"Despondent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was the most outspoken of the treasure seekers; but they were all despondent. They hid their digging tools, and departed for the shore of the lagoon, the volcano rumbling ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... the weary and despondent housewife, in all secrecy, decked herself out with these jewels of memory, they did not succeed in shedding any brightness over her life in the present. She was scarcely conscious of any connection between the golden-locked angel with the red ribbons and the five-year-old ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... desolate track, By dark rains havocked and drenched black. A fog about the coppice drifts, Or slowly thickens up and lifts Into the moist, despondent air. ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... later, Randalin repeated the comment with a despondent addition: "It is the waste-place of ruins, and ruins have come to dwell in it. I can believe that it is no lie about the Fates to call them women, when they put like with like ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... that the attack would, as on the previous occasion, take place on the northern side of the river, and had covered the approaches there with a series of additional fortifications, while on the other side he had done but little. So despondent was he, that he called together his principal officers, and said ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... widowed songster pours his plaint, Far, in faint warblings, through the tawny copse; While congregated thrushes, linnets, larks, And each wild throat whose artless strains so late Swelled all the music of the swarming shades, Robbed of their tuneful souls, now shivering sit On the dead tree, a dull despondent flock, With not a brightness waving o'er their plumes, And naught save chattering discord in their note. Oh, let not, aimed from some inhuman eye, The gun the music of the coming year Destroy, and harmless, unsuspecting harm, Lay the weak tribes a miserable prey, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... realities whose reflections only we see in this cave of shadows. Since the birth and development within me of what, for lack of a better name, I term my homosexualized Patmorean ideal, life has become, in the main, a weary business. I am not despondent, however, because many things still hold for me a certain interest. When that interest dies down, as it is wont from time to time, I endeavor to be patient. God grant that, after the end here, I may be drawn from the shadow, and seemingly vain imaginings into the possession ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... tears sprang to Iola's eyes, and she said to herself, "I am not despondent of the future of my people; there is too much elasticity in their spirits, too much hope in their hearts, to be crushed out by ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... Mr. Proulx (the curate) at first looked as if he were partaking also of that singular though general despondent feeling. During the first part of the lunch he hardly said a word; but at last, raising his head and turning his honest face towards us, in his usual gentlemanly and cheerful manner, ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... Although every officer had maintained there was no danger, yet the floating away of that steamer seemed somehow to leave them alone; and people, after gazing toward the west until not a vestige of her remained in the horizon, went back to their deck-chairs, feeling more despondent than ever. ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... ruts are ruttier. And what friendless old beast comes limping down the dreary lane? He seems sorely shrunk and shoulder-shotten; but by the something of divinity in his look, still more than by the wings despondent along his mighty sides, 'tis ever the old Pegasus — not yet the knacker's own. "Hard times I've been having,'' he murmurs, as you rub his nose. "These fellows have really no seat except for a park hack. As for this laurel, we were ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... habitable land, and still the waters gushed through the narrow crevices roaring seaward. But the Devil had one sorrow. All his children born before the catastrophe were crabbed, unregenerate, stiff-tailed fiends. After that event every new-born imp wore a flaccid, invertebrate, despondent tail—the very last insignium of ignobility. So runs the legend of The Dalles—a shining lesson ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... Wayfarers were questioned as a matter of form, but in no case did Wilding hear of any one being detained upon suspicion. This was calculated to raise his drooping hopes, pointing as it did to the general favouring of Monmouth that was toward. He grew less despondent on the score of the Duke's possible ultimate success, and he came to hope that the efforts he went to exert would not ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... I walked into the sitting-room, closing the dividing door after me, and subsided, utterly despondent, into the chair beside the empty grate. A man could hardly have been more wretched; but after a minute or two I could not help noticing, as something singular, the fact that my sick, dizzy headache had disappeared. The pain had been horridly severe, or I should hardly have noticed its cessation. ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... have spoken largely of the suffering and of the glory of Christ, as well as of those things that relate to faith. As when David speaks of Christ (Ps. xxi.), "I am a worm and no man," whereby he shows how deeply he is cast down and despondent in his suffering. Likewise, also, he writes of his people and of the affliction of Christians, in Psalm xlv.: "We are despised, and accounted as sheep ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... hand across his forehead with a weary gesture—a gesture which seemed to me despondent. Could this be our ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... the heart to repeat all the praises the poor fellow lavished upon me while I sat listening in an agony of shame, feeling more and more miserable every moment, as I realised that, in spite of his agitation, he was by no means despondent as to the result of his wooing. He seemed more anxious to assure me of his devotion than to question me about mine, as if he imagined that my coldness was caused by pique or jealousy. I drew away my hands, and tried to stop him by ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... "Do not be despondent, love," he said to his weeping wife, as he bade her goodbye. "Everything is in our favour, and there is a good hope of a happy termination to this long struggle. But, win or lose, be assured it is the last time I will draw my sword. I have proved my fidelity to the House of Lancaster; I have ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... have been speedily closed and healed by the balsamic medicine administered by ANDREW MAUNSELL, in his Catalogue of English Printed Books.[338] This little thin folio volume afforded a delicious treat to all honest bibliomaniacs. It revived the drooping spirits of the despondent; and, like the syrup of the renowned Dr. Brodum, circulated within the system, and put all the generous juices in action. The niggardly collector felt the influence of rivalship; he played a deeper ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... legal authority to which it is their duty to submit patiently." As to the Eboes or Mocoes, described as having a sickly yellow tinge in their complection, jaundiced eyes, and prognathous faces like baboons, the women were said to be diligent but the men lazy, despondent and prone to suicide. "They require therefore the gentlest and mildest treatment to reconcile them to their situation; but if their confidence be once obtained they manifest as great fidelity, affection and gratitude as can reasonably ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... as he was sunk in a large armchair by the fire, his sitting-room door opened, and the cure entered, who was surprised by his despondent, sad, and pale appearance. "What is the matter?" he inquired, "Have you ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Hicks, Jr., perching beside the despondent Butch on the Senior Fence. "I am not a fatalist, old man, but it does seem that fate hasn't destined Thor to play football for old Bannister this season! Here, after he won the Ham game, and we expected him to waltz off with Ballard's ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... Cardiff's moods were accountable to his daughter obviously by Elfrida's influence. She noted bitterly that his old evenness of temper, the gay placidity that made so delightful a basis for their joint happiness, had absolutely disappeared. Instead, she found her father either irritable or despondent, or inspired by a gaiety which she had no hand in producing, and which took no account of her. That was the real pain. Janet was keenly distressed at the little drama of suffering that unfolded itself daily before her, but her disapproval of its cause very much ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... said Minnie, in a despondent tone. "That's all very true; but he wasn't a noble sailor ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... idea of where we are," said Johnston, his tone showing that he was becoming more despondent. "We don't know how long we were unconscious in the balloon, nor where we were taken in the storm. We may now be in the very centre of the North Polar sea—this knob may be the very pivot on which this end ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... not say any more, nor did I. My fit of the blues was on again and his silence on the subject in which I was interested, my work and my future, troubled me and made me more despondent. I began to lose faith in the "prescription" which he had promised so emphatically. How could he, or anyone else, help me? No one could write my stories but myself, and I knew, only too well, that ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... would continue to crucify him. He knew himself in London to be a popular man,—one of those for whom, according to general opinion, girls should sigh, rather than one who should break his heart sighing for a girl. He had often told himself that it was beneath his manliness to be despondent; that he should let such a trouble run from him like water from a duck's back, consoling himself with the reflection that if the girl had such bad taste she could hardly be worthy of him. He had almost tried to ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... stimulus. Again the man higher up, if he has the wisdom and discernment which some gain from experience, observes the situation and prescribes for his troubled lieutenant. In the majority of cases, however, the occupant of a plateau, if he continues thereon for any length of time, either resigns despondent or is dismissed. ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... him away with us in the cutter, when he was in a deplorable condition from the effects of drink, and nursed him back to health and reason again. On this occasion we were pleased to find him well, though rather despondent, for he had, he said, an idea that his last carouse had 'done for' him, and that he ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... the thumb naturally falls inward towards the palm, a melancholy, despondent disposition is denoted, also constitutional ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... silence, for they were worn-out and despondent; they suffered dreadfully from thirst, and it was pitiable to see the tongues of the poor horses hanging out of their mouths. Day dawned, and there were no signs of the caravan. A thick vapour was rising from every quarter, and they ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... hullaballoo could be called peace. Callers came by the dozen, but Yetive would see no one. Letters, telegrams and telephone calls almost swamped her secretary; the footman and the butler fairly gasped under the strain of excitement. Through it all the two friends sat despondent and alone in the drear room that once had been the abode of pure delight. Grenfall Lorry was off in town closing up all matters of business that could be despatched at once. The princess and her industrious retinue were to take the evening express for New York and the next day would ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... loose fish. The even current of the dilettante's life became disturbed. He grew pale and hollow-eyed. His digestion was impaired. He ceased to take the interest in china which the importance of that article demanded. In a word, he grew despondent as to his fitness for his mission in life. Lady Ellinor saw a change in her brother. He became morose, peevish, excitable. She went privately to the family doctor, who shrugged his shoulders. "There is no danger," said he, "if he is kept quiet; keep him ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... corn bread, and wheat coffee. The milk and butter, all that we had, were joyfully given to our soldiers. The gray jacket was, indeed, a passport to every Southern heart. I have fed many a poor, footsore "boy in gray," but never in a single instance heard a despondent word from one of them. Most grateful they were for their good, abundant meals, but often too modest to carry any away ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... is shown in a letter to Sir J.D. Hooker of June 15, 1881. My father was staying at Patterdale, and wrote: "I am rather despondent about myself...I have not the heart or strength to begin any investigation lasting years, which is the only thing which I enjoy, and I have no little ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... strengthened by his poor progress in school. Through no fault of his own he is doomed to failure. He neglects his studies, hates his school, leaves long before he has completed the course, and is well started on the road to an inefficient and despondent life. ...
— Health Work in the Public Schools • Leonard P. Ayres and May Ayres
... that they will be poor, though of that she may be somewhat afraid. Her greatest fear is lest her husband should get discouraged and down-hearted; should take to drink, perhaps; at any rate, should become so despondent and embittered that the light shall go out of their lives and their children's. Now it is his business not to let that happen. It is his part to keep up for her sake a resolute heart and a cheerful face. And if she is a true woman, how ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... May succeeded the chilly April in that memorable year when the war-cloud of civil contest overshadowed the land so darkly. It came with unwonted verdure, freshness, and beauty, filling the hearts of the despondent with hope, and the hopeful with rejoicing. It was scarcely a month from the time the coach dashed out of the half-aroused town of Minneopoli in the chilly April morning, when a similar vehicle, one evening, toiled slowly up the long hill ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... consequences to the solar system might have been, none ventured to suggest. Newton had expressed his belief that the effects of such absorption would be disastrous, but the physicists of the nineteenth century, better acquainted with the laws associating heat and motion, were not so despondent. Only Professor Smyth seems to have felt assured (not being despondent, but confident) that the comet portended, in a very decisive way, the beginning ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... asleep, and Ella sneaks off for some milk or something. Florence gets up, sad and despondent. Slowly ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... talk buoyed up the despondent spirits of the other, and he set his teeth grimly, determined to hold out to the end. Another flash that almost blinded them, quickly followed by a resounding bellow of thunder, announced that the downpour of rain must be very close indeed; ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... just in, and letters have come from Fort Lyon telling us of the death of Lieutenant Baldwin! It is dreadful—and seems impossible. They write that he became more and more despondent, until finally it was impossible to rouse him sufficiently to take an interest in his own life. Faye and I have lost a friend—a real, true friend. A brother could not have been kinder, more considerate than he was to both of us always. How terribly he must have grieved over the ruin of the ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... despondent conviction, the housemaid drew a heavy sigh, and shook her head, and dropped it on ...
— Tom Tiddler's Ground • Charles Dickens
... and struggle upward with a courage born of inspiration. Living among such goodly people, he finds his world resplendent with the virtues that prove a halo to life. With such people about him he can be neither lonely nor despondent. If the cares of life fret him for the moment, he takes counsel with them and his equilibrium is restored. In their company he finds life a joyous experience, for their very presence exhales the qualities that make ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... Birks of Aberfeldie," and vividly recalled the time when Mac was ill and she took care of him. The memory was sweet to her, and involuntarily her eye wandered in search of him. He was not far away, sitting just as he used to sit when she soothed his most despondent moods astride of a chair with his head down on his arms, as if the song suggested the attitude. Her heart quite softened to him as she looked, and she decided to forgive him if no one else, for she was sure that he had no mercenary plans about her ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... they grew more despondent, until Mrs. Byram insisted that nothing more be said about the suit in the presence of the invalid, because his extreme nervousness ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... and despondent than ever, she rode homeward with her mother, answering questions only in monosyllables. All that religion had said to her that morning was: "Give up the world—all with which you have hitherto been familiar, and have enjoyed." God was an ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... Old Jacob Newell sat despondent beside his sitting-room fire. Gray-haired and venerable, with a hundred hard lines, telling of the work of time and struggle and misfortune, furrowing his pale face, he looked the incarnation of silent sorrow and hopelessness, waiting in quiet meekness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... his master, he has had good reason to laugh," remarked Jean Jacques, who had come at last to take a despondent view of himself. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... "Well—thou art happy," &c.,[107] which appeared afterwards in a Miscellany published by one of his friends, and are now to be found in the general collection of his works. Under the influence of the same despondent passion, he wrote two other poems at this period, from which, as they exist only in the Miscellany I have just alluded to, and that collection has for some time been out of print, a few stanzas may, not ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... was made triply memorable by the capture of Vicksburg with Pemberton's entire army of 30,000 men with all their guns and ammunitions. These two striking events threw the country into the wildest enthusiasm. Even the most despondent now became confident that the Southern Confederacy would soon be destroyed, and that the triumphant Union would be finally re-established. But this confidence was destined to be ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson
... health would mend, after all; and many things be better than was hoped! Sterling was not of a despondent temper, or given in any measure to lie down and indolently moan: I fancy he walked briskly enough into this tempestuous-looking future; not heeding too much its thunderous aspects; doing swiftly, for the day, what his hand found to do. Arthur Coningsby, I suppose, lay on the anvil at present; ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... once more—a bright morning in June—and Caffyn was sitting over his late breakfast and the 'Observer' in his rooms at Bayswater. He was in a somewhat gloomy and despondent frame of mind, for nothing seemed to have gone well with him since his disastrous reception in Mabel's boudoir. His magnificent prospects in commerce had suddenly melted away into thin air, for his confiding friend and intending partner had very inconsiderately developed symptoms of a ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... square and nine straight lines. Another (6), invented for this book, an Esquimaux waiting to harpoon a seal, drawn with eleven circles and a straight line. The remaining figures are a cheerful pig and a despondent pig (4), and a cat (2), drawn with the utmost ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... pulpit and out of it they watched for unsound doctrine, and when he strayed they took him by the neck. Mr. Dishart, however, had been brought up in the true way, and seldom gave his people a chance. In time, it may be said, they grew despondent, and settled in their uncomfortable pews with all suspicion of lurking heresy allayed. It was only on such Sabbaths as Mr. Dishart changed pulpits with another minister that they cocked their ears and leant forward eagerly to snap ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... response; "but let us not be too despondent. Our men are good for them, one against three, and they will never get out of Nashville alive, if they should happen ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... up, electrified and jubilant. He had gone to bed, feeling quite too despondent for so healthy a fellow. Christmas Eve, the time of family-meetings, reminded him how lonely he was. He had not a relative in the world, except two little nieces,—one as tall as his knee, the other almost up to his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... danced a dance, Like a semi-despondent fury; For I thought I should never hit on a chance Of addressing a British Jury - But I soon got tired of third-class journeys, And dinners of bread and water; So I fell in love with a rich attorney's Elderly, ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... Chance"; it is more than that. There is no limit to the chances that it offers to the repentant. When Christ was asked whether one should forgive a brother seven times He answered, "Seventy times seven." Christianity is the only hope of the discouraged and the despondent. Walter Malone has put into a poem entitled "Opportunity" the exhaustless mercy that Christ holds out to men. ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... extreme moderation, an anxious wish to save the Provinces from dissensions, dangers, and bloodshed, is distinctly visible. Never is he betrayed into vindictive, ambitious, or self-seeking expressions, while sometimes, although rarely, despondent in mind. Nor was his opposition to a general synod absolute. He was probably persuaded however, as we have just seen, that it should of necessity be preceded by provincial ones, both in due regard ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... sorting. The door opened slowly. A man entered with his hat over his eyes. His hands were deep in his pockets and he chewed a despondent looking cigar. Had the reader been present he would have recognized him instantly, despite his unaccustomed air of lugubriousness, as our old friend, ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... dropped to his sides, and a strange, hopeless, bitterly despondent look made his face display so many incipient wrinkles, the germs, so to speak, of those which in manhood would some day mark ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... he believed himself to be injuring or even destroying his political prospects, and that in so doing he taxed his moral courage severely. The whole tone of the Diary, apart from those few distinct statements which hostile critics might view with distrust, is despondent, often bitter, but defiant and stubborn. If in later life he ever anticipated the possible publication of these private (p. 066) pages, yet he could hardly have done so at this early day. Among certain general reflections ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... of my nephew, a shy and sensitive lad, who used to come to me for consolation, and became as dear to me as my own children. When he was seventeen he grew moody and despondent; he ran away from home for six months and more, and then returned and was forgiven—but that seemed to make no difference. One night he came to see me, and I tried hard to get him to tell me what was wrong. He wouldn't, but went away, ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... amused me, but I daresay you will have a good sneer at me, and tell me to stick to my barnacles. By the way, you agree with me that sometimes one gets despondent—for instance, when theory and facts will not harmonise; but what appears to me even worse, and makes me despair, is, when I see from the same great class of facts, men like Barrande deduce conclusions, such as his "Colonies" (41/3. Lyell briefly ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... pale, despondent, crushed beneath a sense of his wrong-doing, and yet expressing in spite of himself the joy his wife's innocence had given him. He entered her room all throbbing with emotion; she was in bed with a high fever. He took her hand, kissed it, ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... lady takes time to consider she has, as a rule, given way, Lord George felt it to be so, and was triumphant. The ladies at Manor Cross thought that they saw what was coming, and were despondent. The whole county declared that Lord George was about to marry Miss De Baron. The county feared that they would be very poor; but the recompence would come at last, as the present marquis was known ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... trout rose to the surface, and, seeing how despondent was the pretty bluebird, inquired the cause of ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory
... boys were utterly disheartened, while their companions, tightly bound, with the canes which were twisted and knotted about their arms and wrists and thoroughly secured behind their backs, looked despondent, Dan in particular, who kept fixing his eyes upon Mark and then turning to shake his ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... tried to encourage him she was not very successful. It is no easy task to put a new heart into someone else when there is a deadly fear gripping at your own, and as day after day went by and she saw him growing thinner, shabbier, more weary and despondent, her own hopes for the future dwindled down to the vanishing point. Hitherto he had kept away from his own people, none of whom had seen him since his return from Northampton; but they were always there in the background, and she knew that he had only to abandon ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... changes. He was as sensitive as a barometer. The approach of a storm sent his mercury down instantly. When the weather was fair he was hopeful and sunny, and Andy's prospects were brilliant. When the weather was overcast and threatening he grew restless and despondent, and was afraid that the boy was not ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... house full of men in a sad condition. Nine o'clock, on a hot morning, and no wounds dressed; bandages dry and hard, men thirsty and feverish, nurses out watching that stream pouring through the city, and patients helpless and despondent. ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... hope; fears seemed to vanish before it; my nerves were strung to effort and to confidence. My horse moved freely under me and carried me easily along the grassy avenues. It was hard then to be utterly despondent, hard to doubt skill of brain, strength ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... days before Whinney, usually so philosophical, had burst out petulantly with: "To hell with these islands. Give me a good mirage, any time." Swank and I had heartily agreed with him, and it was in that despondent spirit that we had begun our Fourth ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... o'clock one Sunday afternoon in summer, Volodya, a plain, shy, sickly-looking lad of seventeen, was sitting in the arbour of the Shumihins' country villa, feeling dreary. His despondent thought flowed in three directions. In the first place, he had next day, Monday, an examination in mathematics; he knew that if he did not get through the written examination on the morrow, he would be expelled, for he had already ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... And when Sylvia explained that she had money of her very own, and even opened her writing desk and showed Estralla the shining gold pieces, the little darky's fears vanished. She was as sure that all would be well now, as she had been frightened and despondent when she ...
— Yankee Girl at Fort Sumter • Alice Turner Curtis
... the great punishments, which are whirled by fate into the crowd of mankind. Even here most of it is relative. We rejoice in four-score years, but if we knew that others were allowed a thousand years of life, we should be despondent that hardly a short century is dealt out to us. We are happy in the respect of our social community simply because we do not desire the honours of the czar or of the mikado. But if we began to measure our fate by that of others, how could we ever be satisfied? Women might envy men ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... laid aside till a neighbor who read English came in to translate it. Meantime they enjoyed the new toys immensely, and even despondent Dora was cheered up by the admiration she received; while they in their turn were deeply interested in the pretty dolls' furniture some of ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... all too despondent," said Mrs. Watson. "What is the use of looking on the dark side? Come, Bart, cheer up. I'll look on the bright side. Hope for the best. Set out on the search with hope, and a good heart. I'm confident that he will ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... the second election of Mr. Lincoln, when to the general apprehension he was almost unanimously sustained. From this fact it was well argued by Republicans in Congress that great danger to the party was involved in the impending dissension. Even the most sanguine feared defeat, and the naturally despondent already counted it as certain. Never before had so stringent a test of principle been applied to the members of both Houses. The situation was indeed peculiar. The great statesman who had been honored as the founder of the Republican party was now closely allied with the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... The fortunes of the Drummond family seemed rising a little, he thought, with pleasure. How alert and full of energy his father had seemed when he had parted from him at the station! he had lost that subdued despondent look that had grown on him of late. Even his shoulders were a little less bowed, as though the burden did ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... away upon the broad ocean, but before he had been long on his voyage a storm overtook him, his ship was driven on a rock and went to pieces; all on board were lost—all save this slave, who swam to an island near by. Sad, despondent, with nothing in this world, he traversed this island until he approached a large and beautiful city, and many people approached him, joyously shouting: "Welcome! welcome! Long live the king!" They brought ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... fine and noble education. I told her there would be another result, too—it would introduce death into the world. That was a mistake—it had been better to keep the remark to myself; it only gave her an idea—she could save the sick buzzard, and furnish fresh meat to the despondent lions and tigers. I advised her to keep away from the tree. She said she wouldn't. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... weeks following the flight of Captain Bunker and her acceptance of the hospitality and protection of the Council, she became despondent. The courage that had sustained her, and the energy she had shown in the first days of their abandonment, suddenly gave way, for no apparent reason. She bitterly regretted the brother whom she scarcely remembered; she imagined his suspense and anguish on her account, and suffered for both; ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... despondent looks the big gillie shambled slowly away until he had passed out of view of the Fianna, behind the shoulder of the hill. Having arrived here he tucked up his coat to his waist, and fast though be the flight of the swallow, and fast that of the roe-deer, and fast the rush ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... accustomed to drink. The wine attracted her, not because of its taste, but because it enabled her to forget her past life, to comfort herself with ease, and the confidence of her own worth that it gave her. Without wine she was despondent and abashed. There was the choice of two things before her; either the humiliating occupation of a servant, with the certain unwelcome attentions of the men, or a secure, quiet and legitimatized position of everybody's mistress. She wished to revenge herself on her seducer, as well ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... doesn't help much, Mason," Eunice said, a despondent look coming into her eyes. "Are you sure, ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... a little despondent about this; but, on the whole, I believe it will have a good effect upon our literature for some time to come; and then, perhaps, the public may recover its patience again. For certainly it is excellent ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... fell into a despondent state, which amounted almost to physical helplessness. He passed ten successive days without uttering a single word, even in the bosom of his family; except, indeed, when playing at backgammon after dinner with Madame Elisabeth. The Queen roused him from this state, so fatal at a critical period, ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... H. 4168, Path. 226) feared death and refused food on the ground that she should not eat. Patient had always been of a despondent and reserved nature (sister also insane) and, after her husband's death, when she was 53, grew unable to carry on her house, dwelt constantly on griefs, entered hospital at 61, and died at 64 ("chronic melancholia"). Death ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... have but one mood during the war. It was never deeply despondent nor gay. There was a sort of funereal atmosphere throughout the city, whether its residents were rejoicing over a Spion Kop or suffering from the dejection of a Paardeberg. It was the same grim throng of old men, women, and children who watched the processions ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... crushed and the king was despairing even of the existence of his realm, he planned the foundation of the University of Berlin, by the advice of Fichte, the philosopher. It was inaugurated the very year that the despondent monarch returned to his capital. Since that time it has been the greatest glory of the Prussian crown, and has made Berlin the ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... was no performance with the lions for over a week, during which Rounders was despondent. He was still occupied with the extraordinary feat of removing meat from under the jaws of a feeding lion. It pursued him night and day, and he told Miss Stubbs that he would never be happy until he found out ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... of conversation. Will the boat start? The Russian is hopeful. Is not England mistress of the seas? The V.A.D. is despondent. Once before in a long-ago time of leave the boat did not start. The passengers, and she among them, were disembarked. The Scottish private has heard from a friend of his in "the Signals" that German submarines are abroad ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... indignantly at the withdrawal of its customary stimulus; and it acted with more consistency, though no less ugliness, than the human mind does when under excitement and destitute of control. The captain grew terribly despondent, and Fred found ample use for all the good stories he knew. Some of these amused the captain greatly, but after one of them ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... crowd round the lawyer; and I noticed that all those faces which I recognized had thrown off the gloomy and despondent expression which they ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... happy times, hours or days or even weeks when they took joy in their love and Davy Junior; though more and more these times lost their wonderfulness and the power to charm away the grisly goblin Care. But the ugly or weary or despondent hours bulked largest in David's mind because he took them so keenly to heart. Yet, though his debts slowly grew, and he was always a month behind in his office and apartment rent, he did not lose faith in himself; he gave his very best to the little business he had and worked ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... over the whole State, and but for two causes the whole issue of the war might have been changed. One of these was the severity of Cornwallis, who succeeded Clinton in the command, and who by his unwise policy drove the despondent people to desperation: the other was the indomitable courage and self-devoted heroism of the women, which encouraged and strengthened the flagging patriotism of the men. The militia who had been captured with the city regarded themselves as absolved from a parole which did not protect them from ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... river steamer, he would have repudiated the prediction as a figment of the imagination. Yet the gleam which flashed through his paralyzed brain that memorable day in the old church, when Rosendo opened his full heart to him, had roused him suddenly from his long and despondent lethargy, and worked a quick and marvelous renovation in his wasted life. Following the lead of this unusual child, he was now, though with many vicissitudes, slowly passing out of his prison of egoism, and into the full, clear sunlight of a world which he knew ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... feel the responsibilities of life too heavily and in consequence often become despondent and gloomy or retire into ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... of a young lady who had formerly been insane, and now felt the approach of a new fit of madness. She had been out to ride, had exerted herself much, and had been very vivacious. On her return, she sat down in a thoughtful and despondent attitude, looking very sad, but one of the loveliest objects that ever were seen. The family spoke to her, but she made no answer, nor took the least notice; but still sat like a statue in her chair,—a statue of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... ice and set lines for fish; but the catch was so small that the party could not spare more than the bones for the dogs. Starvation faced them. Mark was miserably despondent, and Wash was so lugubrious all the time that he seldom exploded in his usual pyrotechnical displays of big words. His grain supply for the Shanghai had completely run out, too, and the colored man divided his own poor rations ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... impatience were confined for the most part to dissatisfied glances at the hard cloudless blue sky to windward, as it met their gaze morning after morning when they came on deck, to shrugs of the shoulders whenever the subject happened to be mentioned, and to scornful, sarcastic, or despondent allusions to the proverbial longevity and obstinacy of easterly winds in general. Except Mr Forester Dale, and he, I regret to say, made himself a perfect nuisance to everybody on board by his snappishness and irascibility. The weather was "beastly," ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... sense in prolonging all this agony," averred his despondent companion. "We ain't ever going to get out of this alive. We're drifting in on the coast, and you ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... judge correctly of what the occasion demanded, and the struggle was over. Death was the last of the fears of these poor women night after night as the days rolled slowly away. One night there was graver silence than usual in the room; all were despondent, and lay resigned to their seemingly impending fate. No rescue came, nor any tidings of relief. In the darkness one piercing scream was heard from the narrow window. A Highland nurse had clambered up to gaze through the bars and strain her ears once more. ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... sinned. "Brethren," he says, "if any man be overtaken with a fault, do not aggravate his grief, do not scold him, do not condemn him, but lift him up and gently restore his faith. If you see a brother despondent over a sin he has committed, run up to him, reach out your hand to him, comfort him with the Gospel and embrace him like a mother. When you meet a willful sinner who does not care, go after him and rebuke him sharply." But this is ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... too desolate and despondent to say much; in fact, as Don sat upon the deck and looked at those who surrounded him, they all looked like so many wounded men in hospital, or prisoners of war, in place of being Englishmen—whose duty henceforth was to be ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... like an avalanche of snow on a burning crater. Lisbeth sat down. She gazed with despondent eyes on the youth before her, on his aristocratic beauty—the artist's brow, the splendid hair, everything that appealed to her suppressed feminine instincts, and tiny tears moistened her eyes for an instant and immediately dried up. She ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... rentiers, bending under the weight of their rifles; young snappy volunteers, easily scared, but full of enthusiasm, ready to attack as well as to retreat; then, among them, a few red trousers, fragments of a division decimated in a great battle; despondent artillery men aligned with these non-descript infantrymen; and there and there the shining helmet of a heavy footed dragon who had difficulty in keeping step with the quicker pace of the soldiers of ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... day he reached Crefeld he wrote his wife in a homesick and almost despondent strain: "I am to all appearance utterly friendless; I have not received the first act of kindness or courtesy from anyone. I think things must be better soon. I shall, please God, make some good friends in good time, and will try and be patient. But I shall not think of sending for you until ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... mood; for notwithstanding every assurance given him, he could not but feel apprehensive, sad, and despondent. He might ask himself, in deed—for the Earl's words naturally led to such a mistaken question—"Who, then, am I? Who is it they would have me believe myself, that so proud a man should seek the alliance which he now scorns, as soon as he knows who I am?" But there seemed to ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... every boy's hand seemed to be against his neighbour; lying, bad language, dishonesty, grew fearfully rife, and the few who, like Owen and Montagu, remained uncontaminated by the general mischief, walked alone and despondent amid ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... the strange sight of a diffident, peace-loving King accompanying the army and sharing in all the deliberations; while these were nominally presided over by a despondent old man who still intrigued to preserve peace, and shifted on to the King the responsibility of every important act. And yet there were able generals who could have acted with effect, even if they fell short of the opinion hopefully bruited by General Ruechel, that "several ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... brings with it. Every sorrow is made darker by the hopelessness with which it is endured. Every care is magnified, and the sweetness of every pleasure is lessened, by this pessimistic tendency. The beauty of the world loses half its charm in the eyes which see all things in the hue of despondent feeling. Slightest fears become terrors, and smallest trials grow into great misfortunes. Our heart makes our world for us; and if the heart be without hope and cheer, the world is always dark. We find in life just what we have ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... the phrases of the speech he intended to make to the conference. By virtue of the antiquity of his crown he was to preside, and he intended to make his presidency memorable. Reassured of his eloquence, he considered the despondent and sulky ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... uncomfortably lodged. The lock-up was an ancient, knock-down affair, and the Inspector had arranged that Derrick should occupy one of the rooms in the adjoining police-station. Here, Mr. Jacobs and Mr. Clendon found him, if not altogether resigned to the situation, at any rate not cast down or despondent. ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... her remark had only an aesthetic value. He was not prepared to take it to his heart. All the afternoon he rested—worried, but not exactly despondent. The thing would jog out somehow. Probably Miss Abbott was right. The baby had better stop where it was loved. And that, probably, was what the fates had decreed. He felt little interest in the matter, and he was sure that he ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... vex us, And among us are new enemies— Cowards, weak, ignoble whiners, Esaus, placemen, low-browed livers, Traitors, salesmen of a nation. Some would have us drop despondent And convince us we are nothing. (Us of whom ten thousand heroes Hitherto to here have conquered And we must be faithful to them!) Some are hypocrites and cynics; Some would wreck us; some would leave us; Even in the hour of peril ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall
... was one of these. She persisted in taking a despondent view of everything around her—her past, her future, her position, her prospects; nay, even the circumstances and surroundings of her friends and few intimates came to be regarded in the same unsatisfactory light. She was unacquainted ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... any cover whatever, against repeated assaults for six hours, and losing in killed and wounded fully one third of their number. General Lyon received two wounds, one in the leg and one in the head, about the middle of the engagement; he then became more despondent than before, apparently from the effects of his wounds, for there appeared nothing in the state of the battle to dishearten a man of such unbounded courage as he undoubtedly possessed. A portion of our ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... points. As I once told you, I have sat for hours beside the fire beneath the pines or among the boulders with your picture for company. When I was worn out and despondent you encouraged me. You have been with me high up in the snow on the ranges, and through leagues of shadowy bush. That is not all. There were times when, as we drove the branch line up the gorge beneath the big divide, all one's nature shrank from the monotony of brutal labor. The paydays came ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... it is!" says she, and turns her back on me. And so we sat awhile, she with her back to me and I gloomy and despondent hearkening to the howling of ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... not see the doughty reviewer before us magisterially waving his hand and commanding the apparitions to vanish?—then with despondent astonishment exclaiming: ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... can give no favourable report of Emily's state. My father is very despondent about her. Anne and I cherish hope as well as we can, but her appearance and her symptoms tend to crush that feeling. Yet I argue that the present emaciation, cough, weakness, shortness of breath are the results of inflammation, now, I trust, subsided, and that with time ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... accordance with the old Spanish legend, to be accursed, now once more reinstated himself in our good opinion, showing himself to be the sensible man that he always was, despite the fact of his having hitherto, from the cause stated, been more despondent than ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... absolutely safe. It is no reflection on the future of flying to realize that it has not been safe, and that it can never, perhaps, be made fool-proof. One or two things must be remembered before we become despondent over the future safety ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... are afraid of the devil, you do well to put yourself under his immediate protection," muttered John Heywood; and sad and despondent at heart, he crept behind the king's throne and crouched down by ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach |
