"Desperate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a desperate contest for the possession of Kansas. They had found that all the crops grown in Missouri by slave labor could be as profitably cultivated in Kansas. Securing Kansas, they would gain more than the mere material advantage of an enlarged field for ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... in and stood by the bed. She did not speak. She looked at me as if to say that sometimes desperate things have to be done. I understood. I acquiesced. Did Mrs. Brown do it? I never asked. Zoe's sufferings were very great. All this for Lamborn's drunken madness. And then Zoe began to mend. She was out of her difficulty. She ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... remarks that this is considered to mark a kind of turning-point. In 1862 things improve again. In July he is employed in three cases of which two were 'glorious triumphs,' and the third, the 'Great Grimsby riot,' which is 'at present a desperate battle,' is the biggest case he has yet had on circuit. The circuit turns out to be his most profitable, so far. On October 20 he reports that he has got pretty well 'to the top of the little hill' of sessions, and ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... trouble, and rebel against him or resist him. England always sends help to them, the help of an expeditionary force, or, failing that, the help of irregular volunteers. Sir Philip Sidney dies at Zutphen; Sir John Moore at Corunna. There is always desperate fighting in the Low Countries; and the names of Mons, Liege, Namur, and Lille recur again and again. England always succeeds in maintaining herself, though not without some reverses, on the sea. In the end the power of the master ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... among them the best of wills and of cooeperative arrangements, the European peoples could not keep themselves alive this winter and make any substantial advance towards reparation of the damage of war and industrial recovery. If human cooeperation is to save these weak and desperate peoples, it must be a cooeperation of more than the nations of Europe. Only by the better provided nations of the world coming to the rescue can the worse-provided nations survive and recover. It would be foolish to mince ...
— Morals of Economic Internationalism • John A. Hobson
... had considered the matter a moment longer, probably I should not have had the courage to open the battle; for, if I failed to hit the Indian, my situation would become desperate, and with an empty rifle in my hand, I could only depend upon my legs for safety, while the savages would be able to escape with their prize before the soldiers could be ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... apparently impressed by his reputation which at this time was growing rapidly as that of a capable and daring agent of Cromwell's; and even once or twice when he condescended to hint at the vastness of the affairs on which he was engaged, in a desperate endeavour to rouse her admiration, she only looked at him steadily a moment with very penetrating eyes, and began to speak of something else. He ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... my life," exclaimed Wallace, straining her to his heart, "I obey thee. But if the hand of one of the desperate robbers dares ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... "A desperate attempt at robbery, culminating in the death of one man and the capture of the criminal, occurred this afternoon in the City. For some time back Mawson & Williams, the famous financial house, have been the guardians of securities which amount in the ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... 'em—SOME sort of dashingness, anyhow! Nobody ever looked at poor Bibbs before, and neither'd she—no, SIR! not till she'd tried both Roscoe and Jim first! It was only when her and her family got desperate that she—" ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... from Reykjavik, had followed the line of the sea. We took our way through poor and sparse meadows, which made a desperate effort every year to show a little green. They very rarely succeed in a ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... Violante was under a roof so honoured, and seemingly so safe, as Lord Lansmere's, did not discourage this bold and desperate adventurer. We have seen him set forth to reconnoitre the house at Knightsbridge. He had examined it well, and discovered the quarter which he judged favourable to a coup-de-main, should ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the cowardice of Magny. He found means to communicate with her from his prison, and her Highness, who was not in open disgrace yet (for the Duke, out of regard to the family, persisted in charging Magny with only robbery), made the most desperate efforts to relieve him, and to bribe the gaolers to effect his escape. She was so wild that she lost all patience and prudence in the conduct of any schemes she may have had for Magny's liberation; for her husband was inexorable, and caused the ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in desperate need," she went on quickly. "There was a debt—a debt of honor—I wished to pay. And Mr. Foster told me you were interested in that desert land; that you were going to look it over. He caught me by long distance telephone ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... found that Madame de Selinville prodigiously admired the 'silly swains more silly than their sheep,' and was very anxious that M. le Baron should be touched by their beauties; whereupon honest Philip made desperate efforts to swallow them in his brother's stead, but was always found fast asleep in the very middle of arguments between Damon and Thyrsis upon the devoirs of love, or the mournings of some disconsolate nymph over her jealousies ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... blessed vision! After all the years, Thou'rt with us yet. To-day, as heretofore, Men see Thee still and they cast off their fears, And take fresh courage to press on once more. The soldiers, bearing from the desperate fight A wounded brother, see Thee, in the way, And know Thee for the Saviour, Healer, Friend, For once again, Thy loved ones hear Thee say (O Christ! White Comrade, in their stand for right!) "Lo, I am with you alway, ...
— The Comrade In White • W. H. Leathem
... before us. This is the meaning of the desperate unrest and unhappiness of women. It is this that has drawn us here to enter our protest against the wicked, old, one-legged order of things. Our honored Miss Anthony has gone through fire and hail while she worked for her convictions. All of us have ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... destruction of the French fleet under Admiral Tourville, off La Hogue, led to a material change in their views. After that naval engagement it became obvious that the cause of the fugitive King was in the mean time desperate, and the Scottish officers, with no less gallantry than honour, volunteered a sacrifice which, so far as I know, has ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... stolid countrymen. Mistress and slave were much together, the master's duties requiring his presence near his prince. Time hung heavily on the lady's hands and, as an ennui antidote, she embarked in a desperate flirtation with the handsome fellow, for Egypt's dark-eyed daughters dearly love to play fast and loose with the hearts of men. Of course it was very wrong; but youth and beauty will not be strictly bound, the opportunity seemed made for mischief, ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Sigurd from the moment he becomes acquainted with his royal birth until his final destruction. From a frank and generous youth, who is confident that he is born for something great, he is driven by the treachery, cruelty, and deceit of his brother, the king, into the position of a desperate outlaw and guerilla. The very first scene, in the church of St. Olaf, where the boy confides to the saint, in a tone of bonne camaraderie, his joy at having conquered, in wrestling, the greatest champion in the land, gives one the key-note ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... the first, when, I had time to at all think of it," Damaris answered with rather desperate bravery, "I couldn't see there was anything for me to forgive. It was the other way about. For haven't I so much which he might very well feel belonged, or ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... and racing up a difficult glen, plunged into the Covenanting flank. Meanwhile the more advanced part of the Covenanting force were driving back some Gordons from a hill on Montrose's left, who were rescued by a desperate charge of Aboyne's handful of horse among the red coats; Airlie charged with the Ogilvies; the advanced force of the Covenant was routed, and the Macleans and Macdonalds completed the work they had begun ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... to go down to the office of the hotel, and see if he could not make some arrangement with the landlord. It would be extremely distasteful, but his ample letter of credit would be at least a voucher of his final ability to pay. As a desperate resort he could go and try to get the money ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... nearest neighbor. When the Indian had made the circuit of the town in this manner he looked very sleek and happy, indeed, but the people were no wiser. The knowledge of having been shamefully buncoed by an Indian and disappointed in their lust for gold made the Mexicans desperate. They held an indignation meeting and resolved to capture the wily Navajo and compel him, under torture, if necessary, to divulge the secret of his gold mine. Consequently, they overcame the Indian, ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... deadly pale. His uncle's manner had taken him by surprise; but even in this desperate moment, when he felt that all was lost, he attempted to assume the ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... towards the cabin and Poppy, leaving the men exchanging glances of hopeless consternation. Then, as he turned to descend, the desperate Joe ran up and laid a detaining hand ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... "He is desperate: and you know it is hard to go on losing and losing, and then the moment luck turns to be done out of it, in spite of a written bargain. I've ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... close behind, some side by side, Like clouds in stormy weather, They run, and cry, "Nay let us die, And let us die together." A Lake was near; the shore was steep; There never Foot had been; 50 They ran, and with a desperate leap Together plung'd into the deep, Nor ever more were seen. Sing, mournfully, oh! ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... had less hope of making his arrangement. He considered the matter carefully and judiciously, but at last he decided that he could not trust the vindictive devils, and he turned his mind strenuously toward resistance. Although not pugnacious, he had plenty of the desperate courage of necessity, and his dusky black eyes were very resolute as he said to Thurstane, ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... you had better not." So he kissed her in the hall before the others, made some commonplace suggestion about the place, and with his bag in hand left, nodding to them all as he got into the carriage. Isabelle, who had appeared dazed these days, as if, her heart and mind occupied in desperate inner struggle, her body lived mechanically, left the two men to themselves and went to her room. And shortly afterwards Cairy, who had become subdued, thoughtful, pleaded work and ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... The fox-faced man is apt to be sly, the triangular man is likely to be a lump. So Mr. Asche, being rectilinear, was on the square; just as Mr. Hogan, being soft and round, was slippery and hard to hold. Three days passed, during which Mrs. Mathusek grew haggard and desperate. She was saving at the rate of two dollars a day, and at that rate she would be able to buy Tony a trial in five weeks more. She had exhausted her possibilities as a borrower. The indictment slept in O'Brien's tin file. Nobody ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... How often shall we be required to encounter this desperate elegance? I almost begin to repent ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... they found themselves being carried along in the human stream well out of reach of the blows being showered down by the rallying party from the house, who literally drove their enemies before them, at first step by step, striking back in their own defence, rendered desperate by their position, then giving up and seeking refuge in flight, when with a rush their companions gave way more ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... the torments she endured, and that after doing much good during her mortal career she would, when her time came to quit the world, be placed high amongst myriads of angels. She said that whenever urged by despair to relieve herself from her pains by a desperate course, this bright and beautiful angel would stand before her and pour words of consolation and ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... to the ground, and from behind the shelter of his horse had shot the first robber through the body. Our two companions now drew together, and took refuge behind some large rocks, preparing to receive the charge of a band of half dozen who now appeared. The situation looked desperate. Don Gaspar fired and missed. He was never anything of a marksman, and his first shot must have been a great piece of luck. Barry held his fire. The robbers each discharged his rifle, but harmlessly. Then just as they ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... all; it pleased God to bring a greater affliction yet upon us, for in the beginning of the storm we had received likewise a mighty leak, and the ship in every joint almost having spewed out her Okam, before we were aware (a casualty more desperate than any other that a Voyage by Sea draweth with it) was grown five feet suddenly deep with water above her ballast, and we almost drowned within, whilest we sat looking when to perish from above. This, imparting no less terror ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... lock up your papers in a strong box that nobody can open. They imagine you are at Paris on some commission, and there is no trusting French hotels or servants. America is in a desperate situation, The accounts from the Congress are not expected before the 10th, and expected very warm. I have not time to tell you some manoeuvres against them that will make your blood curdle. Write to me when you can by private hands, as ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... or three minutes Mrs. Armine heard nothing but the noise of the wind, which seemed to have taken entire possession of the chamber, and she felt as if she were its prey and the prey of the darkness. Something that was like hysteria seized upon her, a desperate terror of fate and the unknown. In the wind and in the darkness she had a grievous sensation of helplessness and of doom, of being lost for ever to happiness and light. And when the wind was shut out, ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... wounded. Ned, watching his chance, got in several blows, first at one and then at the other of the huge creatures. The third devil fish, which had not been wounded, had disappeared. Finally Koku, with a desperate blow, succeeded in severing the tail from the beast attacking him, and that battle ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... army approaching the capital. The commanders of Gorkha, especially Jagajit, complied most reluctantly, and made a peace with Garhawal. The Brahman, their associate, now considering their affairs desperate, on being desired to accompany them, treated the request with insolence, asking who they were, that he should follow. They had, however, only retired a little way, when information was brought, that peace had been made with the Chinese, on ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... on the strange actions of Marufa the more he was persuaded that that wily colleague was acting upon sound information, and the tangle of his affairs made him so desperate that he decided to gamble upon that assumption: for magician Bakahenzie began to realize that Marufa had somehow scored a point and that now was approaching the crux which would determine whether he won back or lost for ever ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... ears. In vain his assistant, a deft-fingered man with a beard, twirled the waxen-faced figure to show the "semi-princesse back" and the "near-Empire front." Corn-blue chiffon and panne velvet are not much worn in Fourteenth Street. The auctioneer grew desperate. "Twenty-five dollars," he repeated with such scorn that the timid woman who had made the bid wished herself at home and in bed. ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... Mortimer's garden, but the evening breeze, although it cooled his brow, failed to calm his excited feelings. Suddenly it occurred to him that his absence from Mr. Mortimer's would excite attention in those who saw him enter, so he made a desperate effort to be calm, and retracing his steps, was soon in the drawing room with Mabel Mortimer on his arm, much to ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... the state of the body after this event to indicate a future existence, but rather every thing to perplex such a sentiment, and to confound such an expectation. There is nothing in its aspect which seems to foretel life—nothing to predict resuscitation. In general, however desperate the case, hope is sustained by the most trifling circumstances, the feeblest glimmerings of the yet unextinguished lamp; if there be the gentlest breath, or the slightest motion, the solicitude of wakeful tenderness is still maintained, and the possibility at least of a return to health is ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... exclusive right in which to call up the motion to reconsider, after which others could do so. During this time the opponents worked madly to get one of the loyal 49 to change his vote without avail. They attempted every unscrupulous scheme known to control legislation. All failing, as a last desperate move, 36 in the early morning hours made a hegira to Decatur, Ala., where they remained for ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... ground of common Orthodox faith; he would hardly have called for help on the ground of common Slavonic speech and origin. If he had done so, it would have been rather by way of grasping at any chance, however desperate or far-fetched, than as putting forward a serious and well understood claim which he might expect to find accepted and acted on by large masses of men. He might have received help, either out of genuine sympathy springing from community of faith or from ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... me, though the others, it seemed to me, he let alone. The moment, however, that one of them touched me, Solon made his teeth meet in the calves of his legs. I struggled as hard as I could to free myself, but what could I do, a mere boy, in the hands of powerful and desperate men. Knowing that I must be aware of their plot, they seemed bent on my destruction. Already they had got me off my legs, close to the bulwarks, and were about to heave me overboard; the gag slipped from my mouth, and I shouted out hastily for help. The mutineers, alarmed by ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... free man, at that time have got more?-A free man was getting from 9 to 10 a ton; and things came to such a pass that the people got desperate. There were poor years at the same time, and the men applied to their landlord, and got their liberty on condition of paying 15s. a head of liberty money. That was kept on until a few years ago, and then it was put ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... sensation supplied a large part of the material for his poetry, and among the senses it was especially the one that has the remotest association with ideas that he drew upon most constantly—the sense of smell. In his desperate search for new and strange sensations he went the round of violent and exhausting dissipations, and as his senses flagged he spurred them with all sorts of stimulants. Meanwhile he observed himself curiously ; the result in his poems is an impression of peculiarly ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... fast the sheet of a mainsail or foresail. What ho! no nearer! is What ho! no higher now. But old salts remember no nearer! and it may be still extant. Seasickness seems to have been the same as ever—so was the desperate effort to pretend one was not really ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... street in many a town fell suddenly silent and deserted, and grass grew between the stones of the causeway. Here and there fires were kept burning night and day to purify the air, but this availed little. In many a thorpe and village all the inhabitants were swept away and even robbers and desperate vagrants were too greatly in fear of infection to enter the ownerless houses. Sometimes in the fields one saw little children, and perchance an aged woman, trying to manage a plough or ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... Yum needed to go to San Francisco to sign certain papers before the Chinese Consul, permission had first to be obtained from San Quentin. Then, too, neither man was nasty tempered. Saxon had been apprehensive of the task of bossing two desperate convicts; but when they came she found it a pleasure to work with them. She could tell them what to do, but it was they who knew how do. Prom them she learned all the ten thousand tricks and quirks of artful gardening, and she was not long in realizing how helpless she would have been had she ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... His strength being much broken down, I then ordered gum ammoniac, with small doses of opium, and infusum amarum, continuing the squill at intervals. At length I was urged to give the Digitalis, and considering the case as desperate, I agreed to do it. The event was as I expected; no increase in the urine took place; and the medicine being still continued, his pulse became slow, and he apparently sunk under its sedative effects. He was ...
— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering
... hate on thee!—What, wilt thou say "Through every woman's nature one blind strand Of passion winds, that men scarce understand?"— Are we so different? Know I not the fire And perilous flood of a young man's desire, Desperate as any woman, and as blind, When Cypris stings? Save that the man behind Has all men's strength to aid him. Nay, 'twas thou... But what avail to wrangle with thee now, When the dead speaks for all to understand, ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... final. During months and years the baroness and her daughter had been slowly preparing for the great event. The most unheard-of economies had been imagined and carried out in the attempt to give Hilda a little outfit for her wedding, just enough to hide the desperate poverty in which they had lived. Many a long winter's evening had the two ladies spun the fine flax by the smouldering fire; many a long day had Hilda and Berbel spent at the primitive loom in the sunny room of the south tower; through many a summer's noon had the long breadths ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... The desperate resource which she had tried during the first act, of seeking entertainment from the very conversation which prevented her enjoying it, was not now even in her power: for these gentlemen, though as negligent as the young ladies ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... expresses are few and simple—ideas common to all men; but they take a special colour from his own feelings and experiences, and he renders them with a poignancy which is his own, with a melancholy gaiety and a desperate imaginative sincerity. His figure is so interesting in itself—that of the enfant perdu of genius—and so typical of a class, that the temptation to create a Villon legend is great; but to magnify his ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... in all the great towns, proves that the pack-horses could tramp along the old Roman roads with facility. Indeed, amongst the Normans the commercial spirit was indigenous. The Danes and the folk of Danish blood were diligent traders. The greed of gain unites readily with desperate bravery. When occasion served, Drake would deal like a Dutchman. Any mode of making money enters into facile combination with the bold rapacity of the Flibustier." There was much material prosperity in Normandy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... places where the blaze seemed to be expiring, it would suddenly shoot up into brilliant cones, and pyramids of flame, and this was repeated as often as he approached it. At last he drew back a little, and made a desperate leap into the flames. The united effects of the heat, the violent exertion, and the fear of being burned in the desperate attempt, resulted in his restoration of life. He awoke from his trance, and, though weak and exhausted, he soon recovered his health ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... the last hour, the ladies continued, if words might have been trusted, in absolute despair; and in truth, when one examined into the resources at their command, the case seemed desperate enough. To be sure, Baltimore was near, and was soon under contribution; even Philadelphia and New York were lightly visited, more than one belle having sent thus far for a dress. Some of these, by the way, were, like the Chevalier de Grammont's, swamped on the road, ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... sea had dug out in the sand in stormy weather. But he was feeling better! It was a relief to be thinking that he would soon be talking to Rosario again. Those terrible insults she had hurled at him had stopped hurting. His brain was no longer that whirl of mad desperate ravings! He seemed to be walking on air, instead, as though his heavy body were a feather! Yet there was still a griping sensation in his throat, that caught his breath; and when he swallowed, his ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... which the flower of the Roman aristocracy succumbed to the conqueror of Gaul, with vastly inferior forces, did not end the desperate contest. Two more bloody battles were fought—one in Africa and one in Spain—before the supremacy of Caesar was secured. The battle of Thapsus, between Utica and Carthage, at which the Roman nobles once more rallied under Cato and Labienus, and the battle of Munda, in ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... exertion, the population began to outgrow the employment, and there was a necessity for plantations to serve as an outlet. Men who, under happier circumstances, might have led decent lives, and done good service, were now driven by want to desperate courses—"witness," as Richard Hakluyt says, "twenty tall fellows hanged last Rochester assizes for small robberies;" and there is an admirable paper addressed to the Privy Council by Christopher Carlile, Walsingham's son-in-law, pointing ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... fancied he felt her heart beating, but at last he made up his mind that she was really dead. I felt her hands. They were deathly cold. At times Moors bury people warm, and not unfrequently alive. They are always in a desperate hurry to get corpses under ground, thinking the soul cannot have any peace whilst the body lies unburied. As the last service to the body, Omer took some earth and stopped up her nostrils. This was done to prevent her reviving should she be not really dead, and attempt to move. ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... pursuing turned round, and with a spasm of desperate terror took a deliberate aim at him. Sylvestre stopped short, smiling scornfully, sublime, to let him fire, and seeing the direction of the aim, only shifted a little to the left. But with the pressure upon the trigger the barrel of the Chinese jingal deviated slightly in the same direction. ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... married," said Feltram, with a quiet decision which chilled Sir Bale, for he had by no means made up his mind to that desperate step. ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... all that afternoon; he walked about that dreary house like a patrol, till at last he was observed of the inmates, and knots of girls gathered at the windows—alas! only to giggle at his forlorn and desperate appearance. ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... bright freedom of sixteen hours a day in a cellar was lost to him for evermore. He was now a prisoner, branded, hopeless. He would never be able to withstand the influences that had closed around him and upon him. He supposed that he should become desperate, become a tiger, ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... tugs, one clear white and one all black, offered a change in looks, though in nothing else, for each one, with two barges of coal, was making desperate hauling of it, and the Breakwater yet ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... with which, as I have shown, the weed-continent swarmed. When these were upset upon the rock, I was confounded to perceive the length and thickness of some of them; and could only conceive that this particular fish must be a very desperate enemy to them, and able successfully to attack monsters of a bulk infinitely greater than ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... was alarmed, and there was an unanimous determination to oppose it. The right simply is not regarded; it is the exercise of it that is the object of opposition. It is this exercise that has irritated and made almost desperate several of the colonies. But the noble lord (Lord North) chooses to be consistent, and is determined to make them all alike. The only province that was moderate, and in which England had some friends, he now treats ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... exhaustion had not yet become grave. The conscription act, passed in April, 1862, had kept the ranks full. The hope of foreign intervention, though distant, was by no means wholly abandoned. Financial matters had not yet assumed an entirely desperate complexion. Nor had the belief in the royalty of cotton received its coup de grace. The vigor and courage of the Confederacy were unabated, and the unity of parties in the one object of resistance to invasion doubled its effective strength. Perhaps this moment was the flood-tide of Southern enthusiasm ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... developed into a reign of terror during the second half of the first year of the world catastrophe. While the armies on the land were locked in terrific conflict, and the navies were sweeping the seas, the huge ships of the air were hovering over cities with a desperate resolve to win on all sides. By degrees the pilots of the various nations learned to work in squadrons. The tactics of the air began to be developed and opposing aerial fleets maneuvered much as did the warships. Long raids by fifty or more machines were reported, tons of bombs being released ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... attire, and if it is to be procured in this place, I will take care that you shall be suitably equipped to morrow. For the rest, trust to time, for it is a great provider of remedies even for the most desperate cases." ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the others in generosity, for our own provisions were running very low. It is true that the bread and biscuits were mildewed, the cheese stale, and the bacon as hard as stone, but the boys gave the best they could, the very poverty and humbleness of the gifts attesting their own desperate plight, and bearing proud witness to the extent of their sacrifice. With tears in their eyes and reiterated protestations of thanks, our guests staggered back through the night to their lines, undoubtedly carrying with them tender memories of ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... the birch canoes, which on the waters of the St. John are easily managed by one man, are never intrusted on those of the Metis to less than two. Our departure from Metis in boats so deeply loaded, as was afterwards learned, was considered there as a desperate attempt, and although but one of them sustained injury, this is to be ascribed to the great skill of the boatmen; and to show the velocity of the stream in a still stronger light, it is to be recollected that, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... becoming more confused than ever. Now it was not only ghosts, but jam and jelly which went to make up the terrors of the situation. But she was growing desperate. She groped right ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... way. Then she would divide her years between the little studio in England and Kami's big studio at Vitry-sur-Marne. No, she would go to another master, who should force her into the success that was her right, if patient toil and desperate endeavour gave one a right to anything. Dick had told her that he had worked ten years to understand his craft. She had worked ten years, and ten years were nothing. Dick had said that ten years were nothing,—but that was in regard to herself only. He had said—this very man who could not find time ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... said I. "Supposing a gang of men—men of no conscience, desperate, adventurous men—gets together, as men were together on that ship, the doings and fate of which seem to be pretty mysterious. They're all out for what they can get. One of them is in possession of a valuable ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... creature in a dream I moved,—my very hands looked transparent and spirit-like as I stretched them out towards that marvellous Symbol!—and when my eyes glanced for a moment at the folds of my covering veil I saw that its white silkiness shone with a pale amethystine hue. On—on I went,—a desperate idea possessing me to go as far as I could into that strange starry centre of living luminance—the very boldness of the thought appalled me even while I encouraged it—but step by step I went on resolutely till I suddenly ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... vacant places, and these, after a desperate struggle, were secured by two athletic-looking girls and a red-haired schoolboy. The conductor waved back the disappointed boarders and they dropped off sulkily. I watched them a moment and then my eyes toward two soldiers, who were crossing the street. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 3, 1916 • Various
... early in the morning, to Dartford, for a post chaise and four, to be sent to him at Northfleet, and for four horses to be ready to take him on to town; and that Mr. Sandom; a Mr. Alexander M'Rae, a person in most desperate circumstances; and Mr. Lyte, who is, I believe, a little Navy Agent, and a very poor man, were the persons who had come in this post chaise; and that M'Rae and Lyte were the two persons who were dressed in ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... sort of frantic desperation, I began, to ply myself with impossible sums in mental arithmetic, until I nearly got a brain fever; and the cars stopped, and the dreaded station was shouted in my ears, while I was in the midst of a desperate encounter with a group ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... word was law. Whoever she named was produced in court. The sneak-thief, Arthur Price, was employed by the judges to perform a mission that was at once congenial to his tastes and in harmony with his criminal education. He was sent among the incarcerated Negroes to administer punch, in the desperate hope of getting more "confessions!" Next, he was sent to Sarah Hughson to persuade her to accuse her father and mother of complicity in the conspiracy. He related a conversation he had with Sarah, but she denied it to his ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... Doctor Matthai sprang out of bed and ran to the door. Then a horrible scream of terror and anguish rang through the house. An invisible hand seemed to drag the unfortunate man out of the room. There was a brief, desperate struggle on the landing, the creature went heavily down the stairs, and the street door shut with ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... in a very "nervy" state, as it was felt that ere long the enemy would make another desperate attempt to capture the rest of the mining area, either by direct frontal attack from the East towards Bethune, or by continuing his enveloping movement from the North, and attacking it from that direction across the La Bassee Canal. A large part ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... with axes, many fired through the loopholes; Phillips made a circuit of the fort and tried the bayou stockade, while Herbert's 7th Texas attempted to cross the ditch on the land side. The fight at the stockade was desperate in the extreme; those who succeeded in surmounting or turning this barrier found an impassable obstacle in the ditch, whose existence, strange to say, they had not even suspected. Here the combatants fought hand to hand; even the sick, who had barely strength to walk from the hospital ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... unruffled serenity of a dignified philosopher who gazes unperturbed upon their pangs? So did we meditate when facing the deliberate and mild tranquillity of the priestly person presiding over the bulletin board announcing the arrival of trains at the Pennsylvania Station. It was in that desperate and curious limbo known as the "exit concourse," where baffled creatures wait to meet others arriving on trains and maledict the architect who so planned matters that the passengers arrive on two sides at once, so that one stands grievously in the middle ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... invites it, courts the point of the Ithuriel-spear, whose touch can but reveal more clearly the grace and grandeur of her angelic proportions. The advocates of Slavery have taken refuge in the last covert of desperate sophism, and affirm that their institution is of Divine ordination, that its bases are laid in the nature of man. Is anything, then, of God's contriving endangered by inquiry? Was it the system of the universe, or the monks, that trembled at the telescope of Galileo? ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... making a desperate effort, they swam on up the swift little current, and were nearing the tree fast, getting well toward the bough on which we two boys were seated, when all at once they stopped and ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... self-possession. He knew by the desperate energy with which Nellie clung to his arm that she was helpless, and that every minute they were likely to plunge headlong into and among ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... chin lowered. Without moving her head she looked up at Mrs. Harsanyi and smiled; a smile much too cold and desperate to be seen on a young face, Mrs. Harsanyi felt. "Mrs. Harsanyi, it seems to me that what I learn is just TO DISLIKE. I dislike so much and so hard that it tires me out. I've got no heart for anything." ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... answer the cry. But broader than the fact of the wish of some stood the need of all! Populous cities without one witness to the grace of God! Wide regions untraversed by the feet of His messengers! Hubert had thought New Laodicea a place of desperate need; and so it was in the matter of vital, fruit-bearing piety. But as he thought of the inky darkness in which China's millions dwelt this seemed a place ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... singular precision describes the waning light of the once proud Crescent,—the expiring breath of what has been termed by a bold figure, "the sick man."[13]—Under this vial, however, and likewise as the termination of the second woe, a general, final and desperate alliance is to be found to resist the aggressive forces of the "Lord of Hosts."—This confederacy is headed by the dragon, and is identical with the war, (ch. xii. 17,) against the "remnant of the woman's ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... a desperate measure, yet it was the best he could compass. If Culpepper came to London, if he came to the King, Katharine's fortunes were not worth a rushlight such as were sold at twenty for a farthing. He knew, too, that Viridus had Cromwell's earnest ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... cries she, fighting with a desperate desire for tears, that is still strongly allied to anger. "You would leave me. You will be no longer my guardian. Ah! was I not right? Did I not tell you you were in a hurry ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... what friend could she apply to learn how much of a rick of hay one horse ought to eat in a month of hunting? In such a matter she might have trusted Andy Gowran implicitly; but how was she to know that? And then, what if at some desperate fence she were to be thrown off and break her nose and knock out her front teeth! Was the game worth the candle? She was by no means sure that she liked Mrs. Carbuncle very much. And though she liked Lord George very well, could it be ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... in the impression on her mind regarding Gerald; only she heard no news of her two sovereigns, and he did not so much as give her the opportunity of speaking to him alone. The heartache was growing worse than ever, and she was beginning to have a sort of desperate feeling that she would—she would—do she knew not what—write to Mr. Wortley—write more strongly to Gerald than she had ever yet dared to do—when one morning, a foreign looking letter arrived, in handwriting she knew full well, though it had never before been addressed to herself. There ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... blood royal: the noonday sun seemed to take fresh lustre from his suit of cloth of gold, the air to be enriched by his perfume, the world to be vastly the better for his furs and jewels. Though it was plain that the tricked-out poet was in a desperate dilemma he managed to bear himself with a dignity that consorted royally with his pomp. Olivier bowed low to the ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... of the herd succeeded in escaping from the blood and dust of this desperate battle, and made off over the plains; but they were quickly overtaken, and the lance or the arrow brought them down on the green turf. Many of the dismounted riders were chased by bulls; but they stepped lightly to one side, and, as the animals passed, drove their ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... preparedness that might fit one to receive the further confidence of God. Such tranquillity as one gained by putting aside the problems which encompassed one, must be a hollow and vain tranquillity. One might indeed never learn the secret; it might be the will of God simply to confront one with the desperate problem; but a deep instinct in Hugh's heart told him that this could not be so; and he determined that he, at all events, would go about the world as a patient learner, grasping at any hint that was offered him, whether it came by the waving of grasses on ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... bold coarse Amazons; and the few men who appeared had a slouching gait, and looked at us from under their eyebrows with an expression at once cunning and fierce. We met many begging friars—horrible specimens of their species: altogether I never beheld such a desperate set of canaille as appear to have congregated ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... citizens and the country; they had learned the importance of a more thorough discipline and organization; and those who had gone forth as to a picnic or a holiday, sat down "to count the cost" of "enduring hardness as good soldiers." The nation discovered that this struggle for life was desperate and even dubious, ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... Indians, the Hurons were desperate gamblers, staking their all,—ornaments, clothing, canoes, pipes, weapons, and wives," loc. cit. p. xxxvi. Compare Palfrey, of Massachusetts Indians. The same is true ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... was very important to the Confederates, because it was the principal storehouse they now had for feeding their armies about Richmond. It was well known that they would make a desperate struggle to maintain it. It had been the source of a great deal of trouble to us heretofore to guard that outlet to the north, partly because of the incompetency of some of the commanders, but chiefly because ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... foolish, desperate, infantile promises; trying to placate Him in His might with my resolutions for better things, trying to strike bargains, at the last moment, with the Master of Life and Death—even protesting that I'd forgive Dinky-Dunk for anything and everything he might have done, ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... desperate a course as that, Brimberly. I was considering the advisability of—er—this!" And opening a drawer in the escritoire, Young R. held up a revolver, whereat Mr. Brimberly's whiskers showed immediate signs of extreme agitation, and he started to ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... was steady; the happy smile on her lips, and the eager expression of her eyes, might have led a spectator to believe that she was thirsty and had mixed herself a refreshing draught. She had no look of a desperate creature laying violent hands on her own life; she felt no hesitancy, no fear of death, no burthen of the guilt she was incurring—nothing but ecstatic weariness and hope; blissful hope of a life without end, united to those ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... since there was no sensibility in the body; so pressure on the injured parts elicited no groans. He prescribed egg and brandy in small quantities, and showed Mrs. Monckton how to administer it to a patient in that desperate condition. ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... Vinton Arnold, would be true to her whatever might happen. Poor Mrs. Jocelyn's best hope was, that the financial storm would blow over without fulfilling their fears. She had often known her father to be half desperate, and then there was patched up some kind of arrangement which enabled them to go on again in their old way. Still, even with her unbusiness-like habits of thought and meagre knowledge of the world, she could not ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... presently came back with a dipper of water, and held it dripping over Sylvia. "Hadn't you better drink a little?" he urged. But Sylvia suddenly motioned him away and sat up. "No, I don't want any water; I don't want anything after this," she said, in a quick, desperate tone. "I can never look anybody in the face again. I can never go to ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... and I was a bad man, and she left me! She was right enough! I wasn't fit for a decent woman to live with. All the same, I missed her; and it was another kick down Hellward for me when she went. I got desperate then; I took to drink worse than ever, and I began to let my business go and speculate. You wouldn't know anything of the city, sir; but I can tell you this, when a cool chap with all his wits about him starts ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sniffed Murray, "I doubt that I would have waited for you if I had suspected you were so desperate as to ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... Peloponnesian chiefs, however, were not content. They held a secret council, and resolved to steal secretly away. This treacherous purpose came to the ears of Themistocles, and to prevent it he took a desperate course. He sent a secret message to Xerxes, telling him that the Greek fleet was about to fly, and that if he wished to capture it he must at once close up both ends of the strait, so that ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the Returners, successful and unsuccessful in many different ways. But they all are resumed in the one long desperate Return of Ulysses, the wise and much-enduring man. In space as well as in time his Return is the longest; in spirit it is the deepest and severest by all odds. The present poem, therefore, is a kind of resumption and summary ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... Rendered desperate by the emergency, Ingred struggled through the reeds to the very edge of the river, and lifted up her voice in an agonized cry ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... with an escort of Tartars and with carriage horses which at times seemed to fly over the ground. General de Kotzebue knew every foot of the soil and was, of course, a splendid host on such an occasion. On this first day the field of the desperate Alma fight was gone over carefully and on the succeeding morning the ruined ramparts and redoubts of the once great Fortress of Sebastopol—not as yet restored—were visited and studied. The Cemetery of Cathcart's Hill was visited and here there ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... indeed, had fallen into straits so desperate that an appeal to the Liberator offered the only hope of salvation. While the royalists under their able and vigilant leader, Jose Canterac, continued to strengthen their grasp upon the interior of the country and to uphold the power of the viceroy, the President chosen by ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... substituted for what is here set down. There is nothing here of my talk with the English soldier prisoners and nothing of my visit to the officers confined in the Butyrka Gaol. There is nothing of the plagues of typhus and influenza, or of the desperate situation of a people thus visited and unable to procure from abroad the simplest drugs which they cannot manufacture at home or even the anaesthetics necessary for their wounded on every frontier of their country. I forgot to describe the ballet which I saw a few ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome
... all the several ports and places in Ireland where it would be convenient to land from France." An open trial, indeed, was not denied him; but with hasty rites he was branded a base and false traitor and doomed to be hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn. That desperate felon, after prolonged investigation by the Holy See, has lately been declared a martyr ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... of Marengo was lost for a couple of hours: the negligence of General Melas, who trusted too much to the advantages he had gained, and the audacity of General Desaix, restored the victory to the French arms. While the fate of the battle was almost desperate, Bonaparte rode about slowly on horseback, pensive, and looking downward, more courageous against danger than misfortune, attempting nothing, but waiting the turn of the wheel. He has behaved several times in a similar way, and has found his advantage in it. But I cannot help always thinking, ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... fling herself, or the tragedy or comedy that lay within, before careless passers-by. The first page has the date, in red letters, October 2, 1860, largely and clearly written. I am sure the woman's hand trembled a little when she took up the pen; but there is no sign of it here; for it was a new, desperate adventure to her, and she was young, with no faith in herself. She did not look desperate, at all,—a quiet, dark girl, coarsely dressed ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... once, without expecting it from each other: Secondly: That full of the Design to take the Time, and not knowing it, you push upon the Enemy's Thrust, without foreseeing how to avoid it; and thirdly, when an Inferior or desperate Man, unable to defend himself, had rather run on your Thrust in endeavouring to hit you, than strive in vain to avoid it. These are not only the Occasions of the same Time, but ...
— The Art of Fencing - The Use of the Small Sword • Monsieur L'Abbat
... Tim's supporters strove to hold him off the floor so that his hand would still be above the grasping hands that shot up. Once, for an instant, his arm was jerked down. Again it went up. But evidently the paper had broken, and with a last desperate effort, before he went down, Tim flung the coin out in a silvery shower upon the heads of the crowd beneath. Then ensued a weary period of arguing ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... between two big, strong men—the one desperate, unscrupulous, brutal; the other angry enough, but retaining self-control. They crashed onto the floor, Westcott still retaining the advantage of position, and twice he struck, driving his clenched fist home. Suddenly he became aware that some one had jerked ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... the carriage, Roberta," shouted Grand, suddenly alive to his peril. He trembled, but he was not the man to run from an adversary, nor was he likely to sell his life cheaply. With a quick, desperate tug, he jerked himself free of David's grasp. His hand flew to his inside ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... not be heard. But the course of the seasons is not more fixed, than it is certain that these ministerial arts must be temporary in their operation and fatal in their issue; because the more men are flattered, the more desperate they are when the calamity comes upon them. Already the West India Islands begin to cry out, as you will have seen in the address from the Island of Barbadoes. The great number of captures lately ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... the remainder of the day in a desperate state of ill-humour, which was increased by finding that Mlle. de Coulanges could neither stand nor walk. Mrs. Somers was persuaded that Emilie, if she would have exerted herself, could have done both, but that she preferred exciting the pity of the whole house; and this, all circumstances ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... point-blank refused to go into other people's pockets. During this short period of his life he was the most successful and famous lobbyist in Washington, and the most sought after by the most rascally and desperate claimants of ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... murderous volley directed at Hawk Kennedy had come perilously near doing for himself. With the calm which followed the issue of his struggle with Kennedy, came a dull rage at McGuire for placing him in such danger, which only showed his employer's desperate resolve and his indifference to Peter's fate. For Hawk Kennedy had been within his rights in supposing Peter to be concerned in the trick and only the miracle of the expiring torch which had blinded the intruder had saved Peter from the fate intended for Hawk. Peter understood now the ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... the wife of Comte Sixte du Chatelet, prefect of Charente and a state councilor. Despite the warm reception given him, first by a laudatory article in a local newspaper, and next by a serenade from his young fellow-citizens, he left Angouleme hastily, desperate at having been responsible for the ruin of his brother-in-law, David Sechard, and contemplating suicide. While walking along he chanced upon Canon Carlos Herrera (Jacques Collin—Vautrin), who took him to ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... were shanghaied a Deputy Sheriff of Arizona, a member of the Northwest Mounted Police, and a desperate outlaw and ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... sin chiefly instigated the revolt, and brought on the ruin of the angelic spirits, so it is not improbable, that it will be a principal instrument of misery in a future world, for the envious to compare their desperate condition with the happiness of the children of God; and to heighten their actual wretchedness by reflecting on what they ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... bruise imposthumated, and afterwards turned to a stinking ulcer, which made everybody shy to come near her, yet she wanted not the help of many able physicians, who attended very diligently, and did what men of skill could do; but all to no purpose, for her condition was now quite desperate, all regular physicians and her nearest relations ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... sooner got on top than she remembered that no time had been mentioned, or, if it had, that she had forgotten it. She turned and rode up the hill again, and looking down, saw Stafford riding along the valley in desperate haste, and yet looking about him uncertainly. Her heart beat with a quickened pulse, sending the delicate colour into her face, and she pulled up, and, leaning forward with her chin in her hand, ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... part of the trip, than Cary. And, further, the travel is so difficult that about all a man can carry is supplies for himself; and the Indians cannot stand the pace that our men intend to strike; nor, if it should come to the last extremity, and a forlorn hope was needed to make a last desperate push for discovery or relief, could the Indian guides, so far as we have any knowledge of them, be relied on. That the boldest measures are often the surest, will probably again be demonstrated by our Grand ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley |
