"Despairing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as the feathered dart he hurled, His strained, despairing eyes, beheld the end, And changed seemed all the fashion of the world, And past and future into one did blend, As he beheld the fixed eyes of his friend, That no reproach had in them, and no fear, For Death had seized him ere he thought ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... the dismal images of his fancy, to produce a real rapture of gloomy expectation... The clock struck twelve, the owl screeched from the ruined battlement, the door was opened by the sexton, who, by the light of a glimmering taper, conducted the despairing lover to ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... his capture had been effected. Despairing for the present of being able to communicate with Catalina, he had formed the resolution to remove his mother and sister from the valley. He had prepared a temporary home for them far off in the wilderness, where they would ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... may conjecture, with great probability, that it was sometimes the devotion, and sometimes the entertainment of the first generations of mankind. Theocritus united elegance with simplicity; and taught his shepherds to sing with so much ease and harmony, that his countrymen, despairing to excel, forbore to imitate him; and the Greeks, however vain or ambitious, left him in quiet possession of the garlands which the wood-nymphs had ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... At the same time she flung out a despairing hand for hope, but he did not notice it. She was softening to him—if she had ever steeled herself against him—and a single summons to her faith would have vanquished the feeble resistance. But he did not make it—the ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... of his unappreciated series, 'Alfred and the First British Jury.' He had large sums to pay in the coming month, and only a few shillings in the house, with no commissions in prospect. He sends up passionate and despairing petitions that God will help him in his dreadful necessities, will raise him friends from sources invisible, and enable him to finish his last and greatest works. Appeals for help to Lord Brougham, the Duke ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... apparition and noted these things. She did not return his stare, but continued to gaze at the archway as if expecting some one. Young, robust, her very attitude suggested absolute health; yet her expression was so despairing, her eyes so charged with misery, that involuntarily he felt in his pocket for money. And then he saw that in her hand she held a tambourine. She wore a faded ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... the second-floor sitting-room, and found Christopherson sunk upon a chair, his head falling forwards, the image of despairing misery. As I approached he staggered to his feet. He took my hand in a shrinking, shamefaced way, and could not raise his eyes. I uttered a few words of encouragement, but they had the ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... what I had already guessed, that this business of dealing with scores and hundreds of despairing beings standing on the very edge of the grave, is a terrible strain upon any man. The responsibility becomes too great, and he who has to bear it is apt to be crushed beneath its weight. Every morning he reads his paper with a sensation of nervous dread, fearing lest ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... to return to Dickson in his clump of rhododendrons. Tragically aware of his impotence he listened to the tumult of the Die-Hards, hopeful when it was loud, despairing when there came a moment's lull, while Mrs. Morran like a Greek chorus drew loudly upon her store of proverbial philosophy and her memory of Scripture texts. Twice he tried to reconnoitre towards the scene of battle, but only blundered into sunken plots and ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... soul, o'er life's drear desert faring, Love's pure, congenial spring unfound, unquaffed, Suffers, recoils, then thirsty and despairing Of what it would, descends, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... several times; cathartics, diuretics, the lancet, blisters, and tonics were resorted to, with relief from some of the symptoms. The tumour, however, returned several times, so that M. OSWALD despairing of effecting a cure by following the same plan, and recollecting a case of ascites, which was cured apparently by an inflammation having supervened in the peritoneum, from the orifice made by tapping remaining ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... seemed to have come over me. I was no longer gloomy and despairing, but gay and happy. My slumbers were light and easy; not disturbed, as before, by frightful dreams. I arose with the lark, and like him uttered a cheerful song of praise to God, frequently and earnestly, and ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... is not dead. She is quite well," replied the officer, who could not but have been impressed by the despairing tone in which the question was put to him; and he had not lost an instant in relieving the anxiety ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... the long-drawn intonations of the chants and prayers of the Church pervaded by a more terrible, wild fervor than the Superior that night breathed into them. They seemed to wail, to supplicate, to combat, to menace, to sink in despairing pauses of helpless anguish, and anon to rise in stormy agonies of passionate importunity; and the monks quailed and trembled, they scarce knew why, with forebodings of coming wrath ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... in a low, constrained, despairing tone. "You have balked me at last, but," throwing back her head like some animal suddenly brought to bay, "what are you going to do ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... hours go joyfully by, How little we stop to heed Our brothers' and sisters' despairing cry In their woe and their bitter need! Yet such a world as the angels sought This world of ours we'd call, If the brotherly love that the Father taught; Was felt by each ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... position as an aristocrat that made him acceptable to the aristocracy, his magnetism that made him the idol of the people. From every page stands out the strong, attractive personality of this teacher and winner of hearts. No man ever lived so godless yet so godlike. Arrogating to himself no divinity, despairing of future bliss, but without fear as without hope, leader of thought but despising lovingly the folly of the world, exalted but adored, the universal brother, he wandered among men, simply, serenely; with gentle irony subduing them that opposed him, to congregation after ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... this country, we see that Dr. Veeder was a real pioneer, although, of course, many of his conclusions are still doubtful. Yet, in poverty, in discouragement, in the turmoil of a busy life, he continued his work for fifteen years, then reluctantly abandoned it, despairing of support and opportunity. Yet he leaves a debt that science can never repay. Such men may be everywhere; one of you boys may be the meteorologist of the coming generation. Veeder may be dead but ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... lodgings, and found that two rooms would cost ten shillings a week. Food was dear and bad, water was bad, and in a short time their health suffered. Work was hard to get, and its wage was so low that they were soon in debt. They became more ill and more despairing with the poisonous surroundings, the darkness, and the long hours of work; and they were driven forth to seek a cheaper lodging. They found it in a court I knew well—a hotbed of crime and nameless horrors. In this they ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... destination; he was too broken in heart and too shaken in body to be curious; life in those days was for him too much of a hideous phantasmagoria of waste and blackness out of which appeared vengeful, red-handed figures, out of which echoed dismal, despairing ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... city, and the many lives of herding men,[162] admire so much as they then honored OEdipus, who had banished from the realm the baneful pest that made men her prey. But when he unhappy was apprised of his wretched marriage, despairing in his sorrow, with frenzied heart, he perpetrated a two-fold horror; he deprived himself with parricidal hand of the eyes that were more precious than his children. And indignant because of his scanty supply of food,[163] he sent upon his sons, alas! alas! a curse horrible ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... hurried to the police station, he felt quite certain that five minutes' conversation would set the whole matter straight; and he even wondered if Mr. Phillips could be got to return to the church later in the day to marry him to Bet. Bet's white, despairing face haunted him; and he tried to shut it away from his thoughts, and to dwell on the delightful anticipation of soon setting all ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... did Edith's bitter cry startle poor Zell, coming to her ear as a despairing recall from the battlements of heaven might have sounded to a falling angel, but Arden Lacey was as thoroughly aroused from his painful revery as if shaken by a giant hand. He had been down to meet the boat, with many others, and was sending off some little produce ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... alterations. Keith was no longer governor, being superseded by Major Gordon. I met him walking the streets as a common citizen. He seem'd a little asham'd at seeing me, but pass'd without saying anything. I should have been as much asham'd at seeing Miss Read, had not her friends, despairing with reason of my return after the receipt of my letter, persuaded her to marry another, one Rogers, a potter, which was done in my absence. With him, however, she was never happy, and soon parted from him, refusing to cohabit ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... despairing strain indeed, but the situation unhappily was not less desperate. We are, in fact, entering upon that period of Coleridge's life—a period, roughly speaking, of about ten years—which no admirer of his genius, no lover of English letters, no one, it might even ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... was a fearful one for those at sea. Wet through and shivering, I sat still, now listening amidst the noise of the hurricane and the creaking of the cordage for any footstep to approach, and now relapsing back into half-despairing dread that my heated brain alone had conjured up the scene of the day before. Such were my dreary reflections when a loud crash aboard the schooner told me that some old spar had given way. I strained my eyes through the dark to see what had happened, but in vain; the black ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... an author, by writing a pamphlet against a very prevailing sentiment in favour of the Turks, who were at that time laying siege to Vienna. This production, being very inferior to those of his maturer years, was very little read, and the indignant author, despairing of success with his pen, had recourse to the sword; or, as he termed it, when boasting of the exploit in his latter years, "displayed his attachment to liberty and protestanism," by joining the ill-advised insurrection under ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... privateers, the applications of the suffering merchants for protection and redress, had been neglected; that numbers of his majesty's most useful subjects have been reduced to want and imprisonment, or, compelled by inhuman treatment, and despairing of a cartel for the exchange of prisoners, had enlisted in the service of Spain; that there had been various neglects and delays in the appointment of convoys, and some of the commanders of the few that had been granted, deserted the ships under their care at sea, and left them ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... she said. "It wasn't your fault that you were insulted, neither would you be to blame if your friend Toni's fiance was shot. You couldn't really be more despairing if it was your own ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... picked their way between the flowering rhododendrons, the glistening laurels, the feathery pine sprouts and the moss-covered rocks. They went gingerly and alertly on ungainly, cushioned feet. Just as their masters were despairing, they came to a place directly over the store, where a branch had been bent back and hitched to clear the outlook, and where a boot heel had crushed the moss. There one of them raised his nose high into the air, opened his mouth, and let out a long, ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... mother to him, and the other dearest of all on earth, he could have lived there forever. But now the old prison feeling was coming back. He was tired of the view and of the mean little room. He felt lonely and deserted and despairing. ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... endurance which in the end must prevail over the paroxysmal rage of John Kurt. When the combatants part there is not a whole piece of furniture in the room. John Kurt retires a conquered man. But with cowardly viciousness he locks the door and leaves his wife for hours despairing, while he himself goes to a dinner-party. There he ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... me. Many luckless brutes were made to simulate diseases which were raging among their owners, and had forced down their reluctant throats the remedies which I deemed most likely to suit their supposed complaints. And after a time I rose still higher in my ambition; and despairing of finding another human patient, I proceeded to try my simples ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... we except. The theurgic department of Mysticism—unfortunately but too common—seems to us always to have been (as it certainly was in neo-Platonism) the despairing return to that ceremonialism which it had begun by shaking off, when it was disappointed in reaching its high aim by its proper method. The use of the Guru, or Father Confessor (which Mr. Vaughan confesses to be inconsistent with Mysticism), is to ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... looked his character to the life. Slender, swarthy, melancholy eyed, and darkly bearded; with feminine features, mellow voice and, alternately languid or vivacious manners. A child of the South in nature as in aspect, ardent, impressible, and proud; fitfully aspiring and despairing; without the native energy which moulds character and ennobles life. Months of discipline and devotion had done much for him, and some deep experience was fast ripening the youth ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... Haggard, despairing eyes rolled up at the Chief appealingly. He had met the gaze of those oyster-orbs before. He recognised Alderman Brooker, proprietor of the grocery stores in Market Square, victim of the outrage perpetrated on a sentry near ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... bell rousing people to come to the rescue, it is rather the church's prayer for mercy, a despairing appeal to God to ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... his heavy paw on his shoulder. Girshel seemed to shrink into himself. He shook like a leaf and uttered a feeble cry, like a hare's. Siliavka addressed him threateningly, and seized him by the collar. I could not hear their conversation, but from the despairing gestures of the Jew, and his supplicating appearance, I began to guess what it was. The Jew twice flung himself at the sergeant's feet, put his hand in his pocket, pulled out a torn check handkerchief, untied a knot, and took out gold coins.... ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... day he went about according to his humble wont, among the poor and the miserable, spreading joy and comfort everywhere. Wan-faced courtesans, with death and hate in their eyes, despairing thieves, murderers, and would-be suicides, listened to his words of hope and began life anew. He went to the houses of the wealthy and plead in the behalf of suffering men and women, misguided children, and mistreated animals, but was called a tramp ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... before she could see him. As he realized what her coming back meant, his frame shook with pity for her. All the dignity had gone from her. She looked as shamed as a dog stealing back after it had been whipped. She knew she was shamed. He saw she knew it: the despairing rocking of her arms proved it; yet she was coming back to him ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... later, Dr. Poulain stood by Pons' pillow watching the progress made by death, and Schmucke's vain efforts to persuade his friend to consent to the operation. To all the poor German's despairing entreaties Pons only replied by a shake of the head and occasional impatient movements; till, after awhile, he summoned up all his fast-failing strength to ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... becoming prominent in Algonquin, were slowly assuming the leadership in society. They were in danger of losing their proud position, and every nerve had to be strained to maintain it. What we have we'll hold, had become the despairing motto of the Misses Armstrong, and its realisation ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... doubted. They must have asked themselves the question, whether they were strong enough to carry their great reforms against the world. But in these very moments the necessary strength had been given to them. It must have been that, when almost despairing, they had been comforted by an inner truth, and had been all but inspired to trust with confidence in their cause. They, too, had been weak, and had trembled, and had almost feared. But they had found in their own hearts that on which they ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... Despairing of horticulture indoors as out, I sometimes thought of orchids. I had seen much of them in their native homes, both East and West—enough to understand that their growth is governed by strict law. Other plants—roses and so forth—are always playing tricks. They must have this ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... slain and the doom of her city was fulfilled, but the curse of prophecy still followed her. She felt the shadow of coming evil, and there before the door she recoiled, and cried out that there was blood in the air. At length, despairing of her fate, she too went in. Even while the Argives stood about the gates, pitying her ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody
... he should have one, for him an' his papa in the mawnin',—Marse Tom's comin' home; but look like I ain't got good sense, and I seed Miss Maimie do it las' year." Mammy Belle's tone was despairing. ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... Cestius was not conscious either how the besieged despaired of success, nor how courageous the people were for him; and so he recalled his soldiers from the place, and by despairing of any expectation of taking it, without having received any disgrace, he retired from the city, without any reason in the world. But when the robbers perceived this unexpected retreat of his, they resumed their courage, and ran ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... and despairing faces were the only blemishes upon the exuberant gayety that prevailed; but no one saw them and the poor wretches disappeared without exciting ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... contracts had been signed hard and fast months before, and their receipts of money had kept close and exact step with the progress of the work itself. "I wish I was a bricklayer—or even a hod-carrier!" said Little O'Grady, throwing a despairing eye upon the Car, stuck fast ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... his hand, and accompanied by other chiefs and about 50 warriors, came in to talk. On their arrival, they were surrounded by bayonets, and made prisoners by the orders of the Federal Government, who, despairing of subduing the Indians, had recourse to this shameful breach of faith. The proud spirit of Asseola could not endure confinement: he died in prison. Other chiefs were kidnapped in the same traitorous manner; but, severe as the loss must ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... in a despairing voice. "I will own, if you like, that I am very miserable, but you must not take advantage of me. I am weak to-night, and I seem to have no strength to brave it out. Don't be hard upon me, Bessie; you ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... night the despairing lad paddled steadily on, praying for the day to break. At last it came with a blaze of glory in the east. When it grew light enough to see, he rose cautiously ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... however,—warn thyself also against THY pity! For many are on their way to thee, many suffering, doubting, despairing, drowning, ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... in spite of him, through this opening—another, or rather the same relighted by a new face; the same, stronger by all the force which this need to adore takes on in old age. So he loved this little girl! He need no longer struggle, resist, or deny; he loved her with the despairing knowledge that he should not even gain a little pity from her, that she would always be ignorant of his terrible torment, and that another would marry her! At this thought constantly recurring, impossible to drive away, he was seized ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... from the room, leaving his wife still upon her knees, with her arms outstretched appealingly. When the door slammed behind him, she uttered one despairing moan, and fell forward on her ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... plantation for hours, brooding, thinking, despairing. No pen can describe what I felt, no words can convey to the mind the thoughts and pains of my mind and heart. Never did I love Miss Forrest so much, never was Voltaire's villainy so real; and yet I was to lose her, and that man—a fiend in human form—was to wed her. I could do nothing. ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... the arid, sun-baked earth refused to bear any green thing, and the despairing people longed for rain which never came. The second year of drought had come and gone, and there was now nothing sown in the fields, but on the seventh day of the fourth moon of the fourth year of the Emperor Kwang Hsue, the longed-for rain ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... doubt. He had proved it already by two years of unremitting and arduous care. I could not hate him. But he had been crushing me slowly, and when he started to argue on the top of the Furca Pass he was perhaps nearer a success than either he or I imagined. I listened to him in despairing silence, feeling that ghostly, unrealized, and desired sea of my dreams escape from the ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... wish, mother, but reason—necessity. Are we not two despairing creatures? What is life to you?—Nothing. What is life to me?—Very little without you, mother; for believe me, but for you I should have ceased to live on the day I doubted my father and renounced his name. Well, I will live, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... paddled by the old chief Membertou. He signals back to the watchers behind the gates. Musketry shots ring out welcome. The ship's cannon answer, setting the waters churning. Trumpets blare. The gates fly wide and out marches the garrison—two lone Frenchmen. The rest, despairing of a ship that summer, have cruised along to Cape Breton to obtain supplies from French fishermen, whence, presently, come Pontgrave and Champlain, overjoyed to find the ship from France. Poutrincourt ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... imaginations of a sanguine avarice, had not the confidence to propose, they have found a Chancellor of the Exchequer in England hardy enough to undertake for them. He has cheered their drooping spirits. He has thanked the peculators for not despairing of their commonwealth. He has told them they were too modest. He has replaced the twenty-five per cent which, in order to lighten themselves, they had abandoned in their conscious terror. Instead of cutting off ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... question. This is the root of the alarming conviction that Phillis is changing into Biddy, whose fit epithet is not neat-handed. This is the meaning of the cry for bread—light, sweet, well-baked bread; not the clammy dough which is served to a despairing land. This is the reason of the wondering question, What has become of roast meat? and of the melancholy conviction that henceforth baked beef is to replace the juicy sirloin of tradition, ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... spent in this fruitless search, I resolved to give it up. I had no longer a hope of finding the horses; and, with despairing step, I turned once more in the direction of the thicket. D'Hauteville ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... Mrs. Montague, in a despairing voice. "I can't help feeling it. Tell me something I can do to ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... despairing look at Gerald, and sank again. Gerald had gone as far as was practicable on the ice. I could hear it cracking all over, and see the white cracks darting suddenly over ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... perhaps now mingled with the dead; Of hope, that, like a faithless flatterer, fled 60 In the utmost hour of need; or of a son Cast to the bleak world's mercy; or of one Whose heart was broken, when the stern behest Tore him from pale affection's bleeding breast. Despairing, from his cold and flinty bed, With fearful muttering he has raised his head: What pitying spirit, what unwonted guest, Strays to this last retreat, these shades unblest? From life and light shut out, beneath this cell Long have I bid the cheering sun farewell. 70 ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... fast as his old legs would carry him straight to Grochowski; by the time he arrived it was dark. He knocked, but received no answer, waited for a quarter of an hour and then walked round the house. Despairing at last of making himself heard, he was just going to depart, when Grochowski suddenly confronted him, as if the ground had ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... passed over his heart, and then the MIND triumphed over all. He drew up to his full height, folded his arms doggedly on his breast, and muttering, "The accuser comes,—I have it still to refute the charge!" he stood prepared to meet, nor despairing to evade, the worst. ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... no more firing: all was being done with the keen-edged naked blade for a few minutes; and this was followed by a wild despairing cry from the gate tower, and directly after there was a dull, sickening crash which told that a man had been hurled from the parapet into the court-yard, where he lay ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... be taking the chair, a rubicund baronet, at a missionary society meeting, and receive the commendations of philanthropic peers and earnest bishops, or be laboring in chains at Norfolk Island, a brutalized, cursing, hardened, scourge-scarred, despairing wretch, without a hope for this life or the other. Oh, how much may turn upon a little thing! Because the railway train in which you were coming to a certain place was stopped by a snowstorm, the whole character of your life may have been changed. Because some one was in the drawing-room when ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... restlessness of her bright-minded charge. Rosa was her especial torment; the black sheep of the brood. Household tasks she despised, and study, as it was pursued in the successive schools to which her despairing father sent her, had no charms for her. Her best playmates were animals; the horses and dogs she saw in the streets and which she fearlessly accosted; the sheep that found itself queerly lodged on the top floor of a city house; and the parrot which, as we have seen, was not ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... discovery. Either her relations, convinced of her loss, made no inquiries, or the name of the vessel in which she had been a passenger was not known to them. The child had been weaned, and removed to the cottage, where it occupied much of the attention of the old housekeeper and Forster, who, despairing of its ever being reclaimed, determined to bring it up as ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... he begins, in a slow, careful tone, which Floyd knows is no index to his real state of mind, "but that does not say I am quite despairing. I had the pleasure of working most amicably with your father and receiving a fair return on my investment. I have had no dissensions with your brother, who is really my working partner. Your father was more sanguine of success than I, but I am well aware that if business men give ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... under the window. Mr. Kendal, who was holding the little inanimate form in his arms for the doctor to examine, looking up as she entered, cast on her a look of mute, pleading, despairing agony, that was as the bitterness of death. She sprang forward herself to clasp her child, and her husband yielded him in broken-hearted pity, but at that moment the little limbs moved, the features worked, the eyes unclosed, and clinging ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... any K. or P. I will never go to Paris, nor any of the French dominions.' The rest is confused, ill-spelled jottings about money, which Beson had failed to procure in London. {227} On September 12; Charles scrawls a despairing kind of note to Goring. He writes another, underscored, dismissing his Avignon household, that is, 'my Papist servants!' 'My mistress has behaved so unworthily that she has put me out of patience, and as she is a Papist too, I discard her also! . . . Daniel is charged ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... by this pitiful picture of despairing old age. The mute suffering of these men was a hundredfold more distressing than the wild, helpless clamoring of the horde of enraged creditors. A person born and bred to poverty soon grows insensible to deprivation; for when one is accustomed to little, ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... matter how vile and polluted, and can say anguish like this shall be that soul's undying portion in the long hereafter; that God's justice requires infinite punishment for a finite crime; that, when freed from its earthly body, the ears of the All-Compassionate shut out that soul's despairing cry for pardon? Who shall limit infinite mercy? Who shall set bounds to Divine compassion, or think that, toiling painfully and slowly up the endless heights of progression, there shall not be a time away onward in the solemn future, hidden in the dim mists ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... hours of fruitless search after the lost one, when the Candidate had again joined the despairing mother, that at the very same moment their glances both fell suddenly on the same object—it was Petrea! She lay in a thicket at the foot of the hill; drops of blood were visible on her face and dress, and a horrible necklace—a yellow spangled snake!—glittered in the sun around her neck. ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... in distress, and partially learning the cause, his habitual kindness of heart induced him to say to the stranger that he was about to walk over to the Laurel House, and would lead the way, if he chose to follow. The professor, despairing of his ability to make any more comfortable arrangement, accepted the offer, and prepared to ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... his farm on that fateful evening, Lochinvar was watching him. He saw Cecily going home to her mother for the last night, and while he was looking after her wistfully, and the pangs of despairing love were in his heart, Bill the Butcher ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... few seconds, he stood, enjoying the waves of consternation and futile anger which beat about him. Almost, he could pick up some of the despairing thoughts in detail. The clerks, of course, were second-class citizens. And without employment, they'd soon lose their luxury privileges. Unless they were fortunate enough to find other employment ...
— Final Weapon • Everett B. Cole
... gas had not been turned out in the hall, and it gave a feeble but sufficient illumination to the porch and the nearest parts of the garden. Darius stood silent and apparently irresolute, with a mournful and even despairing face. He wore his best black suit, and a new silk hat and new black gloves, and in one hand he carried a copy of "The Signal" that was very crumpled. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... that held mine tighten its grip in a despairing squeeze. Annabel suddenly raised the branch high above her head with both arms, and displayed Doctor Chantry's hand and mine clasped tenderly in her lap. She laughed until even Miss Chantry was infected, and the doctor ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... was about to faint. His eyes, bulging with terror, avoided us, while his right hand, with a spasmodic movement, twitched at the beard that covered his honest, gentle, and now despairing face. At length regaining his self-possession, he bowed to us, and remarking, in a changed voice, that he was obliged to return ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... not come within five yards, but, after curving in, literally shot out again towards the middle of the river and was borne down, the boy uttering a despairing wail as he saw ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... magnetism so attractive, that it was impossible for me to obtain a minute's conversation with Susan alone. I departed, wearied and disheartened with her sad, despairing face ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... hand affectionately. Left alone he felt despairing. The futility of the precautions he had taken, the inanity of all reasoning, of all logic, plunged him into the scepticism he had been combatting for ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... it at last,—the peace which comes after a long, weary, despairing struggle. But it was not easily won. It seemed to Trafford as if God had hidden himself in a thick, awful darkness, through which not the faintest ray of light or hope could glimmer upon his heavy, despairing ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... We'd go down one road and then back the same way. We stopped to ask everybody. Then we found the two autos sent out by the police. I told the cops again what would happen to 'em from me the minute the kids was found—the kids or their bodies. I was so despairing—what with that damned plumber and everything! I'll bet he's the merry chatterbox in his own home. The police said cheer up—nothing like that, with the country as safe as a church. But we went over to this Blackhanders' construction camp, ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... all be duplicated by the thousands. I never before saw, and please God, I may never again see, so deplorable a sight as the reconcentrados in the suburbs of Matanzas. I can never forget to my dying day the hopeless anguish in their despairing eyes. Huddled about their little bark huts, they raised no voice of appeal to us for alms as we went among them.... Men, women, and children stand silent, famishing with hunger. Their only appeal comes from their sad eyes, through which ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... her away on its wings, and as Russell touched the icy cheek a despairing cry rolled through ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... to foot as his fair, wavy hair brushed her neck, his despairing face sank lower until his cheek, hot as fire, rested on the cool, olive flesh of her arm. A warm moisture oozed up through her skin, and as he felt its glow he looked up. Her teeth, white and cold, were locked over her under lip, and her ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... never be mine, Altho' even hope is denied, 'Tis sweeter for thee despairing, Than aught ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... be better than that cry of your poor despairing heart to your Father! Do you think that He will not have pity on His suffering child? Be generous in your penitence, Phoebe, and trust yourself and ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... his government by force, but was overpowered by faction; and at last, despairing of success, he secretly sent his children to Euboea, to Elephenor, the son of Chalkodous; and he himself, after solemnly uttering curses on the Athenians at Gargettus, where now is the place called Araterion, or the place of curses, set sail for Skyros, where he ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... religion. Yes, your master said grand and consoling things to you. God threw you in each other's arms; he will never part you. When I die, when your father dies, we shall not speak to each other these despairing words, "Mamma, papa, Enrico, I shall never see you again!" We shall see each other again in another life, where he who has suffered much in this life will receive compensation; where he who has loved much on earth will find again the souls whom ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... others, losing all self-command, tore off their caps and bonnets, in the wildness of despair. A Liverpool pilot, who happened to be in the packet, now raised his voice and exclaimed, "It is all over—we are all lost!" At these words there was a universal despairing shriek. The women and children collected in a knot together, and kept embracing each other, keeping up, all the time, the most dismal lamentations. When tired with crying they lay against each other, with their heads reclined, like inanimate bodies. The steward of the vessel and his wife, ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... fall." She never blushed when he pressed her hand, never fainted or grew pale when he appeared with a smashed trotting-wagon and a black eye, and actually slept through a serenade that would have won any other woman's soul out of her body with its despairing quavers. Matters were getting desperate; for horses lost their charms, "flowing bowls" palled upon his lips, ruffled shirt-bosoms no longer delighted him, and hops possessed no soothing power to allay ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... in Shakespeare, in Johnson and his friends, in Cobbett, in Dickens. It is vain to dream of defining such vivid things; a national soul is as indefinable as a smell, and as unmistakable. I remember a friend who tried impatiently to explain the word "mistletoe" to a German, and cried at last, despairing, "Well, you know holly—mistletoe's the opposite!" I do not commend this logical method in the comparison of plants or nations. But if he had said to the Teuton, "Well, you know Germany—England's the opposite"—the definition, though fallacious, would not have been wholly false. England, ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... conflicting motives in man; so he sees no ethical value in dithelite doctrine. As a matter of fact the moral influence of Christianity would be much weakened by an abandonment of the doctrine of two wills. The belief in Christ's human will prevents men from despairing of their will. Human will cannot be wholly warped, or wholly misdirected, or utterly powerless, since Christ in His life has shown that it can work along the same lines as the divine will, that the two can co-operate, and that where the lower reaches its limit, the higher ...
— Monophysitism Past and Present - A Study in Christology • A. A. Luce
... forget that by stopping letters, evading public trials, and, in a word, cutting off all appeals to human justice, they compel the patient to turn his despairing eyes, and lift his despairing voice to Him, whose eye alone can ever ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... poor tired animals, with their utmost efforts, would never be able to surmount the prodigious rocks that obstructed their way. Cold, blustering clouds of mists drove in the faces of the forlorn little party as they labored up and up the precipitous steeps, till it seemed to many a despairing heart that the summit of that tremendous mountain would never, never be gained. So densely hung the threatening clouds around them, they could not tell their distance from the wished-for goal. At length ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... him were unsuccessful; and he only quitted Hercte in order to seize Eryx, a town situated upon the mountain of this name, and only six miles from Drepanum. This position he held for two years longer; and the Romans, despairing of driving the Carthaginians out of Sicily so long as they were masters of the sea, resolved to build another fleet. In B.C. 242 the Consul Lutatius Catulus put to sea with a fleet of 200 ships, and in the following year he gained a decisive victory over the Carthaginian fleet, commanded by Hanno, ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... their evil tidings are received in despairing silence. But Diomede bids Agamemnon take heart and fight next day, with his host arrayed "before the ships" (IX. 708). This appears to counsel defensive war; but, in fact, and for reasons, when it comes to fighting they do ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... brings to the true believer, and the purification and hope it works in the hearts of those who receive it, whilst we overlook its force upon the great world outside and its shapings of the facts and currents of history. We think of Luther wrestling with his sins, despairing and dying under the impossible task of working out for himself an availing righteousness, and rejoice with him in the light and peace which came to his agonized soul through the grand and all-conditioning doctrine of justification ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... no doubt about that cry, no possible shadow of doubt whatever—it was a cry of extreme distress, a final, despairing S.O.S., flung out to the night in the frantic hope that one of the same species ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... emerged. A moment stood the youth facing his stern conqueror; his hands were clenched until the knuckles showed white; his face was a dull crimson. Vainly he sought for words in which to vent some of the malicious chagrin that filled his soul almost to bursting-point. Then, despairing, with a shrug and an inarticulate mutter, he flung past the Parisian, obeying him as the cur obeys, with pendant ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out."(41) After the Romans under Cestius had surrounded the city, they unexpectedly abandoned the siege when everything seemed favorable for an immediate attack. The besieged, despairing of successful resistance, were on the point of surrender, when the Roman general withdrew his forces without the least apparent reason. But God's merciful providence was directing events for the good of His own people. The promised sign had ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... go against him he tried several speculations, with a gambler's hope that they might do well, and retrieve the situation. He abandoned the sensible direction of affairs, that is, and trusted entirely to chance, as men are apt to do when despairing. And chance betrayed him. He found himself of a sudden at the end ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... again," cried Mr Denning and I heard, above the shrieking of the wind and the hissing spray, a despairing kind of wail, as if ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... now she resorted to other weapons. Snatching her pistol from its holster, she leveled it at his forehead. "Stop!" she said; and something in her voice froze him into calm. He was not a fiend; he was not a deliberate assassin; he was only a jealous, despairing, insane lover, and as he looked into the face he knew so well, and realized that nothing but hate and deadly resolution lit the eyes he had so often kissed, his heart gave way, and, dropping his head, he said: "Kill me if you want to. I've ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... yells of fury and hurling their programs and opera glasses at the miscreant, behaved just as they do when Richter conducts it. The mass of imposture that thrives on this combination of ignorance with despairing endurance is incalculable. Given a public trained from childhood to stand anything tedious, and so saturated with school discipline that even with the doors open and no schoolmasters to stop them they will sit there helplessly until the end of the concert or opera gives them leave to go home; ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... forget the dreadful despairing shriek which rent the skies, as the bow lifting high in the air, it seemed, the stern sank down, even at the instant the marines fired their last volley: it was a volley over their own graves! Slowly the proud ship glided from the icy rock, on which she had been wrecked, down into ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... he was upon the point of fainting—a clay tint darkened the white of his face; and, seeming to forget my presence, he sat down, looking with a despairing scowl on his ashy old hand, as it lay upon ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... wagging violently for the first time in years. A few words made it all clear. Dorley, the drover, had known Robin very well, and the mittens and comforter he wore were of Robin's own make and had once been part of his wardrobe. Wully recognized the traces of his master, and despairing of any nearer approach to his lost idol, he abandoned his post at the ferry and plainly announced his intention of sticking to the owner of the mittens, and Dorley was well pleased to take Wully along to his home among the hills ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... across the open, loses direction, blunders hopelessly into an obstruction on the flank, retires in confusion, and makes a blind despairing dash for a shell-crater. Missing this by a fraction it loses all interest in life, wanders pitifully off at an unnatural angle, runs into the hostile force of the Adjutant, and comes finally into contact with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, July 25, 1917 • Various
... I propose, without despairing to see them granted by you; not only because I know that you so much preferr the Reputation of Candor before that of subtility, that your having once suppos'd a truth would not hinder you from imbracing ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... other room as quickly as rheumatic limbs would permit. Hylda stood waiting, erect, her eyes gazing blankly before her and rimmed by dark circles, her face haggard and despairing. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... great things. It may speak words which shall ring through the world with a blessing in every reverberation. It may arouse men to action, may comfort sorrow, cheer discouragement, start hope in despairing hearts. If one is only a voice, and if there be truth and love and life in the voice, its ministry may be rich ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... woman left who may be relied on, all have "first to please their husband," after which there is but little time or energy left to spend in any other direction. I am not complaining or despairing, but facts are stern realities. The twain become one flesh, the woman, "we"; henceforth she has no separate work, and how soon the last standing monuments (yourself and myself, Lydia), will lay down the individual "shovel and de hoe" and with ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... leave without coming again, and had confidently expected him, and now he had gone. Perhaps forever; at best, for many years. She might never see him again, and this thought was more than she could endure. The proud restraint she was wont to impose upon her feelings all vanished, and in her despairing sorrow she wept and moaned as she had never done before, even when Lilly was taken from her. Charon crouched close to her, with a mute grief clearly written in his sober, sagacious countenance, and each clung to the other, as to a last stay and ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... thoughts swept through the heart of the tempted and despairing one, she unlocked a secret drawer in her jewel-case, and took from it a small silver casket, which she opened. It contained a crystal flacon, filled with a liquid, transparent, and of a pale rose-color. ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... maiden is changed from an infant saint fleeing a vale of tears into a girl in whom the first sweet passions of life blend into an exaltation half sexual and half religious, but pure with the purity of a great flame. The miracle too remains, but it is the miracle of love that subdues the despairing heart, that reconciles man to his universe, and that slays the imperiousness of self. Thus Henry, firmly individualised as he is, becomes in some sense, like all the greater protagonists of the drama, the ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... opening between the trees. A moment more and Tom heard a crash, followed by a faint scream. He looked round, to see the edge of Miss Goldthwaite's fur cloak disappearing through a huge fissure in the ice! He had presence of mind to utter one wild, despairing cry, which re-echoed far off in the lonely pine wood, and then he plunged after her and caught her dress. Superhuman strength seemed to come to him in that moment of desperate peril, and he managed to keep, hold of her with one hand, ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan
... burghers in one supreme effort dashed against them the pick and pride of the commandos, they fought through the hours of night till dawn gave place to day, and the daylight waxed and waned, with a dogged, half-despairing courage that laughed to scorn even the regardless valour of a worthy foeman. Who shall do justice to soldiers like these? Wherever, and as long as, the fame of the British arms is cherished, so long, and as widely, will the story of the defence of ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... lakes of the North to sultry Southern savannas,— From the bleak shores of the sea to the lands where the Father of Waters Seizes the hills in his hands, and drags them down to the ocean, Deep in their sands to bury the scattered bones of the mammoth. Friends they sought and homes; and many, despairing, heart-broken, Asked of the earth but a grave, and no longer a friend nor a fireside. Written their history stands on tablets of stone in the churchyards. Long among them was seen a maiden who waited ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... their chief brought great sorrow; but others, seeing in it an opportunity for the carrying out of their own plans, rejoiced accordingly. These others were those who were dissatisfied with the present aspect of affairs, and despairing of a change for the better while remaining at Fort Caroline, were secretly planning a mutiny. Its object was to compel Laudonniere to abandon the fort and the New World, and to lead them back to France in a ship ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... not overcome his intuition that, for all the peace and dreaminess of the outward world, destiny was upon him. Looking out from his spiritual seclusion, he beheld what seemed to him complete political confusion, both local and national. His despairing mood found expression a little later in the words: "Indeed if we were now to have a Southern convention to determine upon the true policy of the South either in the Union or out of it, I should expect to see just ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... improve the occasion. "Well," said she, "to think of us all being together in this way after all we've come through! I'm not speaking of you, Mr. Dempster, for I know none of your harassments—but when I mind of the night when Miss Jean and Miss Elsie sat in my little room, so downcast, and so despairing, and I told them about all my troubles just to hearten them up a bit, and to show what God had enabled me to win through, little did I think of how the Almighty was leading us all! You mind well of how ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... on its hinges, and at the sound a blind confusion seized me. In vain I attempted, like a brave but despairing general, to rally my forces; but they all deserted me at once; I was hidden behind the calicoes, and with no time to arrange for a nobler plan of escaping a meeting with the enemy—no auger-hole though which to crawl. ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... and pale he lies, Untimely cropped in early bloom; The heavy night of death has sealed his eyes;— In this glad hour of nuptial joy, Snatched by relentless doom, He sleeps—while echoing to the sky, Of sorrow bursts the loud, despairing cry! ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... shall make it his duty to look out for employment and an asylum for her—indeed, that he has already heard of a charming situation in the depths of Ireland—all with a brutal jocoseness which most women of spirit, unless grievously despairing of any other lover, would have resented, and any woman of sense would have seen through. But Jane, that profound reader of the human heart, and especially of Mr. Rochester's, does neither. She meekly hopes she may be allowed to stay where she is till ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... you are!" she cried, in evident relief. "Really, Mr. Sheard, I was despairing of finding anyone to tell ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... I'll wear my crown again. [Putting on the crown. What, fear you not the fury of your king?— But, hapless Edward, thou art fondly led; They pass not for thy frowns as late they did, But seek to make a new-elected king; Which fills my mind with strange despairing thoughts, Which thoughts are martyred with endless torments; And in this torment comfort find I none, But that I feel the crown upon my head; And therefore let me wear it yet a while. Trus. My, lord, the parliament must have present news; And therefore say, will you resign or no? [The king ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... felt himself thrust helplessly toward the precipice, Buck made a tremendous, despairing effort and managed to catch Lynch by the belt and clung there for a moment. When one hand was torn loose, he even struck Tex wildly in the face. But there was no strength in his arm, and Lynch, with a growl of rage, jerked himself free and ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... turned to the things hereafter, and she determined that if she had to toil and suffer here she would, if at all possible, do something to escape the suffering in the life to come. But how should she begin? What was she to do? Was there anything that could give her aching heart some comfort, her despairing soul some hope? Was it possible to flee from the suffering in the next world? for that such existed she was sure, and her heart ...
— Everlasting Pearl - One of China's Women • Anna Magdalena Johannsen
... and mice in my way, who, like myself, were driven forth by the flames; but, alas! among them I found not my brother. Despairing, therefore, of ever seeing him again, I determined, if possible, to find my way back to you, who before had shown me such kindness. Numberless were the fatigues and difficulties I had to encounter in my journey here; one while in danger from hungry cats, at another almost perished with ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... sit upon my heart and crush me into my grave if I stay here long," she thought, and felt despairing. Bellew had engaged rooms for her, boldly inscribing the name of "Lady Diana Vernilands" in the big ledger, while she stood by, acquiescing in, if not contributing to the lie. Afterwards he went away to superintend the unloading of his ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... them some grand relief, by means of which they should never suffer want or care any more. He hoped largely, but vaguely, of the results of his expedition. An argosy of the precious hopes of many otherwise despairing creatures, was that petition to be heard ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... mean to cut away those great masses of hair to which Mrs. Lavender had objected? Sheila would have let her hair be cut willingly for her husband's sake; but as she went to the door some wild and despairing notions came into her head of what her husband might think of her when once she was shorn of this beautiful personal feature. Would he look at her with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... of his unwilling host's face, he turned his own aside with a despairing upward nod. Once or twice, during the early days of his occupation of the room behind the kitchen in the Frauengasse, he smote himself sharply on the brow, as if calling upon his brain to make an effort. But afterwards ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... the door, found it locked, tossed up despairing hands, and tottered to the altar, at which he knelt, all sighs, and dying fish-eyes, and sideward-languishing face, and weary woe. Ah! how great the mountain of his iniquity: if he might be but once more spared, his evil remainder of days he would bury in some Carmelite retreat, with fastings and ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... neither to the right nor to the left, neither did I strive to hide in the bushes nor to evade aught, for I knew that the Maid died slowly in mine arms, and there to be no more gain in life, save by speed, that I have her swift to the Mighty Pyramid to the care of the Doctors. And a great and despairing ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... jury received the depositions in favour of Lesurques with extreme prejudice—those already heard seemed little better than connivance, and those yet to be heard were listened to with such suspicion as to have no effect. The conviction of his guilt was fixed in every mind. Lesurques, despairing to get over such fatal appearances, ceased his energetic denials, and awaited his sentence in gloomy silence. The ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... called in despairing warning. "He is going to put the thought-reading machine on your brain. Then he'll learn what the projectile is for, ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... ask a broker to give up his percentage, as expect a favour from him without the per contra. He had not even," Owen said, "answered his letter though it was put into his hand that morning as he went to church." And here the despairing man-of-figures threw himself down on his pallet, exclaiming,—"My poor dear master! My poor dear master! O Mr. Frank, Mr. Frank, this is all your obstinacy!—But God forgive me for saying so to you in your distress! It's God's ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... It was well for her she could pray to God in her trouble; for she could scarcely endure a word from her fellow-man. She, despairing before God, was fierce as a tigress to her fellow-sinner who would stretch a hand to help her out of the mire, and set her beside him on the rock which he felt ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... own happiness, and then see whether they do not place it in the return to their own country, rather than in the contemplation of your grandeur, of which their misery makes so large a part; a return so passionately longed for, that, despairing of happiness here, that is, of escaping the chains of their cruel task-masters, they console themselves with feigning it to be the gracious reward of heaven in their ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... not trust His long-suffering by the tenacious love of those who bear His image, saying, in resistless human tones, "Shall one creature endure and love and continually forgive another, and shall I, who am not loving, but Love, be weary of thy transgressions, O sinner?" And so does the silent and despairing life of many a woman weave unconsciously its golden garland of reward in the heavens above, and do the Lord's work in a strange land where ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... heard a despairing cry and a loud burst of weeping; and again the girl's voice counting the ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... In misery! despairing! long wandering pitifully on the face of the earth and now imprisoned! This gentle hapless creature, immured in the dungeon as a malefactor and reserved for horrid tortures! That it should come to this! To ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... Lianor, with a heart full of bitter, despairing grief for Luiz, was bound by a sacred promise to a man whom she knew to be both bad and selfish—whom ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... how, tired, wet, hungry, desperate, despairing, he had been refused admittance to the casual ward,—that unfailing resource, as one would have supposed, of those who had abandoned even hope. How he had come upon an open window in an apparently empty house, and, thinking ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... these premises before night, I shall feel bound—indeed, I am bound—to—to—to quit the premises myself!" I rather absurdly concluded, knowing not with what possible threat to try to frighten his immobility into compliance. Despairing of all further efforts, I was precipitately leaving him, when a final thought occurred to me—one which had not been wholly ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... desire of the General to add a few words on his behalf; which he desires may be expressed in the terms following, that is to say,—that despairing of hearing what may be said of him, if he should really go off in an apoplectic, or any other fit (for he thinks all fits that issue in death are worse than a love fit, a fit of laughter, and many other kinds which he could name)—he ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... at some islands, where they found great numbers of seals; and, despairing now to find any passage through the northern parts, he, after a general consultation, determined to steer away to the Moluccas, and setting sail July 25th, he sailed for sixty-eight days without sight of land; and, on September 30th, arrived within view of some islands, situate about ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... Once more Alvinczy, despairing of success, but obedient to his orders, made ready to move down the Adige from Trent. Great zeal had been shown in Austria. The Vienna volunteer battalions abandoned the work of home protection for which they had enlisted, and, with a banner embroidered by ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... such pain and misery that to drown without knowing much about it seemed quite the best thing that I could hope for just then. Indeed, when I began to think again, though not very clearly, I had half a mind to drop my arms to my sides and so go under and have done with it—so despairing was I as I bobbed about on the swell among the patches of gulf-weed which littered the dark ocean, with the brig drawing away from me rapidly, and no chance of a rescue from her even had she been ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... give a despairing cry, and the scuffle followed; I myself was utterly helpless, for the thongs which bound my ankles had not been cut through. Not a sound came from our assailants ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... of this anguish, till after many despairing clutches at his wits he managed to attain a measure of self-control. He certainly wasn't going to allow himself to become mad. Death was death whatever form it took, and he had to face death as many better men had done before him. He had often thought about it and wondered how he should ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... her nothing that she thought unworthy of him. In her personally, country and blood Mrs. Carleton might have wished changed; but her desire that her son should marry, the strongest wish she had known for years, had grown so despairing that her only feeling now on the subject was joy; she was not in the least inclined to quarrel with his choice. Fleda had from her the tenderest care, as well as the utmost delicacy that affection and good-breeding could teach. And Fleda needed both, for she was slow in going back ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... have known only in a dumb, despairing sort of way that all the foods you like are fattening, and all the advice you read and hear is that you must avoid them as a pestilence. And you settle down to your joyless fatness, realizing that it is beyond ...
— Diet and Health - With Key to the Calories • Lulu Hunt Peters
... when George arrived, and his father was dying. His mother met him at the door, with emotion too deep for utterance. Her tears and despairing look told the story more plainly than words to George. He knew ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... feeling. These shade her soul with gloom which slowly but surely sinks the tone of her health and shatters her constitution. Many a young woman plants the seeds of consumption in some early sorrow, and many more sink the tone of their health to a low degree by desponding reveries and half-despairing longings for something they have but half conceived in their own minds, and put forth no efforts to obtain. It is a burning shame to our nation and age that our women are so impotent and sickly. We believe the best medicine for them would be ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver |
