he rallied the artillery and all the forces of his army for a final effort. The artillery was massed before the English, and they had none to answer it. The king himself led the charge against their flanks, which the ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... because of the strong, pure faith in the man's soul. There were Blackie and Boston, their rat-hearts steeled to courage by lust of gold, their rascally, seductive tongues welding into a dangerous unit the mob of desperate, broken stiffs who inhabited the foc'sle. There were Lynch and Fitzgibbon, the buckos, living up to their grim code; and the Knitting Swede, that prince of crimps, who put most of us into the ship. ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... the sugar bag, which had been wrapped in a waterproof sheet, "can you imagine a starving man, in desperate haste, making up this package as it was when ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... to give him the assurance he sought, her desperate, passionate voice grown gentle and quiet again. But she was too tired and spent to be comforted. For a long time she lay so still that he became alarmed, thinking she must have fainted again, and drew closer to her to listen ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... going to be one of his good days—he willed it so. The mood was not there certainly, but then, now the finishing of the book had become a pressing necessity, the mood never was there; it was like a tantalizing butterfly that flitted a second in his face and then led him a desperate chase through a tangle ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... their own political debates and discussions, to the use of unmeaning declamations and threats which they had no intention of executing, they reasoned that others were like them, and attributed to the menaces of these desperate and earnest outcasts no greater importance than to their own. They thought also that the foreign anarchists, having exchanged the tyranny of kings for that of majorities, would be content with their new and better lot and become in time good and ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... But the course of the seasons is not more fixed, than it is certain that these ministerial arts must be temporary in their operation and fatal in their issue; because the more men are flattered, the more desperate they are when the calamity comes upon them. Already the West India Islands begin to cry out, as you will have seen in the address from the Island of Barbadoes. The great number of captures lately made of West India ships by the Americans, have already ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... suggested, and Hotchkiss, standing at the side, out of range, retaliated for every bullet by a smashing blow with the tongs. The shots ceased after a half dozen, and the door was giving, slowly. One of us on each side of the door, we were ready for almost any kind of desperate resistance. As it swung open Hotchkiss poised the tongs; I stood, bent forward, my arm drawn back ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... had stood among the throng at a wake at Millbrook, and heard a begging friar recommend the purchase of briefs of indulgence and the daily repetition of the Ave Maria by a series of extraordinary miracles for the rescue of desperate sinners, related so jocosely as to keep the crowd in a roar of laughter. He had laughed with the rest, but he could not imagine his guide, with the stern, grave eyebrows, writhen features and earnest, ironical tone, covering—as even he could detect—the ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and I snatched up the gun, levelled it, and fired the bomb point-blank into his bowels. Then all was blank. I do not even remember the next moment. A rush of roaring waters, a fighting with fearful, desperate energy for air and life, all in a hurried, flurried phantasmagoria about which there was nothing clear except the primitive desire for life, life, life! Nor do I know how long this struggle lasted, except that, in the nature of things, it could not ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... good of you to notify me," Sarah replied without looking at him and thrown for a moment by this discrimination, as the direction of her eyes showed, upon a dimly desperate little community with Madame de Vionnet. "But I hope I ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... me. It swung around the room once or twice, and that was enough. I knew in the flood of sudden illumination that the girl had planned this thing in advance, with the daring of despair—and a wife's despair, a very young wife's despair, is a more desperate thing than the anger of any other woman. Natica had planned it all in advance; had figured it, and the chances of it. And in the balance she had confidently thrown the asset of ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... three the battle rages. The case becomes desperate. William orders the archers to fire into the air, as they cannot pierce English armor, and arrows fall down like rain upon the Saxons. Harold is pierced in the eye. He is soon overcome and trampled to death by the enemy, dying, it is said, ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... failed in all you have attempted, and the figure you have raised on your father's tomb is merely a sensitive and sensuous art-cultured being who lives in a dirty lodging and plays in desperate desperation his last card. You are now writing a novel. The hero is a wretched creature, something like yourself. Do you think there is a public in England for that kind ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... from the deck to the father and son; each succeeded in grasping one, and loud rose the cry of joy, "They are saved!" Not so! The shark, enraged at seeing that he was about to be altogether disappointed of his prey, made one desperate spring, and tore asunder the body of the noble-hearted little boy, while his father and the fainting child in ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... equipped by himself, but mounted on chargers especially presented to them by the king. Considering the natural difficulties of the coast, and that the equinox was at hand, the numerical disparity was not absolutely desperate. Jersey is a strong place yet. In those days of sailing ships and weak artillery it was a gigantic fortress, if only held by a wholehearted and determined garrison. Had that but been now the case, which, however, it was not. The population in general had ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... of such a contingent that Nabopolassar was able on one occasion to play the important part of peacemaker in one of the bloodiest of all Cyaxares' wars. After five years' desperate fighting the Medes and Lydians were once more engaged in conflict when an eclipse of the sun took place. Filled with superstitious dread the two armies ceased to contend, and showed a disposition for reconciliation, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... to Major Webb, at Frayne, and Pat Kennedy, with half a dozen brave lads, had promptly stepped forward. Kennedy had managed to slip through the encircling Sioux by night, and to reach Fort Frayne after a daring and almost desperate ride. Then Ray was ordered forth, first to raise the siege at the stage station, then, either to hold that important relay ranch or go on to reinforce Plodder as his judgment ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... against him; but when he hinted that the young physician had practised upon his daughter's heart, all the rich citizens who had daughters to watch began to consider him as a dangerous person, and resolved never to call him in, except in some desperate case. Mrs. Panton's gossiping confidences did more harm than her husband's loud complaints; and the very eagerness which poor Constance showed to vindicate Dr. Percy, and to declare the truth, served only to confirm the sagaciously-nodding mothers and overwise fathers in their own opinions. Mr. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... the remainder of the day in a desperate state of ill-humour, which was increased by finding that Mlle. de Coulanges could neither stand nor walk. Mrs. Somers was persuaded that Emilie, if she would have exerted herself, could have done both, but that she preferred exciting ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... Further desperate attempts may well be made to break our lines, to slow our progress. We must never make the mistake of assuming that the Germans are beaten until the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt
... and carried away to Greenfield Hill. Pitiful whisper! happily all-unmeaning to the child, but full of desolation to the mother, floating with but one tiny plank amid the wild wrecks of a midnight ocean, and clinging as only the desperate can cling to this vague chance ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... her pride had been cruelly wounded by Miss Potter's careless but base accusation, was touched at the girl's distress; the abasement of the once proud young beauty, the nature of its cause, together with the realisation of the poor girl's desperate case, moved her deeply: she stood irresolute in the middle of the room. The three weeping girls were wondering when Mavis was going to recommence her attack; they little knew that her keen imagination was already dwelling with infinite compassion on the dismal conditions in which the ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... the Least Common Multiple and a number of privates fell out of their chairs, as dead as if they had been caught between the covers of an arithmetic! Moreover, the poem-dust that filled the air seemed to tend to stupefy the others; so that, though there was a terrible uproar and a desperate scramble for weapons, victory for the defenders was certain from the start. There was only one defect in the organization; one thing had escaped Pirlaps' wonderful foresight. There was no efficient way to get the powder from the coffee-mill to the bellows; and ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... shadow of another and more considerable one. It was built of a softish, light-colored stone dug from a neighboring quarry, as the driver told me, and looking even at a cursory glance too destructible and crumbling to secure such desperate and determined inmates. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... and mine too, depended on the eccentricities of a jury, the chartered libertinism of an ermined judge, the humour of the law, on a series of points without precedent concerning which no monograph had as yet been written; and, as a last desperate resource, on the letters of a sympathetic British public in the penny papers. The penny papers, the criminal's latest broadsheet anchor! Under the exasperating circumstances, Philippa remained as well as ...
— Much Darker Days • Andrew Lang (AKA A. Huge Longway)
... interpreter, he stated to them that the vicinity of his province to Greece impressed him with a strong interest in favor of the Cyreian Greeks,[14] and made him anxious to rescue them out of their present desperate situation; that he had solicited the King's permission to save them, as a personal recompense to himself for having been the first to forewarn him of the schemes of Cyrus, and for having been the only Persian who had not fled before the Greeks at Kunaxa; that the ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation; large scale migration of Zimbabweans to surrounding countries - as they flee a progressively more desperate situation at home - has increased; rural Zimbabwean men, women, and children are trafficked internally to farms for agricultural labor and domestic servitude and to cities for domestic labor and commercial sexual exploitation; young men and boys ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... conduct, began to entertain apprehensions of the event; and remonstrated with the king, that it would be better policy to prolong the war; at least, to spare his own person in the action. He urged to him, that the desperate situation of the Duke of Normandy made it requisite for that prince to bring matters to a speedy decision, and put his whole fortune on the issue of a battle; but that the King of England, in his own country, beloved by his subjects, provided with every supply, had ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... himself in accord with that wing of his party. Instantly, this became a call to battle. The Hunkers, provoked at his apostacy and encouraged by the continued distrust of many Barnburners, made a desperate effort, under the leadership of Dickinson, to secure a majority of the delegates for Cass. The plastic hand of Horatio Seymour, however, quickly kneaded the doubting Barnburners into Marcy advocates; and when the contest ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... was not the only bane of Canada. Her financial condition was desperate. The ordinary circulating medium consisted of what was known as card money, and amounted to only a million of francs. This being insufficient, Bigot, like his predecessor Hocquart, issued promissory notes on his own authority, and made them legal tender. They were for sums from one ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... minister, or any set of ministers, will not be more dear to his Majesty than the credit and character of a House of Commons. It is an experiment full of peril to put the representative wisdom and justice of his Majesty's people in the wrong; it is a crooked and desperate design, leading to mischief, the extent of which no human wisdom can foresee, to attempt to form a prerogative party in the nation, to be resorted to as occasion shall require, in derogation, from the authority of the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament assembled; it is a contrivance ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... willing to go to desperate lengths to help you, just the same," and Jennie smiled in remembrance of the red-haired ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... ancestors had been born in a more northerly clime than my own. To gain that end I took the only course that seemed open. I possessed myself of an influence that would make her father fear me. Well, I played and I lost—and then, like other players and losers, even white ones, I was desperate. You were to be married to another—a man I hated. Life had lost its only charm, I could not bear that you should be his bride. My torture was intense. I asked but ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... my match and listening to the sounds of confusion indoors, when this person, rounding the angle of the house in a desperate hurry, emerged from the bushes and ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... growth of the industrial population is examined, the more surprising is the fact that such an immense body of free laborers could be found, particularly when it is recalled to what desperate straits the colonial leaders were put in securing immigrants,—slavery, indentured servitude, and kidnapping being the fruits of their necessities. The answer to the enigma is to be found partly in European conditions and partly in the ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... its dangerous nuclear weapons program. In Haiti, the dictators are gone, democracy has a new day, the flow of desperate refugees to our shores has subsided. Through tougher trade deals for America—over 80 of them—we have opened markets abroad, and now exports are at an all-time high, growing faster than imports and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... scandal ugly enough for all the rest of them to make desperate attempts to keep it hidden, even when Mrs. Withers is dead and gone. Frankly, I didn't believe Withers was in on the murder or that he believes Maria had anything to do with it or ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... for that Athenian spirit, which respected art and gave free rein to criticism even at the most desperate moment of the city's history, has carried us a little, but only a little, away from the matter in hand—the political ideas of the Lysistrata. Political wisdom, like human folly, seems to obey a law known to men of science as "the Conservation of Energy"—quantity ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... offices. He was not going to trouble himself to go outside every time that he wanted to know the weight of a leather skin! . . . A piano came into the ranch, and Elena passed the hours practising exercises with desperate good will. "Heavens and earth! She might at least play the Jota or the Perican, or some other lively Spanish dance!" And the irate father, at the hour of siesta, betook himself to the nearby eucalyptus trees, to ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... intending to take it in as soon as your ladyship came out to go down to dinner. Well, I was standing there waiting with the coal when I saw my lord's dor open and Mr. Frisbie come out, with such a face! Oh, my lady! I don't know how to describe it; but it had a cruel, cowardly, desperate look—as if he would have cut someone's throat to save himself a shilling! He passed on downstairs without ever seeing me. And the next minute my lord came out of the same room, with—I beg your pardon, my lady—a look of wicked triumph on his face. He was even ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... finer way to go. I do not. Surely, since Death is, it is better than dying of old age between clean sheets. Near the end of the route we came to the little walled cemetery of Chambry, the scene of one of the most desperate struggles of the 6th and 7th of September. You know what the humble village burying-grounds are like. Its wall is about six feet high, of plaster and stone, with an entrance on the road to the village. To the west and northwest the walls are on the top of a bank, ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... bore the Character of an English Nobleman and lived with great Splendor. The Gentleman more dash'd, as I suppose, to jump upon one who had heard of his Tricks, than for the meanness of his Circumstances, told the Merchant he was an unfortunate Man, and Things were now so desperate with him, that he had no way left to relieve himself but by a Halter. The Merchant having a charitable regard for his Circumstance, though he knew him to be a very undeserving Object, told him, he wou'd provide him with a Lodging and Diet till he had a Return ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... matter, its true nature were known to her at all. Calendar, he believed, was capable of prevarication, polite and impolite. Had he lied to his daughter? or to Kirkwood? To both, possibly; to the former alone, not improbably. That the adventurer had told him the desperate truth, Kirkwood was quite convinced; but he now began to believe that the girl had been put off with some fictitious explanation. Her tranquillity and self-control were remarkable, otherwise; she seemed very young to possess those qualities ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... of the question. But these mountains soon came to an end, and there was some cottonwood and willows on the bank of the river, which was now so smooth we could ride along without the continual loading and unloading we had been forced to practice for so long. We had begun to get a little desperate at the lack of game, but the new valley, which grew wider all the time, gave us hope again, if it was quite barren everywhere except back of ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... begged the sheriff to excuse him while he ran down to the telegraph office, and asked his paper for permission to remain there a few days longer. He said that he should like nothing better than a chance to assist in the capture of this desperate train robber, which he had no doubt would be speedily effected by the sheriff. He also promised to call again very shortly for further information, provided his paper ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... Gavin's coat, "dinna swear that. My laddie was in the thick o' the riot; and if he's ta'en there's the poor's-house gaping for Kitty and me, for I couldna weave half a web a week. If there's a warrant agin onybody o' the name of Yuill, swear it's me; swear I'm a desperate character, swear I'm michty strong for all I look palsied; and if when they take me, my courage breaks down, swear the mair, swear I confessed my guilt to ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... other, but not with the villainous camaraderie that generations of low-caste tourists have taught the people, nor yet with the cosmopolitan light-handedness of appeal which the town-bred Egyptian picks up much too quickly; but with a certain desperate zeal, foreign to his whole creed and nature. He fingered, he implored, he fawned with an unsteady eye, and while I wondered I saw behind him the puffy pink face of a fezzed Jew, watching him as a stoat ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... of scrub representing a vindictive and merciless police, out of which Moonlighter and his men issued crowned with victory and covered with glory. A scarecrow in a wayside orchard was charged with desperate valour, and only saved from instant destruction as a particularly hateful police spy by the sudden intervention of ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... back. I will have nothing more to do with the matter.[195] My god Baal-zephon will oppose you in the way, and hinder you on your journey." Pharaoh's last words were a dim presentiment. As a magician he foresaw that on their going forth from Egypt the children of Israel would find themselves in desperate straits ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... some moments of wild and confused feeling, he declared, with a desperate effort at self-control: "You said that some believe this. Then there must be others who do not. What ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... subsist on the country, came in toward our right and the whole relieving force was directed on Marysville, about fifteen miles southwest of Knoxville. We got to Marysville December 5, and learned the same day that Longstreet had shortly before attempted to take Knoxville by a desperate assault, but signally failing, had raised the siege and retired toward Bean's Station on the Rutledge, Rogersville, and Bristol road, leading to Virginia. From Marysville General Sherman's troops returned to Chattanooga, while Granger's corps ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 3 • P. H. Sheridan
... ruin his reputation! To cause him to be sent away from Corinth! To wreck his career! To deprive him of a companion so fitly qualified to help him realize to the full his splendid ambition! Small wonder that the daughter of the church had determined upon a desperate measure. ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... and interests are concerned, "it is the glory of man to pass over a transgression," generous as well as just, as we have received help from Bidwell himself when we could not help ourselves, and were trampled upon by a desperate party. If others had seen the letters from Bidwell to Mr. Cassidy, which I have been permitted to read, I am sure the noble generosity of their hearts would be excited in all its sympathies. I do not think, however, that he will ever return to this Province to reside. That appears to be altogether ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... under the action of an intense fever, which placed them constantly either above or below reason, rarely in its middle path. Never did man seize the problem of the future and of his destiny with a more desperate courage, more determined to go to extremes. Not separating the lot of humanity from that of their little race, the Jewish thinkers were the first who sought for a general theory of the progress of our ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... rendered desperate by the danger of his situation. 'Hear me. I am no robber. I want the lady ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... but, alas! there were many accidents and many victims. It so happened that just when the fire started a great many young girls had left their mothers to dance a schottische; their mothers tried to find them, and they tried to find their mothers, amid wild shrieks and the most desperate confusion. Wives called for their husbands, parents for their children. The officers of the Imperial Guard gathered about Napoleon with drawn swords, for at first they suspected treachery and waited for some further development of a malicious plot. Prince Schwarzenberg, who did ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... this commendable struggle of fresh courage and new hope against disintegrating forces, the conviction gains ground that something is radically wrong with the institution. There is something in it which fosters greed and desperate ambition. "Is it not a shame," we feel compelled to ask, "that so much splendid, chivalrous courage and magnificent energy should be expended in trying to prevent a structure from falling, which, it seems, could not possibly have been saved?" But while ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... conduct itself is extraordinary; by a most remarkable offer, on the part of Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, it is proposed that there should be the sum of L.10,000 given to this man; a man in a low and ordinary and desperate situation; and it is stated, that Lord Cochrane, Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, and Mr. Butt, would give L.3,000 among them. Why should they give that? If, indeed, they could thereby mislead and draw ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... the wretches that I have been obliged to purchase from prisoners of war and the people of revolted towns that I am so dissatisfied. Punishments have no effect on them, they are incessantly indolent, sulky, desperate. It was but the other day that ten of them poisoned themselves while at work in the fields, and fifty more, after setting fire to a farm-house while my back was turned, escaped to join a gang of their companions, who are now robbers in the woods. These ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... new pelisse, and I perceived at once that there was something wrong, but what I could not comprehend. I did not see her till four or five weeks afterwards, when she called, accompanied by a Monsieur de G—, a person well known in Paris, where he bears a very indifferent character, as a desperate gambler, and a man of very bad disposition concealed under a very polished exterior; but his character is better known in England, which country, I am told, he was obliged to quit in consequence of some gaming transaction anything but honourable. I again made inquiries after ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... lips drew apart in an expression of ape-like ferocity, and he began to chatter threats of vengeance, to which Kirk paid little heed. A few moments later they went out quietly, and together took the rock road down toward the city, the one silent and desperate, the other whining like ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... came so close to me in his desperate efforts, that I could have touched his horns with the muzzle of my gun; and I had prepared to give him a blow whenever I could get a good chance. I never saw a creature behave so fiercely. The fact was, that I had hit him with my bullet,—the wound was there along his jaw, and bleeding ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... our boats were all fitted with a most excellent pattern of patent releasing tackle, but for which I should not have felt justified in risking the lives of my men by asking them to undertake such a desperate task. As to the possibility of the wreck being able to lower a boat, the thought presented itself only to be instantly dismissed; for, with the sea breaking so heavily over her as I had seen, it was to the last degree ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... however gives constant offense to the Marker, so much so, that before he is half through he has exhausted the limit of errors. Sachs, who is pleased with the young nobleman, for his own welfare frustrates the desperate attempt to elope with the maiden. In doing this he finds at the same time an opportunity to greatly vex the Marker. The latter, who to humiliate Sachs had upbraided him because of a pair of shoes which were not yet ready, posts himself at night before the window ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... governor would indulge them with sufficient time thoroughly to digest it.However sanguine the expectation of lord Hills-borough might be, through the artful insinuation of governor Bernard that, the "attempts of a desperate faction (as his lordship expressed it) would be discountenanced, and that the execution of the measure recommended would not meet with any difficulty;" the governor himself, who was fully acquainted with the sentiments of the house, as ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... last desperate effort to resist the call of the sea. They failed. A moment later they disappeared from sight. No ...
— The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake
... regiment of the Stonewall division, posted in a copse beyond the railroad, was driven in; but others, when cartridges failed them, had recourse, like the Guards at Inkermann, to the stones which lay along the railway-bed; and with these strange weapons, backed up by the bayonet, more than one desperate effort was repulsed. In arresting Garnett after Kernstown, because when his ammunition was exhausted he had abandoned his position, Jackson had lost a good general, but he had taught his soldiers a useful lesson. So long ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... had been few. In their desperate attempt to get at close quarters, the Dervish riflemen had not stopped to reload the weapons they had discharged, and there was practically no return to the awful fire to ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... felt to be a comfort. Old Jolyon, in whom a desperate honesty welled up at times, would allude to his ancestors as: "Yeomen—I suppose very small beer." Yet he would repeat the word 'yeomen' as if it afforded ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of letters, writings, &c., to whose frustrated publication in this country and America we have already alluded, was seized in Antwerp, at the printers', on Friday last—the very day of its contracted delivery. The persistent and really desperate speculator in this volume of difficult birth, baffled in his attempt to produce it in London and New York had been tracked to Antwerp by Messrs. Lewis and Lewis; and he was finally brought down by Maitre Maeterlinck, the ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... every way of the national character, and thus became a national hero, much overpraised. He at once resolved to recover Lombardy; and after crossing the Alps encountered an army of Swiss troops, who had been hired to defend the Milanese duchy, on the field of Marignano. Francis had to fight a desperate battle with them; after which he caused Bayard to dub him knight, though French kings were said to be born knights. In gaining the victory over these mercenaries, who had been hitherto deemed invincible, he opened for himself a way into Italy, and had all Lombardy at his feet. ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thrill which seemed to communicate itself to the hand her listener had left in hers. Her eyes filled suddenly, but through their dimness she saw the girl's lips shape a last desperate denial: ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... business was the turning point of your fortunes but, though it has turned out so well, I must say that I hardly think that you were justified in risking your life in such a desperate act for a native; who might, for aught you know, be already dead. Of course, it was a most gallant action; but the betting was ten to one against your succeeding. However, as it turned out, it was a fortunate business, altogether. I don't say that you might not ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... wisely and well for three weeks, at the end of which period there was a desperate affray between the soldiers and the police. It came about in this way. One of the soldiers while strolling on the banks of the Clyde one Saturday night appeared to have insulted a lady. She gave information to the police, who next (Sunday) morning, accompanied ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... them, a dope fiend named Benny Rudge, shoot one of his own friends dead, suspecting him of having stolen a side of bacon. You would be better dead, too, than in their hands. Never forget that. They don't know if they'll ever get out of this alive; they are desperate devils. ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... you so desperate to be grand to-day that you must scrape all your skin off? You know ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... in charge of the Lower Solway district, reports as follows under date June 30th: Found a strong body of smugglers marching between the wild mountains called Ben Tuthor and Blew Hills. They were of the number of three hundred, all well mounted and armed, desperate men, evidently not of this district, but, from their talk and accoutrement, from the Upper Ward of Lanerickshire. Followed them carefully to note their dispositions and discover a favourable place ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... just one way out of this for you, that I can see, Mr. Worthington," he said. "It's a desperate measure, but it's ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill |
