"Despairing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seemed that Bud would fall to the ground, his fingers, in a last, despairing grip, caught a fold of the blanket. By a supreme effort he pulled himself up, managed to get one leg over the ridge-like backbone of the pony and, a moment later, he was sitting upright on the saddle blanket, both hands under the strap, while his heels played a tattoo on the sides ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker
... favour. Yung Lo, when he heard of this second failure, was very wroth, and at once ordered Kuan Yu into his presence, and told him he would give him a third and last trial, and if he did not succeed this time he would behead him. Kuan Yu went home in a despairing state of mind, asking himself what crime he or any of his ancestors could have committed to ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... to calm himself with the conviction that everything would be all right, but in his heart he was despairing; if he found Esther and brought her back she would hate him for the ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... looked at me with a wild, hunted look, then at the horse, rushed down the steps and threw her arms around the neck of the horse and sobbed in a despairing manner: ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... Knox himself was never more violent, or more mischievous. The United Presbyterians will do the business: they will render Scotland simply impossible to live in; and then, when the crisis arrives, the distracted and despairing millions will find refuge in the bosom of their only mother. That is why, at home, we wanted no delay in the publication of the bull and the establishment ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... an anxious as Norbert to bring this painful scene to a close, for anything was preferable to this hideous state of suspense. The last despairing glance of the Duchess had pierced his heart like a dagger thrust, and when he saw Norbert thrust aside his trembling wife with such brutality, it was all he could do to refrain from striking him down. He made no choice of weapons, but grasped the ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... being quite fitted, it was thirteen days after my arrival in the boat before the whole could be ready to sail. This delay caused me much uneasiness, under the apprehension that we might not arrive before our friends at the reef, despairing of assistance, should have made some unsuccessful attempt to save themselves; and this idea pursued me so much, that every day seemed to be a week until I got out of the harbour with the ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... find in her nothing that she thought unworthy of him. In her, personally; country and blood, Mrs. Carleton might have wished changed; but her desire that her son should marry the strongest wish she had known for years had grown so despairing, that her only feeling now on the subject was joy; she was not in the least inclined to quarrel with his choice. Fleda had from her the tenderest care as well as the utmost delicacy that affection and good- breeding ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... almost inconceivable that such should be the case. Anarchy takes us past the stage of any defined political or social programme. It would appear, so far as can at present be judged, to embody the last despairing cry ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... of St. Andrews Castle, despairing of their task, near the end of January 1547 made a fraudulent truce with the assassins, hoping for the betrayal of the castle, or of some of the leaders. {23b} In his narrative we find partisanship ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... despairing because of the silence of the god, resolved to perform harakiri in the temple, and so ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... legs with difficulty. She held her pinafore full of buttons, but disaster lies in doing too many things at once; there came a slip, a despairing clutch, and the buttons fell over the floor. There were a great many round ones, and they rolled very fast. Amelia washed the sand from her parboiled fingers, and drew a nervous breath. She had a presentiment of coming ill, painfully heightened by her consciousness that the kitchen was ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... also stabbed by another murderer in his own house, but still survives, and his son was wounded, supposed fatally. It is believed, by persons capable of judging, that other high officers were designed to share the same fate. Thus it seems that our enemy, despairing of meeting us in open, manly warfare, begins to resort to ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... against the invaders: during three days he tracks them, pursues them; ten of them fall beneath his balls, leaving the shore bathed in their blood. The rest at last take flight, and the army of seals, regaining the sea with despairing cries, goes to establish itself at the other ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... the breast of the Mother,— Quite cast down I have crept close to the broad sweet earth. Lo, out of failure triumph! Renewed the wavering courage, Tense the unstrung nerves, steadfast the faltering knees Weary no more, nor faint, nor grieved at heart, nor despairing, Hushed in the earth's green lap, lulled to ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... earth nothing contains so many contradictions as a nation. So it is here: it may be said quite truly that the Greeks had at once the most profound conceptions about Progress and no faith in it: that they were at once the most hopeful and the most despairing of peoples. Let me try to explain. When we speak of a faith in Progress, whatever else we mean, we must mean, I take it, that there is a real advance in human welfare throughout time from the Past to the Future, that 'the best is yet to be', and that the good wine is kept to ...
— Progress and History • Various
... brought John to a place where he was alone with God and the sea. Oh, then, how he cried out for pity! for comfort! for help! for forgiveness! His voice was not the inaudible pleading of a man praying in his chamber; it was like the despairing call of a strong swimmer in the death-billows. It went out over the ocean; it went out beyond time and space; it touched the heart of the Divinity who pitieth the sufferers, "even as a father ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... breath. He tried to pull the hand back, but could not; he tried to twist his body free, but the weight of his foe held him tightly against the floor. A great roaring filled his ears; the hallway began fading from his sight. With a last despairing breath, he gave a choking ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... that Hanway narrated the sensation of the neighborhood. It roused Selwyn to a frenzy of excitement; his disjointed, despairing exclamations, in annotation, as it were, of the story, disclosed his own discovery of the oil, his endeavors to secure the opinion of an expert as to its value, his efforts to buy up the land, his reasons ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... few months that have elapsed have enabled both the over-hopeful and the despairing to recover their lost balance, and to take up again their little share of the immemorial task of humanity, to struggle onward, ever ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... he looked wildly round. Then, in a despairing tone, as he gripped his son's arm, "Fred, is there nothing ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... this forlorn wretch the more remarkable was a seeming remnant of better days in something about herself, besides the silken rags of garments that had once been costly. For, as she from time to time lifted her delicate hands aloft in her despairing ecstasy, the scrap of blanket, which was all her mantle, fell back and showed such lily and lady-like arms that it was impossible to look upon her without compassion, and not also to wonder from what high and palmy estate she had ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... usual morning hour, Malcolm had ridden to Chelsea, hoping to find his friend in a less despairing and more companionable mood than when he left him. To his surprise and disappointment he learned that Lenorme had sailed by the packet to Ostend the night before. He asked leave to go into the study. There on its easel stood the portrait of his father as he had last seen it—disfigured ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... was a different man from the wretched being who had crept back to his rooms heartsick and despairing, while, after shrinking from him with the reserve begotten of the doubt and misery which had been her portion for so long past, the warm clasp of his arms, the tender, passionate words he uttered, and the loving caresses of his hands as he drew her face closer and closer to his swept away all ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... to doubt after this, of course. Her love for Ralph Gowan had rendered her restless and despairing, and so she had worked out this innocent romance, intending to defend herself against him. The heroines of her favorite novels married for money when they could not marry for love, and why should not she? Remember, she was only seventeen, and ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the example once given, and the people despairing of pardon, a rising against the Russians may take place, and something of a national feeling arise in Persia. But I fear this will not be the case. I suppose our Minister was ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... instruments are in full blast, without any attempt at harmony, it seems to shed a depressing shadow of barbarism over the whole city. This sunset music is, I think, a relic of very old times, and it jars on the nerves like the despairing howl of ancient Persia, protesting against the innovation from the pomp and din and glamour of her old pagan glories, to the present miserable era of mollah rule and feeble dependence for national existence on the forbearance or jealousy of other nations. Beneath the musicians' gate, and ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... soldiers we must have." His hearers still demurred, reminding him that the people far and near were groaning under the weight of taxation, and assuring him that this could not possibly be increased, when he suddenly changed his despairing gesture for a martial attitude, and with sublime ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... tired after your journey. Those railways are so hot and so dusty,' said Mrs. Topman, with a despairing effort to discover whence her unexpected guest ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... Despair. This freed me. Then, gathering myself, I rushed at one, then the other, until I chased them back into their haunts. Oh, victory, how sweet! And how blessed it was after that not to have that old Discourager's heartless and despairing conversation poisoning my thoughts! Oh, what ...
— Adventures in the Land of Canaan • Robert Lee Berry
... I, I say, come and lie like to a bar sinister across it? for what else should I be considered by your indignant friends, except, indeed, a shadow on your brightness, a shame across your honour?" and she hung her head in despairing sadness, whilst Montigny ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... all. The buoy, with its flaming torch, had drifted far to leeward, and the lookout could do no more than follow its fainting light as the dark of the tropics closed in. An hour the Noa-Noa lay gently heaving upon the mysterious waters in which the despairing pundit had sought Nirvana, until the boat returned with a report that it had picked up the buoy, but had seen no sign of the man. Doubtless he had been swept into the propellers, but if not quickly given release in their ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... his heavy paw on his shoulder. Girshel seemed to shrink into himself. He shook like a leaf and uttered a feeble cry, like a hare's. Siliavka addressed him threateningly, and seized him by the collar. I could not hear their conversation, but from the despairing gestures of the Jew, and his supplicating appearance, I began to guess what it was. The Jew twice flung himself at the sergeant's feet, put his hand in his pocket, pulled out a torn check handkerchief, untied a knot, and took out gold coins.... Siliavka took his offering with great dignity, ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... met with strong resistance at Fort San Geronimo and was forced to retire to Venables' intrenchments. The united English forces made several attempts to march on the capital, but fell into ambuscades and sustained heavy losses. Despairing of success, the fleet and army left the island on June 3 and proceeded ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... humour. Note no fewer than ten faces in the background, servants, etc., all expressing interest according to their class and degree. The five chief characters express drunkenness in five different fashions: the hopeless, combative, despairing, affectionate, etc. Wardle's ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... been done in Europe and in this country, we see that Dr. Veeder was a real pioneer, although, of course, many of his conclusions are still doubtful. Yet, in poverty, in discouragement, in the turmoil of a busy life, he continued his work for fifteen years, then reluctantly abandoned it, despairing of support and opportunity. Yet he leaves a debt that science can never repay. Such men may be everywhere; one of you boys may be the meteorologist of the coming generation. Veeder may be dead but ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... people now becoming prominent in Algonquin, were slowly assuming the leadership in society. They were in danger of losing their proud position, and every nerve had to be strained to maintain it. What we have we'll hold, had become the despairing motto of the Misses Armstrong, and its realisation required ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... "His words cheered the despairing men and they stood by him. We were saved at last because help came in time. Lord Cornwallis had laid the South in ashes, and camped at Yorktown, his army of veterans laden with spoils. He was only waiting for the transports from New York ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... has run away, and then twenty or a hundred times a day he asked himself the question, whether he was or was not George's father, and at night, especially, he indulged in interminable speculations on the point, and almost before he was in bed, he every night recommenced the same series of despairing arguments. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... the end of it, in a clump of puny scrub oaks, stood a square little house, in uncorniced simplicity, with blank, uncurtained windows staring out at Annie, and for a moment her eyes, blurred with the cold, seemed to see in one of them the despairing face of the woman with the wisps of faded hair ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... settled that doubt, and it had been so despairing, so suggestive of frenzy in its wording, that Stephen had impulsively rushed off to South Kensington at once, without stopping to think whether it would not be better to send a representative combining the gentleness of the dove with the wisdom ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... all the fevered and despairing lamentations of Lizabetha Prokofievna without the least emotion; the tears of this sorrowful mother did not evoke answering sighs—in fact, she laughed at her. She was a dreadful old despot, this princess; she could not allow equality in ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... pursuit, despairing. Evelyn cried out once more as the lumbering thing fled with her, giving utterance to shrieking outcries at which the tree-fern jungle shook. It leaped once, upon monstrous hind legs, but came crashing heavily to the ground. Tommy's explosive bullets had ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... their command as the Spaniards have, and they feel very confident of success, because the men under them are well fed, healthy, and hopeful, while the poor Spanish soldiers are hungry, sick, and despairing. ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 22, April 8, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... the obligation of the Covenant he said not a word. Then, these points being pressed, he argued and re- argued, day after day, conceding only that Episcopacy should be limited, and the like, till the Commissioners, despairing of any full agreement on that Proposition, left it, and passed to others (Oct. 9). On some of these others, including that on the Militia, he chose to acquiesce at once; but a second block occurred on the Proposition relating to ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... step among women of her complexion, for so they invite indecision to exhaust their scruples, and they let the blood have its way. Having so short a space of time, she thought the matter decided, and with some relief she flung despairing on the bed, and lay down for good with her duke. In a little while her head was at work reviewing him sternly, estimating him not less accurately than the male moralist charitable to her sex would do. She quitted the bed, with a spring to escape her ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... exasperated impatience we have for those Prussian school boys who jump out of third-story windows because they did not reach a certain grade in their Latin examinations. Life is not accounts, or banks, or even Latin examinations, and it is a sign of inexperience to think it so. The trouble with the despairing banker is that he has never had a chance to become aware of the comforting vastness of the force which animates him in common with all the rest of humanity, to which force a bank failure is no apocalyptic end of Creation, ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... its scant capacity for accretion; it was singularly stale, even in its newness and freshness of material. Unspeakably dreary as it was in shadow, the sunlight visited it in a blind, aching, purposeless way, as if despairing of mellowing its outlines or of even ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... of the Raritan to the valley of the Housatonic, over a region of hundreds of square miles, not a plantation was safe. Men, women and children, haggard with hunger, exposure and woe, fled from their deserted homes to fort Amsterdam. Despairing of ever again finding peaceful residence in this new world, with one voice they demanded a return to the fatherland. The Dutch colonies were threatened with immediate ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... from despairing yet; they had no doubt that M. de Bouille, warned by one of the officers whom he had stationed on the road, would march all night to their assistance; and they attributed his delay to the necessity of collecting a sufficient force to overpower ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... of the house at night, and go off and wander about the street for hours, proud, heartsick, despairing, not knowing which way to turn, or what to do, while Mrs. Clemm would endure the anxiety at home as long as she could, and then start off in ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... our party, very curious to know what all the laughing was about. Our small friend Gipsey was the cause of it, partly, for he posted himself beside each of our chairs in turn, and made such surprising and despairing hops and skips after bits of chicken held up beyond his reach, that he very nearly turned a somerset ...
— Neighbor Nelly Socks - Being the Sixth and Last Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... Agamemnon; their evil tidings are received in despairing silence. But Diomede bids Agamemnon take heart and fight next day, with his host arrayed "before the ships" (IX. 708). This appears to counsel defensive war; but, in fact, and for reasons, when it comes to fighting they do ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... pain and terror, stalking through the narrow streets of old London, and changing their busy hum into a silence broken only by the wailing of the mourners of fifty thousand dead; by the woful denunciations and mad prayers of fanatics; and by the madder yells of despairing profligates. ...
— On the Advisableness of Improving Natural Knowledge • Thomas H. Huxley
... helplessly toward the precipice, Buck made a tremendous, despairing effort and managed to catch Lynch by the belt and clung there for a moment. When one hand was torn loose, he even struck Tex wildly in the face. But there was no strength in his arm, and Lynch, with a growl of rage, jerked himself free and ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... on his antagonist, seized on the redoubted sword, so precious in the eyes of its aged owner, and brandished it over his head as a trophy of his conquest. The English shouted in triumph. But the despairing cry of the aged champion, who saw his country dishonoured, and his sword, long the terror of their race, in possession of an Englishman, was heard high above the acclamations of victory. He seemed, for an instant, animated by all his wonted power; for he started from the rock ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... the matches, etc.; and then overcome by fatigue, he managed to forget his sorrows in sleep. Herbert went to sleep directly. As to the sailor, he passed the night with one eye on the fire, on which he did not spare fuel. But one of the castaways did not sleep in the cave. The inconsolable, despairing Neb, notwithstanding all that his companions could say to induce him to take some rest, wandered all night long on the shore calling on ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... sticks protruding from the heap, and a shrivelled pumpkin in the midst. The eyeholes were now lustreless; but the rudely-carved gap, that just before had been a mouth, still seemed to twist itself into a despairing grin, and was ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... before this picture, enveloped, as it were, in its rich gloom, as the painted profundity of a church absorbs one in its depths. And with the impression of its solemn beauty was blent a despairing awe of the artist who, of a little coloured earth, had created such a masterpiece of vitality, thrown on to a thin screen of canvas so enduringly palpable, so sumptuous, and so poignantly dominating a reflection of his visions. What a passionate energy of beauty ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... to the French people, the other to the army; and he was desirous of having them copied out fairly. His secretary and General Bertrand, being neither of them able to decipher them, carried them to Napoleon, who, despairing of doing it himself, threw them into the sea from vexation. Then, after meditating for a few moments, he dictated to his secretary the two following proclamations ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... war-whoop, sent flights of arrows at the Casa, and made a spirited but useless charge on the doorways. Its repulse was the signal for a general and hasty flight. Just as the rising sun spread his haze of ruddy gold over the east, there was a despairing yell which marked the termination of the conflict, and then a rush for the gaps in the wall of the enclosure. In one minute from the signal for retreat the top of the hill did not contain a single painted combatant. No vigorous pursuit; the garrison had had enough of fighting; besides, ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... thus sinking under the burden of his griefs, and despairing ever to see his adorable Charlotta any more, fate was providing for him a relief as unexpected as the cause of his present unhappy situation had been, and to the very same persons also was he indebted both for the one ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... his neck. And he crushed her to him, all the length of them in contact. She struggled faintly but her lips sought his in a despairing hope of pity. She found the lips, but no pity. The breath was almost gone from her body. She struggled, fighting hard, breathing his name in little panting sobs. She too was mad now, as much of an animal as Jerry, her blood coursing ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... necessary to have two pretty good eyes in business." But he saw then that she was really rather despairing. "There is, one 'i,'" he said. "It seems foolish, doesn't it? Audrey dear, what are you trying to do? For heaven's sake, if ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Eagle, whose head was white with years of wisdom and experience, spoke to the despairing assemblage of creatures. From his lofty perch above the world the Eagle had looked down upon centuries of change and decay. He knew every force of nature and all the strange things of life. The hoary-headed sage said that the Good Hunter could not be restored until his scalp ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... of youths from this cause are reported, and in many mysterious suicides this has undoubtedly been the real cause. "Week after week," writes the British Medical Journal in an editorial ("Dangerous Quack Literature: The Moral of a Recent Suicide," Oct. 1, 1892), "we receive despairing letters from those victims of foul birds of prey who have obtained their first hold on those they rob, torture and often ruin, by advertisements inserted by newspapers of a respectable, nay, even of a valuable ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... dying. No business-man felt secure. No amount of property, other than ready money, was any safeguard. Neighbor met neighbor, asking, with doleful accent, "Where is this going to end?" The street, at 'change hours, presented a crowd of haggard faces, furrowed with care, their eyes fixed and despairing. Some looked white with apprehension, some crushed and tearful, others stony, sullen, or defiant. Whatever was bravest had been drawn out in manly endeavor; whatever was most generous was excited to sympathy and brotherly-kindness; whatever was most ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... bear are also borne, where the memories and ashes of our ancestors are guarded, of whose deeds we are proud, whose tongue we speak, whose religion we share, whose heroic character and customs we admire.... Spain is our pole star, the star to which we raise our eyes when we are despairing and when we face a sacrifice for God, for a woman, a child, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... the raging ocean rolls, Whose livid waves involve despairing souls; The liquid burnings dreadful colours shew, Some deeply red, ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... uttered his last command, Gonzague thrust the packet that he held into the flame of the candle, and in a moment the flame ran along the paper, lapping it and consuming it. The king and Lagardere both saw the despairing deed. ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Neuerthelesse, sayling along by the coast to see if I could finde any gulfe that turned, I found the lande still continent to the 56. degree vnder our Pole. And seeing that there the coast turned toward the East, despairing to finde the passage, I turned backe againe, and sailed downe by the coast of that land toward the Equinoctiall (euer with intent to finde the saide passage to India) and came to that part of this firme lande which is nowe called Florida, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... France had been a different man from {295} Louis the Sixteenth he might have faced the rising storm with some hope of success. But he could do nothing, would do nothing. His advisers, his intimates, his kinsmen, his captains, despairing at his vacillation and fearing that they would be abandoned to the fury of insurgent Paris, fled for their lives from a country that seemed to them as if possessed by a devil. The country was possessed, possessed ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... sweetness calms to soft repose Our wild regrets and restless woes, And richly ev'ry craving mind contents. Without thee Venus has no charms; You constancy to am'rous souls impart, And hopes bestow to each despairing heart, ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... said he. He no longer spoke like a despairing lover. Indeed there was a smile round his mouth, and his ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... nuance of the main tempo together with the following fortissimo. It was not so easy on the return of the conflict of the two strongly contrasted motives, to bring them out clearly without disturbing the proper feeling for the predominant rate of speed. Here, when the despairing energy of the allegro is concentrated in successively shorter periods, and ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... kingdom within was peaceful and orderly; and the strife with France seemed at an end. During the next three years Edward persisted in the line of policy he had adopted, retaining his hold over Southern Scotland, aiding his sub-king Balliol in campaign after campaign against the despairing efforts of the nobles who still adhered to the house of Bruce, a party who were now headed by Robert the Steward of Scotland and by Earl Randolph of Moray. His perseverance was all but crowned with success, ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... of slabs of ice. The last words I heard in the dining-room of the Hotel Oriental were from a soldier with two stars on each shoulder: "Francisco, oh, Francisco," and the little woman with left shoulder exposed turned her despairing face to the wall, her sorrow too deep for words ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... crackling of the leaves, as the threatening column rushes on, reaches their ears. A fearful death is following them. At length the sharp eyes of one of the guides discover a slight eminence; towards this, though almost despairing of safety, they direct their course. They reach its base. It is but thinly covered with vegetation. Scarcely have they urged up their panting horses to the summit than the flames overtake them. And now the sea of fire rolls its devouring billows around, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... mothers who have already more children on their hands than they can care for, whose health is insufficient to longer endure the pains and burdens of pregnancy, but whose sensual husbands continue to demand indulgence, will echo in despairing tones, while acknowledging the truth, "What shall we do?" We will answer the question for ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... over.—All this we learn from Comenius himself, whose account of the matter and of what followed had better now be quoted. "The Pansophiae Prodromus," he says, "having been published, and copies dispersed through the various kingdoms of Europe, but many learned men who approved of the sketch despairing of the full accomplishment of the work by one man, and therefore advising the erection of a College of learned men for this express business, in these circumstances the very person who had been the means of giving the Prodromus to the world, a man strenuous in practically prosecuting things ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... not, as they had hoped, end the war, which went on for several years. At last Aristodemus, despairing of victory, went to his beloved daughter's ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... did," Douglas boldly admitted; "I was obliged to, right or wrong. If you had only seen his eyes, his starving, despairing eyes! I believe they will haunt me as long as I live; somehow I feel to-night as if I had looked ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... preserved among them from olden times are sweet and noble; but the bulk of the songs are very defective. Most of those hitherto in use were composed during the last century, and therefore their structure is irregular, their grief slavish and despairing, their joy reckless and bombastic, their religion bitter and sectarian, their politics Jacobite and concealed by extravagant and tiresome allegory. Ignorance, disorder, and every kind of oppression weakened and darkened the lyric genius ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... Despairing of the promised trip through the villages, we issued orders for our animals to be ready early one morning. Only after vigorous complaints and threats were they actually ready. The owner of the beast which I, myself, mounted went with us on foot, and a mozo was supplied for carrying ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... He, despairing of finding any other way of appeasing the old man, after some consideration and consultation with his ministers, said to him: "You have told me that your intended son-in-law is a young man of rare abilities, and more fit to be the husband of a princess than of your daughter, and his ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... his government by force, but was overpowered by faction; and at last, despairing of success, he secretly sent his children to Euboea, to Elephenor, the son of Chalkodous; and he himself, after solemnly uttering curses on the Athenians at Gargettus, where now is the place called Araterion, or ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... instance, it was really like the little naked babe which is seen in mediaeval illuminations flying out of the mouths of dying men. But, worn out with watching, Godric could not keep from sleep. All but despairing of his desire, he turned to the dying man, and spoke, says Reginald, some such words as these:—"O spirit! who art diffused in that body in the likeness of God, and art still inside that breast, I adjure thee by the Highest, that thou leave not the prison of this thine habitation ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... proceeded to perform it. Following his discovery of the outrage committed on his father's sanctuary, Bryce wasted considerable valuable time and effort in a futile endeavour to gather some further hint of the identity of the vandals; but despairing at last, he dismissed the matter from his mind, resolving only that on Thursday he would go up into Pennington's woods and interview the redoubtable Jules Rondeau. Bryce's natural inclination was to wait upon M. Rondeau immediately, ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... certain morning in early September Wilbur Cowan idled on River Street, awaiting a summons. The day was sunny and spacious, yet hardly, he thought, could it contain his new freedom. Despairing groups of half-grown humans, still in slavery, hastened by him to their hateful tasks. He watched them pityingly, and when the dread bell rang, causing stragglers to bound forward in a saving burst of speed, he halted ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... arrival, though she did make some invidious remarks concerning the handsome underclothes, wondering "what folks were thinking of to put so much work where it was never seen. Puffs, and embroidery, and lace, and, I vum, if the ruffles ain't tucked too," she continued, in a despairing voice, hoping Ethelyn knew "how to iron such filagree herself, for the mercy knew ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... writes throughout in the third person, although he was present in the Roman camp as a prisoner during the siege, and before then had been, as governor of Galilee, the brave and energetic antagonist of the Romans. Becoming the friend of Titus, and despairing of the success of his compatriots, he was employed in efforts to conciliate the leaders of the rebellion during the siege, and he was for three years a privileged captive in the camp of the besiegers. His recital is one of the most thrilling samples of romantic realism in ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... played the little comedy of flinging herself with tears into the arms of her son-in-law. It was the only provincial thing that Madame Evangelista allowed herself, but she had her reasons for it. Amid tears and speeches, apparently half wild and despairing, she obtained of Paul those concessions ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... opening wide his eyes, fixed upon me a glance that called for help with intense supplication. He seemed to say to me, "You are a man; do save me." Then he staggered, his eyes already glazed, and fell to the ground, uttering so woeful, so despairing, so anguished a cry that it filled me with mute horror. He was buried at the foot of the garden, under a white rosebush that still marks the place of ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... and hurled him so that steel- colored plates were for a moment uppermost. But he rallied swiftly, agilely, and again the head and neck bended back to the double curve, and the steaming, wide-open mouth made its desperate effort to reach its enemy. This attack, it could be seen, was despairing, but it was nevertheless impetuous, gallant, ferocious, of the same quality as the charge of the lone chief when the walls of white faces close upon him in the mountains. The stick swung unerringly again, and the snake, mutilated, ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... of the chants and prayers of the Church pervaded by a more terrible, wild fervor than the Superior that night breathed into them. They seemed to wail, to supplicate, to combat, to menace, to sink in despairing pauses of helpless anguish, and anon to rise in stormy agonies of passionate importunity; and the monks quailed and trembled, they scarce knew why, with forebodings of coming ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... savory omelet, and a bottle of claret. The mutton cutlets and fried potatoes at the Golden Fleece at Antwerp are—or were then, for I am speaking now of well-nigh thirty years since—remarkably good; the claret, also, was of the best; and so, by degrees, the look of despairing dismay passed from his face, and some scintillations of the old fire returned to ...
— The Relics of General Chasse • Anthony Trollope
... compared the struggles of these poor children who ought never to have felt restraint, nor would, had they been always held in with an even hand, to the despairing plunges of a spirited filly, which I have seen breaking on a strand; its feet sinking deeper and deeper in the sand every time it endeavoured to throw its rider, till at last ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... lay, wretched, despairing, hardly able to move, when suddenly I heard rapid and firm footsteps immediately behind me, and the next moment two firm hands had me under the arms, and I ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... the right way to look at it? I confess that I can see no reason for despairing of the American people because it reads more fiction than it used to read, so long as this is for the same reason that a ten year old boy reads more stories than a baby. Intellectual youth is at least an advance over mental infancy ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... shine on what I love, Touch the soft hair and sparkle in the eyes,— Send, from your calm serenity above, Sleep to whom, sleepless, here, despairing lies. ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... told me, standing there by the door with the Kuchen heavy on her mind. Some of them I got from Ernst von Gerhard when I told him about my visitor and her errand. The errand was not disclosed until Frau Knapf had caught me casting a despairing glance at ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... the breeding season, attempt sometimes in the gaiety of their hearts to sing, but with no great success; the parrot-kind have many modulations of voice, as appears by their aptitude to learn human sounds; doves coo in an amorous and mournful manner, and are emblems of despairing lovers; the wood-pecker sets up a sort of loud and hearty laugh; the fern-owl, or goat-sucker, from the dusk till day-break, serenades his mate with the clattering of castanets. All the tuneful passeres express their complacency by sweet modulations, and a variety of ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... The weak, handsome, despairing father begging his child's forgiveness. The dismantling of the home. The placing of Geraldine in a cheap lodging while her father's widow shed all responsibility of her and set forth in new raiment for green fields ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... last stay at Paris, when ill, broken down, and despairing, I sat brooding over my fate, my eyes fell on the score of my 'Lohengrin,' totally forgotten by me. Suddenly I felt something like compassion that this music should never sound from off the death-pale ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... nipped and frosted. His words died away on his tongue. Even his eyes, despairing of encouragement, ceased to attend on hers. And they went on in silence through Kirton hamlet, where an old man followed them with his eyes, and perhaps envied them their youth and love; and across the Ivy beck where the mill was splashing and grumbling low thunder to itself in the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... observing that several of his divisions hesitated, being held in check by the fire of the musqueteers, he moved on himself at the head of his main body, directing his attack to that part of the enemy where Ferdinand Pizarro was seen at the head of his squadrons. Orgognez apparently despairing of the battle, called out while advancing, "Follow me who will! I go in the name of God to do my duty, and to seek an honourable death!" While Orgognez was advancing, Gonzalo Pizarro and Alonso Alvarado ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... of jointed babies.[243] I could not but be solicitous to know of her, how she had disposed of that rake-hell Punch, whose lewd life and conversation had given so much scandal, and did not a little contribute to the ruin of the fair. She told me, with a sigh, that despairing of ever reclaiming him, she would not offer to place him in a civil family, but got him in a post upon a stall in Wapping, where he may be seen from sun-rising to sun-setting, with a glass in one hand, and a pipe in the other, as sentry to a brandy-shop. The great ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... spite of my despairing thoughts, I looked forward to my being set at liberty. I counted the days eagerly, and daily did I ask questions of the little old man who came to see me when my captivity should be ended. But he always shook his head, neither could I get ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... President is equally wandering and indefinite. First, it is to be done by a more vigorous prosecution of the war in the vital parts of the enemy's country; and after apparently talking himself tired on this point, the President drops down into a half-despairing tone, and tells us that "with a people distracted and divided by contending factions, and a government subject to constant changes by successive revolutions, the continued success of our arms may fail to secure a satisfactory peace." ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... He is described as kind, courteous, possessed of the most captivating grace and ease of manner, now inclined to languorous melancholy, now scintillating with a joyous vivacity that was contagious. His sensitive nature, like the most exquisitely constructed sounding-board, vibrated with the despairing sadness, the suppressed wrath, and the sublime fortitude of the brave, haughty, unhappy people he loved, and with his own homesickness when afar from ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... through the crowd. Men drew in their breath hard, and women shrieked, unable to turn away their eyes, fastened by a terrible fascination on the peril. Horrid apprehensions invaded the mind of many a parent. The doomed boy might be his own son. Despairing glances were cast around in every direction for help. In vain: none could be given. There was time for nothing: with every second the child was swept more rapidly ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... in with a snarl: "Is it my fault that the country is in arms? Military necessity compels me to remain here. I consider myself magnanimous. I—" His voice cracked, and he made a despairing, violent gesture. "Go, before I ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... hundred of the enemy on the British out-post at Lacolle, near Rouse's Point; but the guard, keeping up a sharp fire, withdrew, and the Americans, in the darkness and confusion, fired into each other's ranks, and fell back in disastrous and headlong retreat. The discomfited general, despairing of a successful attack on Montreal, so great was the vigilance and valour of the Canadians, retired with his "Grand Army of the North" into safe winter quarters, behind the entrenchments of Plattsburg. ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... country,—the vast ranges of galley-prisons at Civita Vecchia, the fortress of Ancona, the castle of Bologna, the fortress of Ferrara, and hundreds of minor prisons over the country,—all were filled,—filled, do I say! they were crowded,—crowded to suffocation with choking, despairing victims. In the midst of this congeries of dungeons, surrounded by clanking chains and weeping captives, stands the chair ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... as his old legs would carry him straight to Grochowski; by the time he arrived it was dark. He knocked, but received no answer, waited for a quarter of an hour and then walked round the house. Despairing at last of making himself heard, he was just going to depart, when Grochowski suddenly confronted him, as if the ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... "Minos standeth horribly and gnasheth," condemning the miserable souls before him each to his different circle, his tail wound twice about his middle. Farther back, the Pistoiese, Vanno Fucci, with blasphemous gesture, yells out his challenge to God; Charon plies his boat; and in the background despairing souls follow a mocking demon who runs before them ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell |
