"Despair" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and, supported by them, he bade his lictors to drive back the crowd. Before their threatening axes the unarmed people fell back, and the weeping maiden was left standing alone. Virginius looked on in despair. Was he to be robbed of his daughter in the face of Rome, and in defiance of all justice and honor? There was one way still to save her, and ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... was jammed in seconds. He held on to a strap and didn't notice. He was absorbed in the rapt contemplation of his idea for the repair of the pilot gyros. The motors could be replaced easily enough. The foundation of his first despair had been the belief that everything could be managed but one thing; that the all-important absolute accuracy was the only thing that couldn't be achieved. Getting that accuracy, back at the plant, had consumed four months of time. Each of the gyros ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... be beautiful china," said the sultan, taking up one of the broken pieces; "but can the loss of a china vase be the cause of such violent grief and despair?" ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... and give him grace in this his hour of trial! Open his eyes that he may see the fiery horses and the fiery chariots of the angels who would defend him, and the dark array of spiritual foes who throng around his bed. Point a pitying finger to the yawning abyss of shame, ruin, and despair that even now perhaps is being cleft under his feet. Show him the garlands of the present and the past, withering at the touch of the Erinnys in the future. In pity, in pity, show him the canker which he is introducing into the ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... years have been the most gorgeous objects at exhibitions of old needlework, and the ambition and despair of collectors. ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... any way lead to the place where Pomeroy was sitting in his bath-chair behind a great clump of bushes and flowers, with his face filled with the most lively emotions, but overspread ever and anon by a cloudlet of despair on account of the approach of the noontide hour, when Angelica and Snortfrizzle ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... he pointed out that no progress whatever could be made, unless he were occasionally allowed some such grace as this. Mrs Broughton doubted and hesitated, made difficulties, and lifted up her hands in despair. "It is easy for you to say, Why not? but I know very well why not." But at last she gave way. "Honi soit qui mal y pense," she said; "that must be my protection." So she followed Miss Van Siever downstairs, leaving Mr Dalrymple in possession ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... inexpressibly sweet, The patter they made as they fell at his feet! Re-outfitted thus, Mr. Splurge without fear Began as Lord Splurge his recouping career. Alas, the Divinity shaping his end Entertained other views and decided to send His lordship in horror, despair and dismay From the land of the nobleman's natural prey. For, smit with his Old World ways, Lady Cadde Fell—suffering Caesar!—in love with ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... mixture of wonder and irritation. A friend of mine, on coming back from France, described to me his going over a new American dock with two French officers: "Magnificent!" said the Frenchmen, in a kind of despair—"but when are they going to begin? Suppose the war is over, and France swallowed up, before they begin?" A large section of American opinion was ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... dear brethren, my dear sisters," he resumed, "in spite of everything, the idea has come to me that we ought not to despair. Who knows if God Almighty did not will that death in order that He might prove His Omnipotence to the world? It is as though a voice were speaking to me, urging me to ascend this pulpit and ask your prayers for this man, this man who is no more, but whose life is nevertheless ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... I want to do what I can't do," she would cry with despair in her heart, and then the next day perhaps she would ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... To his great despair he discovered, when he first examined the Cavour notebook in detail, that much of the math was beyond his depth. That was only a temporary obstacle, though. He hired mathematicians. He ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... Francesca, "everything keeps going up." She was engaged upon the weekly books and spoke in a tone of heartfelt despair. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol 150, February 9, 1916 • Various
... including the life- preserving suit; and reveals a certain sentiment, not too deep, for the pillow, the pincushion and the toilet case. At length he strews everything over the floor, and is surveying the litter with mock despair when a girl appears on the lawn outside, through one of the windows. She throws into the room a small parcel wrapped in tissue paper, and disappears. GEORGE picks up the parcel and looks surprised, and suddenly runs out of the door, upper right. He presently ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... be forebearing. But the state of things grew worse and worse daily. In desperation I told him that I must and would apply to my grandmother for protection. He threatened me with death, and worse than death, if I made any complaint to her. Strange to say, I did not despair. I was naturally of a buoyant disposition, and always I had a hope of somehow getting out of his clutches. Like many a poor, simple slave before me, I trusted that some threads of joy would yet be woven into my ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... common poverty. The children of this marriage, like all children of love, inherited the mother's wonderful beauty, that gift so often fatal when accompanied by poverty. The life of hope and hard work and despair, in all of which Mme. Chardon had shared with such keen sympathy, had left deep traces in her beautiful face, just as the slow decline of a scanty income had changed her ways and habits; but both she and her children confronted evil days bravely enough. She ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... a sigh of despair Barnes permitted himself to be led to the back room, where he dropped down on a chair ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... 'you must not despair of better prospects. I will take an early opportunity of communicating your loyal sentiments to the King, and will hear his opinion on the subject before I give you a definite answer. I thank you, in ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Republic, nor in its crises since have they saved or served it. The faith of the fathers was a mighty force in its creation, and the faith of their descendants has wrought its progress and furnished its defenders. They are obstructionists who despair, and who would destroy confidence in the ability of our people to solve wisely and for civilization the mighty problems resting upon them. The American people, intrenched in freedom at home, take ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... Sundays and holidays they were always arm in arm. It seemed strange that now he should have to hide the thing that Amedee was so proud of, that the feeling which gave one of them such happiness should bring the other such despair. It was like that when Alexandra tested her seed-corn in the spring, he mused. From two ears that had grown side by side, the grains of one shot up joyfully into the light, projecting themselves into the future, and the grains from ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... justice cannot expect that he, whom the fear of dying by being beheaded or hanged will not restrain, should be any more awed by the imagination of a languishing fire, pincers, or the wheel. And I know not, in the meantime, whether we do not throw them into despair; for in what condition can be the soul of a man, expecting four-and-twenty hours together to be broken upon a wheel, or after the old way, nailed to a cross? Josephus relates that in the time of the war the Romans made in Judaea, happening to pass by where they had three ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... spirits and future punishment. On these subjects, they constantly uttered the most appalling threats. The language which they used was calculated to madden men with fear and to drive them to the depths of despair. ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... Wits was not foreign to their feelings. The Mar-Prelates showed merry faces, but it was with a sardonic grin they had swallowed the convulsing herb; they horridly laughed against their will—at bottom all was gloom and despair. The extraordinary style of their pamphlets, concocted in the basest language of the populace, might have originated less from design than from the impotence of the writers. Grave and learned persons have often found to their cost that wit and humour must spring from ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... the proverbial promptness and gentleness which the French nation had always shown in meeting the king's necessities should be so badly met and so frequently offended as at last to turn into rage and despair.[897] ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... to gratitude and to one of the most ordinary and natural courtesies of diplomatic life proved unavailing, and at midnight the Secretary of the American Legation and the Spanish Minister, who was acting with him, left in despair. At 2 o'clock that morning ...
— The Case of Edith Cavell - A Study of the Rights of Non-Combatants • James M. Beck
... souls!—in wan despair Still watch for signs in him; And dying, hand from heir to heir ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... softly knowing laugh nearly drove him to despair. He swore violently under his breath. The fool would keep him awake all night now for certain. He cursed his luck. He wanted to forget his maddening troubles in sleep sometimes. He could detect no movements. Without apparently making the slightest attempt to get up, Jack went on ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... for another four months. A motley group, my friend. Outside I stood, note-book in hand, trying to find a spare fireman who wanted a job. A mob of touts, sharks, and pimps crowded round me, hustling each other, and then turning away from my call, "Any firemen here?" In despair I go over to the "Federation Office," where all seamen are registered in the books of life insurance, where they pay their premiums, and await possible engineers. I consult with the grave, elderly ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... Tom was in despair. He had been so sure that Andy was the thief, that to believe otherwise was difficult. Yet he felt that he must. He looked at the disabled motor of the RED STREAK and viewed it with the interested and expert eye of a machinist, no matter if the owner of it was his enemy. Then suddenly ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... Your friendly suggestion is a very valuable one. There are many difficulties in the way of carrying it out; but we do not despair of being enabled to surmount them in the course of another year or two, which we think ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 217, December 24, 1853 • Various
... might send him raging up and down the studio, to stumble over the stove that seemed to be in four places at once. Worst of all, tobacco would not taste in the darkness. The arrogance of the man had disappeared, and in its place were settled despair that Torpenhow knew, and blind passion that Dick confided to his pillow at night. The intervals between the paroxysms were filled with intolerable waiting and ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... my way to the old man's side with never a doubt but that the great wheel would yield on the instant to the power of my young and vigorous muscles. Nor was my belief mere vanity, for always had my physique been the envy and despair of my fellows. And for that very reason it had waxed even greater than nature had intended, since my natural pride in my great strength had led me to care for and develop my body and my muscles by every means within my power. What with boxing, football, ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a hunchback boy, comes to The Hall, and rooms with Barnes, the despair of the entire school because of his prowess in athletics. Petriken idolizes him, and when trouble comes to him, the poor crippled lad gladly shoulders the blame, and is expelled. But shortly before the end of the term he returns and is hailed as "little ...
— The Boy Scout Automobilists - or, Jack Danby in the Woods • Robert Maitland
... born at Barrhead, Renfrewshire, in 1857. His Ballads and Songs (1895) and New Ballads (1897) attained a sudden but too short-lived popularity, and his great promise was quenched by an apathetic public and by his own growing disillusion and despair. His sombre yet direct poetry never tired of repeating his favorite theme: "Man is but ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... Pilkington, was a prey to gloom this morning. He had read one or two of the papers, and they had been disgustingly lavish in their praise of The McWhustle of McWhustle. It made Freddie despair of the New York press. In addition to this, he had been woken up at seven o'clock, after going to sleep at three, by the ringing of the telephone and the announcement that a gentleman wished to see him: and he was weighed down with ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... has lived in the Temple will return to the Temple. All things are surrendered for the Temple. All distances are traversed to reach the Temple. The Temple is never forgotten. The briefless barrister, who left in despair and became Attorney-General of New South Wales, grows homesick, surrenders his position, and returns. The young squire wearies in his beautiful country house, and his heart is fixed in the dingy chambers, which he cannot relinquish, and for which wealth ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... the event in silent anguish. They quitted their tents, and came forward to some eminences near the beach, where, by lifting up their hands, and other gestures, they expressed terror, bordering on despair. Frequently the boat was hid from their view by the waves, which ran mountains high. They expected every moment that we should break loose from our anchors, and the boat be driven on the rocks. The length of our cables was here of the greatest advantage to ...
— Journal of a Voyage from Okkak, on the Coast of Labrador, to Ungava Bay, Westward of Cape Chudleigh • Benjamin Kohlmeister and George Kmoch
... of Berwick, marched promptly forth with all the force he could muster to disperse the rebels; but this time they stood firmly on the banks of the little river Gelt, to give him battle. Such indeed was the height of fanaticism or despair to which these unhappy people were wrought up, that the phrensy gained the softer sex; and there were seen in their ranks, says the chronicler, "many desperate women that gave the adventure of their lives, and fought right stoutly." After ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... that my remonstrance, instead of restoring her to a sense of duty, served only to increase her anguish, I gave over and retired. She continued every day to visit her lover, and for two whole years abandoned herself to grief and despair. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... now the slightest uncertainty about the re-election of Mr. Lincoln. The only question is, by what popular and what electoral majority. God grant that both may be so decisive as to turn every hope of rebellion to despair! ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... it, and tho' quite a common fellow, Perry had not power to prevent him. Mrs. Tyrrell then applied to this man for protection; he answered, that she could not obtain her liberty. She was now reduced to all the anguish of despair, when a gleam of hope suddenly darted across her mind, upon seeing a man riding beside the carriage whose countenance was perfectly familiar—This was one Kearns, a popish priest, who had been for some time a curate in the neighbourhood of Clonard, and had always been received in Mr. Tyrrell's ...
— An Impartial Narrative of the Most Important Engagements Which Took Place Between His Majesty's Forces and the Rebels, During the Irish Rebellion, 1798. • John Jones
... and turned away. He hardly knew what this surge of feeling meant. Was it hope, despair, resentment; had he caught even the echo of an unholy joy? His mind for a moment became confused as if in the tumult of a struggle. He heard himself expostulate, 'Ah, Miss Bennett, I fear I set you too difficult ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... first rejected, and no counter ones proposed, he at once set off for his army to renew hostilities, as though the negotiations were closed. Charles doubtless renounced the realization of the dream of his life with a pang of despair. That it should vanish at the very moment when he looked for its fulfilment was anguish to him. But pressed by Ferdinand, convinced, too, that resistance is useless, Charles yields an unwilling assent to the demands of the princes, and the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... proportion. Likewise, as the mind is affected in consequence of the affections of the body and brain, so the body is liable to be reciprocally affected by the affections of the mind, as is evident in the visible effects of all-strong passions,—hope or fear, love or anger, joy or sorrow, exultation or despair. These are certainly irrefragable arguments that it is properly no other than one and the same thing that is subject to these affections."[155] Mr. Atkinson urges the same reason. "The proof that mind holds the same relation to the body that all other phenomena do to material ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... was at Blue Earth, in Montana, among the high mountains, there came to Jimmy Grayson an appeal, compounded of pathos and despair, that he could not resist. It was from the citizens of Crow's Wing, forty miles deeper into the yet higher and steeper mountains, and they recounted, in mournful words, how no candidate ever came to see them; all passed them by as either too few or too difficult, and they had never yet listened ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... The doctor seated himself in his armchair and contemplated the neatly arranged papers and ornaments on his desk in despair. "Where is she?" ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... pusillanimity of despair, the duty of hoping, and an attempt on Gwen's part to forestall a possible shock to the old lady should she ever come to the knowledge of Adrian's free opinions. She wanted her to think well of her lover. But she could not conscientiously give him a character for orthodoxy. She took refuge in a ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... mortal, do not turn away in disgust, but examine closely, and underlying the outer crust of wickedness and sin, you will be astonished at the amount of good you can find, even in the most depraved. The human heart is a strange compound, made up of love and hate, of joy and sorrow, hope and despair, and who is able to read it? Who is able to understand the sorrows, struggles and temptations of others, and who is competent to take upon ...
— Bohemian Society • Lydia Leavitt
... agonizes before the glass on whether or not she is pretty, and resolves to ask some young man, but prefers to think well of herself even if it is an illusion; constantly modulates over into passionate prayer to God to grant all her wishes; is oppressed with despair; gay and melancholy by turn; believes in God because she prayed Him for a set of croquet and to help her to learn English, both of which He granted. At church some prayers and services seem directly aimed ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... physician at Provins in 1827, capable man, simple and gentle. He married Madame Guenee's second daughter. When consulted one day by Mademoiselle Habert, he spoke against the marriage of virgins at forty, and thus filled Sylvie Rogron with despair. He protected and cared for Pierrette Lorrain, the victim of this same old ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... have renounced all claim to the navigation of the Mississippi River below the Yazoo. Here the Spaniard was inexorable. A year of weary argument passed by, and he had not budged an inch. At last, in despair, Jay advised Congress, for the sake of the commercial treaty, to consent to the closing of the Mississippi, but only for twenty-five years. As the rumour of this went abroad among the settlements south of the Ohio, there ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... non-combatants—houses broken down and burnt, children and greybeards torn from their families, and all the other useless and unnecessary cruelties that have broken so many lives, converted so many joyous homesteads into tombstones of black despair, and imprinted into the very souls of many Afrikanders an ineradicable loathing and hatred of everything British. As Boadicea felt towards the Roman, so feels many a Boer matron to-day against the Briton, and when Britons shall have followed ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... not exaggerated his former love, and consequently his sorrow, and I said to myself that perhaps he had already forgotten the dead woman, and along with her his promise to come and see me again. This supposition would have seemed probable enough in most instances, but in Armand's despair there had been an accent of real sincerity, and, going from one extreme to another, I imagined that distress had brought on an illness, and that my not seeing him was explained by the fact that he was ill, ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... Walsingham Popple while she almost snubbed his more retiring companion. It was all very puzzling, and her perplexity had been farther increased by Mrs. Heeny's tale of the great Mrs. Harmon B. Driscoll's despair. ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... boy whose courage leads him through the gulf of despair into a final victory gained by dedicating his life to the ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... rival candidates to retire, who felt no inclination to cross a lion in his amours; insomuch, that when his horse was seen tied to Van Tassel's paling, on a Sunday night, a sure sign that his master was courting, or, as it is termed, "sparking," within, all other suitors passed by in despair, and carried the ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... the sorrows and sufferings of mankind, and views with an unutterable grief the dismemberment of Christendom, he refuses to style himself a pessimist. There is much good in the world; he is continually being astonished by the goodness of individuals; he cannot bring himself to despair of mankind. Ah, if he had only kept himself in that atmosphere! But "it is very hard to be ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... gives only to the desperate, with one wild and flying leap, she vaulted sheer over the current by the shore, on to the raft of ice beyond. It was a desperate leap—impossible to anything but madmen and despair. The huge green fragment of ice pitched and creaked as her weight came on it, but she stayed there not a moment. With wild cries and desperate energy she leaped to another and still another cake; ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... to plume himself. Such a state of things was not to be borne. It was clear that life, for Canadian Reformers, would very soon be not worth living. They despaired of the future, which, to their depressed vision, seemed to be overhung by a sky of unrelieved blackness. Their despair was accompanied by a smarting sense of defeat and injustice proportionate to the circumstances. Such feelings were not confined to defeated candidates and their immediate friends, but were participated in by Reformers generally. Some of them ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... simple mechanic; but a great man in the neighbourhood taking him under his patronage, gave him a genteel education, with a view of bettering his situation in life. The patron dying just as he was ready to launch out into the world, the poor fellow in despair went to sea; where, after a variety of good and ill-fortune, a little before I was acquainted with him he had been set on shore by an American privateer, on the wild coast of Connaught, stripped of everything. I cannot quit this poor fellow's story without adding, that he is at ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... Irwine, glad at heart over this good morning's work of joining Adam and Dinah. For he had seen Adam in the worst moments of his sorrow; and what better harvest from that painful seed-time could there be than this? The love that had brought hope and comfort in the hour of despair, the love that had found its way to the dark prison cell and to poor Hetty's darker soul—this strong gentle love was to be Adam's companion ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... face, a seething rage against Tex Lynch dominated him. Now and then the thought of Mary Thorne came to torture him. Vividly he pictured the scene at the ranch-house which Mrs. Archer had described, imagining the girl's fear and horror and despair, then and afterward, with a realism which made him wince. But always his mind flashed back to the man who was to blame for it all, and with savage curses he pledged ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... exclaimed in accents of despair. "Look at the disorder of my attire! The pride of these ruffles leveled by the dew; my wristbands in disarray; the odor of the road pervading my person! ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... had turned out Kendrick's evening hike back down the track to Thorlakson had been a lucky thing for Podmore too. Within a mile of the siding Phil had come upon him, sitting beside the track in despair of reaching human aid before he collapsed completely. He had been badly hurt in his fall from the train, and aside from these injuries his hands were swollen and covered with dirt and blood, his torn clothes encrusted with dried mud, collar and tie gone and ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... despair, the tragedy in the brief recital were overwhelming. The full force of them smote Steve to the heart, and left him incapable of expression, beyond that which looked out of his eyes. Words would have been impossible. He realized she was on her deathbed. ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... irritating, but he would not allow a word to be altered. Bute would give no help against him. Bedford, who had a violent temper, was so angry at being overborne, that he declared that he would attend no more councils, and Newcastle was reduced to whining despair. By the 18th, however, Bute came to an agreement with the Newcastle faction and promised to help ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... with Germany. On my arrival in India in the January of 1915, I found the same anxiousness and earnestness among the Mussalmans with whom I came in contact. Their anxiety became intense when the information about the Secret Treaties leaked out. Distrust of British intentions filled their minds, and despair took possession of them. Even at that moment I advised my Mussalman friends not to give way to despair, but to express their fear and their hopes in a disciplined manner. It will be admitted that the whole of Mussalman India has behaved in a singularly ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... "Don't despair. The porcelain maiden is a young girl, beautiful as Venus, who dwells two hundred miles from here. Jump on my back and I will ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... alive in that government throughout twenty hard-battling years, why, it was likely that this rabble of savages would see something that was new and admirable in the practice of arms before the crude weight of their numbers could drag me down. Nay, I did not even despair of winning free altogether. I must find me a weapon from those that came up to battle, with which I could write worthy signatures, and I must attempt no standing fights. Gods! but what a glow the prospect did send through me ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... I could hope, but despair has seized me ever since the day of that tourney. Did you ever see anyone look fairer than she did that day seated amongst all the grand folks? There was not one to compare with her, and I caught words in several quarters which showed ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... and, on the other hand, for the interpretation of what may be called the graver and deeper feelings, such as awe, reverence, humility, grief, and melancholy, and the more impassioned emotions, as disgust, loathing, horror, rage, despair, as well as for the expression of all very serious and impressive thought, sentential pitch of a degree somewhat lower than normal pitch is appropriate. The degree of elevation and depression must be determined by the judgment and ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... man ought never to give up; but, of course, there are times when he is so completely beaten that to fight longer is worse than useless. But learning cannot settle questions wherein the heart is involved. The philosopher may kill himself in despair, while the ignorant man may continue to fight and may finally win. The other day you spoke of something that was in your favor—something that has to do with your sister's education. Would you think it impertinent if I ask you what that ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... all the better if we do not allow frightfulness and fanaticism to impress us so deeply that we throw up our hands peevishly, and lose interest in the longer run of time because we have lost faith in the future of man. There is no ground for this despair, because all the ifs on which, as James said, our destiny hangs, are as pregnant as they ever were. What we have seen of brutality, we have seen, and because it was strange, it was not conclusive. It was only Berlin, Moscow, Versailles in 1914 to 1919, not Armageddon, as we rhetorically ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... these two would have been ludicrous had it not been a matter of life and horrid death. Through it all Roldan was vaguely conscious of approaching hoofbeats, but there was no room in his consciousness for hope or despair. He was not even aware that he was panting as if his lungs and throat were bursting, nor even that his vision was a trifle blurred from constant and rapid change of focus and surcharged veins. But he executed his dance of life as unerringly as if fresh from his bed and bath. The bear, a clumsy ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... time when men should cry for thy case. "La Haula"there is no Majesty, etc. An ejaculation of displeasure, disappointments, despair. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... immediate. A stronger hand and a longer purse than Benham's were now against him. The chase had begun. He could not expect much law, and he was riding, not for a fall, but against time. He did not despair of escape, but the chances were against him. He must cover as much ground as he could before the pack was on his heels. So he brought in his bills, made his speeches, fluttered the dovecote of many a prejudice and many an interest, was the idol of ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... our young voyageurs were of that stamp to yield themselves to despair. One and all of them had experienced perils before—greater even than that in which they now stood. As soon, therefore, as they became fully satisfied that their little vessel was wrecked, and all its contents scattered, ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... Grenville fully informed of this affair. On 16th June he reported Austria's desertion of Poland, the brutal refusal of the Court of Berlin to accord help to its ally, the heroic efforts of Kosciusko and the Polish levies to resist the Russian armies, and the despair of the patriots of Warsaw, adding the cynical comment that at Warsaw patriotism was only a cloak for private interest, and that the new constitution was generally regarded as the death-blow to Polish independence.[80] Whether ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... exerted himself for a time to console (his senior) by using kindly accents. But suddenly some one came to announce that the two coffins had been completed. This announcement pierced, like a dagger, dowager lady Chia to the heart; and while weeping with despair more intense, she broke ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... once taken away. And if to this there happened to be added an interruption of their commerce, (which was their sole resource,) arising from the loss of a naval engagement, they imagined themselves to be on the brink of ruin, and abandoned themselves to despondency and despair, as was evidently seen at the end of the first ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... great men who formed our institutions originally. I confidently believe that their descendants will be equal to the arduous task before them, but it is worse than madness to expect that negroes will perform it for us. Certainly we ought not to ask their assistance till we despair ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... give over his dictatorship. Galba undid himself by that speech, legi a se militem, non emi; for it put the soldiers out of hope of the donative. Probus likewise, by that speech, Si vixero, non opus erit amplius Romano imperio militibus; a speech of great despair for the soldiers. And many the like. Surely princes had need, in tender matters and ticklish times, to beware what they say; especially in these short speeches, which fly abroad like darts, and are thought to be shot out of their secret intentions. For as for ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... despair. What could this mad giant tell him? But almost before the thought had escaped him his companion read his ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... high above her, so high that she shrank from him; there seemed a whole heaven of height between them. It would fill her with a kind of despair to see him at times sit lost in thought: he was where she could never follow him! He was in a world which, to her childish thought, seemed not the world of humanity; and she would turn, with a sense of both seeking and finding, to the chief. She imagined ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... watching Joe survey that littered room which served as office and sleeping-quarters for the chief engineer of the East Coast Company. Fat Joe's gaze swung from wall to wall, from littered corner to heaped-up chair. Then he shook his head in despair. ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... the unfortunate Eric is hoisted, fastened to a long pole. History tells that this king fled from the enemy in a battle; that one of his soldiers pursued him, and reproached him for his cowardice, whereupon Eric, filled with shame and despair, gave spurs to his horse and leaped into the fearful abyss. At his fall his hat was blown from his head, and was ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... or two Lennox was in despair, while his heart continued to swell with grief and rage. It was unthinkable that the noblest young Onondaga of them all, one fit to be in his time the greatest of sachems, the very head and heart of the League, ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... inscription," was the answer, and perhaps it is small wonder that Anna exclaimed in despair, "Oh, this terrible English! Can ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton
... his cot and writhed in blind despair. Might not even his mother have deceived him! Might not she too have been acting! What did he care now for name or liberty, or life itself! The girl had mocked him with what he thought was love, when ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... possibility that there might be some other Ecbatane besides his splendid royal retreat in Media; but now, when he learned that was the name of the place where he was then encamped, he felt sure that his hour was come, and he was overwhelmed with remorse and despair. ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... his partners, he had been obliged to buy them out, and to assume the whole burden of the enterprise. Just at that time there was great popular expectation of the future importance of Baltimore. A little earlier, there had been general despair among the merchants of that city. New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore were seeking the trade of the region beyond the Alleghanies,—then "the West," but now the centre of the population of the United States. New York flanked the mountains with her Erie Canal; Philadelphia ...
— Peter Cooper - The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 • Rossiter W. Raymond
... and his recovery was certain. It was slow, however, hastened though it was by the hope and expectation which had opened to him when he had reached the lowest depth of despair and covered himself ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... secure Gudger against loss, while the mention of its existence caused the commissioner again to rub his head. Why in the world should a man——? He gave up the conundrum in despair, and applied himself to the ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... (1588-1679), the famous English philosopher, is best known by his defence of absolute monarchy. In ethics he held that man is swayed only by the desire for pleasure and the fear of pain. Either of these views would be to Hugo a system of despair. ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... the passions combined, acting, according to the powers of each, to one end. The execution, also, is the happiest, each particular passion is drawn with inimitable force and compression. Let us take only FEAR and DESPAIR, each dashed out in four lines, of which every word is like inspiration. Beautiful as Spenser is, and sometimes sublime, yet he redoubles his touches too much, and often introduces some coarse feature or expression, which destroys the spell. Spenser, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... of admiration, his submission to our dictates, and zeal for our success. To such a reader, it is impossible to refuse regard, nor can it easily be imagined with how much alacrity we snatch up the pen which indignation or despair had condemned to inactivity, when we find such candour and judgment yet remaining in ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... subjects. If GOD has not blessed you with the talent of rhyming, make use of my poor stock and welcome; let your verses run upon my feet: and for the utmost refuge of notorious blockheads, reduced to the last extremity of sense, turn my own lines upon me, and, in utter despair of your own satire, make me satirize myself. Some of you have been driven to this bay already; but above all the rest, commend me to the Non-conformist parson, who writ The Whip and Key. I am ...
— English Satires • Various
... for it Hopeful recklessness How much can a man honestly earn without wronging or oppressing I cannot endure this—this hopefulness of yours If you dread harm enough it is less likely to happen It must be your despair that helps you to bear up Marry for love two or three times No man deserves to sufer at the hands of another Patience with mediocrity putting on the style of genius Person talks about taking lessons, as if they could learn it Say when he is gone ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... already passed, and the victim becomes insignificant in the presence of the executioner. I was reminded of the well where Gootes died for here except on one small side the grass rose like the inside of a stovepipe to the sky; but I suffered neither the same despair nor the unaccountable elation I had upon that hill, perhaps because the trough was so much bigger or because the animate thing was not beneath my feet to communicate those ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... clings to a faint prospect of redeeming his fortunes through some wonderful and unexpected revulsion of luck. But the days passed without the slightest encouragement, and his misery turned almost to despair. ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... that was the least tenable, must be opened by the sword, and resistance increased at each fresh step they took, for the outrages of their troops, chiefly consisting of Hungarians and Walloons, drove their friends to revolt and their enemies to despair. But even now that his troops had penetrated into Bohemia, the Emperor continued to offer the Estates peace, and to show himself ready for an amicable adjustment. But the new prospects which opened upon them, raised the courage of the revolters. Moravia espoused their party; and ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... bluff, and whether it was yet withdrawn. The slaves, on the other hand, were too much absorbed in their prospective freedom to aid us in taking any further steps to secure it. Captain Trowbridge, who had by this time landed at a different point, got quite into despair over the seeming deafness of the people to all questions. "How many soldiers are there on the bluff?" he asked of ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... death he turned in despair to the one ray of light left him—Stella montis, the inspiration of his childish love; Estelle, now old, a grandmother, withered by age and grief. He made a pilgrimage to Meylan, near Grenoble, to see her. He was then sixty-one years old and she ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... creature he had left in the height of her bright loveliness was in the extremity of suffering and peril—her husband gone no one knew whither; and the servants, too angry not to speak plainly, reporting that he had left her in hysterics. John tried not to believe the half, but as time went on, bringing despair of the poor young mother's life, and no tidings of Arthur; while he became more and more certain that there had been cruel neglect, the very gentleness and compassion of his nature fired and glowed against him who had taken her from her home, vowed ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... from far off, for he was debating whether he would read her the "Sea Lyrics." He lay in dull despair, while she watched him searchingly, pondering again upon unsummoned and wayward ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... wondered what thoughts were at work beneath the crisp thickness of that dark hair. He had wished the rigid attitude of tense despair might somewhat relax. He had used the most telling inflexions of his persuasive voice in order to bring this about, but without success. He had wished the Knight would break silence, even to rage ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... cart an impediment to our movements; but, as it had been an expensive article, I did not despair of its becoming more useful after passing the boggy country. A few days afterwards, however, an accident settled the question; the horses ran away with it, and thereby the shaft was broken, and the spring ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... strength into the hauling, aided by the man-o'-war's man's last remaining force; no little either, for despair gave the poor fellow a spasmodic kind of power, so that the rope passed through the ring and whizzed and quivered, it was so tight. Then another stay was found and a hitch taken twice round that before Aleck fastened off, and, panting heavily, went up a step ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... Shells were lighted and thrown as hand-grenades into the practically helpless crowd below. Those who had not entered the ditch soon wavered and fell back, at first sullenly and slowly, then in despair running for life to cover. Those who remained and could walk surrendered and were marched to the southwest angle of the fort, where they were ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... his feet on those things, and began to swear and curse, and finally to sob and whine. The shock of his discovery had driven all his stupefaction away by that time, and he knew what had happened. And his whining and sobbing was not that of despair, but the far worse and fiercer sobbing and whining of rage and terrible anger. If the woman who had tricked him had been there he would have torn her limb from limb, and have glutted himself with ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... brood that originally possessed it. Many were the consultations held upon the subject without coming to a conclusion, for though everybody condemned the old name, nobody could invent a new one. At length, when the council was almost in despair, a burgher, remarkable for the size and squareness of his head, proposed that they should call it New Amsterdam. The proposition took everybody by surprise; it was so striking, so apposite, so ingenious. The name ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... one's own father. By the time he was twenty Charles Gould had, in his turn, fallen under the spell of the San Tome mine. But it was another form of enchantment, more suitable to his youth, into whose magic formula there entered hope, vigour, and self-confidence, instead of weary indignation and despair. Left after he was twenty to his own guidance (except for the severe injunction not to return to Costaguana), he had pursued his studies in Belgium and France with the idea of qualifying for a mining engineer. But this scientific ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... see that the Junker is by no means peculiar to Prussia. We may claim to produce the article in a perfection that may well make Germany despair of ever surpassing us in that line. Sir Edward Grey is a Junker from his topmost hair to the tips of his toes; and Sir Edward is a charming man, incapable of cutting down even an Opposition front bencher, or of telling a German he intends ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... came back, Villalobar in silent rage, Lancken very red. And, as de Leval said, without another word, dumb, in consternation, filled with an immense despair, ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... ancient land to which we owe almost everything that is precious and valuable in our lives, and in which still, if we be young, we may find all our dreams. What to us are the weary miles of Eastern France if we come by road, the dreadful tunnels full of despair and filth if we come by rail, now that we have at last returned to her, or best of all, perhaps, found her for the first time in the spring at twenty-one or so, like a fair woman forlorn upon the mountains, the Ariadne of our race who placed in our hand the golden thread that led us out of the ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... indulged in the liberty of his chapel; and the doctors of the Sorbonne were astonished, and possibly scandalized, by the language, the rites, and the vestments, of his Greek clergy. But the slightest glance on the state of the kingdom must teach him to despair of any effectual assistance. The unfortunate Charles, though he enjoyed some lucid intervals, continually relapsed into furious or stupid insanity: the reins of government were alternately seized by his brother and uncle, the dukes of Orleans ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... she stood within the ruined doorway, her left hand resting on the moldy jam. Then, with a cry, she started forward—a cry in which terror had given place to joy, despair to hope. ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... to turn to the 5th Chapter of Daniel to see who won the bets. That night sanction came for several N.C.O.'s and men to go on leave to India for a month. Sanction had been hanging fire for some time and the lucky ones were beginning to despair. My sergeant was among the lucky ones and I knew how pleased he would be when I got back and told him to report to Headquarters at 5 the next morning for leave to India. It was late when I got back, but ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... chestnut bur. The eyes were of that changing amber of woodland pools in autumn; and a soul lurked in them, a brave, merry soul, more given to song and laughter than to tears. The child of Venus had taken up his abode in this woman's heart; for to see her was to love her, and to love her was to despair. ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... structure—on the air Uprose in wildest shrieks despair, Rolling in echoes loud and long Ascending from the myriad throng: And Samson, with the heaps of dead Priest, vassal, chief, in ruin blent, Piled over his victorious ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... came, the prophets' eyes streamed with tears, and their hearts were torn with grief as they saw their land wasted by the heathen. Yet they did not despair. The dark night of sorrow would wear away at last, God's people should be brought back, Jerusalem rebuilt; her King would come, the Sun of Righteousness arise, 'And His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The ...
— The Bible in its Making - The most Wonderful Book in the World • Mildred Duff
... Isabel. She's come to know If yet her brother's pardon be come hither: But I will keep her ignorant of her good, 105 To make her heavenly comforts of despair, ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... was never very fond of large societies, and we voted that he was discontented and out of humor because his betrothed bride was not with him. His room was next to the sick man's, to whom he gave all possible care and attention, for poor Hallberg, besides being ill, was in despair at giving so much trouble in a strange house. D'Effernay tried to calm him on this point; he nursed him, amused him with conversation, mixed his medicines, and, in fact, showed more kindness and tenderness, than any of us would ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... tell me not to love the men who shall be after me; a soft voice within me, I know not what, cries out ever, 'Live for them as for your own children.' When in the circle of my own small life all is dark, and I despair, hope springs up in me when I remember that something nobler and fairer may spring up in the spot where ...
— Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland • Olive Schreiner
... brains or souls or whatever it is they have, and begin to burrow. I'd like to have it right there on the job every time they mentioned the goodness of God or the justice of man, till finally they threw up their hands in crazed despair with, 'For God's sake, what do you want me to ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... deals with a bold subject; it is a novel filled with the "strong meat" of human nature; a novel which speaks in accents at once painful and ironical, and ends in despair; but it is also a book to which the most scrupulous author on the question of "the right to speak out" need not ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... Joe made the disheartening discovery that in spite of all their efforts the fire was burning inside the hammock, they felt like giving up in despair, and seeking another refuge. ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... asked Pina, picking up a small leaf of lettuce on her two-pronged iron fork; for she ate delicately, and her fine manners were Cucurullo's despair. ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... that Betty should take the serious occasion so lightly. Mary Beck would have planned it at least a week beforehand, and have worried and worked and been in despair; but here was Betty as gay as possible, and as for Aunt Barbara and Serena and Letty, they were gay too. It ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... keep coming over me in waves that perhaps I have done wrong. You see, Daddy tells me not to consider him; but should I not guard his name in spite of that? That is the question that will keep coming up to me. Nevertheless"—she made a gesture of despair—"if I went through with it—if I married Mr. Carder, I'm sure I should lose all control and kill myself. ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... accommodation bills that he wanted to negotiate before filing his schedule. To induce Matifat to take them of him, he let out a word of Finot's trick. Matifat, being a shrewd man of business, took the hint, held tight to his sixth, and is laughing in his sleeve at us. Finot and I are howling with despair. We have been so misguided as to attack a man who has no affection for his mistress, a heartless, soulless wretch. Unluckily, too, for us, Matifat's business is not amenable to the jurisdiction of the press, and he cannot be made to smart for it through his interests. ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... as the brother came up. "Oh, thank God! Thank God, for this!" and the tears began to flow down his cheeks. "How long I have waited! Many a time I thought to give up in despair!" ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... cedar or an alerce pine. I was also pleased to see, at an elevation of a little less than 1000 feet, our old friend the southern beech. They were, however, poor stunted trees, and I should think that this must be nearly their northern limit. We ultimately gave up the attempt in despair. ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... women, too!" said Lord Blyston, with admiring despair. "He's been away from them so long there's ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... best—" he mused. "Despair is the true philosophy, since it begets indifference. Why should I hope? What prospect is there now, that these eyes, that lip, these many graces, and the imperial pride of that expression, which looks out like a high soul from the ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... love's despair supreme! Let be—illusions fair that rose And fell from pedestals of dream! One leap! The ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... Clemency replied with a little note of despair in her voice, "but there is something about it all that I don't understand. Only think how long I have had to stay in the house, and he must have been on the watch. I don't know when it is ever ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... upon the attitude of the new President, and the Nullifiers did not despair of enlisting him on their side. Though he had declared cautiously in favour of a moderate tariff (basing his case mainly on considerations of national defence), he was believed to be opposed to the high Protection advocated by Clay and Adams. He was himself a Southerner and interested ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... were of native American stock into whose frugal and industrious lives the later Irish and German immigrants fitted, on the whole, with little friction. Even the Dutch oven fell before the cast-iron cooking stove. Happiness and sorrow, despair and hope were there, but all encompassed by the heavy ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... of agonised thought. By my side was a helpless, homeless, friendless, penniless young woman, as beautiful as a goddess and as empty-minded as a baby. What in the world could I do with her? I looked at her in despair. She met my glance with a contented smile; just as if we were old acquaintances and I were taking her out to dinner. The unfamiliar roar and bustle of London impressed her no more than it would have impressed a little dog who had found ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... sort of nonsense—the sort of nonsense one talks to oneself." She was dismayed by the expression of longing and despair upon his face. "I was thinking about a mountain in the North of England," she attempted. "It's too silly—I ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... knew enough to see clearly the frightful slaughter and destruction that twenty seconds more would bring if he refused to give himself up. As Mazanoff counted "forty" he threw up his hands with a gesture of despair, and cried— ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... above all combinations of earthly hopes, calls up the most delightful visions of palms and amaranths, the gardens of the blest, the security of everlasting joys, where the sensualist and the sceptic view only gloom, decay, annihilation, and despair!" ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton |
