"Despondent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Nell. To see the old man struck down beneath the pressure of some hidden grief, to mark his wavering and unsettled state, to be agitated at times with a dreadful fear that his mind was wandering, and to trace in his words and looks the dawning of despondent madness; to watch and wait and listen for confirmation of these things day after day, and to feel and know that, come what might, they were alone in the world with no one to help or advise or care about them—these were causes of depression and anxiety that might ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... was her rather despondent reply. "We are wanderers. We lived in England once—but, alas! that is now all of the past. My father is compelled to travel, and I must, of necessity, go with him. I am afraid," she added quickly, "that I bore you with this chronicle of my own troubles. I really ought ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... will not accuse me of taking a too despondent view of the drama, for believe me, I do not. To be sure, we sometimes hear that Shakespeare is to be annihilated, and that the poet's intellect has been overrated. And lately a reverend gentleman at Hampstead announced ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... despondent at the thought. "They're fools enough for anything," he said. I tried to cheer him up on the law of averages, as Goggle-Eye was sent off with instructions to travel "quick-fellow, quick-fellow, big mob quick-fellow," and many promises ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... and discernment which some gain from experience, observes the situation and prescribes for his troubled lieutenant. In the majority of cases, however, the occupant of a plateau, if he continues thereon for any length of time, either resigns despondent or is dismissed. ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... a man lives; as is his strength so the strain breaks him or he resists the strain. If I have wounded you with these my words, I do ask your pardon. Much of this long speech I have thought upon when I was despondent this long time past. But much of it has come to my lips whilst I spake, and, maybe, it is harsh and rash in the wording. That I would not have, but I may not help myself. I would have you wounded by the things as they are, and by what of conscience you have, in your passions ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... for six hours, and losing in killed and wounded fully one third of their number. General Lyon received two wounds, one in the leg and one in the head, about the middle of the engagement; he then became more despondent than before, apparently from the effects of his wounds, for there appeared nothing in the state of the battle to dishearten a man of such unbounded courage as he undoubtedly possessed. A portion of our troops had given away in some disorder. Lyon said: "Major, I am ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... side that led to recovery and strength. But something was lacking. That sunny optimism that had been Emma McChesney's most valuable asset was absent. The blue eyes had lost their brave laughter. A despondent droop lingered in the corners of the mouth that had been such a rare mixture of firmness and tenderness. Even the advent of Fat Ed Meyers, her keenest competitor, and representative of the Strauss Sans-silk Company, failed to awaken in her the proper ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... make advances toward Bucholz, with, however, but little success. William repelled his attempts at friendliness, and seemed to be sorrowful and despondent. He missed the companionship of Sommers. He felt convinced that he had accused him unjustly, and the only man he cared for among the many by whom he was surrounded held himself aloof from him, and he had no disposition to ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... bustle. The beginning two books together is also, no doubt, a fruitful source of the difficulty; for I am now sure I could not have invented the Carol at the commencement of the Chuzzlewit, or gone to a new book from the Chimes. But this is certain. I am sick, giddy, and capriciously despondent. I have bad nights; am full of disquietude and anxiety; and am constantly haunted by the idea that I am wasting the marrow of the larger book, and ought to be at rest. One letter that I wrote you before this, I have torn up. ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... upon the anniversary of feasts that a family, if despondent at all, feels most despondent. So it fell out that at Christmas-time the homesickness which hitherto had found its antidote in novelty and surprise now attacked the Rexford household. The girls wept a good deal. Sophia chid them for it sharply. Captain Rexford ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... dragged for John Brown after his superior's departure. There was work enough to be done, but he did not feel like doing it. He wandered around the house and lights, gloomy, restless and despondent. Occasionally ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... bodily fatigues. They should be practised less to accustom the body to them than the mind. In War the young soldier is very apt to regard unusual fatigues as the consequence of faults, mistakes, and embarrassment in the conduct of the whole, and to become distressed and despondent as a consequence. This would not happen if he had been prepared for this beforehand by ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... weeks after this incident Victor Alexandr'itch felt very despondent, and spoke more than usual about the apathy and stupidity of the peasantry. His faith in infallible science was somewhat shaken, and his benevolent aspirations were for a time laid aside. But this eclipse of faith was not of long duration. Gradually he recovered ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... complimentary to the charms of its shadow, are, apparently, the two great and exclusive objects of the thousands swarming down and up the narrow street all through a day. Some twenty odd boot-shops, all next-door-but-one to each other, startlingly alike in their despondent outer appearances, and uniformly conducted by embittered elderly men of savage aspect—seem to sue in vain from year to year for at least one customer; and as many other melancholy dens for the sale of exactly the things no one but a madman would want to buy while ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... very erect and looking very cheerful until he reached the corner. There however he slumped, and it was a rather despondent young man who stood sometime later, on the center of the deserted bridge over the small river, and surveyed the water ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... bought of her,' said Venus, with a despondent rise and fall of his eyes. 'Yes; there it lies on its side, dried up; except for its plumage, very like myself. I've never had the heart to prepare it, and ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... the hotel across the fields, hunting diligently, but saw nothing of the lost wallet. He entered the hotel, footsore, weary, and despondent. The first person he saw was Philip, sitting tranquilly in ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... course of policy. Cleombrotus, regent for the young son of Leonidas, died, and his brother Pausanias—a brave, clever, and ambitious man—took his place. We can scarcely be wrong in ascribing—at least in part—to this circumstance the unlooked-for change of policy, which electrified the despondent ambassadors of Athens almost as soon as Pausanias was installed in power. It was suddenly announced that Sparta would take the offensive. Ten thousand hoplites and 400,000 light-armed—the largest army that she ever levied—took the field, and, joined at the isthmus by ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... joined hands with us last night, and Ladysmith gave itself away to an outburst of wild enthusiasm at the sight of troops so long expected and so often heard fighting in the distance, that some despondent people had almost begun to think they would never come. After the roar of battle ceased on Tuesday, we knew by signs that could not be mistaken that Sir Redvers Buller had gained a great victory even before the heliograph flashed to us the glad tidings in his own ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... these two conditions would remove nine-tenths of the misery in the world. The more carefully I meditate on this speculation, the better grounded it seems. The weather we are learning to know much more about than when the solitary Obermann penned his despondent dreams; but who shall predict the time when men will ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... penniless!" General Greene had hardly taken his seat at the well-spread table, when Mrs. Steele, the landlady of the hotel, entered the room and carefully shut the door behind her. Approaching her distinguished guest, she reminded him of the despondent words he had uttered in her hearing, implying, as she thought, a distrust of the devotion of his friends to the cause of freedom. She declared money he should have, and immediately drew from under her apron two small bags full ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... indulgences, with which I sat playing until the sight of my interrupted letter to Aunt Carola on the table before me brought the reality of everything back into my thoughts; and I shook my head over Miss Eliza. I remembered that hand of hers, lying in despondent acquiescence upon her lap, as the old lady sat in her best dress, formally and faithfully accepting the woman whom her nephew John had brought upon them as his bride-elect—formally and faithfully accepting this distasteful person, and thus atoning as best she could to her beloved nephew ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... of an hour, the pair talked together; and when the luncheon bell rang, and Laurence Stanninghame took his seat at the table along with the rest, to talk scrip in the scathingly despondent way in which the darling topic was conversationally dealt with in these days, he was conscious that he had turned the corner of a curious psychological crisis ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... seated, or rather cowering, among the timbers of the raft, upon a piece of tarpauling that had been spread over them, her eyes bent upon her black companion, though occasionally straying, with listless glance, over the sombre surface of the sea. Although so young, her countenance appeared sad and despondent, as if under the belief that there was little hope of escape from the fearful situation in which she was placed, and as if her little spirit had long ago ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... nurse; the excitement of anxiety and danger being past, the space between convalescence and complete recovery seems very wide, and hard to bridge over. Clover found it so. Imogen's strength came back slowly; all her old vigor and decision seemed lost; she was listless and despondent, and needed to be coaxed and encouraged and cheered as much as does an ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... weary feet dragged heavily along the rough paths, so he became. The social refinement of the prosperous Englishman, skin deep as it is, vanished in the coarse and narrow life to which he had partly doomed himself, had partly been doomed, by the dull, despondent apathy which had possessed his soul, when he first left the ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... considered stupid. This impression is strengthened by his poor progress in school. Through no fault of his own he is doomed to failure. He neglects his studies, hates his school, leaves long before he has completed the course, and is well started on the road to an inefficient and despondent life. ...
— Health Work in the Public Schools • Leonard P. Ayres and May Ayres
... saw outside the little 'city' was 'the widow'! He knew her; did she know him? The natural interpretation of verse 9 is that, at the time when God spoke to Elijah, he had already 'commanded' the woman. But the despondent tone of her answer seems against that idea; and perhaps we are to suppose that, just as the ravens were commanded and knew not by whom, so this woman received the command, when she saw the travel-stained and gaunt stranger, through her womanly impulses of compassion, not ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... two squares, two circles, and two triangles. Another (5), Henry VIII, drawn with a square and nine straight lines. Another (6), invented for this book, an Esquimaux waiting to harpoon a seal, drawn with eleven circles and a straight line. The remaining figures are a cheerful pig and a despondent pig (4), and a cat (2), drawn with the ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... little, despairing in the picturesque and dramatic fashion characteristic of him, and the sooner he "got it out of his system," as Gillian had observed on one occasion, the better for everyone concerned. So Magda braced herself for the interview, and prepared to receive a tragical and despondent Davilof. ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... was thoroughly well done, and her edition of her husband's Province of Jurisprudence deserves the very highest praise. Two people more unlike than herself and her husband it would have been difficult to find. He was habitually grave and despondent; she was brilliantly handsome, fond of society, in which she shone, and 'with an almost superabundance of energy and animal spirits,' Mrs. Ross tells us. She married him because she thought him perfect, but he never produced the work of which ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... ability arose within him; it was all very well to practice his magic there alone, but he had not yet tried it on anybody except the janitor; and when he had begun by discovering several red-eyed rabbits in the janitor's pockets that intemperate functionary fled with a despondent yell that brought a policeman to the area gate with a ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... their favorite games, Stubb at poker, while Arab gave his attention to monte. Things ran along for a few weeks in this manner, Baugh never wanting for a dollar or the necessary liquids that cheer the despondent. Finally they were forced to take an inventory of their cash and similar assets. The result was suggestive that they would have to return to the chuck-line, or unearth some other resource. The condition of their finances lacked ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... life, as one dependent upon the bounty of friends, had hitherto oppressed Tegner, and at times made him moody and despondent. He had felt impelled, in justice to himself and to satisfy the expectations of his patrons, to apply himself to his studies with a perseverance and industry which came near undermining his health. He looked during his student days overworked, and ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... was not despondent over the mortgage which his ill health and his extravagant expenditure for oil and wine and inn-fees had compelled him to put on his little farm. He was one of those glad souls, with such a perfect faith in ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... Sam looked despondent. Brown appeared to take an interest in him, and he had hoped that he might do something ...
— Sam's Chance - And How He Improved It • Horatio Alger
... your house, Bob. I found your sister in a despondent state about you. I assured her you had as many lives as a cat; and could only be considered to have used up two or three of them, yet, and were safe for some years to come. I hinted that you had more to fear from a rope than either drowning or shooting. That made her angry, ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... Lord Charlemont's early friend and protege, Henry Grattan. He had spent above a year in England, chiefly in Wales and the Isle of Wight. His health all this time had been wretched; his spirits low and despondent, and serious fears were at some moments entertained for his life. He had been forbidden to read or write, or to hear the exciting news of the day. Soothed and cheered by that admirable woman, whom Providence had given him, he passed the crisis, but he returned to breathe his native air, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... of his daily life was monotonous—up with the sun to attack the trees which stood between him and a livelihood. It was lonely but he never grew despondent. Singing, whistling, shouting, he kept at his work. Two of the songs of Burns were his favorites—a Man's a Man for a' that and Scots wha hae. On coming to the line, Liberty with every blow, he drove his ax into the tree with vim, and, indeed, the trees at that time were the enemies he had ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... claimed she had spent for Myrtle's funeral; that was mere robbery, I suppose, but not to be compared with the crime of her false report. I found myself bereft of sweetheart, sister—even an unknown niece. Despair claimed me. I took the first train for the West, dazed and utterly despondent. Some impulse led me to stop off at the Grand Canyon, and there I saw the means of ending all my ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... regiment. How much of it was there left? How many of those good fellows were lying dead on foreign soil? How many friends should I never see again? For I imagined things to be worse than they really were. I felt absolutely despondent. What my mind conjured up was no longer a retreat in good order ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... terrified presentiment; and following this there were periods of flagging impulse when he asked himself indifferently if a life of the emotions brought as its Nemesis an essential incapacity for love? If Laura had only kept up the pursuit a little longer, he complained once in a despondent mood, if she had only fluttered her tinted veil as skilfully as a woman of the world might have done. "Yet was it not for this unworldliness—for this lack of artifice in her—that I first loved her?" he demanded, indignant with her, with nature, with himself. She had ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... ticked each off with a red pencil, making remarks in shorthand against them. I would find him sunk in a brown study, with his sharp eyes abstracted, and after those spells of meditation he was apt to be very despondent. ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... course in silence, for they were worn-out and despondent; they suffered dreadfully from thirst, and it was pitiable to see the tongues of the poor horses hanging out of their mouths. Day dawned, and there were no signs of the caravan. A thick vapour was rising from every quarter, and they hoped that when it cleared up they would be more ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... corks, the joyous talk that emanated alike from the really light-hearted and those whose gaiety is only a mockery and a sham. The sun was sloping westward when Lady Eversleigh arose, absent and despondent, to give the signal for the withdrawal ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... this belief. As to variety, we should be obliged to wonder at its infiniteness if he had composed nothing but the pieces to which are really applicable the epithets dreamy, pensive, mournful, and despondent. But what vigour, what more than manly vigour, manifests itself in many of his creations! Think only of the Polonaises in A major (Op. 40, No. 1) and in A flat major (Op. 53), of many of his studies, the first three of his ballades, the ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... hopes, in all respects, were so utterly disappointed, that there was pathos, at least, as the investigation was protracted from month to month, with no indication of the hoped for development, in the despondent inquiry of Mr. Thaddeus Stevens to one of his colleagues of the Impeachment Committee, as the inquest approached a close without results—"Well, HAVE YOU GOT ANYTHING, ANYHOW?" It was more an ejaculation ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... evident that the horses could go no further, and were dying of thirst. I threw off their light loads, and they stood with drooping heads and ears, the picture of dejection. A mouthful of water was all I dare drink, and there remained less than a pint in the water-skin. Almost stupefied, exhausted, and despondent, I lay down beside a tiny bush, at whose dry twigs the famished horses were now trying to nibble, and sank into a state ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... had to make the journey alone, as her mother also was to join her only when she had found a place to settle in. Mr. Ellsler was sick for the first time since she had known him. She said good-by to him in his room, and left feeling very despondent, he seemed so weak. "Judge then," says Miss Morris, "my amazement when, hearing a knock on my door and calling, 'Come in'—Mr. Ellsler, pale and almost staggering, entered. A rim of red above his white muffler betrayed his bandaged throat, ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... I have been so despondent," he went on. "Sometimes one cannot help oneself. It shall not occur again! I will try to be more amusing next time you come. If I thought it would help, I would communicate my sorrows and claim your sympathy. But what does it avail to unburden ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... night of agony and remorse. He got up broken and despondent, and went straight to Woodbine Villa ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... said a loving goodnight to her near yet faraway daughter, and Marjorie went to bed all cheered up, instead of lonely and despondent. ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... a special examination of the case was made, upon which it was developed and admitted by the pensioner that the deceased soldier had suffered from epilepsy from early childhood, and that during a despondent mood following an epileptic ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... More disheartened and despondent than ever, she rode homeward with her mother, answering questions only in monosyllables. All that religion had said to her that morning was: "Give up the world—all with which you have hitherto been familiar, and have enjoyed." God was an infinite, all-powerful, remote abstraction, ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... spirits, perhaps one of this season's social buds, with half a score of lovers ready to pluck her from the family stem—a rose whose countless petals are coupons. A caramel has disagreed with her, or she would not have written in this despondent vein. The young man who seeks to inform the world in eleven anaemic stanzas of terze rime that the cup of happiness has been forever dashed from his lip (he appears to have but one) and darkly intimates ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... a sorrowful, despondent-looking gentleman entered, and politely, although somewhat absently, saluted ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... escort this convoy and the mails. Seven American officers were killed at the Raisin, twelve of all ranks wounded, and seventy reported missing after the fight. In addition to the provision train, Tecumseh captured what was of much greater importance, another batch of Hull's despondent despatches. It was here that swift justice overtook the scalping Captain McCullough, of Hull's spies, who himself met with the fate of his former victim—the fate ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... inclosed a check to his mother, and hoped she would affectionately remember him to all his friends. That was about the substance of the two letters. Edna felt that if there had been a message for her, she would have received it. The despondent frame of mind in which she had left home began again to overtake her, and she remembered that she wished ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... through curiosity, or, to speak more exactly, for the satisfaction of his own conscience, as a passing dog goes into a kitchen, the door of which stands open, to see if there is anything to steal. But when he saw Croisilles so despondent, so sad, so bereft of all resources, he could not resist the temptation to put himself to some inconvenience, even, in order to pay for the house. He therefore offered him about one-fourth of its value. Croisilles fell upon his neck, called him his friend and saviour, blindly signed ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... the son of the brave Captain of the Vengeur, during their ten days' passage home, became a great pet among the officers and midshipmen. Still his spirits were very low, and he was very despondent, believing that his father was lost to him for ever. He had especially attached himself to Sir Henry Elmore and Johnny Nott, who, remembering their own preservation from foundering, had a fellow-feeling for him, and more especially looked after all his wants, ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... There was a short silence. Then Errington said, in a low tone, looking kindly into her face, "I trust you do not feel too despondent as regards the future." ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... along the street in a very despondent mood, not knowing how to get a meal, someone tapped me on the shoulder, and said, "Good gracious, Gil Blas, I hardly knew you! What a princely dress you've got on. A fine sword, silk stockings, a velvet mantle and doublet with silver lacings! ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... you. I have time and again reproached myself for my neglect to do so. I have not been very well. About the first of September I had one of my old dyspeptic attacks, and since then my stomach has troubled me more or less, reducing me in weight and making me despondent. I think, however, I am now on the upgrade once more. After you left here Julia was quite sick for a spell. She was on the verge of nervous prostration. I packed her off to Lynch's for a month, and she came back very much improved, ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... his sight was entirely destroyed, by the flying glass of the broken windshield, but now they are beginning to hope that one eye at least may be saved, and possibly the other. Papa is very doubtful about it himself, and gets very despondent at times. He had just been having an especially blue morning when your letter was brought in, and he said, when ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... to change hurriedly into working clothes. Time enough to note the guttering lamp, evil smell, the dismal aspect of my home afloat—then, on deck again, to haul, viciously despondent, at the cast-off ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... good and bad He rambled on unchecked, Until his conversation had Such curative effect That in the end it drove away My weak despondent mood. I clasped his hand and blessed the day He came to do ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... found Washington Hawkins and Col. Sellers once more at the capitol of the nation, standing guard over the University bill. The former gentleman was despondent, the latter hopeful. Washington's distress of mind was chiefly on Laura's account. The court would soon sit to try her, case, he said, and consequently a great deal of ready money would be needed in the engineering of it. The University bill was sure to pass this, time, and that ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 6. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... rose to the surface, and, seeing how despondent was the pretty bluebird, inquired the ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory
... dreamed your face, and then I waked from dreaming, (The creeping dawn seemed very cold and bare!) The rising sun seemed pallid in its beaming, Because its coming did not find you there! And I—I rose despondent in the morning, As one whose burning thirst has not been slaked; I dreamed your face, a wonder world adorning, ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... to fulfil his threat, however, Bajazet turned back to capture Constantinople, which he believed in the present despondent state of its inhabitants would make little or no resistance. Now it happened that just at this time Tamerlane was leading the Mongols on their career of conquest. He directed them against the Turks in Asia ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... back when it was toward noon. One look at his despondent face told Jack the stout lad had ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... to the solar system might have been, none ventured to suggest. Newton had expressed his belief that the effects of such absorption would be disastrous, but the physicists of the nineteenth century, better acquainted with the laws associating heat and motion, were not so despondent. Only Professor Smyth seems to have felt assured (not being despondent, but confident) that the comet portended, in a very decisive way, the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... Key was shot, he said to a young lady, whom he joined on her way home from church: "I am despondent about my health, and very desperate. Indeed, I have half a mind to go out on the prairies and try buffalo hunting. The excursion would either cure me or kill me, and, really, I don't care much which." Soon afterward, ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... intense that her eyes filled with tears, awakening the tortures of jealousy in her lover. After these interviews, Desnoyers was more ill-tempered and despondent than ever. ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... been irritated and despondent ever since Mr. Muir, through Madge's aid, had so signally checkmated him. But Stella's greeting had reassured him, and Graydon's manner toward her gave the impression that she had not been extending encouragement to him. This promising aspect of affairs speedily ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... all its young green into gold. The glorified bough waved like a banner in the breeze, and seemed to bring some beautiful message to Hetty which she could not quite catch. The charm of colour fascinated her eye, the graceful movement had a meaning for her. Springing up from her despondent attitude she leaned from the doorway, and felt a flush of joy glow in her heavy little heart. The same thrill of delight that had enraptured her when, as a babe not higher than the flag leaves, she stretched her hands towards the yellow lilies, ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... stricken with a fatal inflammation of the brain. In the midst of all these misfortunes, Verdi was kept at work by a commission for "Un Giorno di Regno," which was to be a comic opera! Little wonder that the wit oozed out of the occasion, and the performance proved a failure. The despondent Verdi resolved to give up his career altogether, and only by the insistence of the manager, Merelli, was he finally persuaded to resume his occupation. In later life he married again, passing a placid ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... very intemperate man, and several times we had taken him away with us in the cutter, when he was in a deplorable condition from the effects of drink, and nursed him back to health and reason again. On this occasion we were pleased to find him well, though rather despondent, for he had, he said, an idea that his last carouse had 'done for' him, and that he would not ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... in the lead, but Don did not feel the least like cheering. For the next hour, while the troop worked at signaling, and map-reading, and advanced knot-tying, he did his part and forgot to be despondent. He even brightened when the logs were brought in and the theory of bridge building was applied. But when the bridge was done—this time ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... "Katie is despondent, too, and nearly makes me crazy talking of her life, past, present, and future, in the most doleful way. Last night, after talking to me for two hours about the misery of life, she made the startling proposal that she and I commit suicide. ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... and went to his chamber. He closed the door and began to recite with exaggerated gestures a fragment from Macbeth. The varied emotions of the evening had set every nerve quivering. He was so excited that he was not even despondent over the collapse of Princeton Platinum stock, although this meant to him desperate financial straits. He knew that he was in no condition to consider anything calmly; but half the remainder of the night he tossed upon a sleepless bed, reacting ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... (D. S. H. 4168, Path. 226) feared death and refused food on the ground that she should not eat. Patient had always been of a despondent and reserved nature (sister also insane) and, after her husband's death, when she was 53, grew unable to carry on her house, dwelt constantly on griefs, entered hospital at 61, and died at 64 ("chronic melancholia"). Death from internal hemorrhagic pachymeningitis. ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... of which were rattling in the breeze; the regular vibration of a clock, the crackling of a fire and the tinkling of the embers as they fell among the ashes rendered the scene almost as vivid as if painted to the eye. By a melancholy hearth sat these two old people, the man calmly despondent, the woman querulous and tearful, and their words were all of sorrow. They spoke of a daughter, a wanderer they knew not where, bearing dishonor along with her and leaving shame and affliction to bring their gray heads to the grave. They alluded also to other and more recent woe, but in the midst ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... political prospects, and that in so doing he taxed his moral courage severely. The whole tone of the Diary, apart from those few distinct statements which hostile critics might view with distrust, is despondent, often bitter, but defiant and stubborn. If in later life he ever anticipated the possible publication of these private (p. 066) pages, yet he could hardly have done so at this early day. Among certain general reflections at the close of the year 1808, he writes: "On most of the great national ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... like money," says Olga, with a sigh; at which Lord Rossmoyne looks hopeful, and young Ronayne despondent. ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... him the esteem of his neighbours, and a feeling of self-dependence which he had never before known. When Patty presented him with another baby—sixth in the list; baptized Sophia, on the 3d of October, 1830—he felt by no means despondent as on a former occasion, but joyful in the extreme. The dread vision of poverty, so long before his eyes, had suddenly vanished, giving way to fancies of roseate hue. He almost wondered why he had ever despaired—happiness, after all, seemed ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... go down to dinner. She could not take such a puffed, tear-swollen face to the table to make everybody else unhappy, and she couldn't throw off her despondent mood. Maybe in a few days, she thought, she might be able to hide her feelings sufficiently to appear in public, but it would always be with a secret sorrow gnawing at her heart. Just now she shrank from sympathy, and she didn't want any one to cheer her up. ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... affected the spirits of no one except, perhaps, Mr. Moss; and him, when we finally broke up our party, we thought it advisable to get rid of in quick order. To my surprise Mr. Parker seemed in a particularly despondent frame of mind. He needed pressing even to ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... special-school work that women who are not particularly patient would find themselves definitely unfit for it. Indeed, although patience and the hopeful spirit do not figure on the list of qualifications demanded of candidates, they might well head it, for most certainly an irritable or despondent woman could not find any work for which she was more unsuited, or in which she was more likely to be ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... commandos, in order to acquaint the burghers with what had taken place, and to explain to them why we, however unsatisfactory the Peace Proposal was, had felt bound to accept it, and then to leave each commando before the men handed over their arms to General Elliott. Everywhere I found the men utterly despondent and dissatisfied. ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... ways. . . . He always preserved his sweetness of disposition, his cheerfulness, his courtesy, his industry, his hope, his ambition. . . . Like a true knight errant, never disheartened by difficulty, never despondent in the face of dangers, always brave, full of resources, confident of ultimate triumph." The student at Johns Hopkins University who knew him best said: "No strain of physical wear or suffering, ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... have happened to the despondent, disgraced, heart-broken old man that day had not Baruch warned him of the fate that awaited him in ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... figment of the imagination. Yet the gleam which flashed through his paralyzed brain that memorable day in the old church, when Rosendo opened his full heart to him, had roused him suddenly from his long and despondent lethargy, and worked a quick and marvelous renovation in his wasted life. Following the lead of this unusual child, he was now, though with many vicissitudes, slowly passing out of his prison of egoism, and into ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... the doughty reviewer before us magisterially waving his hand and commanding the apparitions to vanish?—then with despondent astonishment exclaiming: ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... the distance between her and Pitt grew with every letter. It was not the fault of the letters or of the writer in any way, nor was it the effect the latter were intended to produce; but Esther grew more and more despondent about him. And then, after a few months, the letters became short and rare. Pitt had gone to Oxford; and, from the time of his entering the University, plunged head and ears into business, so eagerly that time and disposition failed for writing home. Letters did come, from time to time, ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... smuggle on board quite a respectable amount of scientific apparatus, and came in good heart to the despondent ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... a meditative mood; for notwithstanding every assurance given him, he could not but feel apprehensive, sad, and despondent. He might ask himself, in deed—for the Earl's words naturally led to such a mistaken question—"Who, then, am I? Who is it they would have me believe myself, that so proud a man should seek the alliance which he now scorns, as soon as he knows who I am?" But there ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... with curiosity, and talk'd with off and on for over an hour. Here and there was one very sick; but all were able to walk, except some of the last, who had given out, and were seated on the ground, faint and despondent. These I tried to cheer, told them the camp they were to reach was only a little way further over the hill, and so got them up and started, accompanying some of the worst a little way, and helping them, or putting them under ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... admitted, sounds commonplace when verbally recorded. Yet he would be a despondent man who considered it altogether discouraging; Mina did not think Janie's glances discouraging either. But Bob Broadley, a literal man, found no warrant for fresh hope in any of the not very significant words which he repeated to himself as he rode home up the valley ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... mystery and melancholy hanging about these peregrinations, and the cause, it seems to us, is not far to seek. These months are months of waiting and wearying; he is unsettled, oftentimes moody and despondent; his bursts of gaiety appear forced, and his muse is well-nigh barren. In the circumstances, no doubt it was the best thing he could do, to gratify his long-cherished desire of seeing these places in his native country, whose names were enshrined in song ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... encounter with Pompeius, the wretchedly led and despondent ranks of the insurgents were utterly broken, and Perpenna, among other officers, was taken prisoner. The wretch sought to purchase his life by delivering up the correspondence of Sertorius, which would have compromised numerous men of standing in Italy; but Pompeius ordered ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... a barometer. The approach of a storm sent his mercury down instantly. When the weather was fair he was hopeful and sunny, and Andy's prospects were brilliant. When the weather was overcast and threatening he grew restless and despondent, and was afraid that the boy was not going to ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... great plains of the West had wrought the color change, and the conviction was strong that the change was an improvement on Nature. His features were cast in a mold of great beauty—such beauty as we seldom look for in a man. He was never moody, despondent, or cast down, and at all times, and under all circumstances, possessed the faculty of amusing himself and entertaining others. In the evening camp, when other amusements failed, or when anticipated troubles depressed the spirits of the travelers, it was his ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... been fidgeting and looking back and forth at Orrin and Goil with a guilty and despondent look on his face. ...
— Jack of No Trades • Charles Cottrell
... him, and that it would continue to crucify him. He knew himself in London to be a popular man,—one of those for whom, according to general opinion, girls should sigh, rather than one who should break his heart sighing for a girl. He had often told himself that it was beneath his manliness to be despondent; that he should let such a trouble run from him like water from a duck's back, consoling himself with the reflection that if the girl had such bad taste she could hardly be worthy of him. He had almost tried to belong to that school which throws the heart away ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... one of these. She persisted in taking a despondent view of everything around her—her past, her future, her position, her prospects; nay, even the circumstances and surroundings of her friends and few intimates came to be regarded in the same unsatisfactory light. She was unacquainted ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... o'clock one Sunday afternoon in summer, Volodya, a plain, shy, sickly-looking lad of seventeen, was sitting in the arbour of the Shumihins' country villa, feeling dreary. His despondent thought flowed in three directions. In the first place, he had next day, Monday, an examination in mathematics; he knew that if he did not get through the written examination on the morrow, he would be expelled, ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... one's health would mend, after all; and many things be better than was hoped! Sterling was not of a despondent temper, or given in any measure to lie down and indolently moan: I fancy he walked briskly enough into this tempestuous-looking future; not heeding too much its thunderous aspects; doing swiftly, for ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... the world knows in common of Bishop Haygood: He was not a man who passed through life inquiring, "Who is my neighbor?" His neighbor was the ignorant that needed to be instructed, the vicious that needed to be reclaimed, the despondent that needed to be encouraged. Wherever honest effort was being made for a noble purpose, there he found his neighbor, and his neighbor found a helper. Like "The Man of Galilee," he was abroad in the ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... a performance by tight-rope dancers. Wenzel, who has been quite despondent about his promised bride, is enraptured by their skill. He especially admires the Spanish {366} dancer Esmeralda, who bewitches him so entirely, that he wooes her. The director of the band being in want of a dancing-bear, is not loth to take advantage of the lad's foolishness. He engages ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... rest of the dry land by wheel-ruts, and the pad of bare feet. We have six miles to walk to our carriage—my kingdom for a pony! but we must trudge along—the guide, shikari, and syce trailing away behind. They are rather tired, and the writer rather despondent. ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... into the train for Port Said by Ben Kelham, who, inwardly kicking at her sage advice, looked as despondent as a camel who considers its strength unequal ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... have a tonic effect upon her. But the spectacle of the rarely swept paving-stones of a side-street in the last days of March was not inspiriting. Phillida had the additional discomfort of involuntarily catching glimpses of her own pallid and despondent face in the pier-glass between ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... it is the case, and the amusing part of the whole thing is that the story of the cherry-tree is an absolute myth. However, you must not think that I am too despondent about the artistic future either of America or of our own ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... and deeper than other wells; and as they trace the spillings of full pitchers on the heated ground, they snuff the freshness, and, sighing, cast sad looks towards the Thames, and think of baths and boats, and saunter on, despondent. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... [Tempelhof, iii. 186.] "not as a soldier," which he ought to have done. His answers are supposed to have misled Friedrich on various points, and done him essential damage. Friedrich's view of the case, that evening, is by no means so despondent as might be imagined: he regards the thing as difficult, not as impossible,—and one of his anxieties is, that he be not balked of trying it straightway. Retiring to his hut in Bischofsee, he makes two Dispositions, of admirable clearness, brevity, and calculated for two contingencies: [Given ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... who had betrayed him to his dearest enemy, the Judge had been watching, with all his old interest, the surface indications of Eleanor's moods. Last night, it had been a kind of gaiety; to-day the mood was quiet, but not at all despondent; there was life in it. Judge Tiffany held his own views on the relations between his niece and Bertram Chester, and on the right or convenience of interfering. Twice he had been on the point of telling her that his feeling toward Bertram Chester should not ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... decide these matters had other views. On the tedious underground journey from New Cross, she felt so unwell that she got out at Victoria to seek refuge in the ladies' cloak room. The woman in charge, who was old, wizened, and despondent, gave Mavis some water and held her baby the while she lamented her misfortunes: these were embodied in the fact that "yesterday there had only been three 'washies' and one torn dress"; also, that "in the whole of the last month there had ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... afflicted, but not despondent," he observed. "Now is the time, as I just remarked to Tina a minute ago, to prove the unfailing support of a knowledge of Latin and of ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... gaining much money as well as winning great applause. And in everything I wrote I persistently taught what was for me the sole truth—that our chief object in life should be to secure our own happiness and that of our family. Then, five years ago, supervened a mood of mental lethargy. I grew despondent; my perplexity increased, and I was tormented by the constant recurrence of such questions as—"Why?" and "What afterwards?" And by degrees the questions took a more concrete form. "I now possess six thousand 'desyatins' of land in the government of Samara, and three hundred horses—what ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various |
