"Despondent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was the one that filled my every thought. Another sentiment more noble than the first, saddened my heart. I said: "Here are three devoted friends ... perhaps they will soon be bitter enemies ... and I the cause." O Valentine! you cannot imagine how sad and despondent I am. Do not desert me now that I most need your comforting sympathy! Burn my last letter, ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... 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 scene at the ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... come here and tell him everything. He shall make him believe," I said to myself; and then in a despondent way, I felt that I could not go up to the camp without making Mr Raydon think worse of me at once, and then Mrs John would believe in him more and more. And it all seemed over, and as if the happy days I had looked forward ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... 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 ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... not discouraged. She resolutely and unweariedly prosecuted her efforts to find Almo. Nor was she despondent. She scouted the suggestion that he might be dead. She kept up her spirits, did not mope or brood and never lost her hearty appetite. She was the life of the dinners she attended nd as talkative and ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... two years John had not known an hour devoid of haunting fear. From a cheerful and contented youth he had become despondent, taciturn and nervous. He was the same affectionate husband and attentive son as before, and his general characteristics remained precisely the same. He was scrupulous to a penny in every other department of his ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... to Mr. Kenyon's encouraging comments on the 'Drama of Exile,' which he had seen in manuscript at a time when Miss Barrett was very despondent about it.] ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... would introduce death into the world. That was a mistake—it had been better to keep the remark to myself; it only gave her an idea—she could save the sick buzzard, and furnish fresh meat to the despondent lions and tigers. I advised her to keep away from the tree. She said she wouldn't. I foresee trouble. ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... close to the wind now, Count," said the ever cheerful Paul to the despondent Dane. "With good management we can live high on a ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... like the opening of my 'Tragedy of the Sceptic Soul'," Lady Mabel said with a somewhat offended air, as she looked up at the close of the act, and saw poor Rorie gazing at her with watery eyes, and an intensely despondent expression of countenance. ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... of the Salii is this. In the eighth year of the reign of Numa, a terrible pestilence, which traversed all Italy, ravaged likewise the city of Rome; and the citizens being in distress and despondent, a brazen target, they say, fell from heaven into the hands of Numa who gave them this marvelous account of it: that Egeria and the Muses had assured him it was sent from heaven for the cure and safety of the city, and that, to keep it secure, he was ordered by them to make eleven others, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... day he continued his labour of useless persuasion among those in the city who had once been his friends. When the evening came, he repaired, weary but not despondent, to the earthly paradise that he was determined to regain—to the temple where he had once taught, and where he still imagined that he was again destined to preside. Here he proceeded, ignorant of the new laws, careless of discovery and danger, to ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... speedily closed and healed by the balsamic medicine administered by ANDREW MAUNSELL, in his Catalogue of English Printed Books.[338] This little thin folio volume afforded a delicious treat to all honest bibliomaniacs. It revived the drooping spirits of the despondent; and, like the syrup of the renowned Dr. Brodum, circulated within the system, and put all the generous juices in action. The niggardly collector felt the influence of rivalship; he played a deeper stake at book-gambling; ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... cold and moist vegetable Prince were not very comforting, and as he spoke them he turned away and left the enclosure. The children, feeling sad and despondent, were about to follow him when the Wizard touched ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... the other. But from the tone of the voices, it was clear that poor Ring was despondent at the thoughts of his coming solitude, and that Arkwright was already ...
— Returning Home • Anthony Trollope
... was silent, but her eyes and clasping fingers were restless and showed her agitation. She seemed to be searching in the depths of her mind for some argument to oppose to my assertions. Then in a low, almost despondent voice, with something of reproach in it, she said: "Have we come so far to go back again? You were not Nuflo to need my intercession, yet you ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... their 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 fortunate; ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... is changeful. There is a sun in the heavens, but there are heavenly lights too that wax and wane; they are lights, they are in the heavens though they change. You have no reason, Christian man, to be discouraged, cast down, still less despondent, because you find that the witness of the Spirit changes and varies in your heart. Do not despond because it does; watch it, and guard it, lest it do; live in the contemplation of the Person and the fact that calls ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... and 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
... though I was not altogether at fault in this, I failed to take in to account one thing—I mean Henry's anxiety on the queen's account, her condition, and his desire to have an heir; which so affected the issue, that instead of fulfilling my expectations the event left me more despondent than before. The King wrote, indeed, and within the hour, and his letter was in form an apology. But it was so lacking in graciousness; so stiff, though it began "My good friend Rosny," and so insincere, though it referred to my past ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... wuz despondent and hopeless, and wretched actin', why, this belief made 'em jest blossom right out into a state of hopefulness, and calmness, and joy—refreshin' indeed ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... miserable winter. Our prison was not unlike the ergastulum at Placentia; ill-designed, damp, cold, filthy, swarming with vermin and crowded with wretches like myself. I was despondent in my loneliness and found harder to bear my shiverings, my fitful half-sleep in my foul infested bunk, the horrible food, the grinding labor, the stripes and blows and insults of the guards and overseers and the jeers of my inhuman fellow-sufferers. ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... Girls manage to have painted over their real selves? Why did I never suspect? And what is a man to do when he discovers the disillusionment? You see it all, there's no sense in not admitting it—why do I find myself ill at ease, now tense, now irritable over trifles, now sulky, despondent—as plainly sulky and despondent as a wild animal successfully caged and labelled, which must perforce stay put yet which will not afford its spectators the satisfaction of walking wistfully from cage corner to cage corner and yowling ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... The King will not die—he will live and punish me. Still, I must not complain. I had a respite and Richard says, "when one rises from the dead, one is less inclined to be severe with the living." But he grew rather despondent immediately. ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... indeed, all her literary work 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 he was worthy, and of which she knew him to be worthy. ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... Argile," he said, "you're my cousin-ger-man, and you're in a despondent key, and small blame to you with your lands smoking about you from Cruachan to Kilmartin; but if you were King Tearlach himself, I would take no insult from you. Do you charge me with any of ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... eaten a morsel for her midday meal. Then she was despondent, utterly broken-hearted. Now she was filled with new hope. There was a fresh motive in existence. Whether destined to live an hour or half a century, she would never, never leave him, nor, of course, could he ever, ever leave her. Some things were quite impossible—for ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... 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 turn ...
— Miss Mehetabel's Son • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... was laid aside till a neighbor who read English came in to translate it. Meantime they enjoyed the new toys immensely, and even despondent Dora was cheered up by the admiration she received; while they in their turn were deeply interested in the pretty dolls' furniture ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... am Coated Tongue. I am covered with a foul fur, placed on me the night of the liver-attack. Morbid Secre- tion hypnotized the prisoner and took control of his mind, 431:24 making him despondent. ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... cold rain, and the pavements were dashed with smears of light from the shop windows. Through the streaming streets my hansom leaped; and as I looked from the window, and noted the despondent biliousness of Bethnal Green, I realized that the grass ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... it is endured. Every care is magnified, and the sweetness of every pleasure is lessened, by this pessimistic tendency. The beauty of the world loses half its charm in the eyes which see all things in the hue of despondent feeling. Slightest fears become terrors, and smallest trials grow into great misfortunes. Our heart makes our world for us; and if the heart be without hope and cheer, the world is always dark. We find in life just what we have the capacity to find. ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... but her remark had only an aesthetic value. He was not prepared to take it to his heart. All the afternoon he rested—worried, but not exactly despondent. The thing would jog out somehow. Probably Miss Abbott was right. The baby had better stop where it was loved. And that, probably, was what the fates had decreed. He felt little interest in the matter, and he was sure ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... most despondent the wife was most buoyant, cheering him as best she could. After the Colonel had given vent to his feelings, recounting for the hundredth time his helplessness in the face of the oppressive laws rigidly enforced by the carpet-bag officers; after he had ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... I think I must have worked myself into a sort of frenzy, a sort of madness. I never mingled with people, and I became bitter and despondent. One day my nerves broke down. I smashed everything in my laboratory, all my models, all my apparatus, and I burned the plans and papers I had labored ...
— The Chamber of Life • Green Peyton Wertenbaker
... as she had recovered from her amazement, Pet opened the wardrobe, and there she saw a long row of gowns, hanging in all sorts of despondent attitudes, some hooked up by their sleeves, others caught by the waist with ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... time to consider she has, as a rule, given way, Lord George felt it to be so, and was triumphant. The ladies at Manor Cross thought that they saw what was coming, and were despondent. The whole county declared that Lord George was about to marry Miss De Baron. The county feared that they would be very poor; but the recompence would come at last, as the present marquis was known not to be a marrying man. Lady Sarah was mute ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... Reb Kohn, after endeavoring in vain to bring the reprobate to his senses, finally forbade him the house. Shortly after, the betrothal of Miriam Kohn with the learned and wealthy Hirsch Bensef was announced. Pesach became despondent and put the finishing touch to his ungodly career by becoming intoxicated with beer on the Passover. In consequence of this and former misdeeds, he was ostracized from good Jewish society, and finding himself shunned by his former associates ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... Ongar had refused to pay anything beyond that trumpery twenty pounds. Terms might be had; or, indeed, it might be that Lady Ongar herself, when her anger was over, might sue for a reconciliation. Or Sophie—and this idea occurred as Sophie herself became a little despondent after long calculation—Sophie herself might acknowledge herself to be wrong, begging pardon, and weeping on her friend's neck. Perhaps it might be worth while to make some further calculation in bed. Then Sophie, softly ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... letter in reply would most likely reach him in Chattanooga. At dusk he went out to the suburbs, but did not find a trace of Maroney. Returning to the hotel, he found that no train left till morning, and weary and worn he went to his room, and in a most despondent mood, soon retired. Early in the morning he came down but there was no sign of Maroney. He determined to peep into his room, and fortunately managed to do so without being discovered, finding his trunk and a bundle of soiled linen still there. ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... programme that appeals to me as sort of uncanny," said the old man. "Is your dad despondent over the outlook? What ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... he delayed until a few cronies whom he could depend upon had dropped in, and then, in an off-hand way, stepped up to the despondent ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... years. You must not think there were no happy times, hours or days or even weeks when they took joy in their love and Davy Junior; though more and more these times lost their wonderfulness and the power to charm away the grisly goblin Care. But the ugly or weary or despondent hours bulked largest in David's mind because he took them so keenly to heart. Yet, though his debts slowly grew, and he was always a month behind in his office and apartment rent, he did not lose faith in himself; he gave his very best to the little business he had ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... Tom?" asked Mr. Swift eagerly when his son returned, but the inventor needed but a glance at the lad's despondent face to have his question answered without words, "Never mind," he added, "there's ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton
... adopted every suggestion that came to my ears, I was presently stocked up with enough salves and solutions to fill an apothecary-shop, and my associates began to complain that I was as redolent of odors as a chemical laboratory. Naturally enough, therefore, I became morbid and despondent, and began to regard myself as a ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... thing to do," agreed Joe, in despondent tones. "Poor Dad! I nearly found him, and then ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... the cellar with the crash of shunting ashes and the clatter of splitting kindling. But this pitiable creature still thought that mayhap he could, by sedulous care and coaxing, revive the dying spark. With such black arts as were available he wrestled with the despondent glim. During this period of guilty and furtive strife he went quietly upstairs, and a voice spoke up from slumber. "Isn't the ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... strong a word), made some excisions, and now stands sponsor for it to the world. It is a grim story of the unpicturesque and horribly anxious lives of working-folk, specifically of the house-painter and his mates working on a job, elated and satisfied at the beginning, depressed and despondent as the work nears completion with the uncertainty as to how long it will be before another job comes along. Nobody who hadn't lived exclusively in this hard environment could have written with such candour and intensity. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914 • Various
... tendency to take a despondent view concerning her own work, and to distrust of the leadings of her own genius, was her habit of never reading the criticisms made on her books. She adopted this rule, she tells one correspondent, "as a necessary preservative ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... work I think it must be so. And, with the mad artist in my mind all the time, I got a good deal of fun out of writing the book, and that, after all, is the main reason one has for writing books. I finished the thing and immediately became despondent, a condition from which I was raised by an unexpected admirer. This was the elderly gentleman who did my typewriting. He dwelt half way up a tall elevator shaft in Newark, N. J., and, as far as I could gather, had farmed himself out to a number of lawyers, none of whom had much to do except telephone ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... especially call forth at the same time their confidence and affection towards His Majesty's person and his Government, and that proper feeling of self-respect without which they cannot be expected to rise from their present condition of despondent degradation. ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... be too despondent," he said. "I have a star somewhere which burns for me. Tonight I have been looking for it. It is there still," he added, pointing to the wide open window. "It is there, undimmed, clearer and brighter than ever. ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... evincing such understanding of the puzzling mazes of the matter, that Alice could not fail to see her chances of success were at best very doubtful. In spite of Sir Donald's promise to devote time and money to vindicate her title, Alice felt despondent over the outlook. She appealed to Oswald for hopeful assurance, explaining fully what had been said ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... is!" says she, and turns her back on me. And so we sat awhile, she with her back to me and I gloomy and despondent hearkening to the howling of ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... struck thine hour to go, On us, who stood despondent by, A meek last glance of love didst throw, And humbly ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... and fill the earth with His glory. This Christian man was not a misanthrope, did not think that everything was going to ruin, considered the world a very good place to live in. He never sat moping or despondent, but took things as they were, knowing that God could and would make them better. When the heaviest surge of calamity came upon him, he met it with as cheerful a countenance as ever a bather at the beach met the incoming Atlantic, rising up on the other side ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... lieutenant nodded his head approvingly. But the colonel's despondent look expressed ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... to be nothing else to say. Both girls were so overwhelmed with disappointment that they could only look at each other with despondent faces. ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... conciliate the hostile jealousy of his officers, and provide, in the face of endless obstacles (for he had to dance attendance on scores of intriguing factors and brokers ashore), the requisite stores for the fleet, Paul sat in his cabin in a half-despondent reverie, while Israel, cross-legged at his commander's feet, was patching up ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... take his departure. When he had gone a few steps, despondent, he suddenly turned, and ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... testify to the truth that success is only the last term of what looked like a series of failures. What is true of the great achievements of history, is true also of the little achievements of the observant cultivator of his own understanding. If a man is despondent about his work, the best remedy that I can prescribe to him is to turn to a good biography; there he will find that other men before him have known the dreary reaction that follows long-sustained effort, and he will ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 1: On Popular Culture • John Morley
... woman, inclined to melancholy; but there was a latent fire in her when she seemed most despondent, and she roused up now and spoke with ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... lost something of their intensely national look and speech, and, moreover, was having broken out again, there was hope of falling in with Huguenot partisans even nearer that at La Rochelle. But whether successful or not, some enterprise was absolutely needed to save Philip from his despondent apathy; and Berenger, who in these eighteen months had grown into the strength and vigour of manhood, felt as if he had force and power for almost any effort save this ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... are put to him, tending to probe his self-knowledge, and in the end he is brought to the conclusion that perhaps he had better hold his tongue, for it seems he knows nothing at all. And so he went away deeply despondent, despising himself as an absolute dolt. "Now many," adds Xenophon, "when brought into this condition by Socrates, never came near him again. But Euthydemus concluded that his only hope of ever being worth anything was ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... Karin became utterly despondent over her condition. She rarely spoke. All day long she sat motionless in her chair. She went to hear no more preachers, but stayed at home, brooding over her misfortune. Once in a while she would repeat to Halvor her father's old saying about the Ingmars not ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... of her very despondent moods that Joan first met the young man with blue eyes. She never knew him by any name, and their acquaintance, or whatever it could be called, came to an abrupt end on the first occasion when he ventured to speak to her. Womanlike, she had been longing ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... matters whirled giddily towards chaos and confusion; and the numerous hurried Cabinet Councils that were convened, boded some perturbation among the governing heads of the State. From each and all of these meetings Ministers came away more gloomy and despondent in manner,—some shook their heads sorrowfully and spoke of "the King's folly,"—others with considerable indignation flung out sudden invectives against "the King's insolence!"—and between the two appellations, ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... of character for anything like a story; a notion that it is not artistic, and that it is untrue to nature, to bring any novel to a definite consummation, and especially to end it happily; and a despondent tone about society, politics, and the whole drift of modern life. Judged by our fiction, we are in an irredeemably bad way. There is little beauty, joy, or light-heartedness in living; the spontaneity and charm of life are analyzed out of existence; sweet girls, made ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... 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
... many with prayers so much more holy have failed? Even as I write, its unmoved face is mocking the fire of heaven. I dream of the mountain; night and day it has come to fill my life with dark terror. I am not by nature timid or despondent, but it is hard to have to wait here day after day and watch this goal of my hopes—so near, yet seemingly so forbidding ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... from a despondent meditation over the forgotten pages of the most distracting novel the Brompton Road librarian had been able to find ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... the blazing fire that night were despondent, for a week had passed without a single sign of recent moose discovering itself. Defago had sung his song and plunged into a story, but Hank, in bad humor, reminded him so often that "he kep' mussing-up the fac's so, that it was 'most all nothin' but a petered-out ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... bridge, and recognised at once the spot where the castle was to stand, for spades, hammers, axes, and every other building implement lay scattered on the ground ready for the workman's hand, but of gold, silver, and precious stones there was not a sign. But before the Prince had time to feel despondent the black girl beckoned to him in the distance from behind a rock, where she had hidden herself for fear her mother should catch sight of her. Full of joy the youth hurried towards her, and begged her aid and counsel in the new piece of work he had ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... Bernstorff have seduced us—without our knowing it, to be sure; but their confidence in our judgment will be gone. God knows I have tried to keep this confidence intact and our good friendship secure. But I have begun to get despondent over the outlook since the President telegraphed me that Lansing's proposal would settle the matter. I still believe he did not understand it—he couldn't have done so. Else he could not have approved it. But that tied my hands. If Lansing again brings up the Declaration of London—after four ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... was tempered with a strong sense of humour, and on one occasion when he was visiting a despondent sister, he was much put out by her plaintive assertions that she was going to die. "I have no doubt," said he finally, "but that thou will; and when thou gets to heaven give my love to the Apostle Paul, and tell him I wish he would come back to earth and ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... it was one who had come to Jamaica to act as governess to two children of the officer commanding the regular troops in the island. She had been ill for a week before nearing Kingston, and when the Regent reached the harbour she was in a bad way. The ship's doctor was despondent about her; but he was a second-rate man, and felt that perhaps an island doctor might give her some hope. When she was carried ashore she was at once removed to the home of the general commanding at Spanish Town, and there a local doctor ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... artist put it there deliberately. If he has not builded better than he knew, then is the result of his labor limited and narrow. A story is told of Thorwaldsen in his old age, when a friend found him disconsolate before a finished statue and inquired if he was despondent because he had not been able to realize his ideal. And the sculptor responded that, on the contrary, he had realized his ideal, and therefore he was downcast; for the first time his hand had been able to accomplish all ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... visible to the world. If ever I should have a biographer, he ought to make great mention of this chamber in my memoirs, because so much of my lonely youth was wasted here, and here my mind and character were formed; and here I have been glad and hopeful, and here I have been despondent. And here I sat a long, long time, waiting patiently for the world to know me, and sometimes wondering why it did not know me sooner, or whether it would ever know me at all—at least till I were in my grave. And sometimes it seems to me as if I were already in ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... day. Once, indeed, he had said, "I've written quite a lot of that novel I told you about!" but Marsh, intent on something else, had answered vaguely, "Oh, yes!" and had changed the conversation, leaving Henry to imagine that he had little faith in his power to write. He had been so despondent after that, that he had gone back to College and, having re-read what he had written, had torn the manuscript in pieces and thrown it into the grate because it seemed so dull and tasteless. He had not written a word after that for more than a month, and ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... left me; exhausted, spent, my life shrunken up within me, my energy burned out, a puny, spiritless remnant of the strong woman who lay down upon that couch, I lay despondent, vacant of all interest in the world hitherto so exciting to me. I had not seen Monsieur since this apparent commencement of recovery. A great, good-natured nurse kept watch over me, and fed me ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... sing. She had a hard, harsh voice always, and the tune was a battle-cry. The hymn on which she was exercising her limited gifts was not one of the happy tunes of Methodism, which early settlers on the Columbia loved to sing. It was a very censorious rhyme and took a very despondent view of the ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... the slimmest kind of a fighting chance yet!" muttered Hal. He would have been despondent, but his soldier's training had taught him that no situation is hopeless ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... at the close of the campaign was anything but satisfactory to him. His theory was that his offensive tactics would keep up the spirit and energy of his men and constantly improve their morale. When he found that they were, on the contrary, discouraged and despondent, and could not be induced to repeat the assaults upon our positions which had followed each other so rapidly in the last days of July, he querulously laid the blame at the door of his subordinates. He called the attack upon ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... roasted to a most delicate brown; the currant jelly was just the right consistency; the pickled peaches were delicious, and the tea could not have been better. On the whole, Mrs. Van Buren was satisfied, and able to cope with a dozen men as crushed, and sore, and despondent as Richard seemed. She had scanned him very closely, deciding that so far as dress was concerned, he had improved since she saw him last. It is true, his collar was not all the style, and his necktie was too wide, and his coat sleeves too small, and his boots too rusty, and his ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... and blossom 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... had every hope he would be when Mr. Billing handed over his subscription to the statue fund. He felt, it right to do all in his power to encourage Mr. Billing. Doyle, on the other hand, was becoming despondent. He did not like to see money which ought to be his frittered away on posters and the other necessary expenses of a public meeting. He was much less inclined ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... suicide last night by taking laudanum," answered Geary, "and nobody knows why. She didn't leave any message or letter or anything of the kind. It's a fearful thing to happen so suddenly, but it seems she has been very despondent and broke up about something or other for a week or two. They found her in her room last night about ten o'clock lying across her table with only her wrapper on. She was unconscious then, and between one and two she died. She was unconscious all the time. Well, I can't stop any longer, Van; ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... when it was all over the old bell rang joyously as though for a wedding. Belding tried to catch Elsie's glance, but she only flushed and watched the majestic figure of the bishop retire into the little vestry. He had a despondent impression that an impalpable barrier lay between them. On the way out they met Clark and the ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... no performance with the lions for over a week, during which Rounders was despondent. He was still occupied with the extraordinary feat of removing meat from under the jaws of a feeding lion. It pursued him night and day, and he told Miss Stubbs that he would never be happy until he found out ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... was on the last night he spent in Lincoln. I had come back from the theatre and was in the Journal office writing a notice of the play. It was eleven o'clock when Crane came in. He had expected his money to arrive on the night mail and it had not done so, and he was out of sorts and deeply despondent. He sat down on the ledge of the open window that faced on the street, and when I had finished my notice I went over and took a chair beside him. Quite without invitation on my part, Crane began to talk, began to curse his trade from the first throb of creative desire ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... us, if possible, more despondent. The water in our clothes had had time to penetrate: the roan had sprained his shoulder, and drew us along in a series of convulsive jerks. And then through the rain-spattered window of the blanket, I saw a light. It was a small light, ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... in a less strained, less despondent frame of mind, coming home from supper at her mother's, found Estelle Wilmot on the front veranda talking with Lorry Tague. She had seen this same sight perhaps half-a-dozen times since Estelle and Arden had ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... civilisation. This would at all events keep us busy and our minds occupied, giving us an object in life—something to strive for, think about, and achieve—and thus preserve us all from falling into a low and despondent frame of mind; and if in the end a ship should happen to appear and take us off, why, so much the better, while if nothing of the kind occurred we should in due time be able to effect our own escape. Cunningham was particularly enthusiastic over the scheme; yacht designing, ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... into weeks and weeks into months without the slightest inkling of Miriam's whereabouts to set at rest the fear that my rash pursuit had caused her death, I myself grew utterly despondent. Like all who embark on daring ventures, I had not counted on continuous frustration. The idea that I might waste a lifetime in the wilderness without accomplishing anything had never entered my mind. Week after week, the scouts dispatched in every direction came back without one word ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... "You feel despondent now," he said, "but this was inevitable. You looked for a result equal to your inspiration. You must learn to be content with that alone. Finally an inspiration will come for every moment, and in every action a ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... rouse and call into exercise certain latent powers that I possess? and then with infinite eagerness I set about attempting to discover these latent powers. I tried an infinity of pursuits, botany and geology amongst the rest, but in vain; I was fitted for none of them. I became very sorrowful and despondent, and at one time I had almost resolved to plunge again into the whirlpool of dissipation; it was a dreadful resource, it was true, but ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... admirably expressed in the features of the divinity, somewhat resembling the Olympian Zeus, who leaned on his serpent staff; and the graceful, inviting sweetness of Hygeia, holding out her cup as though she were offering health to the sufferer, was well adapted to revive the hopes of the despondent. The god's waving locks were bound with a folded scarf, and at his feet was a dog, gazing up at his lord as ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Suppose—as is the case with many of you—that his object of devotion is Sri Krishna; picture Him in any scene of His earthly life, as in the battle of Kurukshetra. Imagine the armies arrayed for battle on both sides; imagine Arjuna on the floor of the chariot, despondent, despairing; then come to Sri Krishna, the Charioteer, the Friend and Teacher. Then, fixing your mind on the central figure, let your heart go out to Him with onepointed devotion. Resting on Him, ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... instants almost a 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 surrendered ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... in despair and raised her eyes to heaven with a despondent look, for she saw at last in all its depths the gulf into which her cousins had fallen. The marquis and the young lawyer agreed with the dreadful view of Bordin. Old ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... feel different," he had said, two years before, when Roosevelt had been lonely and despondent. "And then you won't want to ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... weary, despondent patients fretting and wearing themselves out over their so-called weakness and condition. I have placed copies of "Pep" in their hands and watched courage, faith, cheer and sereneness come ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... to encourage him she was not very successful. It is no easy task to put a new heart into someone else when there is a deadly fear gripping at your own, and as day after day went by and she saw him growing thinner, shabbier, more weary and despondent, her own hopes for the future dwindled down to the vanishing point. Hitherto he had kept away from his own people, none of whom had seen him since his return from Northampton; but they were always there in the background, and she knew that he had only to abandon her and come into line with their ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... 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 his Father, that he could ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... happy! Was it over indeed? It seemed at first as if she could not get up and face the cares of the day, under the new conditions. Indolent by nature, Margaret dreaded change, and above change unpleasantness; it seemed as if she might have plenty of both. She rose and dressed in a despondent mood; but when her hair was pinned up and her collar straight, she took herself to task. "I give you three minutes!" she said, looking at herself in the glass. "If you can't look cheerful by that time, you can go ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... transformed, to keep from our borders the Frenchman, And its wide-spreading bed be a moat all passage to hinder. See! thus nature protects, the stout-hearted Germans protect us, And thus protects us the Lord, who then will be weakly despondent? Weary already the combatants, all indications are peaceful. Would it might be that when that festival, ardently longed for, Shall in our church be observed, when the sacred Te Deum is rising, Swelled by the pealing of organ and bells, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... of the deceased and recognize it as that of my brother Jeffrey. I last saw him alive on the twenty-third of February, when I called at his chambers. He then seemed in a very despondent state of mind and told me that his eyesight was fast failing. I was aware that he occasionally smoked opium, but I did not know that it was a confirmed habit. I urged him, on several occasions, to abandon the practice. I have no reason to believe that his affairs were in any way ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... still laborin' under great cerebral excitation,' says the Doc, which was likewise on the wagon. 'I ought to have had a year on him,' says he, despondent like. ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... reproved for his connection with Martha Blount: Cowper was the almoner of Mrs. Throgmorton; but Pope's charities were his own, and they were noble and extensive, far beyond his fortune's warrant. Pope was the tolerant yet steady adherent of the most bigoted of sects; and Cowper the most bigoted and despondent sectary that ever anticipated damnation to himself or others. Is this harsh? I know it is, and I do not assert it as my opinion of Cowper personally, but to show what might be said, with just as great an appearance of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... out early with three dollars in my pocket. I hunted, up a restaurant and ordered the cheapest breakfast I could get. It cost me two dollars. A solitary dollar was, therefore, all the money in the world I had left, but I was in no respect despondent over my financial condition. It was a beautiful day, much like an Indian Summer day in the East, but finer. There was something exhilarating and exciting in the atmosphere which made everybody cheerful and buoyant. As I walked along the streets, I met a great many persons ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... necessary. Taken all in all, his attitude in those trying days was a creditable one—as creditable as could be expected from any average man. What the time needed was a genius, and fortunately one rose to the occasion. Buchanan, harried and despondent, must have breathed a deep sigh of relief when he surrendered the helm to the man who had been chosen to succeed him—the man, by some extraordinary chance, in all the land best fitted to steer the ship of state to safety—the man who was to ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... 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, and now she weighs more than ever before. The children are ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... downcast, dreary, woeful, somber, unhappy, woebegone, mournful, depressed, despondent, gloomy, melancholy, heavy-spirited, sorrowful, dismal, dejected, disconsolate, miserable, lugubrious. Satiate, sate, surfeit, cloy, glut, gorge. Scoff, jeer, gibe, fleer, sneer, mock, taunt. Secret, covert, surreptitious, furtive, clandestine, underhand, stealthy. Seep, ooze, infiltrate, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... every day. She took the medicine he had prescribed and followed his directions, and soon the results were so apparent that she gained the greatest confidence in Philip's skill. As she grew better she grew less despondent. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... allegiance and the government which, in their hearts, they preferred. The annexationist clamour fell and rose, mounting highest in Montreal, and reaching a crisis in the year of the Rebellion Losses disturbance; but Elgin, while sometimes he grew despondent, always kept his head, and never ceased to hope for the reciprocity which would at once bring back prosperity and still the disloyal murmurs. Once or twice, when the annexationists were at their worst, and when his Tory opponents chose ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... dissatisfied glances at the hard cloudless blue sky to windward, as it met their gaze morning after morning when they came on deck, to shrugs of the shoulders whenever the subject happened to be mentioned, and to scornful, sarcastic, or despondent allusions to the proverbial longevity and obstinacy of easterly winds in general. Except Mr Forester Dale, and he, I regret to say, made himself a perfect nuisance to everybody on board by his snappishness and irascibility. The weather was "beastly," ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... through a mistaken sense of duty, surrendered themselves to the enemy, in order to bring the war to a speedy termination and so to save the women and children from further suffering; second, the men who, wearied of the strife, became hopeless and despondent and only longed for peace, indifferent as to who should prove to be the victor in the field; and third, the men who, through their lust for gain, fell an easy prey to the temptations offered them in gold and spoil by the enemy, surrendering their trusty Mausers in exchange for the Lee ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... drooped when he came into dinner; that he seemed to descry Capital in the distance, rather clearly, after dinner; that he all but realized Capital towards midnight; and that at about two o'clock in the morning, he became so deeply despondent again as to talk of buying a rifle and going to America, with a general purpose of compelling buffaloes to ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... of a rude parental snorter is heard approaching, and twelve slim Cupids with sunburned backs are inserted into twelve little cotton shirts and twelve despondent pairs of pantaloons hang at half-mast to twelve home-made suspenders, and as the gloaming gathers about the old home, twelve boys back up against the ice-house to cool off, while the enraged parent hangs up the buggy whip in ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... assistance of individuals; for though taxes may be levied by authority of the laws for the support of the Poor, yet, those kind attentions which are so necessary in the management of the Poor, as well to reclaim the vicious, as to comfort and encourage the despondent—those demonstrations of concern which are always so great a consolation to persons in distress—cannot be COMMANDED BY FORCE. On the contrary, every attempt to use FORCE in such cases, seldom fails to produce consequences directly contrary to ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... surgeon to-day, a fortnight hence back on the firing line, was not very unusual with these brave men. The ambulances had gathered in a few German soldiers, who would become prisoners of war on their recovery, and while these were inclined to be despondent and unsociable they were treated courteously by all, the Americans showing no preference for any nation. The large majority of the patients, however, came from the ranks of the Allies—French, English and ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... Every step through the thick mud was taken with an effort. We frequently lost touch with the troops ahead of us and would have to march at the double in order to catch up. I was fast getting into that despondent, despairing frame of mind which often follows great physical weariness, when I remembered a bit of wisdom out of a book by William James which I had read several years before. He had said, in effect, that men have layers of energy, reserves of nervous force, ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... horse, and asked him if there was anywhere where I could find coffee and bread at that hour; but he shook his head mournfully and wished me good-morning in a strong accent, for he was deaf and probably thought I was begging. So I went on still more despondent till I came to a really merry man of about middle age who was going to the fields, singing, with a very large rake over his shoulder. When I had asked him the same question he stared at me a little and said ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... OAKHURST replenishes it from decanter.) Yes, an old man, Aleck; but the boy,—ah, I live again in him. The little rascal! He asked me, Aleck, for a "chaw tobacker!" and wanted to know if I was the "ol' duffer." Ha, ha! He did. Ha, ha! Come, come, don't be despondent. I was like you once, damn it,—ahem—it's all for the best, my boy, all for the best. I'll take the young rascal (aside)—damn it, he's already taken me—(aloud) on equal terms. There, Aleck, ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... 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 ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... was taken up by his work. Without ever becoming despondent, silent and persistent, he accumulated manuscripts, poetry, criticisms, plays, romances and novels. Every week he docilely submitted his work to the great Flaubert, the childhood friend of his mother and his uncle Alfred Le Poittevin. The master had ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... 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 ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... and emotions of that handful of disciples. What was it that lifted them out of the pit? What was it that revolutionised in a moment their notions of the Cross and of its bearing upon them? What was it that changed downhearted, despondent, and all but apostate, disciples into heroes and martyrs? It was the one fact which Christendom commemorates to- day: the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That was the element, added to the dark potion, which changed it all in a moment ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren |
