"Despair" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at the very top of her power. It reached the wanderer in the darkness, and he rowed straight toward it. From that time on he became infatuated with the singer, declaring that her voice had come to him in his despair like an ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... (hic) we don't desire to interfere with your meditation, (hic) but this gen'lman says it's mornin' an' that's the sun; I say it's evenin' an' that's the full moon, (hic) we respectfully ask you (hic) to settle the question." The fellow stood and looked at it for a full minute, and in his despair replied: ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... of a certain timbre that I do not relive in some degree the terror and despair of that hour on the mountain, when it seemed that my world had ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... had Elinor found it so difficult to be calm, as at that moment. The knowledge of what her mother must be feeling as the carriage stopped the door,—of her doubt—her dread,—perhaps her despair!—and of what she had to tell! with such knowledge it was impossible to be calm. All that remained to be done was to be speedy; and, therefore staying only till she could leave Mrs. Jennings's maid with her sister, she ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... fools follow on the same track as that trodden by the villains, and thus the honest gentlemen who still support a vile institution have all their work set out in order to prevent the hawks from making a meal of the pigeons. One of the honest guardians of racing morality resigned in bitter despair some time ago, giving as his reason the assertion that he could trust nobody. Nobody! The man was a great lord, he was totally disinterested and utterly generous, he never betted a penny, and he only preferred to see the superb thoroughbreds ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... she halted, glancing back with frightened eyes. Then, with a brief cry of despair, the girl swerved aside and dived in swiftly among the shadows of ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... Don't you want me to be happy?" Incredulity, despair were in the pleading voice. "Don't you believe in paradise either, Allegro? Do you want me to be shut away in ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... and threw herself on her knees beside her, and cried "Kill me! oh, pray kill me! but don't drive me to despair with such cruel words and looks!" and fell to sobbing so wildly that Mrs. Dodd altered her tone with almost ludicrous rapidity. "There, do not terrify me with your impetuosity, after grieving me so. Be calm, child; let me see whether I ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... has attended our efforts to His blessing, and believing that He has given us length of days, and strengthened our weakness, and poured consolation into our hearts when ready to sink in despair, in answer to persevering and importunate prayer, we come to direct our readers to this source of wisdom and aid,—to urge upon them to engage often in this first duty and highest privilege. Let us go forth, dear friends, to the work ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... order, and a man-servant ordered to accompany Mrs Griffith Jenkins to the station and see her off. Netta had never believed it possible that she could have cried at parting with her mother-in-law; but after she left the house she wrung her hands in despair, and wept as if she had lost her last ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... don't despair!" she exclaimed, straightening her shoulders and drawing in her chin with a mock display of bravery. "I believe it was in an English novel that I read that any woman without a hump can get any man she sets out for. It is a matter of determination and concentration and a wise ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... of able Cambridge men had thrown their knowledge and thoroughness of work into the Ecclesiologist. There were newspapers—the English Churchman, and, starting in 1846 from small and difficult beginnings, in the face of long discouragement and at times despair, the Guardian. One mind of great and rare power, though only recognised for what he was much later in his life, one undaunted heart, undismayed, almost undepressed, so that those who knew not its inner fires thought him cold and stoical, had lifted itself above ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... his spirit had no living sense either of Christ or of the Cross. He sat down in despair, not wishing to go to bed in this mood, waiting for a drop of sweetness, which did not come. A gust of wind made him turn his head towards the window, which had burst open. He saw a great planet tip there in the brilliant sky, above the black battlements ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... a pleasant little story in easy verse, telling of a king who fell in love with a great Princess, but was in despair because ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... with the order of the visible universe should soonest suspect it empty of directing mind; and, on the other hand, that humanistic, moral and historical studies—which first open the terrible problems of suffering and grief, and contain all the reputed provocatives of denial and despair—should confirm, and enlarge rather than disturb, the prepossessions of natural piety.—MARTINEAU, Essays, i. 122. Die Religion hat nur dann eine Bedeutung fuer den Menschen, wenn er in der Geschichte ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... was retiring she was startled by his voice exclaiming, in a tone of the deepest emotion, "something between anger and despair," as she expressed it: "By God, no!" One of the commissioners, not quite entering into the solemnity with which Scott regarded this business, had, it seems, made a sort of motion as if he meant to put the crown on the head of one of the young ladies near him, but the voice and the aspect of ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... degree of spirit which might have awakened hope in Despair herself, if Despair could be supposed to understand Scotch music, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... utterly destructive at one fell blow to his most cherished hopes. He rose giddy and staggering like a drunken man, and at once leaving the Vatican, hurried to his mother, whom he had forgotten before, but sought now in his despair. Rosa Vanozza possessed all the vices and all the virtues of a Spanish courtesan; her devotion to the Virgin amounted to superstition, her fondness for her children to weakness, and her love for Roderigo ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... metal in his mouth. Lifting a goblet the water became a solid mass. Swinging his little daughter in his arms one kiss turned the sweet child into a cold statue. A single hour availed to drive happiness from Midas' heart. In an agony of despair he besought the gods for simple things. He asked for one cup of cold water, one cluster of fruit and his little ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... more confident and more popular, than when he made the House ring with prophecies of national downfall. His attacks were now incessant. He flung his hand-grenades night after night into our camp, and constantly with still greater damage. We still fought, but it was the fight of despair. Pitt was imperturbable; but there was not one among his colleagues who did not feel the hopelessness of calling for public reliance, when, in every successive debate, we heard the leader of Opposition contemptuously asking, what answer we had to the Gazette crowded with bankruptcy? to the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... of an exceedingly bad quarter of an hour for Sally the cat was completely out of the bag, the fat as irretrievably in the fire; Sally was out of breath and in tears of penitence and despair; Mrs. Gosnold was out of her chair, thoughtfully pacing to and fro, and in full possession of all facts materially bearing upon the translation of S. Manvers of the Hardware Notions into S. ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... when he noticed it at all) dissatisfied with her dress. And that was precisely the line in which she had never before met criticism. Hazel took off one colour after another, until Phoebe was in despair and Mrs. Bywank turned away and smiled out of ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... a dart, Drave god-like men to wild despair, And lit the skies with lurid glare But oh, thy false and fickle ...
— The Loom of Life • Cotton Noe
... look in the dull eyes and heard the vague, inarticulate words, the good German, so far from losing his head, rose to the very heroism of friendship. Man and child as he was, with the pressure of despair came the inspiration of a mother's tenderness, a woman's love. He warmed towels (he found towels!), he wrapped them about Pons' hands, he laid them over the pit of the stomach; he took the cold, moist forehead in his hands, he summoned back life with a might of will worthy ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... hour later. He was in despair because his party had decided to leave Naples for Rome, and he feared Beth would be engulfed by the volcano unless he was present to ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... despair which burst from some of them at sight of these, was, however, changed into an exclamation of joy when four of the band ran hastily towards them, and were recognised to be Haldor, Erling, ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... view of it, I guess," said Julia. "Where are they, please—now that they may be wanted? If you'd like to hunt them up for me you're very welcome." With which, for the moment, over the difficult case, they faced each other helplessly enough. And she added to it now the sharpest ache of her despair. "He knows about Murray Brush. The others"—and her pretty white-gloved hands and charming pink shoulders gave them up—"may ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... brow he felt their breath, And in his waving hair; And looked from that lone post of death In still, yet brave despair. ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... 1877, he writes: "There is one point which I regret you did not make clear in your Address, namely, what is the meaning and importance of Professors Cope and Hyatt's views on acceleration and retardation? I have endeavoured, and given up in despair, the attempt to grasp their meaning" (Life and Letters, vol. iii. ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... shall be," said Farnese—writing on one of the days when he had seemed most convinced by Valentine Dale's arguments, and driven to despair by his postulates—"to see myself with these soldiers on English ground, where, with God's help, I hope to accomplish your Majesty's demands." He was much troubled however to find doubts entertained at the last moment as to his 6000 Spaniards; and certainly it hardly needed an argument to prove that ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the girl starved, no longer was she made to drudge till the thought of another day was a despair and a terror. And seeing that she was a good girl, Mrs. Dunbar respected her scruples. Indeed, she was very kind, and Esther soon learnt to like her, and, through her affection for her, to think less of the life she led. A dangerous point is this in a young girl's life. Esther ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... and exhorted their posterity to expect redemption and to believe the promise concerning the seed of the woman, and to overcome by that hope the snares, the crosses, the persecutions, the hatred and the violence of the Cainites, and not to despair of salvation, but rather to give thanks unto God, assured that he would at some time deliver them by the seed of ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... and even to investigate them prior to their coming. Differences in recruiting methods may also explain why some employers and labor agents hold a very optimistic view of the negro as a worker, while others despair of him. The reason why Pittsburgh has been unable to secure a stable labor force is doubtless realized by the local manufacturers. Married negroes come to the North to stay. They desire to have their families ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott
... I ever saw in my life, madam—her grief and shame and despair! She arose from her bed and began to examine her effects, to see what she might have left, and how far they would go towards settling my bill. She possessed some invaluable jewelry in diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. I know ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... the fairest girl in all the town. Her lover, crushed beneath the weight of blows from an unkindly fate, rended his garments and his hair and turned away in dumb despair. ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... and strong energies, could not always last on the full stretch. But why detail the fits of despondency, the listless hopeless state into which we sometimes fell? Suffice it that nature sometimes asserted her rights, while religion kept us from open despair. Many events occurred, wearisome to the reader, though interesting to ourselves. Sometimes we divided, and half lived in one house and half in the other. We then paid each other visits of ceremony, expending ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... fifty per cent. He had a few sheep, however, that would not sell at all, and that remained on the glebe, in consequence, until his successor entered into possession. And he, honest man, straightway impounded them, and got them incarcerated in a dark, dirty hole, somewhat in the way Giant Despair incarcerated the pilgrims,—a thing he had quite a legal right to do, seeing that the mile-long glebe, with its many acres of luxuriant pasture, was now as much his property as it had been Mr. Swanson's a few months before, and seeing Mr. Swanson's few sheep had no right to crop his grass. ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... such sparks of virtue as misery or vice had not availed to extinguish; to discover what is beautiful and comely under what commonly passes for the ungainly and the deformed; to draw happiness and hopefulness from despair itself; and, above all, so to have made known to his own countrymen the wants and sufferings of the poor, the ignorant, and the neglected, that they could be left in absolute neglect no more. "A triumph has been prepared for him," wrote Mr. Ticknor to our dear ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... been dear to me, not for four years, as to you, but for nearly half a century. Reflect that I am alone on earth, and that her sweet face is my only consolation. Will you, who have given me life, prevent my spending it happily? Have you called me back to the world only to deliver me over to despair?—Tiger! Take back, then, the life you gave me, if you will not permit me to consecrate it ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... continued, "in despair that I would ever find any of you. At that time I was an old man before my time, for my conscience gave me no rest. I went down to the quay to purchase a ticket for my return to New York, and, true to the habit ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... business to stick to and follow her, that she did not want us, and that she had no right to disturb the Mahatmas with all sorts of questions that concerned only the questioners, for they knew their own business best. In despair, I determined, come what might, to cross the frontier, which is about a dozen miles from here, and find the Mahatmas or—DIE. I never stopped to think that what I was going to undertake would be regarded as the rash act of a lunatic. I ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... me this disgusting thought, he departed in a cloud of dust, leaving me sad and alone, but not yet altogether in despair. ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... was stripped of all hypocritical coverings, and she saw and understood me. What a scene! To discover in the one she had revered and worshipped so long her moral assassin! To stand face to face and have the dreadful truth suddenly revealed! The darkness of despair gathered around her brow; an agony, like that which finds no comforter, was stamped on her face; and with these a hate, a horror, a contempt, mingled triumphantly. The door opened,—it was closed,—and my wife was lost to me forever. I essayed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... Harfenspieler has, without knowing it, married his own sister. Mignon is the child of this union. In this song he pours forth his despair and the torments ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... of this awful home was the abode of Raging Despair; and in the final verse of his terrible ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... Scattered about a spring mouth in the litter of a three days' halt, its flocks and herds spread wide around it, it was hushed in a sullen dejection. The boy was a likely lad for the new Zion, and his mother, one of the wives of an elder, had forgotten her stern training, and fallen to a common despair. Long-haired men lolled in tent doors cleaning their rifles, and women moved between the wagons and the fires, or sat in rims of shade sewing and talking low. Children were everywhere, their spirits undimmed by disaster, their voices calling from the sage, little, light, half-naked ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... head. "Truly, Antoinette," he said, "I believe you could seize your husband's gun if he were to fall, and fill his place in the Army as well as you fill his place here in the Cathedral, doing a man's work with a woman's strength, and smiling as if it were but play! Our France can never despair while there ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... to quit the doors of the Sevillano, or cease from hanging about them, upon the chance that the celebrated scullery-maid might perhaps make her appearance. When it was pitch dark Carriazo was in despair, but still Avendano stuck to the spot; and, at last, he went into the courtyard of the inn, under pretence of inquiring after some gentlemen of Burgos who were on their way to Seville. He had but just entered the courtyard, when a girl, who seemed to be about fifteen, and was dressed ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... informed Sir Alfred Milner that he had deemed it necessary to call out the Free State burghers—that is, to mobilise his forces. Sir A. Milner wrote regretting these preparations, and declaring that he did not yet despair of peace, for he was sure that any reasonable proposal would be favourably considered by her Majesty's Government. Steyn's reply was that there was no use in negotiating unless the stream of British reinforcements ceased coming into South ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... each step some green gap in the hedgerows, some, soft escape from the stony thoroughfare. Beside the real life expands the ideal life to those who seek it. Droop not, seek it: the ideal life has its sorrows, but it never admits despair; as on the ear of him who follows the winding course of a stream, the stream ever varies the note of its music,—now loud with the rush of the falls; now low and calm as it glides by the level marge of smooth banks; now sighing through the stir of the reeds; now babbling with ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... gotten more and more stirred up as he went on. "So I shall help her in the only way I know of: I shall send her to a boarding school. I just told her about it and she acted as if she were absolutely desperate. I simply cannot look upon her terrible despair. I actually feel as if my Cornelia could have no peace in Heaven if she heard her ...
— Cornelli • Johanna Spyri
... empire by showing his hat? And these others, who thought they had subdued France! Not they! At sight of the eagles, a national army sprang up, and we marched to Waterloo. There, the Guard died at one blow. Napoleon, in despair, threw himself three times before the cannon of the enemy without obtaining death. We saw that. The battle was lost. That night the Emperor called his old soldiers to him; on the field soaked with our blood he burned his banners and his eagles—his poor eagles, ever victorious, ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... rival a witness to it. My pretensions, openly set aside, enhance all the more the triumph of your love. Enjoy this great happiness fully, but know that you have not yet gained your point; I have too just cause to be incensed, and many things may perhaps ere then come to pass. Despair, when it breaks out, goes a great way; everything is pardonable when one has been deceived. If the ungrateful woman, out of compliment to your love, has just now pledged her word never to be mine, my righteous ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... view to the preservation of my own character in the eyes of my associates, than from any less interested motive, I was about to insist, peremptorily, upon a discontinuance of the play, when some expressions at my elbow from among the company, and an ejaculation evincing utter despair on the part of Glendinning, gave me to understand that I had effected his total ruin under circumstances which, rendering him an object for the pity of all, should have protected him from the ill offices ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... the inheritance of the Three Brothers was a desert. What had once been the richest soil in the kingdom became a shifting heap of red sand; and the brothers, unable longer to contend with the adverse skies, abandoned their valueless patrimony in despair, to seek some means of gaining a livelihood among the cities and people of the plains. All their money was gone, and they had nothing left but some curious, old- fashioned pieces of gold plate, the last remnants of ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... she outlined her plan for reaching the Misfits, The Guesser began to feel despair slipping from his mind, ...
— But, I Don't Think • Gordon Randall Garrett
... She sat in a sort of trance of horror, Robin's letter spread out beneath her nerveless fingers. She did not ask herself what she should do. The blow had stunned all her faculties. She could only sit there face to face with despair, staring blind-eyed before her, motionless, cold as marble to the very heart of her. She fancied—she even numbly hoped—that ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... of life-long separation had fallen upon them like the sudden sword of fate, Aziel and Elissa gazed at each other in despair. Then, before either of them could speak a word, at a sign from the Shadid, the priestesses closed round Elissa. Throwing a white veil over her head, they broke into a joyful paean of song, and half-led, ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... songs of Sion." From the facts here narrated, we may judge how great was the attachment of the Jewish people for the musical art; their beloved city sacked, their temple plundered and destroyed, their homes desolate, in the midst of danger and despair, deserted by their God, surrounded by infuriated enemies, (Isaiah, xiii. 16.,) nevertheless their harps were not forgotten. From this beautiful and pathetic lamentation, it would also appear that the repute ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... pliant as wax; but really they were iron. James knew at last how pitiless was their love, how inhumanly cruel their intolerance; and of the two his father seemed more implacable, more horribly relentless. His mother's anger was bearable, but the Colonel's very weakness was a deadly weapon. His despair, his dumb sorrow, his entire dependence on the forbearance of others, were more tyrannical than the most despotic power. James was indeed a bird beating himself against the imprisoning cage; and its bars were loving-kindness and trust, tears, silent distress, bitter disillusion, ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... last outbreak of despair, the girl, shuddering and wailing, threw herself face downward on the floor, while the monster sat on the edge of the chair gabbling courteous invitations, and holding the old hat ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... disappeared from the revised edition, as well as some curious outbursts of that motiveless despair which Byron made fashionable not long after. Nor are there wanting touches of fleshliness which strike us oddly as ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... never'; for he knew this to be the most critical position of his whole route; unless he could get past it before break of day his case was hopeless. The dreaded town is at length in view, engendering fear and terror, but not despair. Several large crafts are seen lying at the wharf, and lights are reflected from adjacent shipping offices. Two small boats are observed crossing the river, and in rather uncomfortable proximity. With these exceptions the inhabitants are evidently in the enjoyment of undisturbed repose, ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... and lately his junior in our civil government. I had written him the enclosed letter before the receipt of yours. I had intended it for some time, but had put it off, from time to time, from the discouragement of despair to make him believe me sincere. As the information by the last post does not make it necessary to change any thing in the letter, I enclose it open for your perusal, as well that you may be possessed of the true state of dispositions between us, as ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... agreeable personality of the German Emperor must not blind us to the fact that he is the centre of the system which has brought the world to a despair and misery such as it never has known since the dawn of history. We must remember that all his utterances disclose the soul of the conqueror, of a man intensely anxious for earthly fame and a conspicuous place in the gallery of human events; envious, too, of the great names ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... done very well, but I will show 'em a grace beyond the reach of their art." He began in a clear and charming manner, and was absolutely perfect for three minutes. In the middle of a most earnest and elaborate sentence he suddenly stopped, gave a look of comic despair at the ceiling, crammed both hands into his trousers' pockets, and deliberately sat down. Everybody seemed to understand that it was one of Thackeray's unfinished speeches and there were no signs of surprise or discontent among his audience. ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... youth hast known the breaking stress Of passion, and hast trod despair's dry ground Beneath black thoughts that wither and de- stroy. Ah, wanderer, led by human tenderness Home to the heart of Nature, thou hast found The hidden Fountain of ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... time, and was the hardest, because of the difficulty of finding good styles in keeping with the limited purse. Anthony possessed a number of good pieces of antique character, but beyond these everything was to be purchased. Juliet turned in despair from one shop after another, and when it came to the fitting of the ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... of black despair is cast over the happy island. The city of pleasure becomes one great tomb. Of its 30,000 men, women and children, all but a few are slain. The Angel of Death has spread his pall over them, a fiery breath has smitten them, and they have fallen as dry stubble before the ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... you, hopeless grief is passionless; That only men incredulous of despair, Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air Beat upward to God's throne in loud access Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness In souls as countries lieth silent-bare Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, express ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... followed by her daughter, entered the apartment. She appeared, as he had seen her on former occasions, rather composed than agitated; but a nicer judge than he could scarce have determined whether her calmness was that of despair or of indifference. Bucklaw was too much agitated by his own feelings minutely to scrutinise those of the lady. He stammered out an unconnected address, confounding together the two or three topics to which it related, and stopt short before he brought it to any regular ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... if the British should come this way, the battle would be fought in or about the town; but the building of the fort was honestly intended for the defense and protection of the troops, not against muskets, cannon, and bayonets, but against discontent and despair,—enemies far more formidable to the suffering army of that day than British ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... was half-stunned by the accusation, and ready to give up in despair, leaped to his feet and flung his arms about his mother's waist. His eyes flashed and the colour flushed right up into his brows as he kissed her passionately ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... which his nine years entitled him. Verman was unfortunately tongue-tied, but he was valiant beyond all others, and, in spite of every handicap, he became at once the chief support of his own party and the despair of ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... bedroom, the shabbily gorgeous bed, the posturing dancers, the simpering, tailored noblemen. The atmosphere of it, scented and close, despite the open window, seemed to take her by the throat. She dared not stop to think, lest this sick despair, this loathing of herself, should master her. To get home at once was her impulse, and she must do it before any one ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... eyes; she felt quite in despair; but she was a brave girl and determined to make the best ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... measured the distance to the helpless lad with a practised eye, and groaned in despair. "They'll fall short by a dozen feet," he murmured hopelessly. "God forgive me, for bringing ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the furious cries of the crowd outside. "Hark!" he went on. "Those wild sea wolves are calling for blood vengeance. Come! come with me quickly. There is but one hope left, and in that hope lies my own despair and my ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... began to move away. At the sight of his malicious smile the prisoner's despair was swept away before a tempest ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... of the Imperialists departed. The cavalry of the left wing, already beaten, and only rallied by his exertions, no sooner missed their victorious leader, than they gave up everything for lost, and abandoned the field of battle in spiritless despair. The right wing fell into the same confusion, with the exception of a few regiments, which the bravery of their colonels Gotz, Terzky, Colloredo, and Piccolomini, compelled to keep their ground. The Swedish infantry, with prompt determination, profited by the enemy's confusion. To fill up the gaps ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... packed, but Margaret's as well; and that Margaret had declared that if her friend was sent away for what was after all her fault, she would not stay an hour in the house. Miss Polehampton was weeping: the girls were in revolt, the teachers in despair, so my wife thought the best way out of the difficulty was to bring both girls away at once, and settle it with Miss Colwyn's relations afterwards. The joke is that Margaret insists on it ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... among a whole squadron of buccaneers!" exclaimed Jerry, in a tone of despair. "We shall be separated, Harry—turned into cabin boys, and never have a chance of escape. O dear! O dear! My poor father!—what ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... by the ground-work when the outworks and the superstructure are assailed. Fall back the more nakedly upon your sure foundation. Keep the ground of your standing and acceptance clear, and take your stand on that ground at every time when despair assaults you. For great faults and for small, for formality in spiritual service, for cold-heartedness and for half-heartedness, you have always open to you your old and sure ground, the blood and the righteousness ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... mercy of twoscore of hostile Indians. They would know that the cowboy had a companion because of the second bronco, and as soon as they returned from the pursuit they would begin a search for her. Perhaps they might not even wait till then. 'Mona lay there in despair while one might have counted a hundred. During that time she gave herself up for lost. She could neither move nor think. But presently there flowed back into her heart a faint hope. Perhaps she ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... It means my will against your will; my appetite for gold, for land, for women, for luxury and beauty against your appetite; until at length it culminates in the open madness of physical violence, physical destruction, physical death and despair. There can be no other end to it. If men dare not risk being the lovers of their kind, then they must choose between being the slaves of duty or the slaves of force. What are we reading in the public prints and hearing from platform and stage? The unending ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... not only generous and conciliatory, but it was even inspired by a great regard for Spain. The junta declared itself ready to send help to Spain in her fight against the intruder, and also offered the Venezuelan soil as a refuge for those who might despair of the salvation and freedom of the mother country. The Council of Regency which had been established in Spain, instead of thanking Venezuela for her offer, declared the Venezuelans insurgents, rebels ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... honour, and rank for dignity, have long planned a splendid connection for me, to which though my invariable repugnance has stopt any advances, their wishes and their views immovably adhere. I am but too certain they will now listen to no other. I dread, therefore, to make a trial where I despair of success, I know not how to risk a prayer with those who may ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... will directly tend to enforce what I am going to beseech of you. Years afterwards, I might have married a man who was devoted to me. But I told him I was married already, and not a word of love must he speak to me. He went abroad in despair, and I have never seen ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... his visit to the Nestors' home. Our hero was almost in despair, not so much for himself, as for the unfortunate women of the party—and one of them was Mary's mother! Yet what could he do? What chance was there of escaping from ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... cruel, they would have been satisfied with simply killing these unresisting men, (which might have been without such a volley of shot,) and not have so mangled their bodies after they were slain. From such cowardly and cruel foes no mercy can be expected; and every one sent against them must despair if he finds himself in danger of being overpowered, and wrought up to desperation and revenge when he finds himself any thing near upon an ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... sealed in the sweet of Phoebe's excellence, as far from change as she from love: if outward passions may discover inward affections, the furrows in my face may discover the sorrows of my heart, and the map of my looks the grief of my mind. Thou seest (Phoebe) the tears of despair have made my cheeks full of wrinkles, and my scalding sighs have made the air echo her pity conceived in my plaints; Philomel hearing my passions, hath left her mournful tunes to listen to the discourse of miseries. I have portrayed in every tree the beauty of my mistress, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... to her economical declension. Let us, however, not fail to observe that the beneficence, as well as the strength, of Great Britain has been a matter of growth. She was not always what she now is to the alien subject. There is, therefore, no reason to despair, as some do, that the United States, who share her traditions, can attain her success. The task is novel to us; we may make blunders; but, guided by her experience, we should reach the ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... up into the woods," said Jack, hurrying up the beach as he spoke. Still no boat was to be seen, and we were about to give ourselves over to despair, when Peterkin called to ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... in sheer despair. She cannot bring this woman to reason. With a pitying smile she returns to the window, and buries her fingers in the soft silk of those yellow pillows with an almost frantic clutch. They are just ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... Stephanie Gardiner and Freda was the safest vent. The "pursuit of the Ideal," as she called it, went on with vim and fervour. Sometimes Roger would be on the heights of hope and elation; the next visit he would be in the depths of despair and humility. Freda had learned to tell which it was by the way he ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... have absolutely deserted him," he said, "and his mind is a blank like that of a little child, but I by no means despair of his gradually recovering; and if he could hear the voice of the lady you tell me he is engaged to, it might strike a chord now lying dormant and set the brain at ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... the Italian line broke under the pressure of Hun artillery and propaganda, the American Red Cross sent representatives forward to inaugurate relief work for the 700,000 refugees, who were pouring southward from the Friuti and Veneto, homeless, hungry, possessing nothing but misfortune, spreading despair and panic every step of the journey. Their bodies must be cared for—that was evident; it would be easy for them to carry disease throughout Italy. But the disease of their minds was an even greater danger; if their demoralisation were not checked, ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... time the Red Rogue was thoroughly frightened, but he did not yet despair of defeating his enemies. He knew better than to attempt to oppose Prince Marvel by force, but he still hoped to conquer ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum
... male, which in this genus is always of extreme beauty. During the two succeeding months I only saw it once again, and shortly afterwards I saw the male flying high in the air at the mining village. I had begun to despair of ever getting a specimen, as it seemed so rare and wild; till one day, about the beginning of January, I found a beautiful shrub with large white leafy bracts and yellow flowers, a species of Mussaenda, ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... that was sweet, loving, noble, and motherly—all that was womanly—rose to meet the stretch of gray future, with its endless suspense and torturing fear, its face of courage for the light of day, its despair for the lonely night, and its vague faith in the lessons of life, its possible and sustaining and eternal hope ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... ornamentation than the marks of the fingers of the potter. Does this pottery date from Palaeolithic times, or were the earthenware vessels later additions at the time of those disturbances of deposits which are the despair of archaeologists? A few examples may enable us better to ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... before he learned that the unfortunate being had, in despair of obtaining any relief of his sufferings, sought an obscure shelter, in which he ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown
... Youth secured its revenge, however; Miss Bardach soon wrote from Vienna that she was now more tranquil, more independent, happy at last. Ibsen, on the other hand, was heart-broken, quivering with ecstasy, overwhelmed with joy and despair. ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... swindler. The knife stabs deep into the already festered wound. Misfortune bears heavily upon a sensitive mind; but accusation of wrong, when struggling under trials, stabs deepest into the heart, and bears its victim suffering to the very depths of despair. ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... before the window looking steadily out to catch the first sight of her. Not having her mother's inventive turn, she was at a loss how to get rid of him. Brandon must not see Mrs. Peck, and Elsie must be warned to say nothing about her to him. She sat in torture for some time, and at last in despair she asked him in an awkward embarrassed way to be good enough to go for a nosegay for her, that she had been promised by a mutual friend at Richmond, that she wished very much to have. He could not help thinking something was wrong. Mrs. Phillips had always been very inconsiderate to Alice, and ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... however; for a frantic form is seen to dart through the narrow and tortuous pass from the street and fling itself upon the closed barrier, appealing in eloquent indignation to the inexorable Cerberus, and then gazing, with face against the lattice, in imbecile despair at the receding boat. Simultaneous with the thud of the shutting gate is the clank of chains and the rattle of clamps and clogs, as of the striking off of fetters and handcuffs, an asthmatic jingle of a bell somewhere in the body of the boat, a slight slush of revolving paddle-wheels, and the great ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... leading into a good lode, and making so little by his hard toil that on pay day of each month he is compelled to ask his employer for "subsist"—or a small advance of money—to enable him to live and go on with his work. Often he is obliged to give up in despair, and change to a more promising part of the mine, or to go to another mine altogether; but, not unfrequently, he is rewarded for his perseverance by coming at last to a rich "lode," or mass, or "bunch" of copper or tin ore, out of which he will rend, ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... value-judgment theory in its disparagement of philosophy is practically a dethronement of reason. And the protest of Pragmatism and the voluntarists {64} generally against what they term 'Intellectualism'[18] and their distrust of the logical faculty, are virtually an avowal of despair and a resort to agnosticism, if not to scepticism. If we are to renounce the quest for objective truth, and accept 'those ideas only which we can assimilate, validate, corroborate,'[19] those ideas in short which are 'practically useful in guiding us to desirable issues,' ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... her tummy groomed. Well, now (especially, of course, when it's very muddy) she waits till Hunt has finished dressing her, and then, as soon as his back is turned, she lies down and rolls. Hunt is in despair. He used to be really fond of her. But now I believe he'd kill her if he could, sometimes. All his labour entirely and ridiculously in vain. I'm convinced that she does it on purpose, because she always chooses just the moment when he has achieved a beautiful ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... again, but it was a cry of despair. Mr. O'Donnell, they knew, had the whip hand. In those good old days he, or any other member desiring to obstruct ordinary procedure, might, in the middle of questions, start a debate on any subject under the sun. This and other outrages were doubtless ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the evil: A most miraculous work in this good king; Which often, since my here-remain in England, I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven, Himself best knows: but strangely visited people, All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, The mere despair of surgery, he cures, Hanging a golden stamp about their necks, Put on with holy prayers: and 'tis spoken, To the succeeding royalty he leaves The healing benediction. With this strange virtue, He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy, And sundry blessings hang about his throne, ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... outside the house (I expect TUBAL & CO. wouldn't stand much of it indoors), the birds started a concert in opposition to his solo. This quite drowned his feeble notes, and drove him half frantic. In despair he lay down under the shade of a tree and fell asleep, and in his dreams he saw the instrument which he had invented gradually developed into a "Strad", and from that into the most glorious instrument of our time; namely, the banjo. This so soothed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... time for care; Brooding on hours misspent, To see the spectre of Despair Come to our lonely tent; Like Brutus, 'midst his slumbering host, Summoned ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... and since his death, notwithstanding all I can say to him, he does nothing but idle away his time in the streets, as you saw him, without considering he is no longer a child; and if you do not make him ashamed of it, I despair of his ever coming to any good. For my part, I am resolved, one of these days, to turn him out of doors, and ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... a corner of the park, and had the grief of seeing a dozen noble old trees felled. The gardener wrung his hands over the thefts committed by the strange laborers that swarmed in all directions. The bailiff was in perfect despair at the disorders in his jurisdiction. His horses and oxen were taken from him to carry timber when he wanted them to plow. The wants of the household increased; the returns from the property became less and less. Lenore had much to do to comfort him, and brought him many pounds of tobacco ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... were ruthless. Their faces were ten times wickeder than ever, as they roamed from cage to cage, slaughtering with a fury that seemed entirely unappeasable. Presently the feathery rustlings became fewer and fainter, and the little pipings of despair died away; and in every cage lay a poor murdered minstrel, with the song that abode within him forever quenched;—in every cage but two, and those two were high up on the wall; and in each glared a pair of wild, white eyes; and an orange beak, tough as steel, pointed threateningly down. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... could meet any trouble without grumbling, were now in the depths of despair and angry discontent; and it had not pleased them to be put on a short allowance of even the unwholesome provisions that remained from the original store. A couple of rude hand-mills had been erected for the making of flour, and as food ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... by persons who remembered that they were once my way-ward pupils, are among the pleasantest and most cheering incidents of my life. So uniform have been the results, when I have had a fair trial and time enough, that I have unhesitatingly adopted the motto, Never despair. Parents and teachers are apt to look for too speedy results from the labors of the latter. The moral nature, like the intellectual and physical, is long and slow in reaching the full maturity of its strength. I ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... fundamental idea of a sacrificial act, and, wherever they occur among the Indo-Germanic stocks at least, are based on later degeneracy and barbarism. They never gained admission among the Romans; hardly in a single instance were superstition and despair induced, even in times of extreme distress, to seek an extraordinary deliverance through means so revolting. Of belief in ghosts, fear of enchantments, or dealing in mysteries, comparatively slight traces are to be found among the Romans. Oracles ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... other; and some of them very young, too. Oh, it was very sad. I almost felt afraid to look at them, for fear it would hurt their feelings, and I longed to tell them that my heart was full of pity, and not to get discouraged, and not to despair. ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... justly claim, they completely fulfil the prime conditions of popularity prescribed for the modern novel, which must work out minute details with the greatest possible resemblance to actual life and circumstance. Upon this ground, indeed, the ablest professors of fiction might despair of competing with those who exhibit a mighty man of valour in undress, who lead us where we may hear him talk, watch him eat or shave, and study his conjugal relations. It is to be feared that if the multiplication ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... that which preceded it;—and he knew that he, in his generation, had done nothing to promote such progress. He thoroughly despised himself,—if there might be any good in that! But on such occasions as these, when the wine he had drunk was sufficient only to drive away from him the numbness of despair, when he was all alone with the cold night air upon his face, when the stars were bright above him and the world around him was almost quiet, he would still ask himself whether there might not yet be, even for him, some hope of a redemption, —some chance of a better ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... doom of the rest seemed sealed. The stoicism of the warriors was at an end; they became wild and desperate; some set fire to the village as a last means of checking the pestilence; others, in a frenzy of despair, put their wives and children to death, that they might be spared the agonies of an inevitable disease, and that they might all ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... recovering myself in a short time, I related to him everything from the beginning, how desirous I was of knowing sublime truths, how I went to the philosophers, and hearing them contradict one another, and driven to despair, thought on the scheme of making me wings, with all that had happened in my journey quite up to heaven. I then delivered the message to him from the Moon, at which, softening his contracted brow, he smiled at me, and cried, "What were Otus and Ephialtes ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... started to try—holding out at Rusty Brown's till she gave up in despair; but it occurred to him that Chip had asked him to hurry back. Andy groaned again, and ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... horse, a bird, and a black squirrel, and I do not see exactly what more a reasonable woman could desire. Human companionship, indeed, at present, I have not much of; but as like will to like, I do not despair of attracting towards me, by-and-by, some of my own kind, with whom I may enjoy pleasant intercourse; but you can form no idea—none—none—of the intellectual dearth and drought in which I am existing ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... to make efforts to obtain permission to go abroad. It was refused. Then he took his son with him and for three whole years was wandering about Russia, from one doctor to another, incessantly moving from one town to another, and driving his physicians, his son, and his servants to despair by his cowardice and impatience. He returned to Lavriky a perfect wreck, a tearful and capricious child. Bitter days followed, every one had much to put up with from him. Ivan Petrovitch was only quiet when he was dining; he had never been so greedy and eaten so much; all the rest of the ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... she ought to have been pitied: her face acquired a careworn, exhausted expression, her eyes were hollow and sunken, a burden beyond her strength lay on her young shoulders. David saw her much oftener than I did; he used to go to their house. My father gave him up in despair: he knew that David would not obey him, anyway. And from time to time Raissa would appear at the hurdle fence of our garden which looked into a lane and there have an interview with David; she did not come for the sake of conversation, ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... eventually went to Hull, where they returned to their old profession. Here, in 1779, suddenly and somewhat mysteriously, Mr. Inchbald died. To his widow the week that followed was one of "grief, horror, and almost despair"; but soon, with her old pertinacity, she was back at her work, settling at last in London, and becoming a member of the Covent Garden company. Here, for the next five years, she earned for herself a meagre living, until, quite unexpectedly, deliverance ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... must work hard, or I can't catch up with the others. They know heaps, and I don't know anything," said Nat, who had been reduced to a state of despair by hearing the boys recite their grammar, history, and geography with what he ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... the towns of the Cherokees. One serious engagement occurred when the Indians resolutely challenged Rutherford's advance at the gap of the Nantahala Mountains. Indian women—heroic Amazons disguised in war-paint and armed with the weapons of warriors and the courage of despair—fought side by side with the Indian braves in the effort to arrest Rutherford's progress and compass his defeat. More than forty frontiersmen fell beneath the deadly shots of this truly Spartan band before the ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... sequestrating him from the world, and rendering him less capable of active exertion, and in the kindest and most polite manner he expresses his hope that he should receive very extensive assistance and support from me, without which he is pleased to say he would utterly despair of success. Now between ourselves (for this is strictly confidential) I am rather alarmed at this prospect. I am willing, and anxiously so, to do all in my power to serve the work; but, my dear sir, you ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... and despair, a company of surveyors came one evening to Hogstad, which was the first farm at the entrance of the parish to mark out the line of a new railroad. In the course of conversation, Lars perceived it was still a question with ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... high window thrill'd the wild shriek of despair, And gibbering phantoms seem to dance within the ruddy glare; And as a valiant captain leads his boarders to the fray, "Up, up, my sons!" our foreman shouts—"up firemen, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... and you are right," said Dick. "This is too bad! And when we are in such a hurry, too!" His voice had a note of despair in it. ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... had made good his passage, was in great fear of what might follow, and sent to desire the Carthaginians that a large number of galleys might be ordered to attend and secure the coast. And now it was that the Syracusans began wholly to despair of safety, seeing the Carthaginians possessed of their haven, Hicetes master of the town, and Dionysius supreme in the citadel; while Timoleon had as yet but a slender hold of Sicily, as it were by the fringe ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... me," thought Jack, as tears of despair came to his eyes. "Jenny and the folks will never ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... when I offer you some of the prettiest things I have got, you say it does not signify how you are dressed. What can I do to please you, Molly? I, who delight in nothing more than peace in a family, to see you sitting there with despair upon your face?' ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the meals never ready, the husband's home-coming was a dreaded occurrence, and he, endeavoring to seek rest and relaxation, usually sought for it in the poolroom or the saloon, with the usual climax which never fails to bring the time-honored results of debauch—despair and desertion. ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... you have had," she continued, looking at the girl, who now sat with her head slightly drooping, her hands clasped tightly together, her attitude one of absolute despair. ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... arch gave back Learoyd's broken whisper in a bass boom. Mulvaney looked at me hopelessly, but I remembered how the madness of despair had once fallen upon Ortheris, that weary, weary afternoon on the banks of the Khemi River, and how it had been exorcised by the ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... young Prince Ivan saw where his arrow had fallen he was in despair. "How can I marry a frog," said he, "and have her rule with ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... Minister (Barclay de Tolly) has already reported the abandonment of Smolensk to the enemy. It is pitiable and sad, and the whole army is in despair that this most important place has been wantonly abandoned. I, for my part, begged him personally most urgently and finally wrote him, but nothing would induce him to consent. I swear to you on my honor that Napoleon was in such a fix as never before and might have ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... out to him by his companions. Alleyne had dropped his shattered sword and was standing, trembling in every limb, with his rage all changed in an instant to pity. For the third time the drowning man came to the surface, his hands full of green slimy water-plants, his eyes turned in despair to the shore. Their glance fell upon Alleyne, and he could not withstand the mute appeal which he read in them. In an instant he, too, was in the Garonne, striking out with powerful ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... only a few seconds' duration, and I had led Lilla across, my uncle had followed with Mrs Landell, and Tom was close behind, when one of his mules turned restive, stopping short in the full glare of the flames, and I felt choking with rage and despair. ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... wore a big black cap on top of his haggard and remarkably clean-shaven face, the most prominent feature of which was a red nose, which sniffed a little now and then as if its owner was suffering from a severe cold. This person emanated age, neatness and despair. Aside from the nose which compelled immediate attention, his face consisted of a few large planes loosely juxtaposed and registering pathos. His motions were without grace. He had a certain refinement. He could not have been ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... Black despair seized me. A quarter of an hour seemed to me interminable when I knew not at what moment the valet would fling open the closet door in his search for some article of dress, and discover me. There was nothing to do, however, but to make the best of it, hoping ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... white with the strain, and he's lost a couple of stone in weight, and his eyes are starting out of his head, I shall go ahead and beat him by a hole. I'll teach him, Robert. He shall taste of my despair, and learn by proof in some wild hour how much the wretched dare. And when it's all over, and he's torn all his hair out and smashed all his clubs, I shall go and commit suicide off the Cob. Because, you see, if I can't marry Phyllis, I shan't ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... boatswain he rope's-ended him, and "Now," says he, "just work! I read my Bible often, but it don't tell men to shirk; The pumps they are not choked as yet, so let us not despair: When all is up, or when we're saved, we'll join ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... fatigue of travelling beneath a burning sky, and an atmosphere darkened by dust; the view of that horizon, which seems for ever to fly before us; those lonely trunks of palm-trees, which have all the same aspect, and which we despair of reaching, because they are confounded with other trunks that rise by degrees on the visual horizon; all these causes combine to make the steppes appear far more extensive than they are in reality. ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... rain and mist. The weather had broken as it seldom does in that part in June. White wreathings drifted up the fields from the sullen sea; the sky was an unbroken gray deadness shedding pin-point moisture that was now and then blown against the panes with a crepitation of despair. The lady looked out on the dim and chilling prospect with a woeful face. It was a bad day for a woman bereaved, alone and without a purpose ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... at uneasiness which only vacancy and suspicion expose them to feel, and complaints of distresses which it is in their own power to remove. Laziness is commonly associated with timidity. Either fear originally prohibits endeavours by infusing despair of success; or the frequent failure of irresolute struggles, and the constant desire of avoiding labour, impress by degrees false terrours on the mind. But fear, whether natural or acquired, when once it has full possession of the fancy, never fails to employ it upon visions of calamity, such as, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... helpless. The last I saw was the victim darting beneath an arch and clutching at some object to which he clung: and those that were pursuing him overtook him, and I seemed to hear the echo of a cry of despair. It may be that I became unconscious: certainly I had the sensation of awaking to the light of day after an interval of darkness. Such, in literal truth, Emily, was my vision—I can call it by no other name—of this afternoon. Tell me, have I not been the unwilling witness of some episode ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... is her province whom you lack and seek; And seek her not elsewhere. Hell is a thoroughfare For pilgrims,—Herakles, And he that loved Euridice too well, Have walked therein; and many more than these; And witnessed the desire and the despair Of souls that passed reluctantly and sicken for the air; You, too, have entered Hell, And issued thence; but thence whereof I speak None has returned;—for thither fury brings Only the driven ghosts of them that ...
— Second April • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... country seat, and still held that important office. His cape and fire-boots fitted him to a nicety, and so did his helmet. No. 1 had been called out but once in its history, and then to the relief of a barn which, having lost heart before the rescuers reached it, had sunk to the ground in despair and there covered itself with ashes. He had been criticised, he remembered, much to his chagrin, for the way he had conducted the rescue party; but it would never happen again. After this he would pattern his conduct after Monteith, who seemed ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... from it," I answered. "I had an important object to gain, and I knew that it could not be obtained without encountering many dangers and difficulties. This is one of them; but I do not despair of escaping, though at present I do not see the way we ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... life tells in the end upon the most adventurous spirit. A man fashions himself to his lot, he accepts a commonplace existence; and Dr. Poulain, after ten years of his practice, continued his labors of Sisyphus without the despair that made early days so bitter. And yet—like every soul in Paris—he cherished a dream. Remonencq was happy in his dream; La Cibot had a dream of her own; and Dr. Poulain, too, dreamed. Some day he would be called in to attend a rich and influential ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... recalled, by its meaning, the word which was spoken in his ear. For example, the word written was "tumult" and the word spoken was "railroad." The observer read "tunnel." The written word was "Trieste" and the spoken word was the German "Verzweiflung" (despair). The observer read "Trost," which signifies "consolation." It is as if the word "railroad," pronounced in the ear, wakened, without our knowing it, hopes of conscious realization in a crowd of memories which have some relationship with the idea of "railroad" (car, rail, ...
— Dreams • Henri Bergson
... whose hasty youth has plunged them in misery and delivered them to the hands of those who treat them as if they were stones and sticks full of nothing but monstrosity instead of breathing men like themselves to be shielded by brotherhood and hope and not dashed down by cruelty and despair." ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... with the elusive persistence of a were-wolf—a loup-garou of the Black Forest. Twice in the next week Le Beau caught a flash of him. Three times he heard him howl. And twice he followed his trail until, in despair and exhaustion, he turned back. Never was Miki caught unaware. He ate no more baits in the trap-houses. Even when Le Beau lured him with the whole carcass of a rabbit he would not touch it, nor would he touch a rabbit frozen dead in a ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... now about 6:30 and on our way back to the gun pit we met a woman who seemed to be in the depths of despair, accompanied by a little girl. The woman was weeping bitterly. Our nerves were on edge and we were suspicious of everybody; trickery, deceit, traitor-work seemed to be in the very air itself, and we made a resolve that we would shoot ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant |
