"Hopeless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... men attempted to go forward, their dark forms showed up against the snow. They were met by machine gun fire, by rapid fire from the enemy trenches, and by snipers in skilfully chosen holes. Our bombardment had failed. It was impossible to get to close quarters with the enemy—hopeless to advance—dangerous to retire. Many of our men were killed in the attack, others in the attempt to carry in the wounded. Many remained all day in exposed positions, beside their wounded comrades, in hope ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various
... simply upon the elucidation of her view and my own; I wanted to get at her conception in the sharpest, hardest lines that were possible. It was perfectly clear that she saw Toryism as the diabolical element in affairs. The thing showed in its hopeless untruth all the clearer for the fine, clean emotion with which she gave it out to me. My sleeping peer in the library at Stamford Court and Evesham talking luminously behind the Hartstein flowers embodied the devil, and my replete citizen sucking at his cigar in the National ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... course, and for years have been a terror in the teaching of singing, that has done more than anything else to create a dreadful bewilderment among singers and teachers. To eradicate it is probably hopeless. Yet, these registers are nothing more than three disconnected manners of using the ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... sought to enter. And then I asked myself, What is the secret of this mysterious power of music; where shall we look for the cause of those undefinable yet overwhelming emotions which it never fails to excite? A hopeless question it seemed, one which the philosophers of all ages have failed to solve, perhaps because they have not troubled themselves to inquire very seriously about it; and again, perhaps it has baffled them as it has me, and tens ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... told him that his case was not at all hopeless, and the old express agent was cheerful and patient under his affliction, and nights Bart made a great showing of the necessity of going over the business of the day, so as to keep his ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... easy to see that Washington knew better than to do such a thing by halves. He sent so large an army that to fight against it was hopeless, and so there was ...
— Harper's Young People, June 1, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... parliament:" and they added a cruel mockery, "that the king should help the cause of the Palatinate with his own money!"—this foolish war, which James and Charles had so long borne their reproaches for having avoided as hopeless, but which the puritanic party, as well as others, had continually urged as necessary for the maintenance of the protestant ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... of modernity is a certain order of eclecticism. It is not the eclecticism of the Bolognese painters, for example, illustrating the really hopeless attempt to combine the supposed and superficial excellences, always dissociated from the essence, of different points of view. It is a free choice of attitude, rather, due to the release of the ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... been culpable; they have only been faint-hearted. They have suffered themselves to be discouraged by the difficulties of the case. Other crimes have been committed, other work has arisen for them to do, and they have been obliged to abandon an investigation which seemed hopeless. This is how criminals escape—this is how murderers are suffered to be at large; not because discovery is impossible, but because it can only be effected by a slow and wearisome process in which so few men have courage to ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... a second too soon the ball will be taken by the toe of the club, and the consequences will not be satisfactory. I have returned to make this the last word about the cut because it is the essence of the stroke, and it calls for what a young player may well regard as an almost hopeless nicety of perfection. ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... laugh, exultant and derisive, mocking her. His right hand, gripping hers tightly, was slipping slowly down toward the hand that held the revolver. She struggled desperately, squirming and twisting in his grasp, silently matching her strength against his. Finding this hopeless and feeling his hand gradually slipping toward the revolver, she suddenly raised her hand toward her face, bringing Yuma's hand, still on her arm, with it. Then she dropped her head to his arm near the wrist, and sank her ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... buildings was decreed by the Departmental Assembly. When in the August of that year, the American flag was unfurled at Monterey, everything connected with the missions—their lands, their priests, their neophytes, their management—was in a state of seemingly hopeless chaos. Finally General Kearney issued a declaration to the effect that "the missions and their property should remain under the charge of the Catholic priests... until the titles to the lands should be decided ...
— The Famous Missions of California • William Henry Hudson
... had suddenly paled and dwindled down before her eyes into a hideous mistake—a mistake which yet had its roots so firmly knit into the past that it was hopeless to think of pulling it up now. To abide by a mistake is sometimes all that an impetuous youth leaves an honorable middle age to do. Poor middle age, with its clear vision, that might do and be so much if it were not for the heavy burdens, ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... accusations had gone home, and instead of indulging in fresh flights, he resolved to correct certain errors in the lines now on hand until the verses should be polished to a flawless whole. Any one who has any experience with the pen understands the difficulty of such a task, and the almost hopeless puzzle of changing a stone in the mosaic without disturbing the whole. The infinite capacity for taking pains is not by any means a satisfying definition of genius, but it is certainly one ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Hopeless of obtaining assistance from such statesmen, I visited Mr. Charles Sumner, Senator from Massachusetts, who received me pleasantly. A rebel, a slave-driver, and, without the culture of Boston, ignorant, I was an admirable vessel into which he could pour the inexhaustible ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... complete ignorance. It was a case of stalemate. Harut would not tell them anything nor could they learn anything for themselves. He added in a depressed way that the whole business seemed very hopeless, and that he had begun to doubt whether there was any tidings of his lost wife to be gained among the ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... to whimper, he knew not why: and she now, comforter in her turn, tried to soothe him by twirling his windmill. But it was broken; it made no noise; it would not go round. This seemed to afflict Susan more than him. She tried to make it right, although she saw the task was hopeless; and while she did so, the tears rained down unheeded from her bent head on ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell
... and pale—but that is not the worst; she seems to have lost all her life and animation. I felt as though it would be a relief even to see her cry. When I spoke to her she smiled, it is true; but ah! such a sad, hopeless, dreary sort of smile—it was far more touching than tears, and then she turned away, as if she had scarcely heard or understood what I said. Mother, you must go to her; she needs just the sort of comfort you understand so well how to give, but which I know nothing about. You ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... partisan standpoint. No single book can be quoted which would be accepted by the modern reader as doing justice to both sides, or, indeed, as telling the whole story. Any one specially interested in the subject must read all; and then it will seem almost a hopeless task to reconcile the many and widely contradictory ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... harmful influence of its working—we may specify this fact, that the English press, with scarce an exception, made haste, in the very earliest stages of the Southern Rebellion, to judge and announce the hopeless partition of our Union, as an event accomplished and irrevocable. The way in which this judgment was reached and pronounced, the time and circumstances of its utterance, and the foregone conclusions which were drawn from it, gave to it a threatening and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... inroads or outroads, through the Lithuanian Peat-bogs, on daring adventures and hair-breadth escapes of mere Pulawski, Potocki and the like;—had not got to understand the matter himself, you perceive: how hopeless to make you ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... A hopeless undertaking! Fixing her hinder claws in the meshes of the wire gauze the mother drags her burden towards her; then, enlacing it with her legs, she holds it suspended. The father, finding no purchase for his legs, clutches the ball, grows on to it, so to speak, thus ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... a cause of cancer is absolutely without foundation. Vegetarian cancer patients who have recovered after being given up as "hopeless" by the orthodox faculty eat tomatoes freely. Another belief, strongly supported by some otherwise "advanced" scientific men, is that tomatoes are bad for those who suffer from a tendency to gout, or uric acid disease. But this ...
— Food Remedies - Facts About Foods And Their Medicinal Uses • Florence Daniel
... in the desperate hope of escaping. Alas! with all the splendour of her prison, it was too faithfully secured for her weak hands to work deliverance. Like a poor bird, that beats its wings against its gilded cage, until it sinks panting in despair, so she threw herself on the floor in hopeless anguish. Her blood grew hot in her veins, her tongue was parched, her temples throbbed with violence, she gasped rather than breathed; it seemed as if her brain was on fire. "Blessed Virgin!" exclaimed she, clasping her hands and ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... health, which had promised improvement, sunk into a state of hopeless debility, and by the 16th of December, medicines utterly failed to produce any beneficial effect. It was at this period that a remedy of the most singular nature was presented to him by a French charlatan, who, accidentally touching at the Cape, offered his services; ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... good-bye to you I am saying good-bye to the nation. In the great name of humanity, let me say this final word: I offer an appeal in behalf of that vast, pathetic multitude of fathers, mothers, and helpless little children. They were sheltered and happy two days ago. Now they are wandering, forlorn, hopeless, and homeless, the victims of a great disaster. So I beg of you, I beg of you, to open your hearts and open your purses and remember ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... appeal; it was orderly, methodical, unrelenting; it was backed by the whole force of the kingdom; it overlooked nothing; it forgot nothing; it was comparatively incorruptible. The lesser courts, with their old clumsy procedure, were at a hopeless disadvantage before the professional judges, who could use all the new legal methods. If a man suffered under these there was none to plead his cause, for in all the country there was not a single trained lawyer save those in the king's service. However we who look back from the safe ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... difference in price between well reeled and poorly reeled silk—a difference so great that silk not well reeled in every way is not worth as much as the cocoons from which it is derived. It is, therefore, quite a hopeless task to reel silk unless the reeler is skilled. Even if it could be done to advantage—which I do not think it could—there exists in America no means of training reelers. In Europe they are taught by degrees in the filatures, working first at the easier stages of the operations, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... "is a country of surprises. Attra seems to be a city of hopeless exile for all white people. Last time I was there I used to notice every day a very old man making a pretence of working in a kitchen garden attached to a little white mission-house—a Basle Society depot. He always seemed to be leaning on his spade, always gazing out seawards in the ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... town, the air had a faint taste and smell of smoke; perhaps, after all, more a loss of the fragrance of grass and herbage than any positive taste or smell. Quick they were whirled over long, straight, hopeless streets of regularly-built houses, all small and of brick. Here and there a great oblong many-windowed factory stood up, like a hen among her chickens, puffing out black 'unparliamentary' smoke, and sufficiently accounting for the cloud which ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Theodore only took possession of it because the Galla garrison, through fear, evacuated the place during the night. He had pitched his camp at the foot of the Amba, and attempted an assault; but soon retired from his hopeless task before the shower of missiles thrown from above. It was not until several days after the Gallas had retired, that one of the chiefs, suspecting the place to be empty, cautiously ventured to ascertain the fact, and ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... and many of them trekked back to the veld beyond the Drakensberg passes, which is now the Orange River Colony. Their position in face of Dingaan seemed hopeless; but in November, 1838, there came out of the Cape Colony one Pretorius. He had heard of their distress, and he organized a force of 500 men, with whom, on December 16, he successfully encountered Dingaan's army and slew 3,000 of his warriors at the Blood River, an affluent ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... my property, to make it right with her parents. There'd be little use in proposing it. He was dead struck when the shaft struck him. That's love! So I determined the night after I'd shaken his hand I'd be off to Earlsfont and try my hardest for him. It's hopeless now. Only he might have the miniature for his bride. I can tell him a trifle to help him over his agony. She would have had him, she would, Miss Adister, if she hadn't feared he'd be talked of as Captain Con ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... The mining was rather hopeless work. The constant and heavy rains were disheartening. Clemens hated it, and even when, one afternoon, traces of a pocket began to appear, he rebelled as the usual chill ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... want?" he exclaimed, not quite meaning it as a question; rather as expressing the opinion that the subject was a hopeless one. ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... as well ask where Porter is, or the prof," said he. "It's hopeless to try to keep track of Barzy Blunt, or to figure out from what he's done, what he's going to do next. From what McGurvin said, I thought Blunt had come here with some of his friends. Maybe he did. Possibly he collected the ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... flinging themselves back into the long grass, were almost instantly out of sight. They were evidently greatly alarmed, and as Miago, whose presence might have given them confidence, was not with us, it seemed hopeless to attempt any communication with them, much as we should have liked to convince them, that these strange white creatures were of a race of beings formed like themselves, though even of our existence they could ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... its point, then a step backwards, a pause, a step forward and the running of the yarn upon the spindle, and again a backward step, the drawing out of the roll and the droning and hum of the wheel, most mournfully hopeless sound that ever fell on mortal ear. Since childhood it has haunted me. All this time I wrote, and I could hear distinctly the scratching of the pen upon the paper. But she stood behind me (why I did not turn my head I never knew), pacing backward and forward by the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Park and the purlieus of Westminster till midnight, endeavouring to make up his mind, and building castles in the air, as to what he would do with himself, and how he would act, if he had not brought himself into so hopeless a mess of troubles. ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... heart was great With unshed tears; their beauty and their love Touched like soft music on his injured soul With infinite sadness and a hopeless calm. He left them there and sought the forest shades To search his heart. A great nobility Slept in his native breast, and those pale drops Of northern blood had taught him self-control And might of mercy. To and fro he paced, Learning his lesson. Taka, little moon Sent by the gods to light his ...
— The Rose of Dawn - A Tale of the South Sea • Helen Hay
... the front hall just in time to prevent a hopeless scar on my hardwood floor. He was hot, perspiring and panting, ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... conscious floor! Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust, (Since He who knows our need is just,) That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. Alas for him who never sees The stars shine through his cypress-trees Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, Nor looks to see the breaking day Across the mournful marbles play! Who hath not learned, in hours of faith, The truth to flesh and sense unknown, That Life is ever lord of Death, And Love can never lose ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... an ancient sword hanging upon the wall of the den, and seized it as a last resource. Fierce and savage, but well-nigh hopeless, he struck the monster heavily upon the neck with it. Then, to his joy, the blade pierced right through her body and she ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... feathers of his side looked rough, and not fully out, but his head was lovely and his eye was the wild free eye of a veery. I saw the youngster utter his cry. I saw him fly four or five feet, and then I climbed the bank, hopeless of returning the way I had come, pushed my way between detaining spruces, and emerged once more on dry ground. I had been two hours ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... gone north in the slower troop trains. There were also certain swarthy persons in civilian garb, whom it took no great divination to recognize as secret police agents. The spy mania had begun. Theirs was the hopeless task of sorting out civilian enemies from nationals, which, thanks to the complexity of modern international relations, is like picking needles from a haystack. My papers, however, were all in order, ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... like cataracts, and seemed actually to descend upon the river-bed; there could be no serious difficulty in reaching them by following up the river, which was wide and open; but it seemed rather an objectless thing to do, for the main range looked hopeless, and my curiosity about the nature of the country above the gorge was now quite satisfied; there was no money in it whatever, unless there should be minerals, of which I saw no more signs than ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... that her friend was the victim of a hopeless error. He took literature for the essential thing, but there was something before all literature, and that something was life. "The Holy of Holies, as you call literature, is only secondary to me in life. I have always loved some one better than ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... valour and genius of a war captain, and with skill in statecraft, should save Venice, now tottering on her foundations, from the threatening power of her bold and ever-bolder enemy. But when the senators assembled there was none but what had a gloomy face, hopeless looks, and head bent earthwards and resting on his supporting hand. Where were they to find a man who could seize the unguided helm and direct the bark of the state aright? At last the oldest of the councillors, called Marino Bodoeri, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... in 1527, age then towards fifty. For the last dozen years or so, when the Father's malady became hopeless, he had governed Culmbach, both parts of it; the Anspach part, which belonged to his next brother George, going naturally, in almost all things, along with Baireuth; and George, who was commonly absent, not interfering, except on important ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... warlike populace was at his command; his signal-fires could summon all the warriors of the Serrania; his Gomeres almost subsisted on the spoils of Andalusia; and in the rock on which his fortress was built were hopeless dungeons filled with Christian captives carried off by these ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... case is so hopeless. To subvert the authority of the Pope is to shake the church to her foundations. But nothing I say can make Clarke understand this. It is the one point upon which he ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... that story. 'Why, it's incredible,'" he said. "'There are documents I drew up last fall that refute it completely.'" Mr. Bromley paused, then went on slowly: "Last fall you were in a hospital, Mr. Tisdale, beginning a long, all but hopeless fight for your life, and it was natural you should have called in Mr. Jerold to settle your affairs. I inferred from his remark that you had remembered Mrs. Weatherbee, at least, in your will." He halted again, then ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... he was enabled to measure himself with other men, the more confidence he acquired in his own powers. This severe mental labor took away much of the pain of his "despised love." Ishmael was one to love strongly, ardently, constantly. But he was not one to drivel over a hopeless passion. He loved Claudia: how deeply, how purely, how faithfully, all his future life was destined to prove. And he knew that Claudia loved him; but that all the prejudices of her rank, her character, and her education were warring ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... to control himself. But the effort was vain. There was no resistance in the man. He writhed in his chair and suddenly burst forth in a tone of hopeless lamentation. ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... But Fred refused. Hopeless as the case was, he was still determined to take every chance there was, and to fight for every minute of delay. But the proceedings were soon over. The charge against him was read so quickly that he could scarcely follow it. He was allowed to speak for himself, ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine
... had accomplished but three-quarters of their journey. Actual starvation threatened them. But twice in nineteen days did Crockett Taste of any bread. Despondency spread its gloom over the half-famished army. Still they toiled along, almost hopeless, with tottering footsteps. War may have its excitements and its charms. But such a march as this, of woe-begone, emaciate, skeleton bands, is not to be counted as among war's pomps ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... dive to Julius's rescue when he rose, while those who manned the yacht prepared to cast a buoy and line. Not a ripple or flash of water passed unheeded; the flood of sunshine rose fuller and fuller over the world; moments grew to minutes, and minutes swelled to hopeless hours under the doctor's weary eyes, till it seemed to them as if the universe were only a swirling, greedy ocean;—but no sign appeared of his night's companion: his life was quenched in the depths of the restless waters, as a flaming ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... had a burdensome consciousness of his own individual duty to conduct the business of his office with faithfulness; a courageous sense of justice which impelled him to fight valiantly for a cause that he deemed right, however unimportant or hopeless the cause might be; a reformer's contempt for hypocrisy and shams, and a blunt directness in freeing his mind about wrong of every kind. He had the faults of his virtues, likewise. Sure of himself and of ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... struggles for the strategical position, which is above his adversary. To fire upwards from one aeroplane at another is virtually impossible, at least with any degree of accuracy. The marksman is at a hopeless disadvantage. If the pilot be unaccompanied and entirely dependent upon his own resources he cannot hope to fire vertically above him, for the simple reason that in so doing he must relinquish control ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... rich, and free from the necessity of this daily drudgery of yours. But I don't ask you to marry me for money; I ask you to marry me out of pity. I ask you, out of kindness to the most unfortunate and hopeless man in the world, to give me a trifle out of your existence. Merely out of pity; merely because it is a woman's part in the world to render pity and balm. I won't hide anything from you. There will be the unpleasant business of my sudden death, which will be a shock ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... allowed the scapegrace son 200 per annum, paid quarterly. Fabayne was a university man and an accomplished scholar, but he had gone the pace at an unusually rapid rate. When I knew him he was a hopeless drunkard. ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... whose title was Sheikh Ed-Din, wanted to make terms. For months the youth had been in disgrace, but his father had reinstated him in the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Forces. Osman openly declared that fighting against the Sirdar and the English was hopeless, and that it was wiser to try and treat with us. Khalifa Abdullah and his brother Yacoub, however, would not hear of treating for peace, urging that their own people in that event would kill them. The only possible course ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... fair one, with the golden tresses, With rosy cheeks and hands of snow, With hopeless care each heart oppresses, Around ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... earth" He bade His disciples pray that God's will might be done. "When Jesus said the kingdom of heaven, be sure He did not mean an unseen refuge, whither a handful might one day escape, like persecuted and disheartened Puritans fleeing from a hopeless England, but He intended what might be and then was in Galilee, what should be and now is in England."[30] "Thy kingdom come"—it is here on earth we must look for the answer to our prayer. And every man who himself does, and in every possible way strives to get done, ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... in the last stages of hopeless disease, but, with great resolution, he addressed himself to the discharge of the onerous duties of his station until his death, on June 9, 1861. He was succeeded by Colonel Henry Toole Clark, of Edgecombe, who became Governor of ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... been hopeless to attempt to cross it without fairy aid, for it was polished more brightly than any mirror, and so hard that no young Princess's bones could have borne a fall on its cruel surface. But with the magic shoes there was less than no difficulty, for ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... Mr. Lincoln delighted the country and the world on the first of January, 1863, will doubtless secure for him a foremost place in history among the philanthropists and benefactors of the race, as it rescued, from hopeless and degrading slavery, so many millions of his fellow-beings described in the law and existing in fact as "chattels-personal, in the hands of their owners and possessors, to all intents, constructions, ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... man like blood, till their hard-edged leaves met resistance, when, turning flat side up, they put forth a score for one of the needle bayonets! No escape from them. From shoulder to heel one long, hopeless agony. The fierce sun flaming down, absorbed by the black pall of death! The moon glimmering in pale white rays of splendor through the moth-eaten holes upon the finger and the white tomb-stone! All the ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... scene of hopeless (almost) and unavailing anxiety. Still welcoming me with a smile, and asserting she is better. I fear the disease is too deeply entwined with the principles of life. Yet the increase of good weather, especially if it would turn more genial, might, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... always; in some plan or scheme for gaining possession of the philtre. Some of the plans that occurred to him were wild and desperate; dangerous and hopeless on the face of them. Others were merely violent; others again, of which craft was the mainspring, held out a prospect of success. For a whole day the notion of arresting Basterga on a charge of treason, and seizing the steel casket ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... "yes," and Red lisped in confusion, "Do you think so, really?" but as for any opinion on the subject they had none. Sophia, fearing that her sisters would be cast aside as hopeless dunces, was obliged to turn partially from the praise that was being lavished on Trenholme to make some pithy remark upon the ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... wherever their lot may be cast, the immense good that might be accomplished among these tribes by schools, which should open the minds of the young to the light of reason and Christianity. Even if the elder members are given up as hopeless, with the young there is always encouragement. Many a bright little creature among the Dahcotahs is as capable of receiving instruction as are the children of civilization. Why should they be neglected when the waters of benevolence are ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... expected: he boldly asserted the supremacy of reason, and threw off the shackles of authority. He combated Saint Augustine as well as Gottschalk. He even aspired to reconcile free-will with the divine sovereignty,—the great mistake of theologians in every age, the most hopeless and the most ambitious effort of human genius,—a problem which cannot be solved. He went even further than this: he attempted to harmonize philosophy with religion, as Abelard did afterwards. He brought all theological ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... a Senior concert, and as long as I can remember no one has ever helped them out, but our class is hopeless," Lois said. "Evelin's was the only real voice, except yours, Ange, and you're already cast for the King. Do you think you could take the page's part in 'Good King Wenceslas,' Dot?" she asked ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... have noticed in Indian boys a sense of locality almost as keen as that possessed by the sand- wasp. An old Portuguese and myself, accompanied by a young lad about ten years of age, were once lost in the forest in a most solitary place on the banks of the main river. Our case seemed hopeless, and it did not for some time occur to us to consult our little companion, who had been playing with his bow and arrow all the way while we were hunting, apparently taking no note of the route. When asked, ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... overcoat in an unheated flat, sitting down to tea with no sugar, very little bread, a little sausage and a surprising scrap of butter, brought in, I suppose, from the country by a friend. Nikitsky, a Menshevik, was also there, a hopeless figure, prophesying the rotting of the whole system and of the revolution. Sukhanov asked me if I had noticed the disappearance of all spoons (there are now none, but wooden spoons in the Metropole) as a symbol of the falling to pieces of the revolution. I told him that ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome
... I saw the poor facade being pick-axed, I did not 'give' it more than a fortnight. I had no feeling but of hopeless awe and pity. The workmen on the coping seemed to me ministers of inexorable Olympus, executing an Olympian decree. And the building seemed to me a live victim, a scapegoat suffering sullenly for ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... unimaginable, inimaginable[obs3]; unthinkable. impracticable unachievable; unfeasible, infeasible; insuperable; unsurmountable[obs3], insurmountable; unattainable, unobtainable; out of reach, out of the question; not to be had, not to be thought of; beyond control; desperate &c. (hopeless) 859; incompatible &c. 24; inaccessible, uncomeatable[obs3], impassable, impervious, innavigable[obs3], inextricable; self-contradictory. out of one's power, beyond one's power, beyond one's depth, beyond one's reach, beyond one's grasp; too much for; ultra crepidam[Lat]. Phr. the grapes ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... Till I could repair with rest All the sufferings I endured. And, besides, I thought with dread On the angry disposition Of the king: for his ambition When has it or bowed the head, Or with patience heard related The sad tragedies of fate? Hopeless and disconsolate In this solitude I've waited, Till some happy chance might rise When no longer I should grieve, And the king would give me leave To appear ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... year now,—the Indians swept down upon them, and carried off every animal they had. They attacked the house, but the Jamiesons defended themselves well; and the Indians were anxious to get off with their booty, and so they beat a retreat. Pursuit was hopeless; every horse had been driven off, and they had to walk six miles to the next hacienda to give the news; and long before a party could be got together, the Indians were beyond the possibility of pursuit. Two or three hundred sheep ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... be interested in this, as you have no doubt been interested in the case. They had a great respect for the unfortunate Captain's character, and for his behaviour when the case was hopeless, but they had not the faintest doubt that he lost the ship and those ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... integument and that which attacks the glans. The first of these varieties he observes as generally beginning as a hardened nodule in the prepuce, which becomes at once more or less thickened and indurated. He gives Lisfranc the credit of pointing out the fact, that, even in the most hopeless-looking case, the glans and body of the penis may be simply pushed back and compressed, but otherwise sound, and that before resorting to an amputation of the whole organ it is better to make a careful exploratory dissection in search of the penis, as it oftentimes happens that the prepuce ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... Curiosity Peak. Appearance of Country from. Whirlwind Plains. Encounter with an Alligator. His capture and description. Cross Whirlwind Plains. White and black ducks. Kangaroos. Enter hilly country. Meet the boats. Thunderstorm. Carry boats over shoals. New birds. Reach Hopeless. Progress of boats arrested. Reconnoitre the river. Prospect from View Hill. Preparation for pedestrian excursion. Leave Reach Hopeless to explore the upper part of the river. Native village. Squall. Mussel Bend. Meet ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... bride! The hopeless heights of hope were scaled The summit won, I paused and sigh'd, As if success itself had fail'd. It seem'd as if my lips approach'd To touch at Tantalus' reward, And rashly on Eden life encroach'd, Half-blinded by the flaming ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... choose to do is right. But, once for all, remember that I wish henceforth to live alone, entirely alone, and speak to me neither of the future nor of the past, which is cruel, nor of the present, which is hopeless. I ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... said, in conclusion, "we aren't in such a VERY bad state; it isn't hopeless, anyway. Now here are the accounts we owe. Yours is the largest. Here are the others. All these bills are going to be paid, just as I said, but they can't be paid at all unless I have time. I have been thinking, thinking ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the service of the 'Republic one and indivisible'? Formula for Formula (to speak after the manner of Mr. Carlyle), is not the Republican Formula of the two the more demoralizing, dismal, degraded, and altogether hopeless? What is called 'le high-life' of Paris is neither Royalist nor Republican. It is merely shallow and vulgar, like the 'high-life' of sundry other places ruled by governments of divers forms. But when young men born to names which in the popular ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... position of this disease that treatment will be of no avail in producing a cure. As already stated, the disease is insidious and progressive, and it is hopeless to expect to arrest the growths once they are started. Unnerving would no doubt remove the symptom (lameness) of the disease, but an unnerved horse is not of much good for army purposes. I therefore consider that once the disease ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... he was, spiritually, for he had retained his belief in God's goodness, somehow. Just why, he could not have told, but had the girl been what he had, for a moment, believed, it would all have seemed so uselessly hopeless ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... the way [on the passage] and see to the disposition of the provisions," etc. The last-named duty must have been a most difficult and wearisome one. From what has been shown of the poverty of the ship's cooking facilities (especially for so large a company), one must infer that it would be hopeless to expect to cook food in any quantity, except when all conditions favored, and then but slowly and with much difficulty. From the fact that so many would require food at practically the same hours ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... said Rocky. "It's sheer laziness. I went to see her last Christmas and she was bursting with health. Her doctor told me himself that there was nothing wrong with her whatever. But she will insist that she's a hopeless invalid, so he has to agree with her. She's got a fixed idea that the trip to New York would kill her; so, though it's been her ambition all her life to come here, she ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... words of doom. How am I to interpret your enigmatical conduct? But now I thought you a friend, come to give me timely warning to guard against threatened danger, when, all at once, you declare my situation a hopeless one! If you are my friend, why not warn me sooner, ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... and it is doubtful if with his education he could have accepted such consolation. What a solace it will be, when we can think of departed friends in whom the work of grace was manifestly very incomplete—possibly not begun—as having gone, not into a state of hopeless, everlasting torment—but as having passed into a state where the work of grace ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... conducted by Vassily Ivanovitch, came into the study. The doctor had had time to whisper to her that it was hopeless even to think ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... took its form from a despairing saying, which had become a proverb among the exiles, 'Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost: we are clean cut off' (v. 11). Ezekiel lays hold of the metaphor, which had been taken to express the hopeless destruction of Israel's national existence, and even from it wrings a message of hope. Faith has the prerogative of seeing possibilities of life in what looks to sense hopeless death. We may look at the vision from three points ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... more could be done. His main body was safe from pursuit, and it would be but throwing away the lives of his brave fellows, did he continue the hopeless fight. He therefore waved a white handkerchief, in token of surrender; shouted to his men to cease fire and, riding through them with sheathed sword, made his way to the officer who appeared to be in command of ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... act as representative of both, consumed the double portion. Thinking about the whiskey I had just discussed, as I rode along, I came to a milestone, standing on its head, and a sign-post in the last stage of hopeless intoxication. It was here that a police constable turned his lantern upon me with a pertinacity that apparently was calculated to challenge observation. Annoyed, but not altogether surprised, I declared ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 27, 1890 • Various
... disease or accident, perhaps, no less than the tempest, the lightning-flash, and most of the mysteries of death—we have not yet penetrated to them—but we are well aware that poverty, wretchedness, hopeless toil, slavery, famine, are completely outside their domain. It is we who organise these, we who maintain and distribute them. These frightful scourges, that have grown so familiar, are wielded by us alone; and belief ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... wrote for his own people and none but they seem to have cared about him. What he discovered (c. 1160-73) was for himself and for Judaism, and only his actual place in the twelfth century makes him a fore-runner of the Polos or of Prince Henry. We may see this from his hopeless strangeness and confusion in Rome, like a Frank in Pekin or Delhi. "The Church of St. Peter is on the site of the great palace of Julius Caesar, near which are eighty Halls of the eighty Kings called Emperors from Tarquin to Pepin ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... then bringing their heads together over the small round Japanese table which is always the pivot of these social circles, you may be sure that they are discussing Tom's engagement, or Dick's extravagance, or Harry's hopeless passion for the younger Miss Fleurdelys. It is here old Tippleton gets execrated for that everlasting bon mot of his which was quite a success at dinner-parties forty years ago; it is here the belle of the season passes under the scalpels of merciless young surgeons; ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... and the music were ravishing and seductive, but nothing made any impression on me. After the dance was over the male dancer treated the two females, one after the other, until he was forced to rest. The French girl came up to ascertain whether I skewed any signs of life, but feeling my hopeless condition ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... morning I was told that the mate was very ill. The doctor of the ship had been attending him, but said that his case was hopeless. I sat by him all day. Sometimes he would be perfectly quiet and do nothing but moan; and then he would start up, and shriek out,—"Luff!— luff!—or she'll be into us!" and then sink down again, overcome with horror at the recollection of the event. Towards night he grew worse, ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... from without, empty of all expression, 'what does all this mean, this mystery, this hopeless nonsense about a silly letter? What has happened? Is this a miserable form of persecution? Are you mad?—I refuse to get ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... to point out to these police officials that it was natural enough for two Frenchmen caught in Berlin at a time of declaration of war between Germany and their own people to attempt to reach some other place; and hopeless to draw their attention to the fact that, being French, letters from France in their possession were to be expected, while the contents alone could prove whether Jules and Henri were of ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... momentarily reversed, producing an effect exactly opposite to that which is desired. It is true, this last difficulty is never of more than a few moments' continuance, else indeed would the condition of the mariner be hopeless; but it is of constant occurrence, and so irregular as to defy calculations and defeat caution. In the present instance, the Montauk would seem to fly through the water, so swift was her progress; and then, as a furious surge overtook her in the chase, she ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... an isolated rock on the southern hillside, and having reached it, opened fire upon the scouts at point blank range. The situation of the defenders was now almost hopeless; but the brave never despair. They, calmly watched the movements of the warriors and calculated the few chances of escape which remained. McClelland saw a tall, swarthy figure preparing to spring from cover to a point from which their position would be completely commanded. He felt that ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... To this!—Perfidious, worthless spirit, and this thou hast concealed from me!—Stand! ay, stand! roll in malicious rage thy fiendish eyes! Stand and brave me with thine insupportable presence! Imprisoned! In hopeless misery! Delivered over to the power of evil spirits and the judgment of unpitying humanity I—And me, the while, thou wert lulling with tasteless dissipations, concealing from me her growing anguish, and leaving her to ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... So Merrihew, hopeless and subdued, went into the room designated, saw the cigars taken out and weighed, took the bill and presented it with a hundred-lire note at the little window in the off-room. The official there pushed the money ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... redemption of the millions of blacks still in the bondage of poverty, ignorance and vice. This is the culmination of these past conflicts. If this be not successful, the rest has been in part in vain. Four millions of slaves were freed, and now four millions of their descendants are as helpless and hopeless as they—as great a curse to themselves and as dangerous an element to the nation. Now this great and crowning struggle is upon us. Other interests may for a time hide it from view, but it must be met, and here again, only that which ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 2, June, 1898 • Various
... the danger. I informed her mother of the state of things the next day, and as she adored her daughter, she was as much alarmed as I was. The doctors were sent for, but in vain, for before the cause of her malady was suspected, it was incurable and hopeless. ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... scene had drawn tears from Flora more than once, and she loved the good dog for his devoted attachment to the grief-stricken desolate old man. When, however, the fishing season returned, Jarvis roused himself from the indulgence of hopeless grief. The little cockle-shell of a boat was once more launched upon the blue sea, and Jarvis might daily be seen spreading its tiny white sheet to the breeze, while the noble buff Newfoundland dog resumed ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... woman, I do hope she is out." "Rather amusing. I should like you to see her." "A most hopeless person—absolutely no conversation. Now, darling, take a lesson from her and never, never allow yourself to relapse into monosyllables. It is such a hopeless struggle if all one's remarks are greeted with a 'No' or a 'Yes,' and when girls first come out they are very apt ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... wherever they are, they won't budge until we go back to work," Billy said at the end of a week. "This is useless and hopeless." ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... the fairy, with a much pleasanter smile, 'you are not a hopeless case, at all events. It shall be as you wish, then, and perhaps it will be the wisest arrangement for all parties. Now run away home, and see how little use you can ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... undoubtedly in love with his cousin, or, to speak correctly, for the ex-sailor was a gentleman, he had been in love with her as a boy, and now secretly grieved over a hopeless passion. ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... of Mother Anastasia the better I liked her, but I perceived that she was a woman with whom it was very necessary to be cautious. She was apt, I thought, to make convictions of her presumptions. If she presumed that my love for Sylvia was an utterly hopeless affection, to be given up and forgotten, I did not like it. It might be that it was hopeless, but I did not care to have any one else settle the matter for me in ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... tails like sheep. Their eyes are dull, sleepy, and utterly devoid of expression. Constantinople dogs have neither masters nor brains. No brains because no masters. Perhaps no masters because no brains. Nobody wants to adopt an idiot. They are, of course, mongrels of the most hopeless type. They are yellowish, with thick, short, woolly coats, and much fatter than you expect to find them. They walk like a funeral procession. Never have I seen one frisk or even wag his tail. Everybody turns out for them. They sleep—from twelve ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... joy, dragged her to a dark prison, took away her clothes, made her dress in rags, feed on bread and water, and sleep upon straw. Forlorn and hopeless, Graciosa dared not now call upon Percinet; she doubted if he still loved her enough to come ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... of the injury: Dr. Spencer could not feel otherwise than that it was a very hopeless matter. Her father owned that he had thought so from the first, and had wondered at Sir Matthew Fleet's opinion. His subdued tone of patience and resignation, struck his guest above all, as changed from what he ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... It is hopeless to wait for wild boar now. One or two pariah dogs, hailing from nowhere, have been attracted to the camp, Salam has given them the waste food, and they have installed themselves as our protectors, whether ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... in my way, as much for their use as my own, and I could not rest until I had offered them all the consolation it was in my power to bestow. I read with these men for two or three weeks; Chapman, the American, being the man who considered his own moral condition the most hopeless. When unable to go myself, I would send my books, and we had the bible and Pilgrim's Progress, watch and ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... at any moment—even in the dead of night, as has been done—when sunk in the depth of slumber, called out for the purpose of forcing our mothers, sisters, wives, and children, or ourselves, into hopeless servitude, there to weary out a miserable life, a relief from which, death would be hailed with joy. Heaven and earth—God and Humanity!—are not these sufficient to arouse the most worthless among mankind, of whatever descent, to a sense of their true position? ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... hopeless part of it. You are all content with what Daudet called your abominable cuisine. I thank him for the phrase. It ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... time, and for some time longer, the religious conversion of these natives was regarded as hopeless, so deeply "bred in blood and bone" was aboriginal character. Consequently all the earlier missions were abandoned in utter despair, with only one exception, that of the Moravians, which, in faith and duty continuing the work, was at length rewarded with success. Naturally some few, especially ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... drowned. He were coming home very hopeless o' aught on earth. He thought God could na be harder than men; mappen not so hard; mappen as tender as a mother; mappen tenderer. I'm not saying he did right, and I'm not saying he did wrong. All I say is, may neither me nor mine ever ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... at once set to work, and quickly patched up the little boat. At first I had a vague idea that she might enable us to get off to some civilised place, but on seeing her once more in the water, I felt that that would be hopeless, as she could only hold three or four persons at the ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... of a tree, should it? five or six feet from the ground, near a brook? well, he might still search, the next time he went out; meanwhile, there were the ferns to analyze, and that curious moss to determine, if might be. "But mosses are almost hopeless!" he said aloud, with an appealing glance across the table, where he was wont to look ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... American woman with a daughter aged, say, fourteen, and a son twelve. They had paid a month in advance and were duly installed by Siron. Siron was summoned and threatened with deposition. The poor man shrugged his shoulders in hopeless despair. Mon Dieu! how could he help it—the "Stensons" were not at hand to look after their duties—the woman had paid for accommodations, and money in an art colony was none too common! But Bailley Bodmer—had he, too, been ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... is the day when Jesus woke From the deep slumbers of the tomb; This is the day the Saviour broke The bonds of fear and hopeless gloom. ...
— Hymns, Songs, and Fables, for Young People • Eliza Lee Follen
... as if I could sit up," Maria said again, in her weary, hopeless voice. She went out into the kitchen, got a little lamp, and returned. "Good-night," ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Church—-seventeen missions in Lower California, twenty-one all told in Alta California, with all their riches confiscated. The "pious fund"—monument of the faithful dead—swept into the Mexican coffers. The struggle of intellect against political greed looks hopeless. ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... the Church no woman has been allowed to sit as bearing authority, the romantic tale of the woman Pope notwithstanding. Thereupon, I left the palace in wrath, feeling myself aggrieved that a woman should have attempted to dictate to me, and finding it hopeless to get a clear instruction from his lordship,—the woman taking up the word whenever I put a question to my lord the bishop. Nothing, therefore, came of that interview but fruitless labour to myself, and anger, of which I have since ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... tell me," demanded the dark man, "that, after all the trouble the family took to get you what was practically a sinecure with endless possibilities if you only behaved yourself, you have deliberately thrown away..." A despairing gesture completed the sentence. "Good God, you're hopeless!" ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... face. "And how very sweet of you—ah, I beg your pardon; that is—" The disconcerting rapidity with which Mr. Rae's smile gave place to an appearance of grave, of even severe solemnity, threw Miss Brodie quite "out of her stride," as Martin said afterward, and left her floundering in a hopeless ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... Rawlins, boiled beef, Mrs. Burnet, the aristocracy, mountains and the marine, and the tower of St. Alban's cathedral, hurried along in infinite confusion. But there is nothing like experience. In a state of distraction, he remembered the hopeless but refreshing sleep he had gained after his fatal adventure at Brighton. He jumped out of bed, and threw himself on the floor, and in a few minutes, from the same cause, his ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... atmosphere of London. And it had grown clearer and clearer to him that his duty to himself and the world and her was to remove her to a purer, simpler air, beyond the range of these infections, to isolate her and tranquillize her and so win her back again to that acquiescence, that entirely hopeless submissiveness that had made her so sweet and dear a companion for him in the earlier years of their married life. Long before Lady Beach-Mandarin's crucial luncheon, his deliberate foreseeing mind had been planning such a retreat. Black Strand even at his first visit had appeared ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... (depressed). Oh, but this is hopeless! When I have tried so hard to bring a ray of sunlight into your desolate life! I must give RUeBUB KALOMEL notice too—his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 11, 1893 • Various
... - Their swords are rust, their altars cold! For us, the Children of the Seas, Who ruled where'er the waves have rolled, For us, in Fortune's books enscrolled, I read no runes of hopeless loss; Nor—while YE last—our knell is tolled, Ye Islands of ...
— Ballads in Blue China and Verses and Translations • Andrew Lang
... Brandon's stronger nature the sun would go till noon and there would burn for life. The sun, however, had not reached its noon with Brandon, either; since he had set his brain against his heart, and had done what he could to stay the all-consuming orb at its dawning. He knew the hopeless misery such a passion would bring him, and helped the good Lord, in so far as he could, to answer his prayer, and lead him not into temptation. As soon as he saw the truth, he avoided Mary ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... angels were sent to minister to the Jews and to punish them; but no angels, or only mocking spectra of angels, or even devils in the shapes of angels, to lead Lycurgus and Leonidas from desolate cradle to hopeless grave:—and if we can think that it was only the influence of specters, or the teaching of demons, which issued in the making of mothers like Cornelia, and of sons like Cleobis and Bito, we may, of course, reject the heathen Mythology ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... throw ourselves upon the mercy of the negroes, which I stated was very hopeless and discouraging, as I did not see what favour could be expected from a beastly savage people, whose condition was worse than that of slaves, and who possibly might be cannibals. It was likewise difficult for ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... every conceivable place. Strahan found me still employed in that hopeless task. He had breakfasted in his own room, and it was past eleven o'clock when he joined me. His manner was now hard, cold, and distant, and his suspicion so bluntly shown that my distress gave ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... because she was his aunt but because of the injustice done to the memory of this poor etrangere, whose faithful tenderness, admiration and devotion had comforted the earthly exile of a man of genius. Balzac, realizing his hopeless condition, was despondent; his hopes were blighted, and his physical sufferings doubtless made him irritable. On the other hand, Madame de Balzac, however, seductive and charming, however worthy of being adored and being his "star," ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... me it was a more tardy influence which the fair Darthea as surely exerted. I was troubled and disturbed at the constancy of my growing and ardent affection. At first I scarce knew why, but by and by I knew too well; and the more hopeless became the business, the more resolute did I grow; this is my ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... for a youngster, whose attention was once turned to such subjects as had been occupying Tom, to get hold of wild and violent beliefs and notions in those days than now. The state of Europe generally was far more dead and hopeless. There were no wars, certainly, and no expectations of wars. But there was a dull, beaten-down, pent-up feeling abroad, as if the lid were screwed down on the nations, and the thing which had been, however cruel and heavy and mean, was that which was ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Whichever way she turned, the mystery of the man she loved seemed to crop up. She started arguing with herself in a circle—why should the Sheik have a European servant or why should he not, until she gave it up in hopeless confusion. ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... the Lord. Man is nothing, his aspirations are nothing, the universe itself is nothing, without the living, permeating force which comes from this supernal Deity we adore, to interfere and save. Without His special agency, giving to His truths vitality, this world would soon become a hopeless and perpetual pandemonium. Take away the necessity of this divine assistance as the one great condition of all progress, as well as the highest boon which mortals seek,—then prayer itself, recognized even by Mohammedans as the loftiest aspiration and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... in hot pursuit of the retreating mariners. In their hands, the pursuers carried sabres, cutlasses, old flint-lock muskets, cumbrous horse-pistols, scythes, and reaping-hooks. The pursued wore no arms; and, as no boat awaited them at the shore, their case looked hopeless indeed. But the old salt left in charge of the schooner was equal to the occasion. The unsabbath-like tumult on the shore quickly attracted his attention, and with unfeigned astonishment he had observed his commander's ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... moment there was the sound of a falling rafter in the adjoining room. Every instant was worth a life, and there he lay in a sodden, hopeless sleep. ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... life seemed at an end. I looked upon a blank space of years desolate as a grey and sailless sea. "What shall I do?" I asked myself, and my heart was weary and hopeless. Literature? my heart did not answer the question at once. I was too broken and overcome by the shock of failure; failure precise and stern, admitting of no equivocation. I strove to read: but it was impossible to sit at home almost within earshot of ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... loose and the released logs, swept downward by the resistless push of the current, climbed one upon another and lodged. Higher and higher the jam towered, the interlocking logs piling in hopeless tangle. ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... There had never been much cordiality between him and Valeria since the afternoon when they had met at Dunaghee, and found their sentiments in hopeless opposition. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... got to bring together a few ragged, dissatisfied men, and, taking horse, charge pell-mell into poor Mr. Chillingworth's dilapidated old tin-pot. I almost feel like that unhappy gentleman to-night, ready to blubber. But, after all, my position is not quite so hopeless as his; I have no brutalised, purple-nosed Briton sitting like a nightmare on my chest, pressing the ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... possible? Now there you see again how life is, father Bernd. When your master let you go without a bit o' pension or anything for your old age, you were quite desperate and hopeless. An' 'twas an unfeeling thing to do! But now God ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... within the sphere of his new-found divinity? Most probably not. Life has so many of these tantalising half-glimpses, which are never anything more. 'If she is Humpage's daughter,' he thought, 'I'm afraid it's hopeless; but she shall not pass out of my life if I can help it!' and so he dreamed through the sermon, with the vicar's high cracked voice forming a gentle clacking accompaniment, which he quite missed when the benediction came upon ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... sphere would have commanded and obtained respect. But under the painful and abnormal circumstances in which they found themselves—beaten and driven like dogs while in the throes of sea-sickness, half starved and hopeless, their spirit had been so broken, and they were so kept down to that sad level by the display of force, aided by deadly weapons aft, that no other condition could be expected for them but that of broken-hearted slaves. My ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... Madame,' continued the visitor, 'that nothing can be worse or more hopeless for a youth than the life to which we are constrained here, with our whole shadow of hope in intrigue; and for our men, no occupation worthy of their sex. We women are not so ill off, with our children ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hard for him to believe that there could be abject poverty where there was work for all, and the appeal of man in want to man in plenty was too strong for him easily to resist it. He liked the very frankness of vulgarity and hopeless destitution of these people, and was appalled by the simplicity with which they accepted things as they were. There was no restlessness, as in America—no protest against fate. It was harrowing enough to see conditions ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne |
